The Canadiens’ Juraj Slafkovsky had to grow up fast.
At age 14, Slafkovsky left his family home in Kosice, Slovakia, to attend the Red Bull Academy in Austria, which trains youngsters in hockey and soccer. Slafkovsky had a roommate during his one year there.
The next year, Slafkovsky moved to Finland to play for the TPS U16 team.
In Finland, Slafkovsky lived by himself in an apartment. He was 15!
I’m the father of two kids in their early 20s still living at home, and that’s hard to imagine. Slafkovsky said moving away from home at such a young age was harder on his mother than it was on him.
“I was happy,” Slafkovsky said with a big smile after he scored a goal in the Canadiens’ first scrimmage of training camp Thursday in Brossard. “See ya!”
But it wasn’t easy for Slafkovsky, either.
“It was hard,” he said. “But I have a really good relationship with my parents, so I would just call them every day. There was one other player, (Samuel) Knazko, drafted by Columbus (in the third round of the 2020 NHL Draft). He lived down the street, so if we didn’t have something we’d meet up and cook dinner together.”
Slafkovsky would cook most of his meals by himself, as well as doing his own laundry and all the other things that come with living alone. Again, he was 15!
There were no laundry facilities at the rink, so Slafkovsky would have to bring his sweaty gear back to his apartment after practices and games and wash it himself.
“No dryer, so hang it,” he said.
Having to grow up so quickly helped Slafkovsky prepare for coming to Montreal after the Canadiens selected him with the No. 1 overall pick at the 2022 NHL Draft.
“It wasn’t as hard for me to move overseas and all the time change and being without my parents,” Slafkovsky said about making the jump directly to the NHL. “It probably would have been way harder if I was living at home my whole life and then had to when I was 18 come here. I already knew how is it to be alone.”
Slafkovsky lived with a family in Montreal during his rookie season, but there must have been times when he really felt alone as he struggled to find his game in the NHL, posting 4-6-10 totals in 39 games before suffering a season-ending knee injury.
Slafkovsky struggled again at the start of last season and in early November I wrote a column with the headline: “Canadiens’ Juraj Slafkovsky doesn’t look NHL ready.” I noted that the NHL game seemed to be moving too fast for him to process and that he looked confused on the ice, suggesting it was time to send him to the AHL’s Laval Rocket. The Canadiens had played 10 games at the time and Slafkovsky had one assist and only 10 shots on goal.
“If you still look at my first season and probably 25, 30 games of the second season, I was lost out there,” Slafkovsky said Thursday. “Just still trying to figure it out. I was mad after games because I knew I know how to play hockey. I just couldn’t translate my game.”
Canadiens management still believed the best place for Slafkovsky’s development was the NHL and they were right. Slafkovsky would finish the season with 20-30-50 totals while playing in all 82 games. He had 16-19-35 totals in the last 41 games while playing on the No. 1 line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield and his confidence grew — which he said was the key.
“Thankfully, we have great coaches and everyone around helped me to translate my game, find my game,” the always affable Slafkovsky said. “It’s there, but it’s not where I want to be. It’s not there where I want it to be yet.”
Where does he want it to be?
“Well, I only had 50 points, no?” he said about last season. “We’ll see what I can do this year. I want to be the best.
“Points and team wins,” he added about his goals for this season. “When you get enough team wins then you probably also have enough points and then you’re battling for something bigger and that’s most important.”
Slafkovsky lived by himself last season and recently moved into a new apartment in Montreal. Filip Mesar, Slafkovsky’s childhood friend from Slovakia who the Canadiens also selected in the first round of the 2022 NHL Draft (26th overall), visited the apartment recently and told reporters at rookie camp that it had four bedrooms.
That became a big story in Slovakia — like everything Slafkovsky does. He noted that the media spotlight on him back home is much brighter than it is in Montreal and it can sometimes get outrageous.
“I have three bedrooms, first of all,” Slafkovsky said. “He said four. And now in Slovak media they say, ‘Oh, Juraj Slafkovsky bought a new luxurious apartment in Montreal.’ ”
Slafkovsky has learned to handle the pressure in Montreal and back home.
He’s still only 20 — but he’s mature way beyond those years.