Juraj Slafkovsky - Year Two

Where would you prefer Slaf spend his 23-24 season?


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With Dach's season in question, would really be nice to see this guy actually become a 40+ point guy this year.
 
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No one was shitting on him after the 1st game, interesting.
I don’t see many ever shitting on him. I see many questioning managements path for him and MSL’s usage of him. Both things out of Slaf’s control. My concerns are less about Slaf and more about the process. I do have some concerns with Slaf’s IQ that I think will limit his ceiling, but there are a lot of tools there. We will have a good player imo, how good, no one knows.
 
No one was shitting on him after the 1st game, interesting.
He played his best game as a Hab, so why would we not acknowledge that?

One-off performances that do not exemplify a player's talents occur, but are not the basis for overall evaluation; we might as well say that Lars Eller is a 50 goal scorer because there was one night on which he put up four. Rather, the totality of a player's career, failings, and strengths based on repeated observation gives us his profile, on which we make our judgements. When such things as his poor decision-making and skating skills are a game-by-game norm, we don't discard those realities just because of a single good showing.

But there is no reason to identify these typical flaws in his game, and errors in his development, on a night when he, contrary to expectations and past, regular performance, looked reasonably good.
 
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Rather, the totality of a player's career, failings, and strengths based on repeated observation gives us his profile, on which we make our judgements. When such things as his poor decision-making and skating skills are a game-by-game norm, we don't discard those realities just because of a single good showing.
What if what you assessed to be poor decision-making and skating ability was actually poor conditioning last season? The IQ thing is more of an open question and ongoing debate but the idea that a player could be a genuinely weak skater and then just by pure happenstance skate like he did on the Newhook goal in game 1 is a real stretch to me. Results can be flukey like the case of the Eller 4 goal game you mentioned but you can't really fake that kind of 200ft speed.
 
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I don’t see many ever shitting on him. I see many questioning managements path for him and MSL’s usage of him. Both things out of Slaf’s control. My concerns are less about Slaf and more about the process. I do have some concerns with Slaf’s IQ that I think will limit his ceiling, but there are a lot of tools there. We will have a good player imo, how good, no one knows.
He’s smart enough to know that he needs to skate to the net with the puck off the wall and from the back of the net. He’s a big heavy body. This can’t be excused for low IQ. 80 hockey IQ suffices. Someone can even tell him he has the green light to start today.

Playing WITH Dach is what would help him achieve that milestone... Thank god they re-signed Monahan.
They’ll waste Monahan on Gallagher’s last curtain call. Higher in the dressing room pecking order. Book it.
 
He’s smart enough to know that he needs to skate to the net with the puck off the wall and from the back of the net. He’s a big heavy body. This can’t be excused for low IQ. 80 hockey IQ suffices. Someone can even tell him he has the green light to start today.


They’ll waste Monahan on Gallagher’s last curtain call. Higher in the dressing room pecking order. Book it.
I don't know. This coaching/management staff doesn't seem to be enamoured with the vets like the old staff. Especially vets that were already here when they took over. I bet we see Newhook/Monahan/Slaf tomorrow night.
 
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I don't know. This coaching/management staff doesn't seem to be enamoured with the vets like the old staff. Especially vets that were already here when they took over. I bet we see Newhook/Monahan/Slaf tomorrow night.
They practiced this morning, it was Slaf-Newhook-Anderson
 
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Hmmm. I don't love it. Feels like they are forcing Newhook into playing C instead of developing him where his skills are best suited. Reminds me of Drouin...
Newhook is pretty good at center. It’s Anderson that is a question mark, he’s kind of all over the place i feel like, especially for a young kid like Slaf
 
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Hmmm. I don't love it. Feels like they are forcing Newhook into playing C instead of developing him where his skills are best suited. Reminds me of Drouin...

Newhook has looked his best at C since training camp. Him on Dach's wing along with Slaf was sexy, but he's looked better at C since the start. And he wins most of his faceoffs.

It's no coincidence that MSL moved him at C instead of moving Monahan up to that line.
 
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Newhook has looked his best at C since training camp. Him on Dach's wing along with Slaf was sexy, but he's looked better at C since the start. And he wins most of his faceoffs.

It's no coincidence that MSL moved him at C instead of moving Monahan up to that line.
Fair enough. I'll give it a chance for sure. But going from a 6'4" possession monster C to a 5'10" speedster isn't optimal. I'll trust that the coaching staff knows better than me of course.
 
Thought this was interesting


Even with all the shit Slaf got during the summer and all the "We should have taken Cooley" posts, it looks like at least one person would still take Slaf first, and wouldn't even take Cooley second.
He divides it up in 2 tiers.

Tier 1
1. Slaf
2. Cooley
3. Jiricek

I don’t mind, in the sense that none has really taken the bull by the horn. No one seems in a hurry to really break out. Cooley might be but it’s a fluid situation. Until he does, it’s a Pick Em. Put them in any order you prefer.

Tier2 (4 to 6)
4. Wright. I’m surprised he has Wright still so high.

Other
7. Nemec. To me this is the biggest surprise that he was dropped from 2 to 7.
 


Honestly, with Dach out, Slafkovsky will need to step it up, he has all the tools become a true top 6 player for us. Keep developing, keep progressing, he will be a very good player for us, maybe even great. I'm hopeful for him and rooting for this kid!
 
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I don't know. This coaching/management staff doesn't seem to be enamoured with the vets like the old staff. Especially vets that were already here when they took over. I bet we see Newhook/Monahan/Slaf tomorrow night.
Look at it the way you want: they’re either easing Slaf extremely slowly in terms of TOI and responsibilities or either Slaf has not showed them he deserves any more. In certain scenarios, like using Gallagher over Slaf with Monahan, Slaf is low in the team pecking order.
 
Newhook and Anderson as linemates means a lot of rush plays. Slaf will get some good chances with them giving him lanes with their speed. I loved how that newhook-dach-slaf line was more of a cycle line, but it looks like that should change.
 
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Newhook and Anderson as linemates means a lot of rush plays. Slaf will get some good chances with them giving him lanes with their speed. I loved how that newhook-dach-slaf line was more of a cycle line, but it looks like that should change.
Slaf is the best in that cycle type game.

We’ll see how he adapts
 
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Slaf is the best in that cycle type game.

We’ll see how he adapts
he has the skill for both. Newhook I think will create more chances for him to shoot. In the cycle I think slaf likes to pass and get netfront goals, we haven't seen him use his shot in zone yet. For where he is in his devleopment, it might be a nice chance for him to work out his confidence in using his shot more.
 
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Newhook has looked his best at C since training camp. Him on Dach's wing along with Slaf was sexy, but he's looked better at C since the start. And he wins most of his faceoffs.

It's no coincidence that MSL moved him at C instead of moving Monahan up to that line.
MSL just tossed Anderson onto Newhook's line because those two had good chemistry in preseason. The coach is throwing Newhook a bone.

That's great, really, but I would have preferred RHP with Newhook and Anderson because Slafkovsky didn't mesh well with Newhook and Anderson in preseason.

Convinced MSL won't switch RHP and Slaf up with the 19-yr-old playing alongside Caufield and Suzuki. MSL is still shielding Slafkovsky and having the responsibilities of a #1 line won't happen this early.

Right now, there are 4 healthy Cs exactly if Newhook plays at that position. Won't removing Monahan from the third line until Dvorak comes back if Dach's season is over.
 
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