When it’s all said and done Juraj Slafkovsky finishes as the _ best Slovak player of all time?

[Antiillafire]

Was having this conversation with some other Slovak hockey fans. Slafkovsky is the highest drafted Slovak of all time, would need a pretty great career to pass these players.

Mikita: 1396 games player, 1467 points
Stastny: 977 Games played, 1239 points
Hossa: 1309 Games played, 1134 points
Palffy: 684 Games played, 713 points
Gaborik: 1035 Games played, 815 points
Bondra: 1081 games played, 892 points
Demitra: 847 games played, 768 points
Satan: 1050 games played, 735 points

Chara should also be included, as he is sometimes viewed as a top 5 Slovak player of all time.

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[Dabeast]

There should really be an option outside of the top 10

 

[Hisch13r]

Chara is "sometimes" viewed as a top 5 Slovak? How is he not like a top 4 lock?

 

[Antiillafire]

There should really be an option outside of the top 10

Will edit that in

 

[Antiillafire]

Chara is "sometimes" viewed as a top 5 Slovak? How is he not like a top 4 lock?

He should be a top 4 lock. Although ziggy’s career is underrated I think

 

[Uncle Scrooge]

Slovaks have some great players in their hockey history. There’s no shame finishing outside the top 10 if it comes down to that.

 

[Antiillafire]

Slovaks have some great players in their hockey history. There’s no shame finishing outside the top 10 if it comes down to that.

Not really, compared to most nations

 

[Breakfast of Champs]

as a habs fan, Mikita or Statsny aren't even reasonable expectations IMO. If he can be Gaborik I will be extremely happy

 

[Realgud]

What about the other Stastnys? Anton and Marian? They should be very high too.

 

[Ace of Hades]

Mikita is generally Canadian, I would exclude him from that list. Voted outside top 10.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Outside the top 10. There’s some great players on that list that it’s unrealistic to think that he passes.

 

[Bouboumaster]

Statsny is pretty much untouchable IMO, and Mikita is probably too

At full potential, I'd say bottom of top 5 or top 10

 

[wetcoast]

Was having this conversation with some other Slovak hockey fans. Slafkovsky is the highest drafted Slovak of all time, would need a pretty great career to pass these players.

Mikita: 1396 games player, 1467 points
Stastny: 977 Games played, 1239 points
Hossa: 1309 Games played, 1134 points
Palffy: 684 Games played, 713 points
Gaborik: 1035 Games played, 815 points
Bondra: 1081 games played, 892 points
Demitra: 847 games played, 768 points
Satan: 1050 games played, 735 points

Chara should also be included, as he is sometimes viewed as a top 5 Slovak player of all time.

Mikita isn't really a Slovak player though.

No idea on where to rank him but if he isn't in the top 10 then Montreal didn't get good value with him.

 

[psycat]

I think he will be Yakupov tier bust so outside top 10 but that's just a hunch, I would bet alot that he won't be top 5.

 

[Zach716]

He'll make a good bottom-6 option to carve out a decent personal career.

 

[rypper]

Pump the brakes, Holy.

 

[Ivo]

My personal top-10 (NHL careers) would be something like this:

(Mikita) but I don't count him as a Slovak player

TIER 1 - Hall of Fame
1. Chara
2. Stastny
3. Hossa

TIER 2 - Elite performers
4. Palffy
5. Gaborik
6. Demitra
7. Bondra

TIER 3 - Top-line, top-pairing quality players at their peak
8. Visnovsky
9. Satan
10. Stumpel
11-12. Anton and Marian Stastny

TIER 4 - Good players
Guys like Handzus, Nagy, Zednik, Tatar, Ciger, Sekera, Halak.

For Slaf, Tier 1 would be unrealistic to expect, he would have to exceed any fair expectations. He could end up with a Tier 2 career, if he reaches his ceiling. Tier 3 would be realisting expectations, I think. Tier 4 would be a disappointment.

Being an optimist, I voted top-5, but after seeing my own list now, anything in the top-10 would be a nice career and even just outside of the top-10 wouldn't be a total disaster - I mean there have been many 1st overalls worse than the likes of Jozef Stumpel or Anton Stastny.

 

[Albatros]

Mikita is generally Canadian

Okay? Slovak-American by self-identification. Lived in Canada in a Slovak family for about 10 years as a kid.

 

[Ace of Hades]

Okay? Slovak-American by self-identification. Lived in Canada in a Slovak family for about 10 years as a kid.

He played for Team Canada in the summit, he was clearly a Canadian who was born in Slovakia.

 

[Ivo]

Okay? Slovak-American by self-identification. Lived in Canada in a Slovak family for about 10 years as a kid.

He never played hockey in Slovakia. All his hockey formation happened in Canada and later the US (obviously). He may have been a Slovak person, but not really a Slovak hockey player.

 

[Albatros]

He played for Team Canada in the summit, he was clearly a Canadian who was born in Slovakia.

Also Nedvěd and Šťastný played for Team Canada.

 

[Albatros]

He never played hockey in Slovakia.

Technically not true, he did make appearances in both club and national team jersey in Czechoslovakia albeit of course in very limited scope.

 

[Bileur]

The most likely has to be outside the top 10. If I were putting down money on it that’s what I would do.

That said I think he ends up in the 5-10 window.

 

[Uncle Scrooge]

Not really, compared to most nations

Considering the size of Slovak hockey in the grand scheme of things, I think it's impressive. Obviously Canada, Russia etc. are going to have a ridiculous list, but if you leave out the current young generation of players, Slovaks top 10 can easily compete with the Finns.

Mikita, if you include him, is a Blackhawk legend who won a lot of hardware including multiple Art Ross trophies
Peter Stastny was the first rookie to score 100, and he put up 1200 pts in his career
Zdeno Chara has played the most games by defenseman in NHL history, won Norris and Cup
Marian Hossa is a multi-cup champion and one of the best 2-way wingers of his time
Ziggy Palffy was a ridiculously talented offensive player who would've scored 1000 pts if he was able to play more games, finished with over PPG
Peter Bondra won 2 Rockets and is 3rd all-time in points in Caps history

Demitra, Satan, Gaborik were legit top liners in their primes and I find that a guy like Stumpel was very underrated too.

For a country that's often overlooked, those are some impressive names. It's too bad their player production really slowed down. I remember as a kid during their golden years the Slovakian national team in the video games was my favorite team to play with.

 

[HanSolo]

Should really have been where will he rank among the all time great Europeans.