Canadiens weekly notebook: Slafkovský’s adjustment; a Gator origin story; Hutson-ese – The Athletic

When Juraj Slafkovský led Slovakia to the bronze medal game at the Olympics and was named to the tournament all-star team, it was worth wondering if the Montreal Canadiens would benefit from a bit of a bump from their burgeoning power winger.

It didn’t happen.

Unlike Nick Suzuki, who returned from Milan on fire, it took Slafkovský some time to find the level he displayed at the Olympics. Perhaps some of it had to do with what Slovakia needed from him, and how different that was from what the Canadiens need from him.

It was hard for him to make the adjustment back to this environment.

“Yeah, kind of,” he said. “I feel like here, the game is more about the details, and I don’t know, over there I was maybe sometimes trying to do too much. Here I feel like you can let the puck do the work a little bit more.”

Does he trust his teammates more here?

“Well, I trusted my teammates over there too, but over there, I don’t know, I was doing way too much at times and losing the puck,” he said. “But here, we have more guys, we have way more depth, we have more guys that can do whatever I was trying to do. And so sometimes doing a give-and-go with someone is probably easier than doing some kind of spin-o-rama s—. I had to get back into the good mindset.”

Slafkovský may have trusted his Slovak teammates, but there was clearly an expectation on him to do more with the puck on his stick in Milan, whereas in Montreal he can move the puck and move himself with the firm expectation he will be getting it back.

“I was playing slower,” Slafkovský said. “Because over there I would sometimes get the puck and go back in my own zone and try to get the speed whereas here, if I give-and-go with someone I can probably get on my horse quicker.”

It also says something about how Martin St. Louis coaches this team that he didn’t feel the need to step in and directly intervene. He trusted Slafkovský to figure it out on his own.

“I don’t know if there were conversations. We talk,” St. Louis said. “I feel Slaf had been through a lot, going to the Olympics, he took some big hits and he played through all that, and traveling back, jumping back in games. He probably wasn’t as good as he wanted to be in the first few games, but when you’ve gone through all that, I think as a coach you have to have emotional awareness to just let him get through that a little bit.”

Slafkovský has found his game again after the brief adjustment period. With enough time having passed since the incredible hockey experience of the Olympics, he was asked to explain his feelings after losing the bronze medal game to Finland, when Slafkovský was about as angry as we’ve ever seen him. He equated the loss to finishing last in the tournament.

With the benefit of a few weeks to gain a bit of perspective on what Slovakia accomplished at a best-on-best event, Slafkovský is still disappointed at the opportunity missed.

“I was pissed and sad at the same time, because we don’t have that chance so often, like Finland has,” he said. “For us, it’s probably the third time we played in the bronze medal game as Slovakia, so I was pissed because I felt we could have done more, we could have played way smarter like we played at the beginning of the tournament.

“There’s stuff that happens you can’t really change, but we should have been way more confident. We maybe gave them too much respect. Once you’re there, I feel like you’ve got to trust yourself that you earned it to be here and you’ve got to go play the game like you want to win it.”

Slafkovský will be 25 when the Olympics come to Nice, France in 2030. He will be in the prime of his career, as will countrymen Simon Nemec and Dalibor Dvorský, the future of Slovak hockey. Slafkovský finished tied for fourth in Olympic scoring with eight points in six games, a number he hopes to improve on in four years.

“I should definitely be better,” he said. “Hopefully I get eight-teen points.”

Gator origins

Jacob Fowler grew up in Melbourne, Fla., about a three-hour drive from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Fowler is not a big Florida Gators fan, but he still has the nickname Gator.

Unlike most hockey players, Fowler did not get his nickname from teammates. He got it from a broadcaster.

Mark Citron calls games for the Chicago Steel of the USHL. He nicknamed Macklin Celebrini “Cheetah” when the San Jose Sharks superstar played in Chicago. And after a series of strong performances against the Steel, Citron dubbed Fowler as “Gator” when he played for Youngstown.

“I mean, he was unbelievable when we played,” Celebrini said Saturday morning before scorching the Canadiens for three points in a 4-2 win that night. “At the level I was (at the time), he was probably the hardest goalie to score on.”

Celebrini particularly remembers facing Fowler in the second round of the 2023 USHL playoffs, the year Fowler led Youngstown to the championship.

“In the playoffs we played them, I got injured, but he let in one goal in the last two games and they won the series,” Celebrini said.

Celebrini did play the first two games of that series, a split in Chicago, and didn’t beat Fowler once.

Fowler said the nickname faded a bit as he moved on to Boston College — where he faced Celebrini with Boston University often — but says it was Laval Rocket coach Pascal Vincent who brought it back to prominence. There is an alligator pattern on the top of his goalie mask as a nod to the nickname.

“I like it,” Fowler said Saturday morning. “Not too many guys have an animal as a nickname.”

Hutson’s hockey language

At one point during Lane Hutson’s rookie season last year, Kaiden Guhle mentioned overhearing a conversation between Hutson and St. Louis and not understanding a thing they were saying.

Talking to Hutson about hockey can have that effect on people. Hutson will go into extreme detail, and when he can’t quite verbalize what he’s thinking, he will use his hands to help with the explanation of what he’s trying to express.

Take a morning skate before facing the Toronto Maple Leafs last week, a game in which Hutson played on the right side of the defence with Guhle after months of playing on the left at an elite level.

We asked him if he finds it easier to quickly transition from defence to offence on the left side because he can come out of a puck battle on his forehand, ready to attack.

“Uhhh, maybe,” he said. “I feel like there’s always different things that are good both ways. It could be easier to get up and join them on my strong side, but on my off side, any puck reception I get on that side, I feel like I’m always in a threatening position, whether it’s in a regroup or anything, because I can go either way a little bit easier.

“It’s easier to get guys to commit there, and it’s easier to get guys to commit to the inside because can I pull it, and look inside and then come outside too,” he said.

What he meant is that on the right side, because he comes down the wall in the offensive zone on his backhand, he has the threat of pulling to his forehand and cutting inside. That can open up options not available on the strong side.

Later that evening against the Maple Leafs, Hutson did just that in the first period, cutting to his forehand off the wall in the offensive zone to make a play to the middle.

After practice on Friday, Hutson was asked if he regularly talks about things he might do based on video he has watched to prepare for an opponent.

“Pretty regularly, especially on game day because you know what their structure is,” Hutson said. “But when I’m in the moments, it’s kind of like, where is the space? Because sometimes, I’m going to want to be coming to the middle all the time to get the space, but if the space isn’t there, I’m going to go down the wall if I see it. So it’s not like a conscious effort all the time, but I do want to get it to the middle when I’m on my off side, or try to threaten middle and if there’s a shot there, take it. And if not, then I can always, kind of, set up a trap so I can go down the wall.”

Hmmm, set up a trap?

“It’s like, see space, take it,” Hutson said. “But sometimes you don’t want to because you’ve got to leave it for yourself, I guess.”

What?

“Like, after you drag a guy out, if you want to drag a guy out, especially on my off side,” Hutson patiently explained to a hockey dummy. “So I won’t always attack to my backhand, because I’m on my backhand. So if I know there’s space there, I’m trying to threaten to leave that space for myself. Even if there’s not much space up top to go anyways, he’s going to have to protect it. So I can get out by spinning or just kind of pull him out there.”

Translation, as I understand it, and I think I do: When Hutson is on his off side, even if he sees space to attack the inside, he won’t always do so immediately. He will do something that makes that space even more dangerous. In this case, he’s talking about sucking a defender out toward the blue line in the offensive zone, essentially creating more of that dangerous space by forcing the defender away from it, only to find a way to get back to that space, thus saving it for himself.

These are the kinds of conversations Hutson has with St. Louis, that can leave Guhle shaking his head as he walks away.

“Marty talks about it too. Like structures, he talks about how to pick it apart,” Hutson said. “We try to not leave anything hidden. We talk about everything so that there’s nothing we aren’t hitting.”