Played his best and was rounding into form, immediately scratched. Just Coyotes things.
That's not really how I saw it. He was impressive between the goal-against and the goal-for. Outside of that window, I saw a smart kid, who's good enough not to hurt the team. I didn't see much in the way of contributions, however. As an example, I prefer Crouse, Fischer, Hayden, and Larsson. Hayton looked slow, passive, and hesitant. But he also looked very smart, sound positionally, and possessing really good hockey sense. The result, in my opinion, was a big fat zero. A bland nothing. Net neutral.
I don't think that's going to help him develop. I think it was very useful in proving himself. He doesn't need to go down and try to figure out how to be a complete player, or not be a liability. So often these young prospects have so much to work on in the minors about becoming solid pros. He's got all that already. It's very encouraging. We don't have to worry about so much of the stuff you have to worry about with a lot of these young guys. All he needs to do is go down and light it up. Get some momentum going. Get his confidence up.
It's not unlike the WJC. He went to that tournament and looked great. He got his fire going. Then he got hurt. Which killed all that momentum and confidence. It was such terrible timing. The AHL I think provides a WJC-like opportunity for him to have a WJC-like impact in Tucson, and gain WJC-like momentum and confidence that he can immediately apply up here. In a perfect world, he pots five goals and five apples in his first eight games and comes right back up to Glendale.