Dalibor Dvorsky (54) made his NHL debut with the St. Louis Blues on Sunday Night against the Nashville Predators. (Jeff Curry-Imagn Images) [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/f70479f2-f015-43fe-8954-b999bb0e2293.jpeg] Dalibor Dvorsky (54) made his NHL debut with the St. Louis Blues on Sunday Night against the Nashville Predators. (Jeff Curry-Imagn Images) ST. LOUIS – Dalibor Dvorsky’s father, Dalibor Sr., was all set to return to his native Slovakia. The elder Dvorsky had come to the United States to visit his son, playing and playing well for the St. Louis Blues [http://thn.com/stlouis]’ American Hockey League team, the Springfield Thunderbirds. Until an unexpected change of plans that came on Saturday night. Instead of returning to Slovakia, Dvorsky’s father, like Dalibor, were booking flights to St. Louis, because Dalibor was being summoned to the NHL for the first time when the Blues recalled the No. 10 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/latest-news/blues-recall-2023-first-round-pick]. “It was awesome. Good timing, because he was about to go back home to Slovakia today,” Dalibor said of his father. “He was visiting me in Springfield. Amazing timing that I got called up at this time. “Yeah, he had to change the one (flight), but I didn’t think he minded it.” Dvorsky made his Blues debut on Sunday in a 4-1 win against the Nashville Predators [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/latest-news/three-takeaways-from-blues-4-1-win-against-predators-1] and played 10:40 centering the third line with Mathieu Joseph and Alexandre Texier. Dvorsky, who was having a solid season in Springfield with 43 points (20 goals, 23 assists) in 57 games, including 10 power-play goals, was needed in St. Louis. With Pavel Buchnevich out with illness and Oskar Sundqvist banged up needing a maintenance day to recover and Texier, who was the lone healthy forward, already in the lineup, the Blues needed reinforcements. It was time to give Dvorsky a look. “It was awesome,” Dvorsky said. “I’ve obviously been dreaming about it for a long time. I enjoyed every second of it. It was amazing. “It was a little bit of a shock (to get called up), I’m not going to lie. I didn’t really expect it, but obviously an awesome feeling. I’m real happy to be here.” Dvorsky, who was given Kelly Chase’s pads as player of the game [https://twitter.com/StLouisBlues/status/1903981962882113723], has been a highly-anticipated prospect, one of the more highly anticipated ones since the Blues drafted Robert Thomas in 2017. Once fans got wind that he would be making his debut on Sunday, they wanted to be there for his rookie lap [https://twitter.com/lkorac10/status/1903923002355712056]. “The crowd was amazing. It was awesome, and the first rookie lap also,” Dvorsky said. “All the guys in the room were great. Unbelievable experience and I’ll never forget it and also the crowd was amazing. I loved every second of it.” For a first game, Dvorsky seemed to fit in. When the puck touched his stick, he didn’t get overwhelmed. Instead, he made smart, decisive, calm plays with it. “I liked him,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “(He) did really good. Made plays, moved pucks on first touch, which is a sign. That play that he makes on the power play that leads to the goal, it’s high end. It’s a good start to his career. “He knew what he was going to do with the puck before he got it. That’s usually a sign for really good hockey sense.” When Texier scored at 16:57 of the first period to give the Blues a 2-0 lead with the power-play goal, Dvorsky started the sequence with a puck retrieval, moved it to Zack Bolduc in the bumper, who found Thomas in the left circle before he wired a puck to the low crease area for Texier to tap in on the backhand. “Smart, really patient with the puck,” Thomas said of Dvorsky. “I thought he showed a lot of poise with it. He made a couple really good backhand passes and then that power play goal, he’s under pressure, he makes a calm play to the middle to ‘Boldy’ and those are things that especially in your first game, to have that kind of patience is really impressive.” As for hockey smarts, they were evident right from the get-go. “There was a play that won’t show up on tape, but I’ll explain it,” Faulk said after the game on FDSNMW. “In the second period, there was a play where the puck was getting chipped into the neutral zone and all he did was hold up their third man that was trying to join the rush. He just held him up a little bit and made it a 2-on-2 (instead of) a 3-on-2. That’s a play that shows you have some hockey smarts. It’s tough to learn that. A lot of guys are just worried about the puck, trying to make plays. It’s a selfless play. It doesn’t help himself at all. But it makes the (defensemen’s) job and everyone else a lot easier. I was really impressed to see a play like that happen in his first game.” Montgomery told Dvorsky before the game to just do what he does best and not be something he’s not, which really helped Dvorsky stay composed. “It was great that he told me that,” Dvorsky said. “I felt more loose obviously. The hockey’s different, but I just did my best every shift to help the team win.” Including serve a five-minute major that Bolduc was called for in the third period for cross checking Nashville defenseman Nick Blankenburg for what he thought was an attempt to go at Thomas’s knee near center ice. “I didn’t really mind it honestly,” Dvorsky said. “It was alright.” Now that he’s here, and it’s really all up to the Blues how long he stays here, Dvorsky needs to get up to speed with the NHL game, which is much faster than that of the AHL. Dalibor Dvorsky, the No. 10 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, takes his rookie lap before making his NHL debut for the St. Louis Blues on Sunday night against the Nashville Predators. (Jeff Curry-Imagn Images) [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/85d42cc2-09d7-40c4-a87d-2bc081f044b0.jpeg] Dalibor Dvorsky, the No. 10 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, takes his rookie lap before making his NHL debut for the St. Louis Blues on Sunday night against the Nashville Predators. (Jeff Curry-Imagn Images) “It’s obviously different in the AHL,” he said. “I had to adjust to it a little bit. The pace is faster. The players, the opponents are better. It’s a little different.” But Dvorsky seems to have willing teammates there to help with the process. “A lot of guys. The guys were amazing. All of them, they said to play my game, not to feel any pressure and just enjoy the day,” Dvorsky said. “The guys made it so much easier. They were really nice to me and they helped me a lot today.” And now that he’s in St. Louis, his dad plans on staying – for the time being. “Yeah, I think so, he’ll probably stay,” Dvorsky said.
