I posted a long scouting report a couple of years ago after watching Taylor play a couple of games in his junior season. Here were the primary takeaways:
- Although he was listed as 6' (although the Pens graphic listed in this thread shows him more accurately at 5'11), he looked on the ice like he was 5'9 or 5'10. I'm not saying he's actually 5'9, but Guentzel is also listed at 5'11 and he's a good inch shorter than Sid. In any event, it's not just the height -- his physical stature was very similar to how Jake looks on the ice. So while there are a bunch of undersized Dmen that are very effective, at 180lbs or whatever he's listed at, he is very slight in overall stature, and his play reflected that
- Further to the above, he REALLY struggled in the Dzone on the boards/corners/in front of the net against bigger,stronger players. If that was the case in college, it's really hard to imagine that he wouldn't struggle with this in pro hockey, and especially in the NHL.
- While he did exhibit good hockey sense and decision making, he did not have blazing speed or extreme skill to make up for those areas above that I think will really undermine his ability to be an effective defender at the NHL level.
So overall, I really doubt his ability to be an effective player at the NHL level, and I will remain curious to see if his abilities will even allow him to be more than a 3rd pairing and PP guy at the AHL. Of course, I hope I am wrong but this is probably the reason why we've never seen him mentioned with any meaningful excitement by Pens brass or anywhere near the top of our (very depleted) prospect list in any of the articles over the past few years, or in any trade bait talk. If he could be a really good player for WBS I think that would be great, but I'm certainly not expecting anything more at this time.