He'll never be a dominant player...not in the NHL not in the AHL.
That's not the kind of player he is.
Furthermore, I know this "dominate the AHL" has become somewhat of a catchphrase.
But players who usually dominate the AHL, are players who aren't good enough for the NHL.
Top 10 AHL scorers as of today
Daniel Carr
Carter Verhaeghe
Peter Holland
Brandon Pirri
Andrew Poturalski
Cory Conacher
Chris Mueller
Chris Terry
Greg Carey
Jeremy Bracco
There isn't a big time prospect in this list, these are all AHL veterans because for the most part, the AHL is actually not a league full of top prospects who are developing for their respective teams, it's mostly a league made up of NHL/AHL veterans who aren't good enough to stick in the NHL...dominating the AHL doesn't really mean anything.
I don't really know what Mete will be, but he's got to score some goals here and there if he's going to be on the top pairing.
That said no one should expect a prospect to come in at 20 and be a top 10 scorer in the AHL. Now dominating is going to vary by definition and for me what I always push for is not to rush said prospects until they show they are ready for a call up. Instead the Habs seem to call them up once they start putting up some offense, DLR, McCarron, etc... But then in the NHL they don't put them in good positions to succeed and then it's only a matter of time before they are in the press box and then back in the AHL to start all over again.
None of us can know what's the right way to develop talent, we can only see what's worked and what hasn't but even then we aren't there at practice, we don't know what's been said to who and what they were told to work on or what kind of people they are as anyone that played any organized hockey at say at a certain age maybe the teenage years, that you are going to have those teammates some that are just so skilled but don't want to work hard or others that aren't so skilled but give it all every time they step on the ice. So it's hard for us to have a clue about the character of said prospects to know what they are willing to do to overcome failure or disappointments.
That said I loved how they handled Subban, he dominated the AHL at 20. Then again so did Leblanc, although I will always wonder if things could have at least gone a little better if they didn't rush him to the NHL at 20 and then hired a head coach for Hamilton that had a lot of experience as a head coach. But clearly there's more to it, as Hudon is another example, he killed it his rookie year, he started out the first month or two in the top 5 in league scoring which is just unheard of for 20 year old rookies at least for Hab prospects. He wasn't on a very good team and with his lack of size/strength he was going to have a very hard time keeping up that pace and he didn't. He still was 2nd in the league in scoring for rookies I believe. Evans is up there this year in rookie scoring, he's injured now but I'm hoping they leave him down all year to work on the physical tools (strength, speed, skating).
So there is no do this and you make the NHL and of course it's going to differ for each person but my point is that we haven't seem to had much success with how we have been rushing these kids in the past 6 years, so why not change the approach and take more caution? I think a lot less harm can come from caution vs rushing.
I'm not saying it never happens...it does.
I'm just saying I think there's a distorted view of what the AHL represents.
It's not the developmental breeding ground that I often see it portrayed as.
As a huge AHL fan, it's the league I watch the most of, I can very safely say that it is most certainly a developmental breeding ground. There's a reason why so many of today's NHLers have gone through the AHL. Of course you are going to have your mix of bubble players, guys like Terry, Chaput, Agostino, Carr, guys that can be top scorers in the AHL but lack something to be good NHLers, you are going to have your plugs, guys that the AHL is the highest they will ever go and in a few years are in the NLA, KHL, etc.. And then you have your prospects of which most likely won't turn into top 6 forwards/top 4 D's. Of course when you have your Crosby's, McDavid's, etc.. they will go directly to the NHL because their skill level is off the charts. But I'm still all for sending our prospects through the AHL especially now that we have a coach who seems to be doing a solid job.