If we want to quote the people who are actually in the business, there are some disturbing quotes in that piece from his coaches:
Lalonde:
“He’s out of shape,” Lalonde said bluntly. “I’d say the talent is undeniable but it’s been his approach, where he is with his conditioning, he wants to cheat offense, he wants to lean offense. If he’s ever going to play at the next level coaches have got to trust him and it can’t be all offense. He’s got to decide. For Dmitry, it’s the rest of his game, his play away from the puck, his competing, not being willing to come back into the zone, compete on plays.”
(Lalonde doesn't trust him, so definitely wouldn't have him on the top 2 lines for Iowa right now, in spite of him being probably the most skilled scorer on the team. He'd probably be in the ECHL, to give him more minutes.)
"“He earned being on the third line from his approach over the summer and then his compete level just gradually kept getting better. (In the third game) he was arguably the best player on the ice, he had a goal and two assists so it was some progress for him. Now he’s got to keep taking those strides back in his junior season this year,” Lalonde added. “With all of our prospects as an organization, we talk about our young guys needing to earn it a little bit.”
(First sentence here tells me he still wasn't doing what the coaches asked of him, and then he started listening, so improved over the course of the tournament as he was getting less ice time than a lot of other guys, and had to work for it. That "earned being on the third line" bit is a nice way of saying he didn't earn his spot on the top line until he finally started doing what he was supposed to. It's a good sign that he adjusted, but it's also not so good that his long term approach has put him on the 3rd line in a prospects tournament in which he was clearly one of the best offensive players.)
Stillman:
“We obviously know he can score goals and he does that every year and now we’re getting him to play a 200-foot game and he’s getting a lot better at that and he’s starting to play a pro hockey game,” Stillman said ahead of the Wolves’ Friday night matchup with the Mississauga Steelheads. “I think he needs to up his playing away from the puck and moving his feet or closing gaps and coming across and back-checking.”
(In other words "He hasn't scored yet, but we know he can score, now can he also actually play hockey? You don't win by scoring goals, you win by scoring MORE goals than the other team. That requires some semblance of defense. The good news is, he's doing better there, but still not good enough." The problematic part is that by his quotes Sokolov still was more worried about scoring than he was about rounding out his game. If you're not scoring, which he wasn't, you'd better be playing a solid defensive game still. Yes, he started the season a bit cold and scorers always want to be scoring because that's how they get paid, but everyone knows he's going to score, and score a lot. They aren't worried about that. What they need to see is that he can also do literally anything else, and that's why he's still in the OHL. I'm excited about him because he's got undeniable scoring talent, but I've always felt that he's nowhere close to pro-ready, and that if he doesn't round his game out, he'll end up being a minor leaguer, or a pro back in Russia. I really hope that doesn't happen, both for his sake and ours!
What I see are coaches saying "His full game is getting better, but it's still not good enough." And from Sokolov's quote, I'm getting the feeling that it isn't good enough yet because he hasn't actually committed to it, yet. Again, I hope he does.)