He is taller than Johnson though he just needs to gain some weight and while he is definitely not as skilled as Gaudreau i do feel like he has better hands than Johnson at least. The real problem with him is his skating which is decent but not amazing.
I do think he is going to be an Nhl player. Maybe more of a powerplay specialist though.
I think Hose has a point though, in that, his frame is SO small. Johnson's short, but capable of putting on mass (too much mass, it turned out) because he has a fairly average frame. ABB does have more of a Gaudreau look to him. But his development, in terms of age, as Hose pointed out but as a counter-point to it, is also more in line with what Gaudreau and Johnson did, just without going the college route. So I'm not too worried about the extra year or two it's taken him to get to this point.
But going a ppg in the AHL is hard, so I think it's reasonable to get excited, even if it doesn't mean he's going to translate into a star player. I worry that he's never going to be able to put much mass on such a small frame, but the NHL is changing, and more and more frail players are able to make an impact, at least in the regular season.
If this keeps up, maybe we give him a couple of looks next year just to see if he can handle the physicality at high speed he'll be up against.
I think the big surprise is the goal-scoring. 0.5 gpg seems like a big deal at the AHL level.