Suzuki and St-Louis Address Slavkovsky's Early-Season Struggles and Unfair Criticism

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Elias Edmonson
November 5, 2023 (6:33 PM)

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When he was drafted with the first overall pick of the 2022 draft, it was clear that Juraj Slafkovsky was going to be under pressure. Not only was he a top draft pick, but he also landed in one of the most critical cities in the NHL.

If the beginning of the Slovak's season was at least surprising, as he was playing with Kirby Dach, the loss of his centerman was a bad omen. The young man then seemed to lose his bearings and many hope that the CH will send him to Laval to regain confidence.

The criticism towards Slaf is well known in the locker room and the club's captain, Nick Suzuki, wanted to set the record straight. Here's what he had to say:

"It's quite unfair. He missed a large part of last season and therefore doesn't have many NHL games, so I think he's just a simple young player trying to find his way in the NHL."

"He is a very good player, and he will be for a long time." � Nick Suzuki

Following the match against the Blues on Saturday night, the head coach of the CH, Martin St-Louis, echoed his captain's sentiment.

"He still has gaps, he's only 19 years old."

"But I feel comfortable because he's defensively aware. And playing on that line [the first trio], you're going to have tougher matchups, and he wasn't exposed in that department tonight. And I wasn't expecting him to be. Offensively, really happy for him." � Martin St-Louis

As St-Louis says, Slaf was very good on the first trio Saturday night with Suzuki and Caufield while the majority of the team was bad. He also scored his first goal of the campaign on a superb play in which he never stopped skating and was aggressive in entering the scoring zone.

It will be interesting to see if the experience will be repeated in the next games. He could regain confidence with two of the team's best players.