Slafkovsky, young Canadiens learning to manage highs and lows

ST. LOUIS — It was a week that started with the Montreal Canadiens raising the bar, and one that ended with them smacking their chin on it on their way down to the floor.

A 6-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Saturday was not what they were hoping for after a disappointing effort against the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday followed what their coach, Martin St. Louis, qualified as their very best one from start to finish since he took his job in February of 2022.

The game the Canadiens played in Vegas on Monday, against the Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights, set a new standard for them.

But this is the NHL’s third youngest team, and they got a quick lesson in how difficult it can be to maintain high standards.

“You can’t just show up (and expect to win),” captain Nick Suzuki said afterwards. “And I think we kind of did that the last two games, and it’s unacceptable for us. We have to go home and clean up a lot of things.”

Not the least of which will be the careless play with the puck in situations the Canadiens couldn’t afford to be careless in.

We’ll get to how that manifested itself on Saturday, but perhaps the big lesson here is to not get too wrapped up in what happens in one, two, or three games.

Break that down on an individual level and use it as a caution against reading too far into what happened with Juraj Slafkovsky Saturday.

On the one hand, he was arguably Montreal’s best player against the Blues, and he deserves full marks for that. The 19-year-old, who was taken first overall in the 2022 Draft, scored his first goal of the season, did it just 4:01 into his first-ever game next to the Canadiens’ best players in Suzuki and Cole Caufield, and he did it after one, then two, and then three games of struggling and having his game publicly picked apart like a frog would be in ninth-grade biology class. So, good for him.

But now that Slafkovsky has raised the standard, the challenge will be for him to maintain it.

The Canadiens dropped theirs.

It’s a shame that happened after their best game in nearly two years, and that it happened in consecutive games against teams who were playing their second game in as many nights while the Canadiens were rested.

They know.

“I think we deserved what we got tonight,” said St. Louis. “Our execution wasn’t really there. Intentions were ok, but execution wasn’t, and we played with too much risk.”

Mike Matheson started it off trying to dangle a guy at the offensive blue line while the Canadiens had no backpressure to counter the risk he was taking, and Blues forward Jordan Kyrou made him pay for it 1:24 into the game.

The rest of it was rough for Matheson, and it wasn’t much better for the Canadiens, who turned the puck over and got caught in transition so many times we lost count.

Matheson has been up and down, the Canadiens have been up and down, and that’s why he has two goals and seven points but is minus-3 and why they are suddenly 5-4-2 after an unexpectedly strong start to the season.

Slafkovsky had a great training camp and a strong start to the season. He even maintained it for a few games after his centreman, Kirby Dach, suffered a season-ending knee injury — a fact blurred by his point totals not rising in large part due to Josh Anderson failing to finish any of the rush chances Slafkovsky set for him.

But the narrative after three tough games shifted to Slafkovksy not being able to play at this level.

Not internally, though.

“It felt pretty unfair,” said Suzuki about the public discourse around Slafkovsky’s game this week. “He missed a lot of the season last year and doesn’t have that many NHL games under his belt, so I think that’s just a young guy just trying to find his way. And I think people have high expectations, obviously, for a first-overall pick, but I thought he was playing well in training camp and had a lot of chemistry with Dacher. And since (Dach) went out, he was trying to find some with somebody else.

“He’s a really good player, he’s going to be one for a long time.”

It’s too soon to say Slafkovsky reached another step in that process on Saturday — scoring early, matching a career-high four shots on net in the game, setting plays for his linemates and making strong ones on the man-advantage — but this game did the young Slovak some good.

The decision St. Louis made to put Slafkovsky with Suzuki and Caufield sparked that, providing an immediate boost of confidence for Slafkovsky when he told him about it Saturday morning.

“Playing with players like those,” Slafkovsky said, “you know you’re going to get a lot of touches and play in the o-zone, so it just helps a lot.”

Now the six-foot-three, 230-pound winger needs to build on that.

“I thought he touched (the puck) a lot, and did some good things with it,” said St. Louis. “He looked comfortable. For me, I thought that, whenever he was on the ice, I felt that something was happening, and a lot of it had to do with some of his play, some of his decisions. And I feel like the one thing that he’s done a lot this year, at least, and he’s made a tremendous improvement in is his play away from the puck defensively.”

Caution: “He still has holes, he’s still a 19-year-old,” St. Louis said.

“But I feel comfortable because he’s aware defensively,” he continued. “And playing on that line, you’re going to get tougher matchups, and he was not exposed in that department tonight. And I wasn’t expecting him to be. Offensively, really happy for him.”

The coach was thrilled for the team on Monday, even though it lost in a shootout.

He should’ve been. The Canadiens worked as hard as they could, and they worked as smart as they have in any game they’ve played under his watch.

But they still have far to come to play that way more often than not.

“It’s an everyday thing,” said St. Louis. “It’s not like once in a while you want to be consistent in this game, it’s an everyday thing.”

The younger you are, the more you need to be reminded of that.

You also can’t get too caught up in the hype when you play well. And just as important is not getting bogged down in the criticism.

Slafkovsky’s ability to keep all of that in perspective is probably a big part of the reason he played well on Saturday.

“I focus on my game, I don’t really follow the media, I don’t have Facebook, don’t have Twitter, don’t have much media,” he said after he was asked about the outside noise pumping at full volume about his game this week. “Just have Instagram, and people don’t talk bad stuff on Instagram luckily. I just focus every practice and every time I go out on the ice, just focus on myself and just trying to build my game.”

St. Louis gave him a boost, and he used it to score a goal and play well.

“It’s good to get the first one, and I’m just trying to get my game back and this helped a lot,” said Slafkovsky. “And playing with good players like Suzy and Cole helps a lot, and I’m just building my confidence again, and it’s going a good way. I had a few hard matches, but every player goes through ups and downs. I’m just focusing on the next one, and I don’t look back at all.”

He has to continue doing that, and so do the Canadiens after a week of ups and downs.