Stu Cowan: Canadiens offer insight into why they made Slafkovsky No. 1

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Juraj Slafkovsky knew the Canadiens were interested in him heading into this year’s NHL draft — he just didn’t know how much.

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During an interview with reporters after meeting with Canadiens management at the NHL scouting combine in Buffalo in June, Slafkovsky said: “I think they were interested. I didn’t have a dinner, but I think the talk we had was maybe, to me, tasted better than dinner.”

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Slafkovsky then flashed a big smile and drew laughter from the journalists in attendance.

The Canadiens recently released a fantastic behind-the-scenes video shining a light on how they eventually decided to take Slafkovsky with the No. 1 overall pick at the NHL draft on July 7 at the Bell Center after taking Shane Wright out for dinner in Buffalo.

Wright, the top-rated prospect heading into the draft, ended up going to the Seattle Kraken with the No. 4 pick after the Canadiens took Slafkovsky, the New Jersey Devils took Simon Nemec at No. 2 and the Arizona Coyotes took Logan Cooley at No. 3.

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The video the Canadiens released includes interviews with players at the scouting combine. In the interview with Slafkovsky, the Canadiens learned he left home in Slovakia at age 14 to pursue his hockey career and was living in an apartment by himself at 15 while playing for TPS Turku and doing his own cooking.

“I just had my mom on the phone the whole time,” Slafkovsky said. “So I called her and she told me what to do and when it’s good. That’s how I learned (to cook).”

When asked what he knew about Montreal, Slafkovsky responded: “When you’re good, it’s fun to play in front of the fans. But then if some things are not working out, it’s also pretty hard.”

He was then asked: “What do you think about that?”

“It comes with that and I just need to make sure I play well if I’m there,” Slafkovsky responded with a laugh.

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The video also takes fans inside the meeting with all the Canadiens scouts on July 5 at Montreal’s Renaissance Hotel. GM Kent Hughes tells the scouts that he has been going back-and-forth with Jeff Gorton — the executive vice-president of hockey operations — and Lapointe about who they should take with the No. 1 pick.

“There’s no wrong answer, whether it’s Cooley, whether it’s Shane Wright, whether it’s Slafkovsky and whether there’s another player out there that somebody thinks has more upside,” Hughes tells the scouts, adding they need to put position aside and decide which player they want. believe has the most upside as an NHL player down the road, not today.

While watching the video it becomes clear the Canadiens have a lot of smart people within their new hockey-operations group — led by Gorton and Hughes — as they look to rebuild a team that had the worst record in the NHL last season.

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“I don’t know Wright, but I know Slafkovsky,” Christer Rockstrom, the chief European scout, said during the meeting. “And another reason is I want some of the other guys, smaller guys. But he’s a big horse (6-foot-3 and 227 pounds) and that’s why I would go with him because it’s a piece of the puzzle that falls.”

Christopher Boucher, hired in May as the first director of hockey analytics in Canadiens history, adds: “If picking Slafkovsky means that we don’t start drafting guys later for size … because I think that’s where teams make mistakes. Where we start drafting guys because they’re 6-2 and one guy is 6-foot. We say: ‘Oh, well, we need size, we need size.’ If that stops us from doing that it’s already a win, for me anyways.”

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None of the next four players the Canadiens drafted after Slafkovsky — Filip Mesar, Owen Beck, Lane Hutson and Vincent Rohrer — is taller than 6-foot, but they are all skilled.

Nick Bobrov, the Canadiens’ new co-director of amateur scouting, notes at the meeting that hockey historians are already paying attention to Slafkovsky, who played at the IIHF World Hockey Championship as a 16-year-old, something that is unprecedented, and followed that up with strong performances at this year’s world championship with 3-6-9 totals in eight games and was also named MVP at the Olympics after scoring seven goals in seven games as Slovakia won a bronze medal.

Bobrov points out that Slafkovsky started the Olympics on the fourth line and then worked his way up to the No. 1 line.

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“He just has that personality to want to take the bull by the horns,” Bobrov says. “He wants to own the moment, the situation.”

Bobrov adds that Slafkovsky is used to dealing with pressure because he has been dubbed “The Next One” in Slovakia for the last three or four years with the weight of 5 million Slovakians on his shoulders.

“What we are looking for is talent and mental resilience,” Bobrov says. “It’s hard to play in this market. It’s hard to excel in this market.”

The Canadiens believe Slafkovsky can do both of those things.

That’s why they took him with the No. 1 pick.

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