In the Habs Room: 'I thought it was Slaf's best game,' Martin St. Louis says

Canadiens’ Christian Dvorak controls the puck against Nick Leddy (4) and Robert Thomas (18) of the St. Louis Blues during the second period of the game at Enterprise Center on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022, in St Louis. Photo by Dilip Vishwanat /Getty Images

ST. LOUIS — Juraj Slafkovsky loved Christian Dvorak’s celebration after completing his first NHL hat-trick in the Canadiens’ 7-4 win over the St. Louis Blues Saturday night at the Enterprise Center.

Actually, it was Dvorak’s lack of a celebration after scoring into an empty net at the 18:25 mark for his third goal of the third period — and his third goal this season.

“That’s crazy,” Slafkovsky said about Dvorak’s cool response after his third goal. “I don’t know what’s better … the hat-trick or the celly. Most cold celly I ever seen, just standing in the corner and nothing. I would celebrate, but that’s Devo. I like that, really.”

Dvorak did have a bit of a smile on his face in the locker room after the game.

“It definitely felt good,” he said. “I was getting chirped by the guys for not smiling or anything. So they’re all over me.”

The Canadiens were all over the Blues most of this game — especially on the power play, going 2-for-3. Cole Caufield and Slafkovsky scored the power-play goals. Caufield’s was his second goal of the game. Nick Suzuki also scored for the Canadiens.

Heading into the game, the Canadiens were 1-for-24 on the power play in their first eight games.

Slafkovsky had a much bigger celebration than Dvorak with a big fist pump after scoring his second goal in the NHL. The No. 1 overall pick at this year’s NHL draft had missed the three previous games with an upper-body injury and this was the first game that head coach Martin St. Louis had used the 18-year-old on the second power-play unit.

“I thought it was Slaf’s best game,” St. Louis said. “Not because he scored, not because he plays on the power play. I feel like every shift he got, like he got on base. Every shift he got, he got on base and he had his home-run ball on that power play and he took advantage of it and he scored.

“He played very strong physically tonight,” the coach added about the 6-foot-3, 238-pounder. “Like I said, it’s a process with Slaf at 18. He’s got a nice skills package, but he’s got to figure out what kind of player he’s going to be in this league, what style he’s going to have to play. He’s going through that right now and tonight we saw what we know we have in a big boy for an 18-year-old and he played like a big boy tonight.”

Slafkovsky’s power-play goal was a wicked one-timer blast from the top of the faceoff circle.

“To me, the power play’s all about where’s the advantage?” St. Louis said “Obviously, we’re five-on-four, but where’s the advantage on the ice and that changes all the time. So can you figure out the five guys, where’s the advantage now? Because in three seconds, five seconds, it might be different where the advantage is and you have to recognize that and play into where the advantage is. I thought we did that tonight.”

Caufield said the power play executed well. When asked what the Canadiens did to finally execute with the man advantage in this game, he said with a cold stare: “The game plan. I’ll leave it at that.”

Caufield’s power-play goal came off an incredible seeing-eye pass from Suzuki. Caufield described it as “Spooky Suzuki.”

“I know he’s over there somewhere,” Suzuki said about Caufield, who now has seven goals in nine games this season, tied for second in the NHL behind the Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid, who has nine.. “He’s always ready to shoot. His shot radius is pretty big for how big he is. Just get it over to that side. Saw him coming downhill. Had a nice seam with a little pick in front. It’s a good power-play goal.”

Suzuki added that getting two power-play goals against a team that ranked fifth in the NHL in penalty-killing last season with an 84.1 per cent success rate should give the Canadiens a boost moving forward.

The three goals for Dvorak should also provide him with a boost.

“Sometimes the puck doesn’t bounce your way,” he said. “You can’t get frustrated when that happens. Stick with it and things will turn.”

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