The first overall pick in the 2022 NHL draft scored his first NHL hat trick, and proved to the world he’s a star.
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Things changed for Habs fans on Tuesday evening.
Just before this bout with the struggling Philadelphia Flyers, a meaningless game for the Canadiens, Habs fans outside the Bell Centre were chatting with me about the heartache of supporting a team that is set to sit out the playoffs for the third consecutive season and that has missed the post-season dance six times in the past decade.
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That’s a crappy record for any team and is an absolute travesty for the CH, which once — yes I know it was a long time ago! — set the gold standard for what a hockey team could achieve. Let’s take this a little further. Let’s look at the Habs this century. The most storied franchise in NHL history has missed 11 of the 24 playoffs so far in the 21st century.
Basically this century comes down to three magic playoff runs — the Halak spring in 2010, the coulda/woulda/shoulda run in 2014 stopped short when Chris Kreider ran down Carey Price, and, of course, 2021, when a not-great squad pulled off the greatest miracle on ice for the CH since the turn of the century, making it to the final by beating three much better teams in the Toronto Maple Leafs, Winnipeg Jets and Vegas Golden Knights.
At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Habs fans were bemoaning their lot and hoping for a brighter future. A few hours later, that future looked a heck of a lot brighter. What happened? Slaf happened!
Juraj Slafkovsky, the first overall pick in the 2022 NHL draft, scored his first NHL hat trick and in one epic game ended the debate that’s been a thing ever since that draft day. Many of us have known this since the start of 2024 but now everyone knows — this guy’s a star!
Road to the Cup
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Not only did he score three goals, but he did it with style. The first one came off of a Mike Matheson howitzer from the blue line that ricocheted off his skate, the second on an absolutely beautiful seeing-eye pass from Nick Suzuki, and the third … well that’s a story in itself.
Rafaël Harvey-Pinard laid a big hit on the Flyers’ Erik Johnson and then headed to the bench. Slaf jumped on the ice to replace him and brilliantly reading the play headed up the rink, caught a perfect David Savard pass, and just rocketed it past Philadelphia netminder Samuel Ersson. I’m sure I’m not the only person who had a flashback to that epic P.K. Subban goal against Boston in the 2014 playoffs when he hopped out of the penalty box to score on a breakaway.
Smart hockey observers already knew Slafkovsky was good, but now everyone knows. He had two goals in his first 29 games and many of us wondered if he wouldn’t be better learning the ropes in Laval. Now he has 34 points in his last 41 games and has 19 goals and 48 points in 78 games.
In other words, he is going to be a huge part of this rebuild making the leap from development blues to really competing in the best hockey league in the world. It’s been a tough century so far for the bleu-blanc-rouge and nothing is certain, but it’s fair to say that at no point in the past 24 years has the team had a young core that looks so promising.
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In addition to Slaf, you have Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Alex Newhook, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jayden Struble, just to name the most obvious, and coming very soon Lane Hutson, David Reinbacher and Logan Mailloux. All are under 25. So there’s reason to be feeling confident.
But let’s not sugarcoat how bad it’s been.
“We’re waiting for legitimate superstars and we haven’t had one in at least 40 years, other than goalies,” said Habs fan Kevin Putnam, who travelled all the way from his home in the Yukon to catch the game at the Bell Centre Tuesday. “It’s one of those things. You are a die-hard fan. You come, you support them and you hope it’s going to turn eventually. It’s gotta turn eventually, right?”
That was before the game, before things maybe — just maybe — started turning.
But Putnam is your classic 21st century Habs fan. He’s finding it tough, but you just gotta grin and bear it and when all seems bleak, think of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“We’ve been to the final more recently than them, we’re going through a little bit of a rebuild and we’ll get back there before they do,” said Putnam. “That’s what I said to my friends who are Leafs fans. At least we won (the Stanley Cup) when there was colour TV.”
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