“We went into the draft with a fairly specific need that we wanted to address and think we’ve found a great fit,” said Blades director of scouting Dan Tencer, “In addition to bringing great size and mobility to the right side of our back end, he also comes over with pro league experience and is fluent in English. He played in the Slovakian pro league this year on a team with two former Blades, Chris Langkow and Marek Viedensky, so we had a connection there.”

The 6-foot-2 blueliner played a majority of the 2022-23 season professionally with HKM Zvolen. The right-handed shot provided stability in his own end for his hometown club, adding two assists in 38 game at 18-years-old. In 18 games with HKM Zvolen U20, Barcik notched 14 points (3G,11A) and collected 47 penalty minutes. Barcik was also ranked 60th amongst European skaters this season by NHL Central Scouting.

Barcik is expected to attend Blades training camp this fall, and looking to play for the Blue and Gold during the 2023-24 season.

“In addition to extensive video viewings by all of our management and coaching staff, we were also fortunate to get a handful of live viewings in March when Blair Courchene traveled overseas,” said Tencer, “His teammates love him, he’s an extremely hard worker and he’ll bolster our back end with really solid all around play and physical compete. We’re very happy that we were able to select him.”

The Saskatoon Blades want to welcome Samuel and the Barcik family into the organization, and look forward to continuing his development under the watchful eye of Brennan Sonne’s coaching staff.

Details on the 2023-24 training camp will be released at a later date.