Best Slovak U20 player: Dalibor Dvorsky beats Juraj Slafkovsky

Dalibor Dvorsky’s name was being discussed in Montreal towards the end of June. Why was this?

Because there was some speculation as to whether the Canadiens would select him with the fifth overall pick of the last draft. In the end, the club turned to David Reinbacher.

But I’m telling you about Dvorsky today because he’s received a great honour. He was voted Slovakia’s best U20 player, ahead of Juraj Slafkovsky and Simon Nemec.

The latter both played in North America during the 2022-2023 season. Slaf played a total of 39 games with the CH before seeing his season cut short by injury…

As for Nemec, he had a superb year with the New Jersey Devils training club. He tallied 34 points in 65 games, a formidable output for a 19-year-old defenseman making his small-ice debut.

It’s rare to see a youngster win this kind of honor when other players his age are playing in better professional leagues.

But all in all, Dvorksy didn’t steal anything. He had a great season in Sweden, was drafted 10th overall in the last draft (St. Louis) and completely dominated the World Under-18 Championship with 13 points (eight goals) in just seven games.

Well-deserved, then.

We can agree that it would have been surprising to see Slafkovsky get his hands on “the prize” because he wasn’t able to play the whole of last season in Montreal. That said, Nemec was also a logical candidate for the title of Slovakia’s best U20 player, for the reasons given at the start of this article.

Oh well.

Slowly but surely, Slovakia will begin to be well represented in the NHL. Slaf, Nemec and Dvorsky have all been selected in the top-10 in the last two drafts, and if the trend continues, the country will have good players playing in the best field hockey league on earth.

It’s great to see… And it shows, once again, that the sport is growing in every corner of the globe.

Highlights

– Oops. Canada loses its first World Cup game in basketball.

– It’s reasonable.

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Cc: @NHLFantasy

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– Whoa.

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– Two files to keep an eye on soon.