The thing I keep bringing up is he has room to be so much better as a player. His story this season is kind of wild in its own way.
At the start of the season he looked energized and confident and, in promising fashion, it looked like he cleaned up the one lingering aspect of his skating that was holding him back which was his first 4 steps acceleration. Carlsson was fast last year but he was lacking the ability to get into that speed from his first steps. At this point, any pre-draft knock that Fantilli was a fast skater while Leo was slower is pure buffoonery. Leo is in the 97th percentile for top skating speed leaguewide while Fantilli is in the 96th percentile (granted, Fantilli is in the 98th percentile for total speed bursts over 20mph while Leo is 87th). His early production was fair with 6 points in 10 games.
As the season unfolded, and the Ducks' offensive struggles really started to hold firm, Leo was struggling a lot. I think there's a number of factors that might have affected it between lack of linemate chemistry, Cronin and Co.'s failures at coaching offense properly, Cronin likely trying to force Leo to play an offensive style that didn't suit him, but certainly what was visible to anyone watching was Leo was becoming increasingly frustrated and unfocused. Trying to be a body language expert is something of a fool's game, I know, but it looked to me like he was exasperated with himself that we wasn't farther along and he was playing like he was unhappy overall and entirely lacking in confidence. This led to a lot of unfocused mistakes and really poor production. In December he had 1 point in 10 games. January 4 points in 15 games.
Like
@WhiskeyYerTheDevils pointed out, his offense has exploded since getting the opportunity to practice and play with Team Sweden. But what strikes me is there are still elements of his game that can greatly improve. During his offensive struggles, his defense has improved tremendously, and I'll credit the Ducks for that but there's still plenty of rookie inexperience limiting his chance creation and his ability to be a play driver as a 1c. His execution on chances and confidence is back and better than ever but I truly believe he has multiple levels of excellence he still has to reach. He has the talent, vision, and smarts for it but it strikes me that he's still adapting to the NHL's pace of play and physical demands. When he starts growing more muscle mass and adding strength, I think he's going to be an absolute beast of a player. Really looking forward to seeing where his development goes next year.