MONTREAL – Juraj Slafkovský and Jayden Struble, on the surface at least, don’t appear to live in similar worlds.
Slafkovský is a No. 1 pick extended his scoring streak to an NHL career-high nine games in the Montreal Canadiens’ 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night. Just tapping his stick on the ice before setting up captain Nick Suzuki for his 30th goal of the season is a sign of how confident Slafkovský is feeling these days.
30TH OF THE SEASON!
OBJECTIVE NO. 3️⃣0️⃣ IN THE SEASON FOR NICK!#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/AbFzdiar83
– Montreal Canadiens (@CanadiensMTL) March 28, 2024
Struble is almost three years older than Slafkovský, but is an NHL rookie, one who had a very good game against the Flyers, but also one who is looking for consistency of late, a process Slafkovský has already gone through.
And that’s where the two aren’t that different, and where the Canadiens will have to concentrate a lot of energy in the coming years as more rookies arrive and have to go through the same process.
Thursday provided a window into how the Canadiens will handle that process, and it started with coach Martin St. Louis, but it was shown by Slafkovský and Struble.
Struble was asked Thursday morning what he’s focused on since re-entering the lineup after sitting out three of four games, and his answer was revealing.
“I’d say it’s just come back from where I was down to a little bit of normalcy, one,” he said. “I’ve been here for 40 games and it’s easy to say, I’m here for something. I think I’m getting back to that urgency every shift, just proving something every shift kind of thing.
“I think that helped me the last couple of games, just getting that urgency back.”
The key word there is “normalcy” because that is the exact word that St. Louis to describe what Struble said. It is made as if this is something that he talked about with Struble, although it is something that St. does not feel. Louis as a player for years after establishing himself in the NHL.
“I feel as a player, at a certain point in time, you hit the stage of normalcy, and you have to be very careful when you hit that stage,” said St. “Some players hit that stage too soon. They think they’ve arrived. For me, maybe people feel I’ve arrived, but I don’t really think I’ve arrived. So my normalcy happened in late, and maybe just in time to have the career I had.
“So yes, young players, you have to be careful that you have 30 or 40 games and now you think you have arrived, and for me this is normal. Because when they arrive, they are excited, very alert, then suddenly complacent. That’s a normal phase. Well, watch out for that normal phase. Don’t rush into that phase.”
For Slafkovský, no one would blame him if he started to feel normal, even at the age of 19. He put up 33 points in his last 41 games, half a working season, but the memory of his 18 points in his first 70 NHL games remain fresh in his mind. He hasn’t reached normal, not yet, and that explains why he’s been able to maintain this quality of play.
“No, I feel like you have to prove it every night, no matter what, because you never know when you’re going to have worse times, and you never know what’s going to happen,” said Slafkovský after the game. “So you have to play with the same urgency every night. I feel like every guy in this locker room thinks that way. You always have urgency, nobody has a spot and there’s always young guys. guy coming into the league, and everybody just wants to make it.
“So maybe you’re here now, but maybe next year, maybe you won’t make it if you don’t put in all your effort.”
That attitude is something the Canadiens need to nurture to make sure it enters the room as it continues to get younger with veteran job prospects, a process that needs to hit overdrive. in the next two or three years. But having one of your key young players think this way while in the midst of his most successful stretch as an NHL player is a very good start.
“I would say that I want to raise my standards every time, and I want to keep them high,” Slafkovský said. “Obviously I have bad games, that’s for sure, that happens. But I want to make sure that even my bad games are good enough to do something on the ice and help the team. Even if not I had a good game, the other 17 guys could have had a good game and I just want to make sure that my bad one is still good enough to be effective and help my teammates and teammates on the line. .Being on the front line, you have to perform every night, and that’s what I want to do.
The fact that Slafkovský has that character is a very good sign, but the fact that someone like Struble has gone without that character can also be very valuable. The more players who experience the consequences of losing that edge, that urgency, and understanding that the line between being an NHL player and a former NHL player becomes thinner, the better off they are. Canadiens.
And Struble understood quickly.
“It didn’t all hit me at once, it’s like a process you go through,” he said. “It takes time to finally (realize it), you look back and you say, ‘Maybe I’m a little complacent.’ I would say there was a week or two there where things started, I wouldn’t say bad, I was doing the same things, but maybe a little relaxed, I would say.
“Then obviously, the miscarriage was a sign that I had to take it from here and go back to what brought me so much success.”
This is what urgency looks like for Struble as he chases his man over the defensive zone and doesn’t stop, creating a turnover and joining the rush to get a good scoring chance.
He learned his lesson.
The Canadiens’ win on Thursday was their third in a row, their longest streak of the season. That might not matter to people on the outside, but it matters in the dressing room.
But for those who fail to see the relevance of these games ahead of another season away from the playoffs for the Canadiens, cherishing the importance of that urgency is just one example of why it’s valuable. When people talk about developing a culture, this is the kind of thing they’re talking about. Young players already know how hard it is to make the NHL because they just go through it, but some may not realize how hard it is to stay in the NHL.
That’s something that St. John just didn’t realize. Louis in his playing career, he also spent the first half of his career having to convince himself that he even made the NHL to begin with despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that he was.
When asked after the game when he started to feel normal in the NHL, St. Louis joked that he felt it at the age of 39, the year he retired. But he guessed he was probably in his 30s, before adding with a smile, “Probably after Hart, Art Ross.”
St. Louis had just turned 29 when he won those trophies, on top of the Stanley Cup, in 2004.
For a young team looking to set a high bar for normal and maintain a sense of urgency until reaching that bar, it seems like a perfectly ambitious place to start.
(Photo by Juraj Slafkovsky and Scott Laughton: David Kirouac / USA Today)