The numbers show that Juraj Slafkovsky is playing worse than in the first half of the season last year

Will the game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday finally mean the awakening of Juraj Slafkovsky? Everyone hopes so, since his play since the start of the season is worse than at the same time last year, when he had a more than difficult start before his big breakthrough, according to data provided by Sportlogiq.

• Also read: “It was definitely a wake-up call” – Juraj Slafkovsky

There’s no doubt that with a goal and an assist on Wednesday, a ton of pressure fell on the big man’s shoulders.^o 20. The smile he showed after scoring his second goal of the season and which he kept until answering questions from journalists in the team locker room bears witness to this.

“There was a lot of consistency in his game tonight,” assured Martin St-Louis after the game, speaking of Slafkovsky.

Revealing figures

This is positive to hear, since his game has not been glorious since the start of the year.

But, if you watch the games, you know that Juraj Slafkovsky is nothing like the dominant player from the second half of last season.

The fans say it, the journalists say it, Slafkovsky himself has admitted it on several occasions and Martin St-Louis has even cracked down, going so far as to bench him against these same Blue Jackets last week, before relegating him to the team’s fourth trio on Tuesday night against the Utah hockey club.

“It’s not just about working hard, it’s about doing what game asks you. Sometimes it’s about working hard and sometimes it’s about making the right decisions. It takes more,” explained Martin St-Louis at the end of Monday’s training, also speaking of another who is having a modest start to the season, to say the least, Kirby Dach.

We still asked our friends at Sportlogiq to demonstrate it to us, on paper, with concrete figures.

What more should he do thangame» ask him? Ultimately, is the player who just received a lucrative eight-year, $60.8M contract playing that badly?

The quick answer: according to the numbers, yes.

And they are quite striking, since Slafkovsky presents worse statistics than last year in all the offensive categories which allowed him to have success at the end of the 2023-2024 season.

But we suspected that.

What is surprising is that his figures since the start of the current season are also worse than those he presented at the start of the season last year, before his big breakout.

Declining data

Concretely, “Slaf” attempts and frames fewer shots on goal, he gets fewer chances to score, he directs fewer shots from the slot and completes fewer passes in the offensive zone on average per game than between the months of October and February of last year.

Yes, his number of points is better: he has 13, including two goals, in 19 games since the start of the year, an average of 0.68 per game, compared to 0.42 from October to February l last year (20 points in 49 games).

He then finished with 30 points in his last 33 games and it was on this player that CH decided to bet last summer by offering him his long contract, a year before the end of his rookie pact. .

Message entered?

Slafkovsky admitted after Wednesday’s match that his coach’s message had the effect of an electric shock, or a good old “wake-up call”, to use his exact words.

But we have to admit that it will have to be even better. Yes, he scored, but it was his only shot attempted in two games.

The majority of his numbers were equivalent to what he had shown since the start of the season.

But, sometimes, it only takes a match like the one on Wednesday for everything to unlock.