In the locker room, Juraj Slafkovsky walks towards Arber Xhekaj. The two take off for a mid-air handshake – 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 against 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 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 is his general game which seems to grow from match to match. He is 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 [in preparatory matches], he scored them from the slot, 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 it unlocks and he’s a dominant player,” he added.
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 have to be careful: we don’t want to kill his passion by putting pressure on him to be perfect right away. »
“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 player for the last four games, the coach said he “liked what [he’s] seen so far.”
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.
In any case, it gives him a good reason to smile.
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.
Since he is the only defender who must go through waivers among those who are likely to be cut, his status is difficult to determine, especially since he does not present any particularly remarkable specialty. Paired with Mike Matheson on Saturday, he had an uneventful game, which can be good news for a player of his type.
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 does not survive the last cuts, we will see him again before long in Montreal.
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.
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.
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 removed 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.
He finally played his first preseason match and showed that his injury was behind him.
Is he already the new darling of this section? Another tasteless match for him. And probably not the last.
This is 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.
A throw-in from the corner of the opposing zone, a lightning slap shot from the top of the faceoff circles, a goalkeeper who sees nothing but fire. Usually, it would be Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield celebrating this flawless execution. On Saturday, however, it was Pezzetta who, without hesitation, sent a rocket behind Mads Søgaard after receiving an impeccable pass from Jake Evans. “He’s got a good shot! underlined Martin St-Louis after the meeting. We were balanced when he scored: it wasn’t a prepared play, it came from an understanding of the balance we needed on the ice. The more balance you have, the more options you have. » It could be argued that most of the Senators players on the ice at the time of the goal will not play in the NHL this season. This shot, however, no one can take away from number 55.
Asked about his team’s flawless shorthanded performance against the Senators, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard noted that his club had, in fact, looked good in this regard over the last three games. Verification made, in total of these games, the CH allowed 2 goals in 12 opportunities short of at least one man. It’s a tiny sample, but you have to take the encouragement where it comes. This efficiency is indeed significantly higher than last season’s trends – an efficiency of 83.3% compared to 72.7% for the whole of 2022-2023. “We don’t play the same way,” Harvey-Pinard continued. We make video adjustments before and after matches. We communicate more, too. It helps you better manage the pressure from the opposing team. » By the way, the Quebecer was the Canadian’s most used attacker shorthanded on Saturday, followed by Jake Evans.
The Senators caused a surprise in the morning by recalling six skaters from their Belleville school club in order to give the club’s most important players time off. So, Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Claude Giroux, Drake Batherson, Vladimir Tarasenko, Mathieu Joseph, Thomas Chabot, Jakob Chychrun, Artem Zub and Jake Sanderson all watched the game from the stands – that is, the top 6 on offense and the top 4 defense. In short, enough to disappoint fans who did not think they were seeing an American League club when they bought their ticket. However, it may well have been financial considerations that prompted management to make this decision. All NHL teams must have a salary cap-compliant roster by Monday at 5 p.m., and the Senators are stuck at a loss, blindsided by Josh Norris’ injury, which still doesn’t appear to be healing, and in a contractual impasse with Shane Pinto. We can therefore deduce that they did not want, in addition, to run the risk of having a senior employee to replace in the event of an injury.
