Juraj Slafkovsky

The youngest player to play in the 2019-20 World Junior Tournament. He is huge and has great size, and tools to project him as future NHLer.  Nice pieces that need time to fall in place.

First, I think he is more of a left handed Right wing than a centre.

He is a tall long strider. He can get to his top speed quickly and receives pucks even harder ones well.

Where centre Kopitar has always had size( in my opinion) with edge, this kid is over 220 lbs. and almost Six Four and is great using his reach and physical edge on the cycle to maintain possession, but he is not is any way/shape/ form a banger, a guy who when his side is down attempts to exert physicality to get things going, although he plants himself well in front. (Not saying fight, or dirty it up). Last year I would have called him basically a shooter. He has improved recognition and awareness (Olympics was a reaffirmation of that aspect.) and is vision now has progressed to not just being that shoot first forward, and gets the open man there puck pretty effortlessly. His hand a real soft and that is a real plus, and he he shoots without slowing or having to cradle before letting it fly.  He looks more of a wing...he will fend off defenders but for a big guy there is little in the way of the physicality we have even seen from Dach. 

Before the Slovakian teams Bronze medal in the Olympics, few would have bumped him up as possible top two selection, because it is clear is his set skills are much farther behind the likes of Kaapo Kakko and Mikko Rantanen when they were selected high in their draft years. He was relegated to a checking line role with TPS in Liiga (Finnish pro league), which might account for the low point totals, but whichever team drafts him in the early first round are at very least getting a large physical package with decent that may just blossom as an NHL mainstay scorer, the likes of a Kopiter.

--Bill Placzek--