What to do with Juraj Slafkovsky? Send him back to Laval, show him the bridge, assign him to another trio? That’s kind of the question everyone is asking after the difficult night he had against the Jets on Saturday night.

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A game in which he committed turnovers, made questionable decisions and fell almost every time he was involved in a duel for the puck.

In eight games since the start of this season, the Slovakian has only picked up one point. He hasn’t reached the goal since 1^um December 2022, in Calgary. A 29-game losing streak for the man whose last season ended abruptly on January 15th.

That’s why you wonder if he’s not treading water.

What if it was less serious than the bigger picture usually shows?

A simple question to our friends at Sportlogiq, a company specializing in advanced statistics, shows that there is still some progress in the game of the very first pick of the 2022 draft compared to last year.

He controls the puck better in the opponent’s territory, attempts more passes towards the slot and enters the zone with more control.

“If Josh Anderson had been able to take advantage of the opportunities created by Slafkovsky, he could have easily scored three to five points more,” say our colleagues from the law firm.

Contrary to what you might think, the Slovakian is winning more fights than last year.

“With 44.2% wins this season, Slafkovsky ranks eighth in the NHL among players with at least 50 minutes played,” the results show.

On the other hand, we see a decline in his shot attempts despite receiving a lot of passes in the slot.

The reality of youth

This latest data shows that the young man suffers from an inferiority complex or a lack of self-confidence. We had good evidence of this on Saturday when he attempted a pass to Alex Newhook instead of turning and taking a shot while alone at the top of the slot.

But five days earlier, in Buffalo, he had been all fire, all flames. We then wondered if he had simply shifted gears.

Consistency is one of the hardest things to develop in the NHL. And when you’re 19 – we shouldn’t forget that in the Slafkovsky case – this applies even more.

Could part of the solution be the imminent return of Christian Dvorak, who can resume his position from Saturday in St-Louis?

One thing is certain: this return will provide the Canadian head coach with new options. He will certainly choose one of the three quoted at the beginning of the text.

2023-2024 vs. 2022-2023

Time of possession
in the offensive zone 0:35 0:31

Zone inputs 5.8 3.6

1v1 battles
won 4.0 2.3

Passes completed/attempted
in the offensive zone 8.7/14.7 8.6/13.5

Passes completed/attempted
towards the enclave 0.87/3.7 0.76/2.3

Passport receptions
in the enclave 2.5 1.4

Shot attempts 3.7 4.3

Shots from the bottom of the slot 0.17 0.46

One-off 0.35 0.63

Goal chances 2.3 2.0