TVA Sports Anthony Martineau spoke to Montreal Canadiens left winger Juraj Slafkovsky at the Bell Centre on Wednesday and the big Slovak made an interesting declaration:
You have to play like Brady Tkachuk if you want to have success in this league. It’s the kind of player I want to become.
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Coach Martin St-Louis has told the media often this season that good things happen when Slafkovsky moves his feet and plays heavy. There’s no denying he’s got the shape to play like Brady Tkachuk. The Ottawa Senators captain is 6-foot-4 and weights 225 pounds while the Canadiens’ power forward is 6-foot-5 and weights 225 pounds as well.
We’ve seen Slafkovsky play heavy this season, he’s gone with speed in the corner to recover pucks and it has worked. Everyone knows he can do it, but it’s a matter of integrating that in his game consistently, it has to become an automatism which it isn’t right now.
His declaration to Martineau bodes well for the Canadiens, it means he’s aware of what he needs to do and wants to do it. What fans tend to forget is that Slafkovsky is still only 20 years old, he jumped in the NHL straight after being drafted and as such, his development is not complete. Rookie Lane Hutson is older than the Slovak winger, only by a month and a half but still. Number 20 is a work in progress and it’s important to realize and remember that.
To be fair though, the Habs’ brass has been clear since taking over, they want to work to make their players better. Adam Nicholas’ hiring speaks to that and so does all the work St-Louis has put in with Cole Caufield, especially last season.
Given how the previous regime passed on drafting Tkachuk, drafting for need instead and reaching for a center by selecting Jesperi Kotkaniemi instead, getting their own version of the Senators’ pest and captain would be of great use.
Slafkovsky now has 26 games to put his money where his mouth is and play a more physical game, one that unsettles his opponents and forces them to make mistakes. If he does that, it will make the Canadiens’ games more interesting to watch until the end of the season.
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