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Dans les coulisses

Cole Caufield or Juraj Slafkovský: a question that demonstrates Slaf’s progress

For the past month, the emergence of Juraj Slafkovský has been the talk of Montreal. More and more, Slaf is playing like the guy the Tricolore hoped to get when they selected him first overall in the 2022 draft, and while it’s not perfect yet, let’s just say there are (many) more positives than negatives.

And as luck would have it (or not), it’s since he’s been playing on the first trio that things have been going better for him. Often, placing a good youngster with good trio mates brings out the talent in that youngster, and we’ve seen that with Slaf.

As a result, Slafkovský is looking more and more like a big part of the team’s future up front… and even though it’s only been a month, the fact that he’s only 19 makes you wonder just how much it’s changing the Montreal forward hierarchy.

Speaking to Greg Lanctot (replacing Martin Lemay) on BPM Sports, Mathias Brunet went so far as to ask the following question: if you could only keep one, would you keep Slaf… or Cole Caufield?

I’m asking you, too.

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But quite frankly, I’ll be honest with you: the answer doesn’t really interest me, because we’re still in the hypothetical and in a scenario that doesn’t really exist.

What I am interested in, however, is the reasoning behind the question… and that’s where it gets interesting.

As Brunet points out in his contribution, the question wouldn’t even have been asked a month ago: (pretty much) everyone would have taken Caufield and the debate wouldn’t even have existed. Now, a month later, Slaf is playing so well that it suddenly becomes a not-so-crazy question.

Because, in the end, that’s the interesting point: Slafkovský is beginning to be seen as an important part of the forward core. He’s pretty much on the same level as guys like Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach in terms of importance to the organization, and that’s extremely positive.

I don’t yet know what Slafkovský will become over the next few years, but I do know that over the past month he’s shown he has the potential to become the big, first-trio winger the Tricolore was looking for and hoping to select first overall in 2022.

At this point, it’s up to you to decide whether he’s worth more or less than a guy who has the potential to score 40-50 goals a year for a good ten years.

In brief

– Three-game suspension for Jason Zucker.

– I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t Nick Suzuki.

– Now you need some algebra to understand NHL shootouts, hehe.

– Listen now.

– Tough loss for the Lions.