(Arlington, Virginia) The place was not easy to find. But once you got there, there were young stars per square foot.
Posted at 7:07 p.m.
After taking a break in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NHL Players Association and hockey card manufacturer Upper Deck have returned to the Rookie Showcase, an event bringing together some 30 young players. They were invited to take their first official photo for the cards that the supporters would later snap up.
To do this, the organizers had chosen the MedStar Iceplex, a training center made up of three ice rinks and logically located on the eighth floor of a shopping center.
On site, despite the banality of the place, it shone with youth and talent. Owen Power, Matty Beniers, Shane Wright, Dylan Holloway, Jack Quinn, Marco Rossi, Jake Sanderson… So many players who, without a doubt, will be NHL stars, probably this season.
The one who caught the most attention, however, was Juraj Slafkovsky, of the Montreal Canadiens. There was obviously a recency bias — he and Wright were the only two players in the group to be drafted in 2022. But it went decidedly deeper. It’s an understatement to say that at 6’3” and 218 lbs, the Slovak doesn’t go unnoticed, even without his skates.
“Jesus, he is huge! “said Brendan Brisson, of the Vegas Golden Knights. The American faced Slafkovsky at the Beijing Olympics, but had never seen him off the ice until Tuesday. “I remember seeing him at the Games and saying to myself: that’s a real player,” said Brisson, who was “not surprised at all” to see CH make it his first. choice. Like many people, he shuddered watching the video in which we see the colossus murdering a stationary bike at the Habs’ development camp.
Matty Beniers, of the Seattle Kraken, was also part of the American Olympic squad. It was his skill around the net that most impressed him. “Some guys have it, some don’t; I would love to have him like him,” Beniers said.
“And of course he is a big, very big man! “, he then laughed.
“Part of the game”
According to Slafkovsky himself, it’s not just his new co-workers that he’s popular with.
Both in Montreal and in his native country, he is now recognized in the street. It must be said that he has become a kind of national hero in Slovakia, where he was the first representative to be selected first in the NHL Draft.
However, he does not complain about this new celebrity, on the contrary. Taking pictures with fans and signing autographs, “it’s fun and it’s part of the game,” he says.
Like all the players on site at the Rookie Showcase, he also took part in a long photo shoot on the ice for Upper Deck.
“Will it be strange to see your face on hockey cards?” asked a journalist. “It will depend on what I look like!” “, he replied, tit for tat.
Obviously, Slafkovsky wanted to have fun. Another reporter pointed out to him that he was already preparing to face his compatriot Simon Nemec of the New Jersey Devils at rookie camp next week. The winger replied that with Filip Mesar, a childhood friend also drafted by CH, he intended to “destroy” the defender. Let us mention here that it is also a friend.
Even when The Press asked him about the media pressure that awaited him in Montreal, Slafkovsky indicated that it was “not a problem” for him. “I can’t wait,” he even added.
Will he answer the same thing in a year? did we restart it.
“We’ll see,” he concluded, smiling.
It’s a date.