MONTREAL — There are parallels to be drawn here, a big win for the Montreal Canadiens on home ice against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night and the fingerprints left all over that win by Juraj Slafkovský.
Because one win, one night when the Canadiens were diligent and executed and avoided neutral zone turnovers and controlled large swaths of the game and played a responsible third period, is a positive night, but it is ultimately one night. The Canadiens had a similarly positive Saturday night against the Utah Mammoth two weeks earlier, an emphatic 6-2 win against a team that looks like the Canadiens’ Western Conference mirror image, but that turned out to be an outlier more than anything else.
Which is what makes their next game, Wednesday night in Utah against the Mammoth, very significant. It will be an opportunity to prove that this 5-2 win against the Maple Leafs is not an outlier.
One of the ways the Canadiens can do that is if they get the version of Slafkovský they got Saturday night, or the version they had Monday night in Columbus. Two out of the three games Slafkovský has played since coach Martin St. Louis moved him from the top line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield and placed him with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov have been two of the best games Slafkovský has played this season, the one exception being the 8-4 loss to the Washington Capitals on Thursday.
This version of Slafkovský is tantalizing, much like the version of the Canadiens we saw Saturday is tantalizing. But before getting overly tantalized, you have to see it again. And again.
And again.
“Tonight, to me, was one of his best games of the season,” St. Louis said. “That’s his standard, and we try to keep him there. When he plays like that, he makes you want that all the time. We’re going to keep trying to do that. I think for any young player, the last box to check is consistency. They show their ceiling, and it’s hard to find that consistency at a young age. But that’s what we’re after.”
St. Louis could have given the same answer when talking about his team. This is not to suggest Slafkovský has some sort of oversized burden to ensure his team plays well, but it does suggest that a young team struggling to find consistency is a normal thing, just as it is a normal thing for a young player.
But more generally, Slafkovský does have a burden to become the best version of himself, something he feels deeply and something he identified as a priority this season.
“I would say maybe so far,” he said on the final day of training camp, “this is the most important (year of my career).”
His initial reaction to being removed from the top line was quite telling. Speaking after practice Wednesday, Slafkovský met the move with enthusiasm and excitement, which is somewhat counterintuitive. Who doesn’t want to play with the team’s best offensive players?
But Slafkovský asked another pertinent question after the game against the Maple Leafs that explains that enthusiasm he felt after practice Wednesday.
“Who doesn’t like to carry the puck?” he said. “I feel like it helps me, helps my game, I feel more confident after that.”
His line with Kapanen and Demidov has a combined 283 games of NHL experience, and Slafkovský accounts for 221 of them.
“I want to lead the boys and show by example, not just talk about it here. That’s pointless,” he said. “Not every shift is going to be like that; some shifts, other guys are going to dominate.
“But I want to be the guy.”
Being the guy is what Slafkovský knows. He’s been the guy his whole life, more or less. He’s the guy in his country, and as the very first draft pick of this Canadiens rebuild, he’s expected to be the guy here.
One game will not make him the guy, and he’s still sitting at 10 points in 21 games this season, hardly numbers that make him the guy.
But his role on this line with Kapanen and Demidov provides him with a path to being the guy, particularly his nascent chemistry with Demidov, who has all the potential in the world to be the guy.
“Kappi is good around the net. I feel like he has a good shot when he pops in those soft areas,” Slafkovský said. “And Demi’s good all over the place, his cutbacks and stuff. I feel like if me and Demi play a little catch, and then look on the inside, it can be really effective.”
That is, basically, what Suzuki and Caufield do on their line: play catch, and Slafkovský was largely left to watch them operate and provide support where he could. If the Canadiens can have two skilled duos playing that two-man game, softening opposing defences and creating those opportunities underneath, they will be that much better off.
“I’m still learning … but I try to always open up for him down low when he carries the puck up high, because if he does something that he wants to do, he always has an option down there, he can pass the puck,” Slafkovský said of playing with Demidov. “Usually he gives it to me, and I look right back for him.”
Slafkovský actually got shifts with all four of the Canadiens’ forward lines in this game. The way he was playing, that made all the sense in the world.
“I thought he was great tonight, he made a lot of plays, a real power game,” defenceman Noah Dobson said. “I saw him taking pucks to the net; he was hard to handle down low. He’s such a big body and strong; when he’s playing that way, it’s tough on a D-man. He gets his look, and you can see his skill take over. He had a great game tonight.”
NOAH DOUBLESON#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/UEviN1y8Ux
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 23, 2025
There is a chicken-and-the-egg aspect to how Slafkovský is playing. Is it related to his being removed from the top line, or was it evident before, and that’s why he was removed from the top line?
One possible factor is matchups. Whenever John Tavares and William Nylander were sent over the boards for the Maple Leafs, Suzuki and Caufield quickly followed for the Canadiens.
That was a hard match until the game’s circumstances dictated otherwise.
Slafkovský did not have a hard match. He played underneathit and got more favourable matchups as a result.
It could be his “veteran” status on his new line that empowers him to expand his game and take charge more. It could be that a quarter of the season has passed, and he just felt it was time for him to impose himself the way he had hoped before the season.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether the chicken or the egg came first. What matters is that it continues.
“I’m not worried about how to get a player there, what factors,” St. Louis said. “You’ve just got to get him there.”
The Canadiens’ schedule is about to become grueling. They just completed a stretch of eight games out of 10 at home, and as of Wednesday in Utah, will play 16 games in a span of 28 days heading into the Christmas break.
They can’t rely solely on Suzuki and Caufield to get them through it. They need more alpha dogs.
That is what Slafkovský looked like Saturday.