This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Juraj Slafkovský
Montreal Canadiens Left Wing
6-3 and 225 pounds at 21, and 56 per cent of his shots taken from inside 20 feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | MTL | 39 | 4 | 6 | 10 | -13 | 33 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 9.5 | 12:13 |
| 2023-24 | MTL | 82 | 20 | 30 | 50 | -19 | 55 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 152 | 13.2 | 17:56 |
| 2024-25 | MTL | 79 | 18 | 33 | 51 | +4 | 45 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 133 | 13.5 | 17:21 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 200 | 42 | 69 | 111 | -28 | 133 | 12 | 0 | 3 | 327 | 12.8 | 16:35 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
18 goals and 33 assists in 79 games for 51 points, plus-4, on 17:21 a night.
49.7 per cent at five-on-five, the 49th percentile, with on-ice goals of 59-44 against an expected 47.9-48.6 — 12 goals missing at one end and 6 too many at the other. 56 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet at a median of 17, the most interior profile on the club.
The Finesse Game
A power forward’s frame with a playmaker’s instincts, which is the unusual combination. 33 assists in 79 games is the more encouraging half — he holds the puck on the wall, waits, and finds the seam, and the hands work in traffic.
133 shots is a low volume for a top-six winger and 13.5 per cent conversion is a fair rate from those distances. The shot itself is ordinary and it is the reason a man who gets to the paint this often scored only 18.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 225 at 21, and he has learned to use it. He protects pucks below the goal line, wins the wall, and goes to the net front without being asked — none of which was reliable two seasons ago.
45 penalty minutes over 79 games. Three consecutive seasons above 75 games at this age and size is a good sign.
The Intangibles
The 1st overall pick in 2022, a difficult first season that produced a great deal of noise, and steady improvement since without ever looking like a franchise forward.
At 21 there is time and the shot chart is the reason for optimism — a man taking 56 per cent of his attempts from the paint will score more than 18 as the release improves. The projection is a 30-goal power forward and the club needs it to arrive.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
65.8% of his attempts in the slot, 93rd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
79 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“33 assists in 79 games is the more encouraging half — he holds the puck on the wall, waits, and finds the seam, and the hands work in traffic.”
“He protects pucks below the goal line, wins the wall, and goes to the net front without being asked — none of which was reliable two seasons ago.”
“goes to the net front without being asked”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,035 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.7%
- 49th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.7%
- 49th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 59 for, 44 against. Expected: 47.9 and 48.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 31 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 78 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 79 games
- Top speed
- 22.0 mph
- 39th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.80 a game
- Distance
- 2.69 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.0 mph
- 72nd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 1035 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Suzuki75%
- Kirby Dach16%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2024-25
- The club
- MTL took 48.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.7% — 1.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,035 minutes at five-on-five — 66th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Suzuki | 51.8% | 43.3% | 50.4% |
| Cole Caufield | 50.7% | 46.9% | 48.4% |
| Mike Matheson | 45.9% | 52.7% | 47.1% |
51.8% together, 43.3% for him apart and 50.4% for Suzuki apart. He was worse away from Suzuki, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Suzuki did.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
222 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 18 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 56% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.