(Buffalo) Juraj Slafkovsky may not have gotten a restaurant invite like Shane Wright and Logan Cooley, but the Canadian is doing his homework nonetheless.
Posted yesterday at 1:38 p.m.
The great Slovak winger, listed as the best European prospect by the National League’s Central Scouting, was granted an official interview with the Habs at the NHL evaluation camp on Wednesday. So far, nothing unusual: players often meet more than twenty teams during this event.
It is rather the sequel that is intriguing. “Later that night, they texted me asking if we could meet. We met for about an hour,” Slafkovsky said in an interview with The Press in a hotel lobby, Thursday morning.
No supper, therefore, “it was too late! “says the young man. But the initiative nevertheless flattered him. “I was like, ‘Wow, that’s good.’ I was happy to talk to them for another hour. We talked about how they see me, how I see my game.”
Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton were there, as well as some members of the recruiting team. Obviously, a team that is about to get the very first pick do their research. Hughes and Gorton, for example, traveled to Finland in May for the World Championship, where Slafkovsky was playing.
“At a certain point, I thought to myself, ‘They know everything about me. Why do they want to talk to me?” laughs Slafkovsky.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY NHL.COM
Juraj Slafkovsky
For example, they knew where on the rink I got hit the most. So I said to myself: “But how do they know that?” It made me realize that it’s true that I often get hit there. I was happy to learn it!
Juraj Slafkovsky
Clever minds will say that it is in Turku – where he has been playing for three years – that he gets hit most often. But more seriously, Slafkovsky has been told that it’s out of bounds, when he receives a pass from a defender, that he’s most vulnerable to a body check.
This kind of comment, in an interview process, is sometimes a way of seeing how the candidate responds to criticism. Impossible to know how he reacted on the spot, but Thursday morning, 12 hours after the fact, he seemed more delighted than offended. “I’m going to pay attention to everything they said to me!” “, he launched.
A compliment from Caufield
It is well known that Shane Wright is the best player in this 2022 vintage and is not necessarily unanimous. In the absence of a Connor McDavid, a Rasmus Dahlin within this group, other names are emerging, and Slafkovsky is one of them.
His performances on the international scene, against adults, notably helped him climb the rankings. He had seven goals in seven games at the Olympics, then three goals and six assists in eight outings at the World Championship. In both cases, however, it was against opponents of widely varying quality.
His statistics in Turku, in the Finnish first division, are less impressive, however. He had to settle for 10 points (5 goals, 5 assists) in 31 season games, then 7 points in 18 playoff games.
Anyway, the mere mention of his name in the front row, and the fact that he is a winger, led the most fervent supporters to imagine a Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky trio. The latter is officially labeled as a left winger, but says he is comfortable on both flanks.
These assumptions surrendered to Slafkovsky. “I also saw that people were not in agreement! That’s okay, that’s Montreal. We are not always unanimous. But that would make a pretty crazy threesome [a pretty sick line].
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki
I think I’m the biggest of the three. They need someone bigger to get the pucks. And they are really skill players. That would make a good combination!
Juraj Slafkovsky on Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki
Slafkovsky does not know Nick Suzuki personally, but he remembers facing Cole Caufield at the World Junior Championship, in the bubble in Edmonton, in January 2021. Slafkovsky was then only 16 years old and the youngest player of the Slovaks.
“We were losing like 4-1, we came face to face for a face-off in the neutral zone. He said something like, “You could be a good player.” »
Did he have a compliment to give the small right winger in return? “No, I was just surprised he knew me!” »
an old soul
Juraj Slafkovsky may be 18, but for many reasons he doesn’t look his age.
First, he is 6’4 and weighs 218 lbs. “My father is taller than me. My great-grandfather was over 2m tall. It’s big enough. And my mother is 1.82m or 1.83m. She was a swimmer. That’s good genetics! »
Then he had to live. It was in 2018, at the age of 14, that he left his native Slovakia, first for the Red Bull Academy, in Austria, then for the Czech Republic, before ending up in the structure of Turku.
“I visited the Red Bull Academy, it was a really nice facility, so I went there. Except that the league was not very strong, we played against teams from Hungary. I wanted a bigger challenge and I didn’t want to go home. I had the chance to go to the Czech Republic to end the year, but I knew that I would go to Finland next. »
This is a typical path for players from Slovakia. Moreover, the last first-round pick born in Slovakia, Marek Zagrapan (Buffalo, 13e rang, 2005), had developed in the Czech Republic, then in the QMJHL. This is what makes Gerry Johannson, Slafkovsky’s agent, say that his client is “an old soul”.
“My parents didn’t follow me. They came to see me from time to time for a few games, but they didn’t live with me. I learned to take care of myself. That’s what I wanted, to become more mature and ready for real life! »
Life will become even more real from July 7. It remains to be seen whether the next chapter will be written in Montreal, New Jersey or Arizona.