Have the Habs rushed yet another top prospect?
Slafkovsky shouldn't become yet another Slafbustsky
Following the 2021-2022 season, when the Habs finished last in the NHL, they were rewarded with the the first overall pick (1OA) which was used to pick Juraj Slafkovsky.
Since the introduction of the entry draft in 1963, 1OA’s have developed a certain mystique due to the inevitable and unavoidable comparisons to other successful 1OAs. Many legends of the game were selected first overall: Mario Lemieux, Guy Lafleur, Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane, Connor McDavid, Alexander Ovechkin, Joe Thornton, etc.
Sometimes teams are so invested in this incoming player they campaign with their first overall pick before the actual draft has taken place, such as Tampa Bay had their Seen Stamkos? PR campaign.
Slafkovsky’s case is a bit different. Owing equal parts to his late-riser/dark-horse status in the months preceding the draft and to the Covid pandemic majorly disrupting hockey at every level, the 2022 Entry Draft had a lot more uncertainty around it than would be typical.
Slafkovsky Today
It was just recently suggested that Slafkovsky will remain with the Canadians for at least his 10th game of this season — this number is important because it now means his three-year Entry Level Contract counts toward this year and the clock is now ticking toward the end of the 2024-2025 season when it will expire.
So far he’s played over 10% of the season (9 NHL games) and has 3 goals and zero assists, which is on pace for 27 pts in an 82 game season.
How does a 27pt season stack against recent 1OA forwards?
Above is a rudimentary and shallow view of other forwards like Slafkovsky: they were all picked 1OA (or 2OA when the 1OA was not a forward) and all but two players started the following NHL season with their NHL team.
Green Highlight → Top 10% of entries
Yellow Highlight → Above Average entries
Red Highlight → Bottom10% of entries
Taking into consideration that Slafkovsky has only played 9 games, and nobody knows how the rest of the season will fare, it is still worth asking if this is the best route to take with this player’s development given that he’s essentially dead last in PPG among players who played more than 10 games in their rookie season.
The Dialectic of Slafkovsky
Habs fans support the organization no matter what it does or how it does it, so it’s a bit hard to get honest reads from other fans. I include the media in this group because the media in Montreal are no better, and often much worse, than mere fans.
The Habs community has managed to simultaneously argue three things:
Lower your expectations: The 2022 draft was exceptionally weak in terms of top prospects, don’t expect him to have the profile or career of a typical 1OA
Manage your enthusiasm: Juraj Slavkovsky is a big boy and will take longer to ‘arrive’ than typical, smaller 1OAs
He’s one of our top8 wingers: He is in NHL based on merit alone
“Lower your expectations”
Due to the worldwide Covid pandemic, it could be the case that the entire 2022 cohort missed enough valuable development and playing time that it fooled a preponderance of NHL scouts. Recall that leading up to the 2022 draft, most scouts settled on the top6 and with only minor discrepancies in the final results (Centre Shane Wright went 4OA instead of the projected 1 or 2OA).
In the final days prior to the draft, Slafkovsky was expected to be picked no lower than 3OA. He then became one of two options for the 1OA and was ultimately rewarded with that prestigious position of First Overall.
The point here is simple: Slafkovsky wasn’t an off-the-board pick and he wasn’t a gamble or a reach in the traditional sense. The Habs did nothing wrong in selecting him and cannot be blamed if a more successful player appears from later picks. This draft would’ve fooled anybody.
We’re told that the entire cohort was hampered by the pandemic and to brace ourselves because there might not be a “generational” (Crosby, McDavid, Ovechkin) or even “franchise” (Kovalchuk, Stamkos, Matthews) level player found at all.
The implication from some Habs fans is clear: Slafkovsky might not ever be a 100pt player, maybe not even an 80pt or PPG player, so we shouldn’t hold it against the Habs or the player if he fails to reach those point totals.
As a further assertion of the previous argument, it has been argued that we should lower expectations of Slafkovsky because he would not have been selected 1OA (or even 2OA or 3OA) in any other year.
He should therefore not be compared to other 1OA picks, as he isn’t that tier of prospect.
I’m fine with that, but it naturally follows that only certain very capable players can get off on the right foot in the NHL career when starting immediately after the entry draft. For other players, it would be a bridge too far and possibly set them up for future struggles.
One notable example is the Habs’ very own 2018 Entry Draft 3OA pick Jesperi Kotkaniemi who started in the NHL right after the draft (to great fanfare and praise from the Habs faithful and media) and is now in his fifth season and is still struggling with many aspects and facets of the game. He was rushed.
We shouldn’t want to set Slafkovsky, an admitted “lesser tier” 1OA who’d likely not be chosen 1OA in any other year, up for failure.
“Manage your enthusiasm”
Another argument Habs fans put forward is that larger players take longer to “arrive”. The logic dictates that larger players need to adapt their game and their own stamina and physical condition, and that this process takes longer than with slightly smaller players.
I don’t have any stats or analysis for this argument but people cite V Lecavalier (‘98 draft), E Staal (‘03 draft), and Joe Thornton (‘97 draft) as examples of large-framed 1OA forwards who had very low production in their rookie seasons but went onto great success in their career.
On the other hand Rick Nash, Ilya Kovalchuk, and Alex Ovechkin don’t seem to reinforce this “big man start slow” argument much at all. If Slafkovsky starts slow or fast, it won’t change much about his future career — but we should always ask about the best way to get him to fulfil his potential as a playmaker and point producer.
If he starts very slowly, or hits a wall in the coming games, then it is worth asking if he should not play elsewhere and focus on high-skill development rather than merely struggling to keep up with the play for the full rest of the year.
“He’s one of our organization’s top8 wingers… so he belongs in the NHL”
Firstly, the Habs have a bottom-ranked NHL roster with an incredible amount of dead-weight. Players like Hoffman, Gallagher, Anderson, Drouin, Dadanov, and Byron take up a sizeable chunk of attention and icetime despite low-to-abysmal performances and results. So being better than some or all of this motley crue isn’t the praise that it appears to be at first glance.
Ultimately, it is immaterial to the development of Slafkovsky and the greater picture if he’s as good or slightly better than the likes of pending UFAs Drouin and Dadanov. The 2022-2023 season is a throwaway season due to the ongoing rebuild and the Habs do not have any impetus to ice the best possible roster at all times.
This already-lost season gives head coach Marty St. Louis the freedom to rely on the the young, future core players (eg. Suzuki, Caufield, Harris, Dach, and Xekhaj) without much pressure on minimizing their growing pains and errors. If Slafkovsky can keep up with their level then sure enough, he should stick around. As of writing he has been performing at a considerably lower level than the aforementioned young core — so it’s again worth asking if Slafkovsky shouldn’t be elsewhere, playing in a league that’s closer to his optimal level.
Bustkovsky or Slafbustky? How about neither.
In response to the earlier three points supporting the Habs’ approach to Slafkovsky, now we have four counter-arguments:
If he’s not a typical 1OA, we shouldn’t be putting him up in a position in which not even typical 1OAs automatically succeed
Not every big player needs longer to arrive, if Slafkovsky has significant troubles contributing offensively then he shouldn’t remain in the NHL this season
His quality relative to the Habs’ awful 2022-2023 roster is not relevant to his overall development
If he can keep up with this roster’s core of good players then he could stay, and if not he should be elsewhere
To avoid another Bustaniemi and Galchenybust, the Habs need to be extra cautious with their atypical 1OA from the atypical 2022 entry draft.
Slafkovksy has an enticing player profile but he is not a star yet. This season is only 10% through but Slaf is already trending toward the low-end of 1OA-to-NHL rookie seasons, and his entry-level contract is ticking away no matter what, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on his offensive production. If he’s still not clicking, it’s worth taking him out of the NHL and placed somewhere else so he can develop his playmaking ability.
If it was up to me, he would be back in Liiga (Finland) or elsewhere in Europe (preferably the SHL of Sweden) before the season even began. Since he is in the NHL right now and will pass the 10 game mark, he will play another handful of NHL games and reveal to us whether he’s better off staying in the NHL or if his development was botched and needs course correction.
What do you think and what do you see in Slaf?