I wouldn't worry about that too much right now. I do think the Kings will give him a taste after the trade deadline so the NHL pace is not foreign to him next season. I've seen Vilardi play every AHL game his been a part of sans the 9-2 loss on Friday night (a fortunate miss for me attending my wife's employers Christmas party). He was even for the game despite the lopsided score.
As written by Zach Dooley from last nights game:
On feeling more confident in the defensive zone
Yeah, there’s still some stuff. Like I’ve said before, I’ve really just got to keep my legs moving, and it’s tough when you get tired. I haven’t played much hockey in the past couple of years, so it’s pretty normal to get tired, I don’t want to say faster, but pretty fast. I’ve got to keep my legs moving, that’s the biggest thing, and they stop me when I get in trouble. Stutts and Mods, (Modry) they’ve shown me a few clips and it’s just stuff that I’ve got to keep on doing and keep my legs going. Once I stop moving, I lose my guy and we play a lot of man-to-man in the d-zone, that’s kind of tough, especially if you’re out there for long shifts.
This has been pretty common for Gabe so far, whether it's the coverage scheme and switching with his teammates on the fly, getting caught on the wrong side of the player as the opposition enter the Reign's zone (common) or not anticipating the speed of the opposition and he gets caught puck watching (Kupari would be in prison if that was a crime, he's a multiple repeat offender and a defensively liability right now). His compete is pretty high in the offensive zone, but you definitely notice a lack of energy on D many times. It's not that he isn't capable of being a strong defender, especially hockey IQ wise with his size and reach, it's just that his body and mind need to wrap itself into the mindset that you cannot play a one-dimensional game at the pro level, you have to give it your all on both sides. Not an uncommon trait among first year pros. So it's going to take a few months to get his conditioning up to speed, and the more he can work on both sides of his game, the better off he will be. He would be shredded in the NHL defensively right now in my opinion if he was called up soon. As fans, the sooner we come to grips that Vilardi will have some quickness and skating shortcomings, the better the reality of expectations as we have a talented player with size and vision that has a toolbox that is 80% full. It's how he learns to overcome some of those shortcomings with compete and IQ when we'll get the whole story. Will he be a really good player, a star player or an elite player? Time will tell. So happy he is doing well.
PS. He's really strong on face-offs too, right out of the box.
