Renaud Lavoie: “It’s not even close” between Juraj Slafkovský and Logan Cooley

Over the past few weeks, there’s been a lot of talk about Juraj Slafkovský’s emergence in Montreal, and with good reason. The young Slovak is progressing at a breathtaking pace, looking more and more like a solid NHL player.

Yesterday, Slaf showed just how far he’s come, with two high-quality goals against the Capitals. A good wrist shot, then a cannonball on the power play.

Having said that, let’s not forget that two months ago, the narrative surrounding Slafkovský was quite different. At the time, many Montreal fans saw Logan Cooley being solid in Arizona… and with Slaf pulling out all the stops, it looked bad.

But since then, the Slovak has taken his game up a notch, while Cooley has slowed down a bit…

And in his JiC column of the day, Renaud Lavoie made a pretty strong statement: for him, “it’s not even close” between Slafkovský and Cooley.

Of course, it’s easy to get carried away with what Slafkovský has accomplished in recent weeks, and it’s true that the Habs must be proud of their choice at the moment…

But let’s not forget that, despite everything, Slaf has 22 points in 50 games in his second NHL season, while Cooley has 25 in 48 games.

I know points don’t tell the whole story, but they do help put things into context.

If I had to choose between the two, I also think that Slafkovský’s recent emergence would make me opt for him. He’s got the size, his improvement is noticeable (Lavoie actually attributes some of it to Glen Tucker, also known as Dr. Shot, who is an expert at helping guys improve their pitching and has been working with Slafkovský in recent weeks), but Cooley isn’t a celery stalk either.

The reality is probably that the two guys are on a pretty similar level. At this point, it’s a matter of preference… and I get the impression that both the Habs and the Coyotes are happy with their player.

That said, the simple fact that the narrative has evolved like this since the start of the season is a great sign for the Habs, because it wasn’t that long ago that Cooley was really eating Slafkovský up.

In bursts

– Speaking of Slafkovský and “Dr. Shot”.

– There are a few interesting points in there.

– Still.

– Great read.