BROSSARD, Que. — If you were looking for a standout player from the first scrimmage of Montreal Canadiens training camp, you got one in the guy who towers above most of his teammates.
Juraj Slafkovsky, who looks like a dinosaur among men, was dominant on virtually every shift he took with linemates Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki on Thursday. The six-foot-three, 225-pound winger had anyone who physically challenged him on the ice bouncing off him. He looked strong and fast, and certainly different than he did at any other point over his first two camps in Montreal.
Scoring 16 goals and 33 points over the second half of last season and signing an eight-year, $60.8-million contract on July 1 appears to have pushed a gale-force wind into Slafkovsky’s sails, and he immediately served notice he’s going to ride it to a whole other level of performance than he’s offered to date.
We thought it would take longer for the kid who took too many big hits in his rookie season to not only grow into his enormous frame but also learn how to use it to great effect, but he’s already ripened in that process despite being only 20 years old.
Couple that with the confidence Slafkovsky is carrying on and off the ice and you can see a player who should be at the foundation of the big step the Canadiens are looking to take this season.
His linemates see it.
Caufield has had a front-row seat to Slafkovsky’s race to self-realization and feels he’s coming out of the hairpin turn with his foot stomping on the gas pedal.
“I think just the way he carries himself — he’s not really doubting himself in any situation,” the winger said. “He’s confident, and that’s when he’s at his best.”
“When he’s being himself and he brings his personality out on the ice, I think it’s something special,” Caufield added.
There were more than a few glimpses of that last season, particularly after Slafkovsky began to really find his footing upon landing on a line with Caufield and Suzuki.
Suddenly he was playing 20 minutes per game, playing against top opposition night-in, night-out and playing to the ability the Canadiens felt he possessed when they drafted him first overall in 2022.
What was critical for Slafkovsky in that process was not only proving the Canadiens right, but also proving himself right. He has always believed in his own ability, but having that belief affirmed at this level set him on the path he’s walking today.
“It’s just the way we played at the end of last year,” Slafkovsky said, when asked for what’s at the source of the confidence he’s currently displaying. “Just felt better at the end of last year, and why not use it, transfer it to this season? That’s what I’m trying to do, and I’m trying to be more confident than I was last year because I feel like this league is a lot about confidence. And I feel like if you can make plays, you eventually start making those plays.”
He was making them with regularity Thursday — arguably more so than anyone he was playing with or against — and that’s a welcome sight for the Canadiens.
Especially for Caufield, but also for Suzuki.
When the Canadiens captain was asked what he sees from his gigantic linemate who finished last season with 20 goals and 50 points in 82 games, he pointed to Slafkovsky’s heightened awareness on the ice.
“At points in his rookie year, he wasn’t sure where guys were on the ice — other defenders — and he got into trouble that way,” Suzuki said. “But he’s seeing guys, he’s able to make plays off of using his frame to shield guys and put pucks in good positions, so confidence that way. He knows that he can out-muscle just about anyone.”
That element of Slafkovsky’s play opened a lot of time and space up for Suzuki and Caufield last season and, if Thursday’s scrimmage was even a slight indication of what’s coming this season, these two players (who are lethal in time and space) will benefit even more.
Key observations
• We wrote on Wednesday about how Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis would need to take a different approach to running this camp if he were to push the team towards its intended goal of “being in the mix for a playoff spot,” and we saw on Thursday that that he agrees.
Last training camp, he ran several experiments before we got a real semblance of what his lines might look like. This time around, he revealed them on Day 1.
Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky because, as Caufield put it, “Why wouldn’t we start that way?”
Kirby Dach centred Patrik Laine and Alex Newhook, as expected, and the bottom six featured lines of Joshua Roy-Christian Dvorak-Josh Anderson and Joel Armia-Jake Evans-Brendan Gallagher.
You want to get off to a good start and chase a playoff spot out of the gate? Don’t wait until the last week of camp to start building chemistry, start right away.
The message to everyone else trying to make the team: Force us to change this picture.
• Oliver Kapanen made his first bid on that front, scoring two goals in the opening scrimmage.
The feisty Finn, who was selected by the Canadiens in the second round of the 2021 Draft, caught everyone’s attention with strong positioning and lightning-fast hands.
“Guys on the other team were saying he looked good, and we got to watch from the bench,” said Suzuki. “He’s been playing games, which helps, so he definitely showed what he can do today.”
When the captain was asked by The Athletic’s Arpon Basu how much stock we should put into Kapanen’s performance, given that it came in a scrimmage versus an actual game, Suzuki said: “I think good players find a way to show what they’re capable of.
“I think obviously all these guys — high picks, lower picks — they all have a journey to the NHL, and his has been a little different,” Suzuki added on Kapanen. “He showed how he can play against NHL competition and high-end prospects, so that’s definitely a stepping stone. We’ll see in pre-season games how he handles it against other teams.”
• We know everyone is eager to know how Dach and Laine looked, and we’ll just say they showed flashes of what could make them an extremely dangerous combination.
But we’re talking about two players who have barely been on the ice over the last year, two players who have never played a competitive game together, and they’re going to need time before operating like well-oiled machines.
“Obviously, it’s not just going to be all good in a day,” said Caufield. “I thought they did some really good things today. They’re two smart hockey players who are going to find each other, and Newy’s obviously one who can play with everybody. So, they’ll figure it out. There’s no doubt about that.”
• A no-doubter for us: Lane Hutson being in the Canadiens’ opening-night lineup.
That’s not an opinion just based on one scrimmage — even if Hutson was right up there with Slafkovsky as the most noticeable player on the ice Thursday — but based on everything he brings to the table that will make it impossible for the Canadiens to deny him his spot.
This kid is a star in the making, and we’re confident he’s going to prove that immediately.
Hutson has the talent, he has the drive, and his ability to make the difference on any given play makes his pathway to a lineup spot undeniable.
The energy he brings is also so contagious, and you have to think the established members of the Canadiens want it around them.
