Montreal Canadiens: Three Players Standing Out At Rookie Tournament

Juraj Slafkovsky

You would expect the number one overall pick from the most recent NHL Draft to look good at a rookie tournament. However, a rookie tournament isn’t just 18 year olds, so it is a bit of a test for a promising young player with a bit of a target on his back.

Slafkovsky, showing up at rookie camp at 6’3″ and 238 pounds, certainly passed his first test on Wednesday night. It wasn’t that he completely took over the game, but he showed a lot of little things that he wasn’t really given credit for when drafted.

When the Habs chose Slafkovsky first overall many of the words used to describe him were: Big. Mature. Physical. Experienced. Well, there is no denying any of those, but Slafkovksy showed off a lot more speed and skill than he was ever really hyped for since the draft.

In this clip, Slafkovsky comes from well behind the Sabres defender to blow past him, get possession of the puck, turn and fire a quick pass to Mesar who scored a shorthanded goal. The burst of speed is one we weren’t told to anticipate from the big first overall pick.

Slafkovsky spent the first game of rookie camp just showing off skill that we didn’t know he had. Sure, you expect a first overall pick to be skilled, but he was hailed as this big, brawny Milan Lucic type who just runs over people and works hard. But he has some slick hands and demonstrated them regularly against the Sabres.

It was just a rookie camp game against other rookies and prospects who won’t even be rookies for a couple more years. But Slafkovsky showed he is all the things we were told (big, physical, strong) but also added a few more adjectives to the list, like smart, skilled, slick stickhandler, good setup guy, and fast.