Canadian 6 – Senators 4 | Slafkovsky’s smile

In the locker room, Juraj Slafkovsky walks towards Arber Xhekaj. The two take momentum for a handshake in the air – a chummée, if you will – which concludes with a “pop!” » which startles the journalists gathered further around Mike Matheson.

The Slovak giant, surprised, widens his eyes, as if he had just made a bad move. And he bursts out with his trademark tenor laugh.

Slafkovsky’s smile wasn’t just attributable to his team’s 6-4 victory over the Ottawa Senators. In all likelihood, the young striker is having a blast.

Saturday evening, especially, he had every reason to smile. It was he who opened the scoring in the first minute of the match by jumping on a return to the slot. It was his second goal and third point of the preseason, of which he played in a team-high five games. The coaching staff wanted to give him minutes, after an absence of several months last season: promise kept.

Well beyond the points, it’s his overall game that seems to grow from match to match. He’s still not a magician with the puck, but he seems to realize to what extent his extraordinary size will be, in the short term, his greatest ally in the NHL.

On at least two occasions, he unabashedly tackled an opponent deep in the opposing zone to come out of the corner with the disc and pass it to a teammate. These will seem like proverbial little things, but each of them matters to this big man.

“I think he uses his body well,” noted Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, who played three games on the same line as him – however, they were separated on Saturday.

“His two goals [en matchs préparatoires], he marked them from the enclave, in the paying zone. He is capable of winning battles in front of goal. He is also more confident with the puck and he makes more plays. »

“You see it’s just a matter of time before he unlocks and he’s a dominant player,” he added.

Pleasure and pressure

In the morning, head coach Martin St-Louis reiterated, as he had already done at the team’s golf tournament last month, how important the relationship between pressure and pleasure was for Slafkovsky.

“He must have fun every day,” St-Louis said. If you don’t have fun, you stop improving. As coaches, we must be careful: we do not want to kill his passion by imposing the pressure on him to be perfect right away. »

Which brings us back to the words of Slafkovsky himself: “I have more pleasure every day. » We cannot say whether he started from zero or from higher. But the level is, for the moment, visibly high. And it serves him well.

“He played a good match,” noted St-Louis at the end of the evening. He sees that the game is easier when you play it with four other guys. There are big guys like him who use their individual strengths until they get to the NHL, but it’s impossible to do everything alone in the NHL. »

On his budding chemistry with Kirby Dach, his designated center for the last four games, the coach said he “liked what[il a] seen to date”.

The famous “chairs” can still move once the season has started. But the fact that Juraj Slafkovsky seems to have found one that suits him is already a big step in the right direction.

Either way, it gives him a good reason to smile.

In a few lines

This sixth exhibition game represented a final opportunity for the coaching staff to evaluate certain players whose position or role is not assured. Here are some observations, in a few lines.

Gustav Lindström

Since he is the only defenseman scheduled to go on waivers among those likely to be cut, his status is difficult to determine, especially since he does not exhibit any particularly noteworthy specialty. Paired with Mike Matheson on Saturday, he had an uneventful game, which can be good news for a player of his type.

Emil Heineman

Proof number 3837 that the differential does not say everything about a match: Heineman brings home a record of -2 having played rather well. He delivered two impactful hits and was used on both special teams. If he doesn’t survive the final cuts, we’ll see him again before long in Montreal.

Mattias Norlinder

The fact that Arber Xhekaj spent a minute more than Norlinder on the power play is not good news for the Swede. His staging on Sean Monahan’s goal at the end of the match, however, reminded us of his usefulness in the offensive zone. Nothing has been acquired yet.

Justin Barron

See the note on Xhekaj and Norlinder about the numerical advantage, a phase of play that Barron did not taste on Saturday. He has not yet shown anything very convincing.

Arber Xhekaj

Despite a few questionable passes in his territory, he played a very mature match, during which he kept his calm when tempers got heated. He notably extricated two Senators players from a scrum without throwing down the gloves. “Last year it might have been different,” he admitted. But if they’re not hurting anyone or making stupid checks, I don’t need to intervene. » He thus finished strong a camp where he sometimes looked clumsy.

Rising

Mike Matheson

He finally played his first preseason match and showed that his injury was behind him.

Falling

Joel Armia

Is he already the new darling of this section? Another tasteless match for him. And probably not the last.

The number of the match

30 %

That’s the combined success rate of Kirby Dach (2 for 9) and Alex Newhook (4 for 11) in the faceoff circle. Can (and should) do better.