Player Discussion The Slaf Thread - Parabolic Growth Edition

[Rapala]

I love Slaf's sincerity it comes through in his interviews despite the swagger and the joking.
You can see it just watching his eyes when he answers questions.

It's awesome to see in a now 20 year old.

 

[BaseballCoach]

I love Slaf's sincerity it comes through in his interviews despite the swagger and the joking.
You can see it just watching his eyes when he answers questions.

It's awesome to see in a now 20 year old.

next game, no?

 

[Rapala]

next game, no?

"Close Enough For Rock and Roll"

 

[JoelWarlord]

had a few too many beers tn after last night of beer league and man I'm so happy we have this dude, can't wait to see this dude in the playoffs and what he becomes he got that DAWG


I'm sorry I ever wanted to pick Shane Wright (more like shame wrong amirite)

 

[Team_Spirit]

That chiseled jaw line. Counts for EVERYTHING!

Yeah but I make 6 figs and I'm 6'1 on hockeydb please don't swipe me

 

[CristianoRonaldo]

View attachment 842605

I wonder who this scout was

@Goldenhands

 

[Jaynki]

Remember when we read too often here that Slafkovsky had no elite skills?

The kid is out there looking like Malkin on wing right now holy f***

had a few too many beers tn after last night of beer league and man I'm so happy we have this dude, can't wait to see this dude in the playoffs and what he becomes he got that DAWG


I'm sorry I ever wanted to pick Shane Wright (more like shame wrong amirite)

No problem with wanting another player. We were a majority who wanted Wright and another majority with wanted Michkov.

No problem with that. We are passionate fans and hold opinion on the draftees.

The problem is the absolute excess that emerges when the team dont draft our own favourites we mainly scouted for 10 mins on youtube

 

[cphabs]

This makes the cynic in me very paranoid. Between expansion drafts or a lockout, I'm not ruling anything out f***ing us over.

Me too!

 

[BaseballCoach]

No problem with wanting another player. We were a majority who wanted Wright and another majority with wanted Michkov.

No problem with that. We are passionate fans and hold opinion on the draftees.

To be fair to the scouts, the fans have way more tools and looks at players than they do, so it is not surprising that fans have such a much better record at drafting than the poor scouts.
Scouts don't have the luxury of someone editing out the noise of 99% of their observations in order for them to focus on the 1% that matter and that survive the editing process.

Scouts also don't have the huge advantage of having lived through the last 12 years of following hockey and the Canadiens' draft picks. How can you make solid decisions about guys like Wright, Slafkovsky, Michkov, and Reinbacher if you haven't learned the lessons of Galchenyuk, Mete and Kotkaniemi?

The problem is the absolute excess that emerges when the team dont draft our own favourites we mainly scouted for 10 mins on youtube

Again, not to overly defend these dinosaurs who all owe their jobs to nepotism, but they have no access to YouTube so what do we expect?

 

[GrandmaCookie]

Yeah but I make 6 figs and I'm 6'1 on hockeydb please don't swipe me

View attachment 843033

Looks like my side profile only I have recessed temples on top of that.

Game’s over boyo. Only option left is Palm Ella Hand Ersson.

 

[FrankMTL]

Here is where Slafkovsky is in his second season compared to other 1st overall picks' second seasons since 2010. This is just for fun and doesn't take into consideration position or number of game played that season.

2021- Owen Power (35 points)- AHEAD
2020- Alexis Lafreniere ( 31 points)- AHEAD
2019- Jack Hughes ( 31 points)- AHEAD
2018- Rasmus Dahlin (40 points)- AHEAD
2017- Nico Hischier (47 points)- To be determined, but possible to be AHEAD
2016- Austin Matthews (63 points)- BEHIND
2015- Connor McDavid (100 points)- BEHIND
2014- Aaron Ekblad (36 points)- AHEAD
2013- Nathan Mackinnon (38 points)- AHEAD
2012- Nail Yakupov (24 points)- AHEAD
2011- Ryan Nugent Hopkins (24 points in 40 games)- AHEAD
2010- Taylor Hall (53 points)- BEHIND

Again, this is just for fun and doesn't really mean anything, but its fun to see.

 

[417]

It sure tastes good to eat this crow. It seems that first time in my life I was wrong about Habs player. Although I still disagree about the way he was forced to play NHL hockey too soon, there's no denying Slafkovsky is on his way to become great player.

Kudos to new regime!

*too soon, for you.

 

[ReHabs]

On the topic of Shane Wright

I'm not a scout, I don't even watch Jr Hockey, I travel during the WJC most of the time and can only catch glimpses. The *only* reason I wanted Shane Wright is because I didn't trust the Habs organization and wanted them to pick the long-term consensus No. 1 pick. Same with Michkov. I've been in the bag for other prospects before, when I watched more hockey, and felt bad when they failed. With Wright, now it is more like relief the Habs didn't blow it that bad. Glad the interviews screened him out. Nemec and Jiřicek... tbd, both look very good.

Obviously Slafkovsky is trending in a superb way right now. There only question is his ceiling (same with Caufield) because I think he'd really play just as involved in the playoffs as he does any other game -- which is awesome.

 

[Jaynki]

Here is where Slafkovsky is in his second season compared to other 1st overall picks' second seasons since 2010. This is just for fun and doesn't take into consideration position or number of game played that season.

2021- Owen Power (35 points)- AHEAD
2020- Alexis Lafreniere ( 31 points)- AHEAD
2019- Jack Hughes ( 31 points)- AHEAD
2018- Rasmus Dahlin (40 points)- AHEAD
2017- Nico Hischier (47 points)- To be determined, but possible to be AHEAD
2016- Austin Matthews (63 points)- BEHIND
2015- Connor McDavid (100 points)- BEHIND
2014- Aaron Ekblad (36 points)- AHEAD
2013- Nathan Mackinnon (38 points)- AHEAD
2012- Nail Yakupov (24 points)- AHEAD
2011- Ryan Nugent Hopkins (24 points in 40 games)- AHEAD
2010- Taylor Hall (53 points)- BEHIND

Again, this is just for fun and doesn't really mean anything, but its fun to see.

Looks like we got ourselves a real 1st overall finally ;-)

 

[JoelWarlord]

No problem with wanting another player. We were a majority who wanted Wright and another majority with wanted Michkov.

No problem with that. We are passionate fans and hold opinion on the draftees.

The problem is the absolute excess that emerges when the team dont draft our own favourites we mainly scouted for 10 mins on youtube

Yeah in all seriousness I was in the Wright/Cooley camp before the draft largely because of the obvious need at C (and this was before the Dach trade of course), and I leaned towards Wright because I kinda fell into the trap of just assuming he's a better two-way player than he is, and projecting too much from his genuinely exceptional D-2 year. I was scared about passing on an exceptional status golden boy kind of prospect after he missed his D-1 due to covid as I thought there was a good chance he would get right back on track in his D+1 season but that just hasn't happened. Still a good prospect and it's not out of the question he becomes better than Slafkovsky either, but I think we can be safe we didn't pass on a Tavares/Ekblad level exceptional status talent.

I was never particularly upset by the Slafkovsky pick as the fit with Suzuki was obvious, but I fully admit I didn't dig into his profile enough pre-draft and I was way too caught up in the 10P in Liiga thing. I've been a broken record on this point but the Slafkovsky pick all clicked into place for me when I looked at how his season unfolded over time with the extended run of success between Feb and May within the Olympics, Liiga last 10 games & playoffs, and World Championships. Once I looked deeper into those numbers and watched more of his play from that period I understood that it wasn't some crazy swing relative to Wright/Cooley.

The other thing is there was all the reporting about the draft interviews and things with Wright which we couldn't have known beforehand. I'm not a huge intangibles guy generally, but Wright in his draft year had a ton of the same flaws as draft year Suzuki. Suzuki worked hard to address those problems but if Wright is just stunned to hear that kind of harsh critique it's harder to see the path to NHL success, and that's a materially important factor we had no way of knowing until after the fact.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Here is where Slafkovsky is in his second season compared to other 1st overall picks' second seasons since 2010. This is just for fun and doesn't take into consideration position or number of game played that season.

2021- Owen Power (35 points)- AHEAD
2020- Alexis Lafreniere ( 31 points)- AHEAD
2019- Jack Hughes ( 31 points)- AHEAD
2018- Rasmus Dahlin (40 points)- AHEAD
2017- Nico Hischier (47 points)- To be determined, but possible to be AHEAD
2016- Austin Matthews (63 points)- BEHIND
2015- Connor McDavid (100 points)- BEHIND
2014- Aaron Ekblad (36 points)- AHEAD
2013- Nathan Mackinnon (38 points)- AHEAD
2012- Nail Yakupov (24 points)- AHEAD
2011- Ryan Nugent Hopkins (24 points in 40 games)- AHEAD
2010- Taylor Hall (53 points)- BEHIND

Again, this is just for fun and doesn't really mean anything, but its fun to see.

Cool that he’s ahead of Hughes anyway.

 

[BaseballCoach]

*too soon, for you.

Basically people do things either out of force or voluntarily.

The voluntary way for both the Habs and Slaf was for him to play in Montreal.

A more accurate formulation of @Hoochi Papa's sentence would have been:
"although I am still bitter that I and other astute fans were unable to force Slaf to repeat his year in Liiga in order to pass our scoring standard", there's no denying Slafkovsky is on his way to become great player."

 

[BaseballCoach]

Yeah in all seriousness I was in the Wright/Cooley camp before the draft largely because of the obvious need at C (and this was before the Dach trade of course), and I leaned towards Wright because I kinda fell into the trap of just assuming he's a better two-way player than he is, and projecting too much from his genuinely exceptional D-2 year.

The number of people currently claiming they wanted Cooley seems to have dropped of a lot since his early season play.

 

[Hoochi Papa]

Basically people do things either out of force or voluntarily.

The voluntary way for both the Habs and Slaf was for him to play in Montreal.

A more accurate formulation of @Hoochi Papa's sentence would have been:
"although I am still bitter that I and other astute fans were unable to force Slaf to repeat his year in Liiga in order to pass our scoring standard", there's no denying Slafkovsky is on his way to become great player."

Frankly, it seems you're being quite bitter. I do understand, that some people feel a sense of victory when others admit being wrong, but even then one shouldn't take their assumptions too far.

Being the one eating the crow, I thought nitpicking about "forcing" wasn't that important and felt like you had a reason to take few jabs. But right now it seems you're becoming a bit malevolent while being stuck in one word. Get it out of your system and we'll move on.

 

[FrankMTL]

The number of people currently claiming they wanted Cooley seems to have dropped of a lot since his early season play.

Cooley would have been a fine pick as well. The top 3 picks look great actually.

For the Canadiens, the most glaring need was a player of Slafs skill and size however.

Since January 1st, 2024

Slaf- 36 GP, 11G 17 A- 28 Points

Cooley- 38 GP, 13 G 6 A- 19 Points

Cooley's hat trick last night obviously helped push up his goal total, but both players have been great since the start of 2024.

 

[BaseballCoach]

Frankly, it seems you're being quite bitter. I do understand, that some people feel a sense of victory when others admit being wrong, but even then one shouldn't take their assumptions too far.

Being the one eating the crow, I thought nitpicking about "forcing" wasn't that important and felt like you had a reason to take few jabs. But right now it seems you're becoming a bit malevolent while being stuck in one word. Get it out of your system and we'll move on.

I'm not at all bitter.

i was one of the first to support @ReHabs when he made his post recanting his earlier statements. My personal opinion is that the Habs seem to have been right that the NHL reps helped develop Slaf's game, and in fairness they made those statements BEFORE things worked out.

I do have a pet peeve about use and mis-use of the word 'force' in general, not just in this case. I made my point and happy to move on.

 

[Team_Spirit]

Looks like my side profile only I have recessed temples on top of that.

Game’s over boyo. Only option left is Palm Ella Hand Ersson.

You can always start mewing

 

[Mrb1p]

The number of people currently claiming they wanted Cooley seems to have dropped of a lot since his early season play.

I mean people can still claim to want Cooley, kid is also a beauty. So is Nemec.

There's no actual bad player in that top 5, Wright is the "worst" of the bunch and he's still producing .8 in the AHL as a 19 YO.

You know it's pretty funny that a lot of people were clamoring that it was too soon to prefer X and Y over Slaf and now... They are doing victory laps and doing the same thing ? It's almost as if, no one in this shit show has clean hands.

 

[Kennerback]

On the topic of Shane Wright

I'm not a scout, I don't even watch Jr Hockey, I travel during the WJC most of the time and can only catch glimpses. The *only* reason I wanted Shane Wright is because I didn't trust the Habs organization and wanted them to pick the long-term consensus No. 1 pick. Same with Michkov. I've been in the bag for other prospects before, when I watched more hockey, and felt bad when they failed. With Wright, now it is more like relief the Habs didn't blow it that bad. Glad the interviews screened him out. Nemec and Jiřicek... tbd, both look very good.

Obviously Slafkovsky is trending in a superb way right now. There only question is his ceiling (same with Caufield) because I think he'd really play just as involved in the playoffs as he does any other game -- which is awesome.

To me, the 2022 race is over and Slaf won. He brings a bunch of intangibles the other don’t bring. If he can produce as much or more, it’s over. For the 2023 draft I count on Reinbacher’s attitude to pull him up. And the skills staff to help him iron out the rest.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

To me, the 2022 race is over and Slaf won. He brings a bunch of intangibles the other don’t bring. If he can produce as much or more, it’s over. For the 2023 draft I count on Reinbacher’s attitude to pull him up. And the skills staff to help him iron out the rest.

Gotta say, Cooley’s put up really good numbers on a bad team. NJ fans are happy with Nemec I’m sure.

But I agree, I’d rather have Slaf than them going on what we know now.

Still can’t wait to see Hutson though.