{"id":617206,"date":"2026-04-20T19:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/617206\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T19:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:56:10","slug":"nhl-great-pronger-habs-slafkovsky-share-common-bond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/617206\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL great Pronger, Habs’ Slafkovsky share common bond"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Pronger can relate to the pressure Juraj Slafkovsky has faced since the Canadiens made him the No. 1 overall pick at the 2022 NHL Draft.<\/a><\/p>\n

Pronger was the No. 2 overall pick at the 1993 NHL Draft<\/a> by the Hartford Whalers after the Ottawa Senators took Alexandre Daigle with the No. 1 pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad I got drafted first, because no one remembers No. 2,\u201d Daigle infamously said after that draft.<\/p>\n

\"CanadiensCanadiens wingers Juraj Slafkovsky, left, and Cole Caufield celebrate Slafkovsky\u2019s Game 1 overtime goal on Sunday in Tampa, Fla. Chris O’meara \/ AP<\/p>\n

Daigle, a forward, ended up having a very mediocre 10-year NHL career while playing for six teams. Pronger, a defenceman, ended up playing 18 years in the NHL, won the Hart Trophy as the most valuable player and the Norris Trophy as the top blue-liner in 1999-2000 with the St. Louis Blues, and won the Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007. Pronger also won two gold medals with Canada at the Olympics, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2015<\/a> and in 2018 was named one of the NHL\u2019s 100 Greatest Players.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But things didn\u2019t start well for Pronger in Hartford, and two years after getting drafted, the Whalers traded him to the Blues in exchange for Brendan Shanahan. Pronger wrote a memoir that came out last week titled Earned: The True Cost of Greatness from One of Hockey\u2019s Fiercest Competitors. <\/a>It looks back on his career, overcoming the adversity of being booed by fans in Hartford and taking personal accountability while also learning about leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the noise,\u201d Pronger said in a phone interview before the playoffs started about the pressure he faced after getting drafted and going directly to the NHL. \u201cAnd the constant questioning of: \u2018Oh, my God! Did they pick the right guy? Oh, my God! Is this guy ever going to get it?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially in the midst of a rebuild (for Slafkovsky) and when is it going to end, and when are we going to get over the hump, and when are we going to get back in the playoffs?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pronger is impressed with how the Canadiens have handled Slafkovsky, who scored three power-play goals \u2014 including the winner in overtime \u2014 in a 4-3 victory over the Lightning Sunday in Tampa in Game 1 of a first-round playoff series. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s something Montreal has learned from the past is that you have to be patient in a development process,\u201d Pronger said. \u201cI think if there\u2019s one thing they\u2019ve done really well throughout the course of this rebuild is they\u2019ve been incredibly patient in not trying to force the issue with their young guys and putting them in positions where they\u2019re going to regress \u2026 putting them in positions where their confidence is going to take a huge whack.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November 2023, after Slafkovsky scored his first goal in 32 games, head coach Martin St. Louis compared his progress with the Waze app used for directions while driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tells you how much time it will take, how many miles,\u201d St. Louis said at the time. \u201cAnd then you get into traffic. \u2026 Do you turn around or do you continue? \u2026 If you miss an exit, do you get\u00a0frustrated\u00a0and return home or do you get rerouted to still arrive at your destination? <\/p>\n

\u201cI live my life like that, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing with Slaf,\u201d St. Louis added. \u201cSlaf is going to reach a\u00a0nice\u00a0destination. \u2026 We don\u2019t know exactly how much time it\u2019s going to take, and sometimes there\u2019s traffic, and you can\u2019t get\u00a0angry\u00a0about it and can\u2019t get\u00a0discouraged\u00a0about it. Sometimes you miss an exit, but you find your way back. \u2026 It\u2019s not easy for a 19-year-old, but we\u2019re trying to help him with that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Slafkovsky has now reached that \u201cnice destination\u201d \u2014 something Pronger can relate to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say if I look back on the first three years of my career, there were moments where I was really, really good, and there were also moments where I was really, really bad,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what you get with young players is that inconsistency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canadiens GM Kent Hughes said one of the big reasons he took Slafkovsky with the No. 1 pick was the belief he could handle the pressure in Montreal.<\/p>\n

There was a scattering of boos at the Bell Centre after the Canadiens drafted Slafkovsky. His response at the time: \u201cMaybe certain people do not like me, but I will do everything I can to play good for this team. Maybe one day, they will learn to like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canadiens fans now love Slafkovsky.<\/p>\n

\"HartfordHartford Whalers defenceman Chris Pronger and Canadiens forward Kirk Muller during game in Montreal on Oct. 6, 1993. Ryan Remiorz \/ The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Pronger said he used the negative comments early in his career to help motivate him, including that infamous quote from Daigle.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single comment motivated me,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery single one, including that one. Whether it was: \u2018Oh, he\u2019s not a good leader. Oh, he\u2019s not what people think, or he\u2019s not as good as this player or that player.\u2019 All of that. \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody remembers No. 2, and every time I played (Daigle) I made sure he remembered who No. 2 was,\u201d Pronger added. \u201cHe was putting ice bags on himself somewhere. I made sure he remembered No. 2 every single time he played against me.\u201d<\/p>\n

scowan@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n

x.com\/StuCowan1<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Pronger can relate to the pressure Juraj Slafkovsky has faced since the Canadiens made him the No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":{"0":"post-617206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-montreal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}