That's true too...but the dislocated kneecap put him out of the lineup for more than the first half of his rookie pro year and I remember Dylan saying it was another year after that before it felt right. You need your kneecaps for mobility--they have to rotate every time you make a cut or a turn and Dylan's skating was very good for his size in a straight line but his mobility needed a lot of work. IMO his development as a young player was severely hampered by that injury that he got out of development camp. Not as bad an injury as what happened to Cherneski who shattered his kneecap.
Make no mistake, it certainly didn't help his cause. Not by a long shot.
IMO, McIlrath was caught right in that transition era where teams were moving away from the type of game he played. I think he would've struggled even if the injury never occurred. The game got quicker, pretty quickly.
The rise of more mobile defenders took hold, even if it meant they weren't going to knock people into next Tuesday. Had McIlrath been born 10 years earlier, he would've been okay.
But the hope for McIlrath was always that his "soccer" feet would eventually translate to the ice, and that he would continue to build on the offense and progress he displayed during the second half of his draft year.
In McIlrath's D-1 and D-2 season, one could argue that, at best, the offensive and positional development was not nearly what the Rangers hoped. Forget about comparisons that enthusiastic posters made comparing McIlrath to a young Shea Weber, I would contend that McIlrath's development plateaued more than anything else.
I can't say I saw dramatic improvement with puck movement or reads of play. The hope was always that they would come later, because his size made him a longer-term project.
I remember commenting a few times that the risk with taking a prospect like McIlrath was that even if he panned out, there was a considerable possibility that the required timetable would potentially have him on his second or third NHL team by that point. I thought he would at least stick in the NHL, though I felt it would probably be hard to justify passing on the players the Rangers passed on (Tarasenko was my guy). What I didn't account for was how dramatically the expectations for defenseman would change in the 2-5 years immediately following the 2010 draft.
