I agree that the hype surrounding Latendresse is getting blown way out of proportion right now. He had a splendid rookie tournament, showed promising signs in intra-squad games, and played a wonderful game last night (I was at the Bell Centre last night and I can confirm how impressive he was). With that being said, I'm starting to think he may be getting too much talk on HF as of late. There are some reasons to be excited about this prospect, but please, let him at least prove he can be dominant on a regular basis before calling him the second coming of Todd Bertuzzi in every thread.
I think he should go back in Drummondville and lead his team to the QJMHL championship, be a leader and come back even more NHL-ready in 2006, with even more maturity, confidence and leadership to show for it. For now, let him at least 4 or 5 more pre-season games and (hopefully) a few regular season games before making an appropriate judgement on just how good he really is at the moment.
All in all, some might say he is rapidly getting too much hype and I won't deny that. However, after watching him control the pace of the game last night, I can assure you that Guillaume is for real. Wether he'll be able to showcase his talent in the big league as soon as this season, in 2006-07 or later remains to be seen though.