Trending well, continued progression? All I see is stagnation.
Or is this because he just had a 2 point game?
Look man, it's clear you won't be convinced, but he's far better than he was last year in several areas of the game. Here are very quick areas of the game where he's improved:
- Far stronger on board battles.
- Less likely to be rocked by big hit due to a big adjustment to the speed of the game
- Much better passing in transition and off the rush. I would say he's very good in this area where as last year a lot of his passes would get picked off.
- He's been setting up teammates at a much more consistent and frequent rate than he was last year.
- Recently he's been driving the net more often
- He's improved his puck carrying ability. Last year he'd often get stopped fairly easier by defenders. This year he's easily able to gain the zone and begin the offense play
- He's not passive in creating offense. In several games he's often at the root of offense creation and is getting better at it game by game. He's very noticeable in this regard
- he is getting WAY, WAY, WAY more puck touches
You are likely to come back and say this is not good enough for a 1OA, but Slafkovsky has always been advertised as a project. He will not meet the expectatins of a 1OA right now, but his game IS getting better and anyone not wanting to be right on the internet will see it.
Is it good enough? It depends on your expectations. For me, an overall trend of progression is important. You don't want to see stagnation or regression. All players will have bad games, but you have to look at the aggregate. Compared to last season, Slaf has vastly improved. Heck even compared to pre-season he's vastly improved. He's slowly getting there.
