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Post by Willie Dog on Jul 14, 2023 12:54:32 GMT -5
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Post by seventeen on Jul 14, 2023 13:58:50 GMT -5
His trainer stated that he'll have better reaction times, recover faster and have a quicker first step. Those would be quite the achievement, but a 20% improvement in lung capacity could do that. I've lost about 20-25% of my lung capacity and I can certainly tell when I'm on my bike and going up a modestly steep hill. The quads seem to run out of gas faster than they did a few years ago and it's a real struggle. Part of that is age, naturally, but not being able to get enough oxygen to my muscles is the larger factor. I can appreciate what Slaf is trying to improve. I sure hope it works out as he'd be even more powerful and quicker to react.
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Post by Scotty D on Jul 14, 2023 15:14:11 GMT -5
Those fans that "gave up" as the article states surely are too quick to judge once all the dust settles from the rebuild and he continues to work with his game given his open mindedness and willingness to learn as the article suggests i'm very hopeful it will end up the right pick in the end.
Reading over the entire article i am intrigued to know if this kind of thing is being implemented accross the board with the team now. Given the amount of injury issues the team has suffered over recent seasons i assume improved conditioning and alot of other subtleties it mentions will help the bodies be less prone to breakdown.
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Post by Cranky on Jul 14, 2023 16:41:34 GMT -5
That's great to hear.
I'm baffled by some youngsters who don't work on their weaknesses. Things like shot/skating/condition can be worked on off season, actually, all the time and improved. Attitude and vision, not so much (hello Galchy) but the rest are mandatory to earn those tens and hundred of millions.
I'm hoping that Slaf moves into the 40-50 point range next season and take the sting out of last year stinker of a season...and post season.
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Post by seventeen on Jul 14, 2023 17:19:42 GMT -5
That's great to hear. I'm baffled by some youngsters who don't work on their weaknesses. Things like shot/skating/condition can be worked on off season, actually, all the time and improved. Attitude and vision, not so much (hello Galchy) but the rest are mandatory to earn those tens and hundred of millions. To that point, I always felt he had enough of those, but his skating and first step were always too slow to get where his brain said he should be. He had some decent years but as the league got faster, his production fell off. If we'd had the development crew we have now, my guess is he'd have been a 70-80 point guy. He was always a step too slow physically, though and Bergevin was the kind to leave players to sort out their own problems. Their coaching staff often said they weren't there to teach. Duh. That's the very definition of a coach. Then, there was his father as well. There were obviously other issues, which might explain why he couldn't stay in one place long. |
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Post by Skilly on Jul 14, 2023 17:48:59 GMT -5
That's great to hear. I'm baffled by some youngsters who don't work on their weaknesses. Things like shot/skating/condition can be worked on off season, actually, all the time and improved. Attitude and vision, not so much (hello Galchy) but the rest are mandatory to earn those tens and hundred of millions. To that point, I always felt he had enough of those, but his skating and first step were always too slow to get where his brain said he should be. He had some decent years but as the league got faster, his production fell off. If we'd had the development crew we have now, my guess is he'd have been a 70-80 point guy. He was always a step too slow physically, though and Bergevin was the kind to leave players to sort out their own problems. Their coaching staff often said they weren't there to teach. Duh. That's the very definition of a coach. Then, there was his father as well. There were obviously other issues, which might explain why he couldn't stay in one place long. The main one being that he was a victim of domestic violence and his GM forced a 19-20yr old to get in front of the camera and apologize for being a victim. Yeah, that would be enough to piss anybody off and give them an attitude |
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Post by folatre on Jul 14, 2023 18:23:28 GMT -5
It is good to hear that conditioning is a priority this off-season. Better results should follow because the kid has size and plenty of skill to work with.
If the young Slovak can be a beast physically, that would be certainly aid him in getting to a top-six level of productivity.
However, to be a major difference-maker, Slafkovsky needs to process the game faster. One of the things that worried me while watching him in his rookie season is that he did not seem to have good hockey awareness in any of the three zones. Of course, my hope is that the kid was just somewhat overwhelmed by NHL hockey as a 18 year old and thus it was a case of being 'wide-eyed' rather than being a guy who simply does not process the game at a high level. Time will say.
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Post by Tankdriver on Jul 15, 2023 10:36:40 GMT -5
Cranky, you have high expectations. I'm expecting he plays in Laval this year until we clear out some bodies.
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Post by habsorbed on Jul 15, 2023 11:46:54 GMT -5
It is good to hear that conditioning is a priority this off-season. Better results should follow because the kid has size and plenty of skill to work with. If the young Slovak can be a beast physically, that would be certainly aid him in getting to a top-six level of productivity. However, to be a major difference-maker, Slafkovsky needs to process the game faster. One of the things that worried me while watching him in his rookie season is that he did not seem to have good hockey awareness in any of the three zones. Of course, my hope is that the kid was just somewhat overwhelmed by NHL hockey as a 18 year old and thus it was a case of being 'wide-eyed' rather than being a guy who simply does not process the game at a high level. Time will say. Ya, his awareness always concerned me, particularly leaving himself vulnerable to take a nasty hit. The fact he's big may make it even more difficult, particlularly on the smaller ice surface. It may be overplayed as it seems most players adapt to the change in ice size, but for a guy of Slafs size, who is use to having alot more room, could be a big ask. Before coming here, I suseoct he had never played smaller ice surface except the odd tourney. He played 2 games at the WJC in Alberta before it was canceled and had 0 points (Bedard played 2 games and had 5 points). So ice surface may be an issue. The irony is that it may be more difficult for a bigger player to adapt to the smaller ice surface, yet I wonder if the Habs played him because they thought he could handle the extra contact because of his size - bad call  Hopefully the adaptation will come soon. Having said all that, it's not as if anyone in his draft year was NHL ready. All the players drafted in 2022 played a grand total of 53 game in the NHL, and Slafs (39) and Beck (1) accounted for 40 of those games. |
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Post by Dschens on Jul 15, 2023 15:03:50 GMT -5
Before coming here, I suspect he had never played smaller ice surface except the odd tourney. He played 2 games at the WJC in Alberta before it was canceled and had 0 points (Bedard played 2 games and had 5 points). So ice surface may be an issue. Slafkovsky played four seasons in Finland and their ice surfaces are smaller than in the normal universe. As far as the Wikipedia page of Liiga reports they are playing mostly on ice surfaces that are 28m wide. |
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Post by folatre on Jul 15, 2023 17:19:17 GMT -5
Habsorbed, yeah, the 2022 draft looks underwhelming. In some ways being picked first (and picking first) were unenviable positions to be placed in.
I would not have given Slafkovsky more than a tiny taste so he could enjoy the brief moment and get some sense of what the big show is all about. But what is done is done and now it is look ahead to camp.
Considering how challenging it is for 18-19 year old d-men in the AHL, Jiricek and Nemec truly had outstanding seasons. Hindsight is 20/20, but the A would have been a plenty ambitious plan for the kid.
And maybe, as Dschens alluded to, returning to Finland with its 'intermediate' ice surface dimensions was actually a more viable alternative than any of us wanted to believe at the time.
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Post by seventeen on Jul 15, 2023 18:16:02 GMT -5
Before coming here, I suspect he had never played smaller ice surface except the odd tourney. He played 2 games at the WJC in Alberta before it was canceled and had 0 points (Bedard played 2 games and had 5 points). So ice surface may be an issue. Slafkovsky played four seasons in Finland and their ice surfaces are smaller than in the normal universe. As far as the Wikipedia page of Liiga reports they are playing mostly on ice surfaces that are 28m wide. Yes, Finnish ice is somewhere between NHL size and International size. Twenty eight metres works out to 91 feet, which is 6 feet wider than an NHL surface. Not a lot, but more. What we keep forgetting is that there are several factors European players have to adjust to when coming to North America. Most Scandinavian and Swiss players at least may be familiar with English, so their adjustment is limited to the ice surface, culture and the speed of the game. Czech, Slovak, Russian, and some other ethnicities have those, plus the language barrier to overcome. Slaf had some English, but had those other factors and was 18 years old. I'll cut him some slack. |
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Post by Cranky on Jul 15, 2023 19:26:35 GMT -5
Cranky, you have high expectations. I'm expecting he plays in Laval this year until we clear out some bodies. To me this is the worst Habs season ever. To make up i was hoping to see Dubois and Mickov, or Leonard as offset, but not even that happened. So I'm gulping extra optimistic but obviously delusional copium. |
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