Dominance
99-66-4-9-87/97
He needs to add strength, no doubt, and there’s definite room for improvement on the defensive side of things. If there wasn’t, we wouldn’t be talking about him in the 10-20 range, but in the 3-10 range. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on a player “beating” him at the end of a completely lopsided game, especially considering that the deke was to the outside, into the corner.I won't pretend that I've seen him before the u18 but I've been underwhelmed so far. Yes, he's a great skater and makes good plays in the offensive zone but defensively he runs around in his own zone and gets beat on the rush. Just today against Belarus, there was one 1 on 1 against him and he got beat and took a penalty. For someone so fast and so tall, it's weird how he gets beat defensively. I think he needs to add size, learn how to dominate people physically, and also improve his defensive instincts.
A guy like Chabot was not known for being a defensive stalwart at 17 by any means, but has used his speed to make things work at the next level. Remember when Zboril, Chabot’s defensive conscience in his draft year, went ahead of him? Not looking like a great decision, to put it lightly.