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’ 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.
“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 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, 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.
“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.
“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.
