Inside a teaching moment for Juraj Slafkovský and what it meant for the Canadiens
MONTREAL — A little less than five minutes into the second period Saturday, with the Montreal Canadiens holding a 1-0 lead on the Columbus Blue Jackets and a clear directive from their coach to play a mature game, to take advantage of a tired opponent who had played the previous night, the Canadiens iced the puck.
Just before the icing, Juraj Slafkovský and Kirby Dach were able to replace Cole Caufield and Alex Newhook on a line change. But as the puck slid down the ice and Nick Suzuki jumped on to replace Jake Evans , the officials called Suzuki back to the bench and Evans was sent back out.
They did not change in time.
Evans had been on the ice for a little over a minute at that point, and with a defensive zone faceoff coming up, this was not ideal.
Evans went back out on the ice, won the draw, and the puck came to Slafkovský in the left faceoff circle in the defensive zone. As he began to skate it out up the left side, Columbus centre Sean Monahan was skating toward Slafkovský to pressure him, and when Slafkovský looked up, he saw Evans skating up the middle of the ice as Dach was also coming across the neutral zone in support.
Slafkovský could have continued skating the puck out, he could have chipped it off the boards for Dach to go collect it, but he decided to pass the puck across the ice to Evans, the player the Canadiens are trying to get off the ice. His pass hit Monahan, the Blue Jackets collected the deflection and were right back in the Canadiens zone.
Evans didn't get off the ice for another 30 seconds.
Slafkovský played his next shift with Dach and Suzuki and turned the puck over twice, once deep in the defensive zone, once deep in the offensive zone. There were a little less than 11 minutes left in the period at that point, and Slafkovský played one more shift before the second intermission, and he played it with Evans and Emil Heineman .
He was benched. And it wasn't necessarily because of the turnovers on his final shift of the period with Dach and Suzuki, but probably because of the combination of those turnovers with the turnover on the previous shift, the more egregious turnover because of the situation.
Coach Martin St. Louis hit a breaking point.
"I was annoyed, a lot of guys on the bench were annoyed, too," St. Louis said. "We had a tough time getting pucks behind them. We had an opportunity to do that. We had simple plays coming out of our zone and we're trying to go cross-ice or ... we just couldn't execute. And there comes a point where the next line's just got to simplify, get a deep puck, trust the forecheck and start our O-zone. And we did that."
It's no coincidence St. Louis mentioned trying to go cross-ice when he caught himself, that he mentioned having simple plays coming out of their zone. It seemed to be a description of the exact play Slafkovský made coming off that icing.
The Canadiens took a 2-1 lead when Joel Armia — who replaced Slafkovský on the top line — set up Suzuki's goal at 15:49 of the second period as Slafkovský sat at the end of the Canadiens' bench, stewing. He was wearing his frustration. As the horn blew to end the second period, Slafkovský remained seated at the end of the bench, still stewing, despite the Canadiens' leading heading into the third period.
Suzuki didn't like it.
"I talked to him," he said. "I didn't love that, you can't just get dejected like that. I'm just telling him we're going to need you in the third. He responded well. He was skating hard, getting in battles. No one likes getting benched, it's how you respond after, and he did a pretty good job of that in the third."
The Canadiens won the game 5-1, largely because they stuck to the game plan, put pucks behind the Columbus defence and took advantage of a tired team in the third period. Slafkovský was back in his regular spot on Suzuki's wing in the third period as well. He was given another chance, and he stuck to the game plan.
He learned his lesson.
"In the second we were trying to be a little greedy with some neutral zone turnovers that we didn't like," Suzuki said. "So we really tried to simplify it in the third. They were on a back-to-back, so we knew if we stuck with it we'd get some opportunities, and we were able to bury them."
St. Louis has said the Canadiens are leaving a purely developmental phase and entering a learning-how-to-win phase of their rebuild. This was an example of that, benching — albeit temporarily — a No. 1 pick who is central to that rebuild because he was not handling a situation that called for maturity with, well, maturity.
Would he have handled that situation the same way if the Canadiens were still purely in a developmental phase?
"Probably handle it differently," he said.
In fact, St. Louis handled it differently earlier this season.
A month earlier, the Canadiens were rested at home facing a Los Angeles Kings team on a back-to-back. They spoke about the importance of taking advantage of the situation, of pouncing on a tired team right off the start, of trusting their forecheck and avoiding cute plays at either blue line, of making life difficult on a tired team by putting pucks deep and pressuring them.
They did not do that, and afterward, Suzuki called the Canadiens' effort immature .
After that game, St. Louis was asked whether he needed to be proactive in managing his team's immaturity, and he bristled. He insisted he was being proactive.
A lot of water has flowed under an unstable bridge since then, but what St. Louis did Saturday night against Columbus, benching an important but still young player because of his immaturity, was most definitely proactive.
Benching Slafkovský was not easy, but it was necessary and appeared to get universal support in the dressing room after the game.
"He's being a lot harder," Evans said of his coach. "He's treating us like we're growing up.
"We need that right now."
After the game, after the Canadiens won, few players on the ice were outwardly happier than Slafkovský. He exaggeratedly shook every player's hand in the congratulatory line, much like he did with Monahan before every Canadiens game back when he played here. He was beaming from ear to ear. The brooding, outwardly upset player on the end of the bench in the second period was long gone.
This was not a hindrance to Slafkovský's development. It helped in a context where development is not the organization's only priority anymore. The priority is development that helps lead to results, and that's not always going to work. But it did in this instance, and that's a win-win.
"We're trying to build something, a style of play, an attitude on both sides of the ice for the long term," St. Louis said. "Not just to win a game tonight."
(Top photo of Juraj Slafkovský, Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki: Christinne Muschi / The Canadian Press via Associated Press)
