Montreal Canadiens: The Case For Juraj Slafkovsky At 1st Overall

The Montreal Canadiens selected

Shane Wright

Juraj Slafkovsky with the first overall pick of the NHL 2022 entry draft. Not the most popular pick,  although I am sure there will be some that will claim to have sung his praises since Day 1. I am not one of those people.

I have been vocal in my thinking that Shane Wright should have been taken first overall. Imagine my surprise that he fell all the way down to 4th to the Seattle Kraken. But that doesn’t mean that I am blind to the skills that Slafkovsky brings to the table.

Because so often in these situations of moving pieces in trades or drafts there has to be a winner and/or a loser. Is Montreal a winner or a loser for drafting Slafkovsky first overall? Depends on your point of view, I guess. But it can be difficult to see that the Canadiens just added a very interesting piece to their prospect system.

It is easy to see Slafkovsky becoming the best player in this draft class in five years. It is also easy to see Wright being the best player. Maybe even Logan Cooley or Simon Nemec. We can sometimes be so blinded by our own biases to a certain outcome that we cannot see the good in another.

Was Wright the best pick in the draft? In many people’s eyes, yes. I am not going to grandstand here and pretend like I know more than at least three different NHL scouting teams, because I do not. They must have seen something that I missed.

But the point of this is not to compare Wright and Slafkovsky, there will be time for that in the coming years, but just to look at what the Canadiens got in their new Slovakian first overall pick: Juraj Slafkovsky.

The Good

Juraj Slafkovsky is a good hockey player. Maybe even a great one if everything falls into place correctly. And on a young, exciting team like the Montreal Canadiens, there is a good chance that it could.

If there is a good comparable to Juraj Slafkovsky in the NHL, it might be Evgeni Malkin. Malkin is 6’3″, nearly 200 pound European that went very high in his draft class (2nd overall in 2004 behind Alex Ovechkin). Malkin is a centre, where Slafkovsky is a winger, but Malkin excels at using his large frame to his advantage, as well as possessing a large amount of skill.

Like Malkin, Slafkovsky isn’t just a big body on a set of long legs. A lot of his highlights showcase his stickhandling skills and a sneaky good shot. His body just allows him to muscle his way into the middle of the ice, where he can put those hands to work.

His mentality also seems like a strong point. First of all, he is a magnetic personality off of the ice. Already he is warming on fans that were cold to him to begin with, and he will at least give us some good soundbites in his career.

But this could also help Slafkovsky out on the ice. If there is still a big pushback on his selection come the new season, I am certain that will put a big chip on his shoulder. He also seems like the type of player that will thrive in the high intensity and scrutiny of the Montreal Canadiens.

The Bad

Juraj Slafkovsky’s rise in this year’s draft was meteoric. In Bob McKenzie’s mid season draft rankings, Shane Wright was still ranked at #1, and Slafkovsky was ranked #5, below real #3 pick Logan Cooley, Joakim Kemell who went 17th, and Matthew Savoie who ended up 9th. To be fair, Simon Nemec was taken by the New Jersey Devils at 2nd, and he was ranked down at 9th.

High risers in such a short time are dangerous. Remember when Johnathan Cheechoo scored 56 goals in a season and won the Rocket Richard trophy? That is just under 32% of his 170 career goals in 1 year. 54% if you include his goals in the next year.

If you just watched the NHL in the 2005-06 season, you would think Cheechoo is an offensive dynamo and star, not a flash in the pan. The smaller the time frame you are good in, the more likely it is that you are a fluke.

Slafkovsky did not have the greatest start to the year, and struggled to put up dominant offensive numbers in Liiga, a men’s league. He dominated the under-18 and under-20 Finnish leagues, but scored just 5 goals and 10 points in 31 games. But he did fair better in the playoffs with 2 goals and 7 points in 18 playoff games.

And then Slafkovsky went off in the Olympics. 7 goals in 7 games, as the youngest player in the tournament and the youngest player to score a goal in the Olympics since Eddie Olczyk.

Those are the goaltenders that he faced in the tournament, and while they are not the biggest names, it is still an impressive feat.

Above is obviously the breakdown of points in his great Men’s World Championship outing. Unfortunately, as pointed out in the thread, all of the points Slafkovsky scored were against non-NHL level goaltending. Against Phillip Grubauer, he registered no points.

That isn’t the best sign. But it is also a small sample size. When people are talking about Slafkovsky’s domination of the Olympics and the World Championships, we are talking about 15 games. Does that erase the 31 games beforehand?

There are definitely good things to be had in Slafkovsky’s game, but it is a question mark as to whether that is sustainable and transferrable to the NHL level.