It was a fun game. A lot of the forever-AHLers are playing well for the rocket. I really like Gignac's speed and rushes to the net. Dea, Martel and Roy are a big part of the offense. Beaudin is speedy as well and tenacious. They may never make an NHL career, but they are good AHL players.
I was quite impressed with Dello. He is a stabilizing player out there. Looks like a daddy to the team, ala Weber. I was surprised to read he is only 6feet tall. He looks bigger out there.
Ylonen is smooth and skilled, but i would like to see more jam in his game. He got crosschecked a few times in a row in the corner. To his credit, he kept fighting for the puck, but i would have liked to see him get a little mad. Right after, he had a chance to bosycheck the guy and didn't take it. It's not even just about retaliation: it would have been the better play.
He's just soft out there and doesn't push the pace much. You can see he has skills, a solid shot and good skating, but he doesn't do that much with all that skillset.
Ylonen is soft and he does need to get more involved physically, it's part of the reason why I say he needs to start next season in Laval, I think he clearly needs more time there but the tools he has there is clearly something there to work with but now that we have new management, hopefully from now on we go back to taking our time with prospects and letting them learn and grow in the AHL and not rush to call them up because they started putting up some points only to play them on the 4th line, then bench them after 1 mistake, then put them in the press box for a week to make them a better person, only to send them back to the AHL where they struggle, rinse and repeat.
And posters on this boardhonestly believe that development/coaching doesn't matter much. (not directed at you of course) but with many non high end prospects, it's a long process to get them there and rushing them is not ideal imo. Let Ylonen mature a little longer in Laval and see what happens.
Ylonen is going to be that player that you don't notice much offensively, but hopefully is still able to get on the score sheet. And hopefully he's good defensively.
How were RHP and Teasedale?
RHP is red hot and has been for some time now, he's got 17 pts in the last 14 games. Before that he was struggling badly, but we saw it with Ylonen who went on a hot streak where he had 18 pts in 18 games and now he's got just 9 pts in the last 21 games. Teasdale had a good night of course and he's heating up with 7 pts in the last 4 games so we'll see if that continues or not.
RHP is probably the forward with the most NHL potential (toss up with Ylonen, for very different reasons). He plays a well rounded game. Makes reasonably good decisions with the puck. Plays ala Gallagher. Had a few solid backchecks as well.
It's always hard to predict, but i see him sticking in the NHL in a middle six energizing role.
Teasdale obviously got a hat trick, so it was a good night for him. The whole line (if i remember correctly, with Gignac and Bourque) looked good. Especially Gignac and Teasdale. Their tenacious forecheck gave trouble to Hartford's defense (which looked terrible btw... Zac Jones was great offensively though). I wouldn't know how to rate Teasdale's potential. I am not able to discern skating well enough. If he was to make it, it would probably be in a forecheking 4th line... he may however just be a solid AHLer also.
If Ylonen worked as hard as RHP or if RHP had Ylonen's skating, speed, shot, what a player we would have, lol.
Teasdale was really good last year on that line with Poehling, I liked him better then RHP but after missing so much time and then re-injuring the same knee for a player that was already on the slow side is a big concern. That said he's got the size/strength that RHP doesn't have and both work hard, if Teasdale can stay healthy with the knee and work on his speed, skating I could see him being a 4th liner someday. But with RHP he just works so hard that I can see him making it over Teasdale as the speed/skating is going to be tough at this point to overcome but we'll see. Ylonen I have the most hope in as he can be a very frustrating player but man that shot and he's clearly got NHL speed/skating so if he can just work on things there's a legit NHLer there but I'm not sure he will ever get there, tough to say.
