AIDAN POLLARD
Sports Editor
Hot take: no.
Rasmus Dahlin is a once in a decade prospect for sure, but he’s going to need to develop before he can take on the veteran NHL superstars still in the league.
He can be great, but for a while he’s going to have to learn how the NHL works.
Dahlin will not be the first high scoring defenseman to hit the ice, either.
Dahlin’s superstardom basically comes from the fact that he’s a two-way defenseman, meaning he can defend while also setting up great plays and scoring more goals than most defensemen.
The problem is, he’s not going to be the only one in the league.
In the 2017-18 season, there were nine defensemen who scored 15 goals, more than twice as many as Dahlin scored in any of the leagues he played in last year, most of which he dominated.
To be fair, Dahlin has been playing extremely well in camp so far, but that won’t mean anything until he can back it up both during the preseason and in regulation games.
By no means should Dahlin be passed over in this upcoming season, but he should be allowed time to grow before the NHL and its fans put a superstar stamp on the kid. He’s only 18.
His impact on the Sabres might be exactly what they need, though.
Bringing Dahlin onto this team alongside Eichel, Reinhart and Skinner could skyrocket the Sabres performance this year.
Dahlin might actually give the Sabres a shot at making the playoffs, which is saying something coming off of last year’s dead-last finish in the NHL.
The Sabres can actually do something with this team this year if they can get them to work together well enough.
Last year, part of the problem was that the Sabres defense was so weak that no matter how many goals they scored (and they played a good amount of high-scoring games), they still got beaten just because it was too easy to score on them.
Now with Dahlin at the helm of the team, they might actually be able to keep the puck out of the net (as long as he’s on the ice).
But right now, Dahlin is keeping a humble demeanor.
“I will do everything I can to make the team,” said the first overall draft-pick.
This kid isn’t even sure he deserves to be on the worst team in the NHL, so why are we treating him like a god?
Of course, there are no legitimate reasons why Dahlin wouldn’t make the first line, let alone the team.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that this kid is going to have to climb a steep learning curve before he can start making waves against NHL veterans.
This isn’t like when the Vegas Golden Knights came out of nowhere last year because the entire NHL wrote them off like they were nothing (because they were supposed to be).
This kid is going to have a target on his back from his first shift on the ice.