10 young NHL players who took a step forward this season and 10 who did not

It just hasn’t clicked yet for Bennett, the No. 4 overall pick in 2014. After a promising rookie season that saw him score 18 goals in 77 games as a 19-year-old, his production has regressed in the two years since. He was one of the biggest disappointments on one of the most disappointing teams in the league this season. He is still young enough that he might still have that breakout season, but after three full years in the league, this might be what he is.

The Vancouver Canucks were one of the worst teams in the league for the third year in a row, but they did have a huge bright spot in their lineup this season thanks to the emergence of rookie forward Brock Boeser. After scoring four goals in his brief cup of coffee in the NHL at the end of the 2016-17 season, Boeser was an immediate impact player in his first full season and finished the year with 29 goals and 55 total points in only 62 games. Before his season was cut short by injury, he was neck-and-neck in the Calder Trophy race with Mat Barzal. He will still finish the season as one of the top-scoring rookies and one of the Canucks’ top-two scorers despite missing 20 games. 

The concern here is that this is another young defenseman who is not going to get a fair shake — or is going to be held to an impossible standard —  with Ken Hitchcock. It has happened before with Ian Cole in St. Louis and Jamie Oleksiak this year in Dallas. Both went on to find success after leaving Hitchcock-coached teams. Honka is a talented young player and has a ton of potential. He was a first-round pick, has three full years of service in the American Hockey League and should be ready to make a bigger impact at the NHL level. Will it happen next year?

The Colorado Avalanche went from being the absolute worst team in the league in 2016-17 to a playoff contender in 2017-18. Nathan MacKinnon was a big part of that, as well as improved play from their goalies. The other big factor has been the emergence of Mikko Rantanen. Rantanen was a regular in the Avalanche lineup a year ago and made a good first impression. He took a huge leap forward this season — while mainly playing alongside MacKinnon — and ended up as one of the top-20 scorers in the league. 

During the 2016-17 season Vatrano looked like he was on the verge of becoming one of the key young building blocks for the Bruins. He scored 10 goals in his limited NHL time and literally scored a goal per game in the AHL (36 goals in 36 games). But his career with the Bruins stalled out a bit as the rest of their young talent jumped over him on the depth chart. That resulted in a trade to Florida just before the trade deadline, where he might be able to get a fresh start. He still has potential, but six goals and only eight total points in 40 games is a bit of a disappointment when you consider where he was just a year ago.

A third-round pick by the Lightning in 2014, Point has emerged as a young core building block and nearly doubled his goal output from year one to year two, topping the 30-goal mark this season. The key to building a consistent winner in the salary cap era is having a healthy mix of superstar talent and a steady pipeline of young, cheap talent coming up through the system. The Lightning have that, and Point has become a big part of it. 

Brown was one of the big surprises for the Maple Leafs a year ago when he scored 20 goals in his first full season in the league. It was easy to overlook that performance playing on a team with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, but he was good. He was pretty good again this season, but he also didn’t really take any sort of a step forward. Having said that, you could do an awful lot worse than a 14-goal, 28-point forward as a depth player. 

The 2017-18 season turned out to be a brutal one for the Chicago Blackhawks for a lot of reasons, but it wasn’t without its positives. Rookie Alex DeBrincat burst onto the scene and finished as one of the team’s top offensive players. Schmaltz, a first-round pick by the team in 2014, also had a breakout season going from six goals as a rookie to more than 20 this season. The Blackhawks will need an infusion of cheap, young talent with their salary cap situation looming over them in the coming years, and DeBrincat and Schmaltz give them some hope. 

Every year the Hurricanes are a preseason pick to be a sleeper team. When you look at their roster it is not hard to see why. They have young talent up and down the lineup and do a lot of things well. They can just never seem to get quality goaltending or enough people who can finish around the net. Part of the problem this year is that a player like Rask took a bit of a step backward, barely cracking the 30-point mark in 71 games. He can be better, and the Hurricanes will need him to be. 

When the Blue Jackets selected Dubois with the No. 3 overall pick in 2016 ahead of Jesse Puljujarvi, it was a pick that raised a lot of eyebrows around the league. It was even criticized in some circles. Not anymore. In his first full season in the NHL, Dubois became an immediate impact player in the Blue Jackets' lineup by topping the 20-goal mark as a 19-year-old. 

When the New York Rangers traded Anthony Duclair to Arizona as part of the Keith Yandle trade a few years ago, there was a belief that New York would come to regret the trade. After a 20-goal rookie season from Duclair, it looked like that belief was going to become a reality. However, Duclair’s development has stagnated in the years since and resulted in him getting shipped to the Chicago Blackhawks midseason. So far it has not really helped much because his early production with the Blackhawks mirrored what he had done with the Coyotes. 

The Coyotes were one of the youngest teams in the NHL, and for most of the season it showed. They were the worst team in the league through the first three quarters before finally starting to put things together down the stretch and finishing strong. One of the positives for the entire season, though, was the development of 2016 first-rounder Clayton Keller. He finished as one of the league’s top rookies, eclipsing the 20-goal and 60-point marks as a 19-year-old. He is going to be one of the key building blocks for the team going forward. 

The Devils snapped their playoff drought this season thanks to an MVP-caliber year from Taylor Hall and some surprising performances from some of their younger players. One player who did not take a step forward was 2015 first-round pick Pavel Zacha. It's important to keep in mind that he is still only 21 years old and far too soon to write him off as ever becoming a top-line player. To this point, though, he has consistently scored at a nine-goal, 27-point pace over 82 games. 

The Hurricanes pretty much stole Teravainen from the Blackhawks a couple of years ago for taking on the remainder of Bryan Bickell’s contract. Teravainen had his best season as a pro this year and emerged as a legitimate top-six forward. He is still only 23 years old and should have his best days ahead of him. 

A few years ago, Reilly was a pretty big deal in the free agent market after he did not sign with the Columbus Blue Jackets when the team selected him in the fourth round of the 2011 draft. With his rights no longer belonging to the Blue Jackets, he was able to sign with the team of his choosing and went to the Minnesota Wild. To this point, his pro career has been a bit of a disappointment, at least when compared to the hype that followed his free agency pursuit. This year the Wild traded him to the Montreal Canadiens for a fifth-round pick. 

The Jets' lineup is an embarrassment of riches offensively, and while Patrik Laine, Mark Scheifele Blake Wheeler and Nikolaj Ehlers get most of the attention, Connor emerged this season as another scoring threat. After recording just five points in 20 games a year ago, he came back in year two and topped the 30-goal mark to help the Jets put together one of the most dominant offensive teams in the league. 

It’s not that Pouliot had a bad year, but you have to wonder if he is ever going to be the player he was expected to be when he was selected with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2012 draft. It never worked out for him in Pittsburgh, and it seemed that maybe a fresh start in Vancouver might do him well. He still didn’t really take a big leap forward, and he is at a point in his career now (age 24) where you would hope he starts to show more of that potential. 

It is already clear that the Boston Bruins dominated the 2014 NHL draft. Even though they only owned five picks, they used them to select David Pastrnak, Ryan Donato, Danton Heinen and Anders Bjork, all of whom have played and made significant contributions to this year’s team. Heinen is one of the many young players who has taken a step forward this season. After being held without a point in eight games a year ago, he came back this season to become a solid complementary piece with 16 goals and 47 points. 

The Coyotes have been extremely patient with Strome and worked hard to make sure they do not throw him into the deep end of the pool too soon. That has resulted in a little bit of a slow development at the NHL level. Just because it has not happened for him yet does not mean that it won’t. He is still only 21 years old and has dominated at every level he has played at. Like the rest of the Coyotes, he finished strong, which is certainly a good sign for the future. His lack of a step forward this season has more to do with how the Coyotes have used him than anything else. 

Provorov was great as a rookie by playing in every game, recording 30 points and logging more than 20 minutes per game as a 20-year-old on the Flyers’ blue line. He was even better in year two and became a legitimate top-pairing defenseman. Along with Shayne Gostisbehere, he should be a significant part of the foundation of the Flyers’ blue line for the next decade.