WJHC (World Junior Hockey Championships) 2015

[Crucialness Key]

Felt like Gauthier played that whole third and locked it down.

He was out there like every other shift. He was very much relied upon as the shutdown guy, and did a very good job of it in the 3rd. Teams need that and the Leafs will likely be very happy with him.

I think it's his size that will hopefully help him be effective at the NHL level.

I think it's a pretty fair comparison.  Both are late first round picks.  Both have great NHL size.  Both excel at faceoffs and have a reputation for advanced defensive zone play.  The big difference is Gautier is a better skater. 

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=54471

I thought this was a link to Gauthier's junior stats but it's so much better.

Thanks for the chuckle.

Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to turn into a similar player like that.  Steckel gets unfairly maligned for his time in Toronto I think.  From what I saw from Gauthier I thought he looked more physical than Steckel was as well.

I liked Steckel well enough under Wilson, but centering the face-punchers on a Carlyle 4th line was never going to work for anyone. God, I have nightmares like that. *shudder*

Now that both of those problems have been remedied, I wouldn't mind taking a look at Steckel 2.0.

Maybe Gauthier will be a new kind of cap-friendly franchise player -- provides key game-winning contributions without ever generating enough points to demand a huge contract. The Anti-Clarkson!