Montreal Canadiens forward Juraj Slafkovsky is on pace for 49 points. That shouldn’t be considered a disappointing season, especially as the six goals he currently has put him on pace for a new career-high 32. After all, the last two seasons, Slafkovsky scored 50 and 51 points. So, he’s right where he’s proven himself capable of being, scoring-wise.
However, with the Canadiens having just played the Utah Mammoth on Saturday, for whom Logan Cooley, the third-overall pick in Slafkovsky’s 2022 NHL Entry Draft, has 12 (eight goals), unfortunate, unavoidable comparisons are going to result (admittedly like this very piece). So, strap in, why don’t you?
Slafkovsky vs. Cooley
Now, to be fair, it’s only a modest three-point difference between Slafkovsky and Cooley that can be erased with a single game. In this one, Slafkovsky got the upper hand. Not only did the Canadiens win, but Slafkovsky also scored one point to Cooley’s none. Nonetheless, Cooley has overall undeniably started to establish himself as more of an offensively dynamic player with a higher ceiling, after scoring 65 points last season.
Related: Caufield and Canadiens Jump On Mammoth Mistakes in 6-2 Win
None of this should be a shock. While, heading into the 2022 event in question, the host Canadiens were seemingly making up their minds between Slafkovsky and Shane Wright, who went fourth to the Seattle Kraken (Simon Nemec, No. 2 to the New Jersey Devils), Cooley was also seen as some by the best prospect that year, with legitimate star power.
However, instead of the centre they needed in Wright, the Canadiens went with the 6-foot-3 power-forward winger in Slafkovsky (225 pounds). To his credit, he’s become a massive contributor on one of the top lines in the entire league (minimum of 100 minutes played), albeit as more of a complementary player.
There’s nothing wrong with that, though. Even with Ivan Demidov’s emergence as a threat at Slafkovsky’s position and someone who could eventually usurp his spot, Slafkovsky’s skill set complements those of Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield on that line to a greater extent. And, as long as Slafkovsky is a key member of the Canadiens, no one should hold the success of Cooley or Wright (who’s no slouch himself, having just come off a 44-point season) against him.
Revisiting the Dach Trade
Remember, the Canadiens made the decision to trade for centre Kirby Dach that same night, thereby justifying the Slafkovsky pick. It’s easy to see general manager Kent Hughes’ thought process, here. He preferred to try to have his cake and eat it too. He wasn’t just picking the player he saw as best. He was building a team, picking the player he saw as the best fit.
Whether Hughes legitimately saw Slafkovsky as the best player or just someone around whom he could build a dominant line or winning team is hard to assess, to say the least. Generally speaking, the best way to go is to do just that, pick the best player, but you can’t really predict how these things will (and still can) go (with each of these players still just 21 years of age). So, picking Slafkovsky (while also trading for Dach) was a perfectly viable strategy that seemed to work the next season, as Dach began to emerge as the top-three talent the Chicago Blackhawks had drafted in 2019. It’s really only after he suffered a season-ending knee injury two games into 2023-24 that doubt began to seep into the minds of Canadiens fans, with a separate knee injury also prematurely ending in 2024-25.
Read into Dach’s decent start to 2025-26, with him having scored four goals in his last three games, to the degree you wish. In the end, it’s hard to deny the Canadiens have seemingly resigned themselves to playing him as their third-line centre, instead of the second-line one that they thought they were acquiring. Oliver Kapanen has obviously taken over that role, scoring an encouraging 10 points in 15 games (admittedly pivoting the uber-talented Demidov, though).
Slafkovsky Far from a Bust
Looking past Kapanen’s early-season success, things clearly haven’t gone as the Canadiens expected, and, yet, they’re still 10-3-2 and proving everyone wrong. Slafkovsky is a big part of that, even though it’s obvious that, knowing what they know now, the Habs probably would have gone in a different direction three summers ago. That’s a different sentiment than regret, to be clear, though. Regret results from having chosen a bust. Slafkovsky is not that, far from it. He’s a legitimate top-line player, once again. Regret results from missing out on a generational talent when, by all accounts, the 2022 class was devoid of one. Under the circumstances, knowing what they did then, the Habs did as well as possible.
Also, if the Canadiens hadn’t gone the trade route that night to secure a centre, it’s easy to believe they would have picked Wright instead of Cooley. Keep that in mind, as all the stars were aligning for Wright to become a Hab. There would have been nothing wrong with that, either. As alluded to earlier, he’s begun to successfully establish himself as the NHL player he had been projected to become, with an absolute floor of that of a second-line centre, which, not for nothing, is arguably the biggest hole the Habs have in their current lineup.
The point is, even taking into account the hatchet jobs to his personality some within the local Montreal media have conducted, myths about a supposed lack of character many have for whatever reason embraced as if to further justify the Slafkovsky selection, Wright would have been a perfectly fine first-overall pick. It’s only in the event the Habs had gone that route, to draft a fellow centre, do the comparisons to Cooley make legitimate sense, with Cooley obviously holding the edge in the early going of their respective careers.
Anything can happen from here on out, like for example, both the Canadiens and Mammoth making fools out of just about anyone as they found themselves in a three-way tie for first place overall near the end of October (New Jersey Devils). It goes to show, both things can be true: Cooley can end up the player the Habs probably should have taken and Slafkovsky can end up a player the team and city fully embrace as the right pick. When it’s all said and done, they didn’t absolutely need to pick the best player available with that pick anyway. He was still available at No. 62 when they took him with their fourth pick of the evening.
Kidding, kidding (but maybe not).