Habs Mailbag: Canadiens forward Juraj Slafkovsky reminds me of John LeClair Habs general manager Kent Hughes needs to make a trade to get a top-six forward in order to meet the team’s off-season objectives and have a chance at a postseason berth.
Although it’s difficult to draw comparisons between players of different eras, Slafkovsky remin
ded me a lot of former Canadian John LeClair as I saw him develop significantly in the second half of the previous season.
LeClair was 6-foot-3 and 226 pounds during his playing days, and Slafkovsky is listed at 6-foot-3 and 230 pounds. Both players are wingers, shoot left, and are nearly identical in size.
Following his trade to the Philadelphia Flyers, LeClair really gained confidence and learned to use his size and shot to his advantage. He had scored 19 goals in each of his last two full seasons with the Canadiens. That led to three consecutive seasons in Philadelphia with 50 goals or more, sharing a line with Eric Lindros and Mikael Renberg on the Legion of Doom.
LeClair’s first season with 50 goals came when he was 26. Slafkovsky, who recently turned 20, just finished his first season with 20 goals. Slavkovsky may not develop into a 50-goal scorer, but there are unmistakable parallels between him and LeClair.
Who will be the first Canadiens player to make more money than Nick Suzuki? I say Ivan Demidov if he becomes what we think he will be. Mick Chow Suzuki is signed through the 2029-30 season with an annual salary-cap hit of US$7.857 million, so there’s a chance Demidov could surpass the team captain in the future if he scores goals the way the Canadiens are hoping he can after selecting the Russian winger with the fifth overall pick at this year’s NHL Draft. But I think the first player to earn more than Suzuki will be a free-agent signing either next summer or the year after that when the Canadiens are at a stage in the rebuilding process that GM Kent Hughes will be prepared to go shopping. It could also be a player Hughes acquires in a trade.
The Canadiens need more forwards who can provide offence and they took two players with the potential to do that in the future with their first-round picks at the NHL Draft — Demidov and Michael Hage (No. 21 overall).
Jeff Gorton, the executive vice-president of hockey operations, stated before the draft that management would like to do something to fast-track the rebuild and contend for a playoff spot. I still believe Hughes will make — or at least try to make —a trade t o acquire another top-six forward or a young player with the potential to become one. If not, I believe management will have come up short of its goals.
Have you heard who might be in line to coach the Canadiens’ power play next season? Why are they taking so long to sign all the other assistant coaches?
Hughes recently stated that Martin St. Louis’s assistant coaches — Trevor Letowski and Stéphane Robidas — will be back next season and that he would have discussions with St. Louis about who he might want to replace Alex Burrows as an assistant coach — or if St. Louis would prefer to stick with two assistants behind the bench with him. I believe St. Louis would really benefit from another assistant coach with a lot of NHL coaching experience — especially on the power play. It will also be interesting to see what Vincent Lecavalier’s role will eventually become with the Canadiens. He’s now a special adviser to hockey operations and he did score 127 of his 421 career NHL goals on the power play. Hughes still needs to sign someone to replace Jean-François Houle as head coach of the AHL’s Laval Rocket. I would expect those positions will be filled before the end of the month.
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