According to sources close to HC Slovan Bratislava, the Slovakian club is interested in signing Montreal Canadiens prospect Martin Reway. The club reached the playoffs last season in the KHL, and are looking to improve this upcoming season. Signing arguably one of Slovakia’s best players would be a major coup.
We reached out to Michal Sivek, Réway’s agent, to see if he would comment on the negotiations. When asked about talks with Slovan Bratislava or the Canadiens for the enigmatic player next season, his reply was a courteous; “No comments at this point, sorry.”
If Slovan signed him, they would reportedly be interested in a one year contract, but talks stalled out of the blue earlier this week. If Réway did sign with them for a year, he would still be eligible to sign with the Canadiens afterwards if he so desired. He is a rather popular player in Montreal, ever since his hat trick in the Bell Centre while captaining Slovakia to a surprising Bronze medal during the 2015 World Junior Championships.
Last season, he represented Sparta Prague and HC Fribourg-Gotteron. Starting with Prague in the Czech Extraliga, he set out at a ferocious pace, and was leading the league in scoring until a contract dispute set up for a move to the NLA in Switzerland.
Slovan was in negotiations with Réway and Sparta at that point as well, but the asking price of Slovenian players Jeglic and Ticar was too high a price for Slovan to pay. Now that Slovan won’t have to give away roster players to get Reway on their squad, they appear dead set on acquiring him if they can.
But towards the end of the year in the NLA, Reway had to deal with some concussion issues, and they may have resurfaced. During a World Championship tune-up game for Slovakia yesterday against France, he appeared to suffer another concussion. This casts doubt on his availability for that tournament, and it could have an impact on negotiations with any club looking to sign him.
He has essentially been listed as day-to-day for now, but he looked noticeably uncomfortable and needed to be assisted in getting off the ice.
Nothing is certain at this point, but we will continue to monitor this situation as it develops.
