Should Juraj Slafkovsky be considered in a slump? Two of the Montreal Canadiens' top six players have been having a rough go of it this season; Juraj Slafkovsky and Kirby Dach are trying to find themselves and it's not been pretty to watch. The former produced more when he was playing on the top line with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki, but for a while now, he's been paired up with the latter. As for Dach, he's moved up and down the lineup and he's even played at center and on the wing. When coach Martin St-Louis was asked if he was a center earlier this season, he replied he didn't know, that he needed more time to assess the question. Yesterday, the coach was asked how he rated his second line when it came to speed of execution and rhythm and he replied: I think they have to play quicker. Not just in the offensive zone but in our zone when we have the puck and when we don’t have the puck, just generally, they have to play a bit faster. You can see during games that they have their moments, you want to see that more consistently. They'll be able to do that more consistently if they are faster both with and without the puck so that they can all help one another. When they to that, they're tough to play against. No one can argue with St-Louis there, the need for speed is visible. The question is though, can they really provide it on their own on a consistent basis? While it's great to see a line with such big bodies, it may not hurt to have a better balance on the top six. The bench boss came to the same conclusion in the evening when he decided to reunite is former first line and inject some speed in his second line by putting Newhook there. Slafkovsky was more productive when he played with Suzuki and Caufield and he could use that chemistry right now. Meanwhile, if there's one thing that Alex Newhook has, it's speed. Putting him with Dach and Patrik Laine might just help them both, even if the effect wasn't immediate. I can understand wanting to see things through, but after four and a half games with Laine on the second line, he only had one point at even strength and it came at even strength, on a sequence when they opposing netminder turned the puck over [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/anaheim-ducks/game-day/takeaways-from-the-ducks-3-2-shootout-loss-to-the-canadiens]. It was time to make that change and hopefully, St-Louis will give it time to take. Follow Karine on X @KarineHains [https://x.com/KarineHains] Bluesky @karinehains.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/karinehains.bsky.social] and Threads @karinehains [https://www.threads.net/@karinehains] Bookmark The Hockey News Canadiens' page [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/montreal-canadiens/] for all the news and happenings around the Canadiens
