It will always be tempting and relevant to compare Juraj Slafkovsky to other first overall picks.
Recently, the Journal de Québec published an article in which Juraj Slafkovsky revealed himself as one of the four worst first overall picks of the last 50 years after 50 games.
It strikes the imagination.
But, since we live in a democracy, other views are possible and several objections can be raised!
Firstly, if we stick to first overall picks, by the same token, we end up lumping generational players, defencemen, goalkeepers, undersized players, players who didn’t play their first 50 games when they were 18, etc., into the same basket as Slafkovsky.
A nice fruit salad, as Michel Therrien would say!
Then, what can we conclude from the first 50 NHL games of an 18-year-old, 6’3 and 235 lbs, who hasn’t even finished coaxing his own body?
Not much…
By the way, absolutely no one expected anything great from Slaf in his first year as the only 18-year-old of his feeble crop to play in the NHL.
And no thoughtful analysis predicted he’d score more than 40 points this season… unless you consider ESPN’s zany projections to be serious analysis!
Slaf is simply still a long way from the finished product. We’ll just have to accept this reality for a while yet.
Whatever we think of the CH’s development strategy, we decided to bring him to Montreal to learn from Martin St-Louis, not to score points and impress.
St-Louis must constantly defend the Habs’ development strategy regarding Slafkovsky…
(Credit: screenshot)
Finally, it’s important to consider what the team hoped to achieve by drafting him, and what they said “no” to at the same time.
They wanted a power forward with a special character to play in Montreal. All this with a long-term, five-year vision in mind.
In short, pointing out that Slaf has had a worse start to his career than the likes of McDavid, Matthews, Kane, Crosby, Ovechkin and Lindros, as well as flops like Patrik Stefan and Brian Lawton, unfortunately doesn’t get us very far.
On the other hand, if we compare him to other players who were also drafted in the hope that they would rank among the best power forwards of their generation, we might have more accurate benchmarks for the player and those who drafted him.
But first…
The 2022 decision
Even if they represent three completely different styles of player, it will always be normal and legitimate to compare the big Slovak with the “little American” Logan Cooley and the ” good Canadian boy ” Shane Wright.
Everyone knew that the Canadiens wanted to draft a forward and that the decision would be made on one of these three in 2022, the good, the bad or the ugly!
With the luxury of speaking first, the Tricolore had the ultimate choice.
Perhaps Bobrov and company felt that Cooley didn’t bring something sufficiently different and better than the talented little forwards already with the team?
Perhaps, like many others, they were genuinely unimpressed with Shane Wright’s personality?
More importantly, perhaps CH management preferred the profile of Kirby Dach – whom they acquired at the same time they drafted Slafkovsky – to those of Cooley and Wright as a center?
It must look something like this, since they decided on Slaf for his size, long-term potential and over-confident personality.
In their opinion, of the three forwards they were considering, he will be the “best” or, at the very least, the most valuable to the team in five years’ time.
And with the addition of Dach, they found themselves filling a glaring need by adding two talented forwards of 6’3-6’4 and over 210 lbs to its future top-6.
It’s hard to argue with that logic.
It’s not hard to imagine that Slafkovsky would currently have more points on the scoreboard with Dach at his side…(Credit: Screenshot/Twitter)
In short, in the meantime, we’ll continue to follow and comment on the progress of the famous trio of prospects selected1st,3rd and4th in 2022, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that we won’t have a valid first conclusion until 2027!
But let’s move on to comparables more relevant to Slafkovsky’s style of play.
Comparable power forwards of his generation
There are all kinds of offensive center forwards, all kinds of offensive defenders, all kinds of “technical” goalkeepers.
And there are all kinds of power forwards.
Basically, what unites them all under the umbrella of “power forwards” is the ability to produce offensively, regularly using above-average size and physical strength.
On one side of the spectrum, there are the more classic ” meat and potatoes ” like Brady Tkachuk.
On the other, there are those with more finesse, such as Leon Draisaitl, Mikko Rantanen, Kappo Kakko and Andreï Svechnikov.
Between the two extremes, there are all sorts of variations, from Matthew Tkachuk to Quinton Byfield and Valeri Nichushkin.
In short, Slafkovsky falls into one of these variants.
For the sake of argument, let’s compare Slafkovsky with the power forwards of his generation, aged 28 and under, drafted in the first 10 picks since 2013.
At 28 and under, these are all players Slafkovsky will be playing against for a good part of his career. In that sense, I see them as players of his generation.
So it’s with forwards like Kakko, Byfield, Svechnikov, McTavish, Draisaitl, Meier, Rantanen, Puljujarvi, the Tkachuk brothers, Nichushkin, and company, that it will be most relevant to compare Slafkovsky in the coming years.
We’ll have players more his style, who all possess an element of power in their game, AND who weren’t perceived as living in another galaxy when they were drafted.
If we continue this analysis in the next article, we’ll see that Slafkovsky’s early career, modest as it may be, has absolutely nothing abnormal about it when placed alongside more relevant comparables of his generation.
That should reassure many!
We’ll be in touch soon!
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