Montreal Canadiens: Why Is Josh Anderson Immune From Juraj Slafkovsky Criticism?

The Montreal Canadiens drafted Juraj Slafkovsky with the first overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. They stated at the time they believed he would be the best player out of that draft class in five years time.

That may still be the case, but they have to figure out the best way to get him there. Last season, Slafkovsky played 39 games before being injured and missing the rest of the year. He had just ten points in those games and was constantly being run over by opponents as he looked unprepared for the pace of the NHL.

This season, Slafkovsky has primarly played on the team’s second line with Alex Newhook and Josh Anderson. He started the first two games with Kirby Dach as his center and Newhook on the other wing, but Dach was injured in the team’s second game of the season and will not return.

The trio looked pretty good together, driving play into the attacking zone and creating chances. Slafkovsky set up Newhook for an easy tap-in goal on opening night and it looked like the team found and excellent second line.

With Dach injured, the second line has been anything but excellent. Now ten games into the season, Slafkovsky still has just one point on the season and Newhook has been playing center which may be a bit much to ask the youngster at this point in his career.

This has led just about everyone who covers the team to write about Slafkovsky’s struggles this week. Arpon Basu of The Athletic, Eric Engels of Sportsnet and Brian Wilde of Global have all openly asked if it was time to send Slafkovsky down to the AHL’s Laval Rocket before this lack of production continues.

Meanwhile, Josh Anderson, who has played most of the season on the same line as Slafkovsky is getting zero articles written about his lack of production. So far this season, Anderson has scored zero goals and one assist, just like Slafkovsky, in ten games.

Anderson, on the other hand, makes $8 million in actual salary this season and is in the fourth year of a seven year contract with a cap hit of $5.5 million. He has always had plenty of intriguing tools that include size, speed and an ability to fire about two dozen pucks into the net over a full season.

His biggest weakness has always been his ability to pass the puck. He often creates a scoring chance using his size and speed and then just can’t find the open teammate with a short pass. We have seen plenty of that this season, but what we have not seen is Anderson put a puck in the net.

It seems odd that Slafkovsky is often trending on Twitter with people piling on him for lack of production, and every major media outlet is writing about his pending demotion to the minor leagues when no one seems worried about Anderson’s lack of production from the other wing on the same line.

Perhaps if $8 million man Anderson could put a single puck in the net, or make a 12 foot pass on the tape then Slafkovsky would get a couple of points.

Slafkovsky did look lost as a rookie, but has shown some improvement with the puck this season. He has had spurts where he looked much more comfortable than last season and is definitely staying on his feet more and avoiding the thundering body checks that led to his injuries as a rookie.

While his production is lacking, a 19 year old should not be asked to carry a line in the NHL. Maybe if he played with linemates that are producing, like Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki or Sean Monahan, he would get on the scoresheet a little more often?

We can’t tell because the team is fixated on making this second line work, even with so much evidence it is not. It just seems completely unfair that Slafkovsky is getting all the blame for it.

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