The Montreal Canadiens have one of the NHL‘s best young core groups and it has turned them into a serious contender in the Eastern Conference.
While Cole Caufield (50 goals this season) and Nick Suzuki (first Canadiens player with 100 points in 40 years) get the lion’s share of the attention, 2022 No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky is right there with them in terms of importance and value.
He showed that on Sunday night with a hat trick, including the game-winning goal in overtime, in the Canadiens’ 4-3 Game 1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
This could be the start of Juraj Slafkovsky’s playoff breakout
In his brief career, the 22-year-old Slafkovsky has already established himself as a big-game player.
He has shined in the past two Olympics for Slovakia where he was easily their best player, and then scored two goals in the playoffs for the Canadiens a year ago. Now, he opened this postseason with a game-changing performance to take Game 1 and home-ice advantage away from the Lightning in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series.
Add it all together and he has already scored 16 goals in 19 career Olympic and playoff games.
That is called shining when the lights are brightest.
The problem is that he has not always shown that same level of production on a consistent basis and over the course of full seasons.
When you are a No. 1 overall pick, and especially in a market like Montreal, that is always going to come with big expectations. You are not only expected to be a star; you are expected to be an immediate star.
But not all prospects and young players develop at the same pace, and there are players who take a couple of years to really find their stride. That has been the case for Slafkovsky, who entered this season having never scored more than 20 goals in any of his first three seasons in the league.
He was always good. He always showed flashes of the stardom you expect and did a lot of the little things a player needs to do to be productive. It just never quite showed itself in the form of goals and points.
That started to change this season when he set career highs in goals (30) and total points (73) while still doing all of the little things that separate good players from great players.
That level of production started to put him more on the NHL map and make him one of the best young power forwards in the league.
Another big postseason showing could help him take the leap toward stardom. His Game 1 performance is a good start.