Slafkovsky, with a little help from his friends

He who loves well punishes well, goes the saying. If we trust the Canadiens locker room after the clear 9-3 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday, Juraj Slafkovsky is a popular man.

(Re)read our live coverage

View the match summary

Take Brendan Gallagher, invited to talk about the first of Slafkovsky’s three goals. A goal scored on a deflection, in front of the net, the kind of goal that allowed Gallagher to become rich playing hockey.

“What hit his leg brace? asked Gallagher. “His skate,” replied a colleague in the press scrum.

Gallagher’s response: “He’s wearing a size 23, he’s hard to miss!” »

It is fashionable in hockey to moderate individual celebrations to place the team, the teammates, in the spotlight. But in this Slafkovsky hat trick, there was a bit of both.

Thus, Christian Dvorak recounted the scene in the moments following Slafkovsky’s third goal, the one scored on a breakaway. “After the goal, the guys on the bench were all shouting: excellent change, HP! “, Dvorak said.

“HP”, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, had in fact produced a whole sequence. He first tackled the very colossus Erik Johnson, causing him to fall, before returning to the bench, and it was Slafkovsky who took over, before leaving on a breakaway.

“For a young guy, Slaf understands underrated actions on the ice,” said Martin St-Louis. Rafael makes a change and just before, he hits the guy who has the puck. For a second or two, this player cannot be part of the recovery or the defense. He can’t play because Rafael hit him and he falls. And there, he changes and it gives Slaf a jump. Rafael played the game and Slaf understands that. »

It appears that Slafkovsky notices the plays of his teammates. So his press briefing was more like an Oscar acceptance speech, without the music to subtly chase him off the stage.

“On the first goal, I don’t even know how I scored. The second goal was a pass from Suzy (Nick Suzuki). And on the third, HP made a great change, he created room for me and Dave [Savard] gave me a nice pass. I’m happy with the three goals.

“It doesn’t matter how I scored. It’s not how, it’s how much! »

Impressive figures

Even though it was successful against a disorganized team in distress, Slafkovsky’s hat trick remains special. Only one player, Stéphane Richer, has achieved one at an earlier age than him in the 11-decade history of this team.

With this hat-trick, Slafkovsky has 19 goals this season. Predicting him to score 20 goals as recently as last November would have been heretical. In mid-December, he was at 2 goals in 29 games, and the sports forums had spent part of the fall wondering if it was better for him to spend a few weeks in Laval, as was then in his teammate Arber Xhekaj is doing it.

Why then did you keep him in Montreal, against all odds? The question first made St-Louis smile. “You ask me about the month of November, I don’t even remember what I had for lunch!” », retorted the coach.

“It’s been a progression. We didn’t want to give it to him all at once. We started using him on the edge of the board on the power play, to allow him to touch the puck when there is space. And that helped him at 5-on-5.”

After seeing some progress, St-Louis then transferred him to Nick Suzuki’s trio, with the results that we know. “Not because I felt bad for him offensively. It was because his overall game was good, because he did everything I asked him to do, so he had earned the chance to play with our best players. And he took flight. »

In his last 41 games, the equivalent of half a season, Slafkovsky now has 34 points, essentially a total of 70 points over a full season.

In a sluggish end to the season, marked by matches without a challenge in the standings for CH since last week, Slafkovsky’s outfit is one of these sources of hope for the future.

The victory also inspired St-Louis with one of its famous metaphors for life. She applied to her team in general, about the benefits of a good end to the calendar. But it can certainly apply to Slafkovsky too.

“I compare it to golf. When you make a birdie at 18^e, you can’t wait to come back and play another round. »

On the rise: Jordan Harris

The one who is hopefully nicknamed “Calvin” quietly got three assists.

Down: Jamie Drysdale

No one from the Canadiens deserves to appear here. Never mind: Jamie Drysdale’s candidacy is self-evident. The Flyers defenseman, newly acquired from the Anaheim Ducks, finished the game with a differential of -6.

The number of the match: 3

Brendan Gallagher also had three points in the victory. It’s been three years since this happened to him, since March 6, 2021.

In details

A big comeback for Dvorak

After missing the previous 42 games due to a torn pectoral major and then an operation, Christian Dvorak was finally back on this very festive Tuesday evening at the Bell Center against the Philadelphia Flyers. Dvorak was supposed to miss the rest of the season according to the Canadian, but he was able to return earlier than expected, and he even took advantage of this celebration against the Flyers to score two goals, his fourth and then his fifth of the season. He had not scored since December 18. “ I feel good, he explained at the end of the evening. It’s a weight lifted off my shoulders. I’m especially happy to be with the guys and to fight with them. It was nice to be part of such a match and see Slafkovsky score three goals… I felt better and better as the match progressed. You can skate all you want, nothing compares to playing real matches. »

The Flyers have (again) problems in front of goal

Death, taxes, Flyers who don’t have goalies. There are such certainties in life, and once again, the curse of Pelle Lindbergh continues to strike Rocky’s hometown team. This time, Samuel Ersson and Ivan Fedotov were sent into the fray, and it wasn’t exactly a success. The first was taken out of the game in the second period, after allowing 5 goals on 17 Montreal shots, and then, Fedotov took over without it improving, allowing 4 goals on 13 shots in his turn. Once this difficult evening was over, Ersson was kind enough to answer our questions in the visitors’ locker room. With a downcast expression, he pointed at himself. “It’s hard to explain… I find it embarrassing for us, my performance is not acceptable at all, especially at this time of the year. I’m embarrassed about my game and I need to play a lot better than I have been playing. I try the best I can, I have to be better in several aspects. »

A crowded visitors’ locker room after the match

Members of the media were treated to quite a surprise when the door to the visitors’ locker room opened at the end of the evening: all the Flyers players, without exception, were seated at their lockers. From memory, this is the second time in his 25-year career that your humble servant has seen such a scene (Alain Vigneault had demanded the same thing from the Canadiens players here at the end of the 1990s). We understand that this decision came from John Tortorella, who was otherwise surprisingly calm at the end of the evening. “They have to answer questions,” explained the Flyers coach about his players. This is a good group, regardless of what happened here. We weren’t good, but they’re a good group, I’m frustrated for them… We made mistakes. I’m not going to question the players’ effort, but we’ve reached rock bottom. I don’t like to see something like that after this team’s good performances since the start of the season. We made a lot of mistakes, mistakes we don’t usually make. The last two games, we did things that we haven’t done all season… We have to regain our dignity and play the right way. »

Richard Labbe, The Press