An old saying goes, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it actually make a sound?" Well, my opinion on Juraj Slafkovsky is that if a former first-overall pick only starts to contribute when his team is nearly out of a playoff spot, does that actually have any value? The Canadiens succeeded through this season with Slafkovsky being relatively quiet, but a lull before the Four Nations Faceoff break doomed their playoff chances. Now, with the break in the rearview, Slafkovsky decided to show up.
Slafkovsky went into the break with one assist in his final six games, and the skeptics started to emerge of whether he was engaged physically enough and had what it took to go through the rigors of first-line minutes. Slafkovsky heard the noise, and came back with a vengeance in his first game, registering five hits, a fight, and a goal. He followed that up with another goal and bunch of hits against the Carolina Hurricanes in the shutout victory.
It's a welcome sight for the Canadiens, but the act has to be getting old after he did the same thing last season. He struggled through the early portion of the season, then exploded at the end with points in 15 of his last 19 games. The run included a hat trick game and an emerging chemistry with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.
The Canadiens felt the new-found confidence, and the statistical output heading into the offseason could put him on pace to break out again in 2024-25. It started well, but he then had a stretch with nine pointless games out of ten (the game with points was a three-assist outing against the Toronto Maple Leafs).
Slafkovsky did have some productive nights during the run, but it's expected when you're playing top-line minutes and first-line powerplay. His competitive level made people wonder what he was all about, and that is the one thing that picked up over the past two games. The question now is, what happens if he maintains that level for the rest of the season?
Will we go into 2025-26 with hope that Slafkovsky is turning a corner and about to be the star the Canadiens thought he was? And what happens if the same thing happens next season where he goes quiet during the crucial stretch of the season and emerges again when the Canadiens are out of a playoff spot? It's much too early to start worrying about Slafkovsky, but the inconsistencies have to leave his game before he gets my vote of confidence.