Canadiens Juraj Slafkovsky Receives Some Good & Bad News

Montreal Canadiens rookie Juraj Slafkovsky received some good and bad news when he showed up at practice on Monday.

Slafkovsky has been upping his quality of play after every game so far this season and looks more and more like an NHL player as the days go by.

The Canadiens were going to have to make a choice with their young forward, as he is about to play his 10th game of the season on Tuesday, thereby burning the first year of his entry-level contract.

The Canadiens could have done the easy thing and sent Slafkovsky to the Laval Rocket, especially given their current logjam at forward, but instead decided to waive Rem Pitlick on Monday in order to make space for the returning Evgenii Dadonov.

In waiving Pitlick, the Canadiens ensured that the 18-year-old would be suiting up for his 10th game of the season and will be sticking around in Montreal for a little while longer.

The Bad News

Let’s start off by saying that the good news far outweighs the bad news here, as Slafkovsky has shown a high level of humility so far and is simply happy to be playing in the NHL at this point.

That being said, despite the Canadiens choosing to play him for his 10th game, he is once again expected to be playing on the fourth line in the Canadiens’ upcoming matchup with the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday.

Slafkovsky has shown some significant growth at even strength over the last few games and has been one of the only forwards providing some secondary offence outside of the top line so far this season.

With Pitlick waived and Josh Anderson serving a two-game suspension, it would have been a just reward for Slafkovsky to gain some more ice time and play with players of high skill. It would be interesting for the Canadiens to try him, even for a small period of time, in the role he will eventually occupy with the Canadiens for the coming years; if only to get a glimpse of his true readiness.

It was a day sprinkled with some good and bad news, but there’s flexibility for Juraj Slafkovsky to grow even more.