While this wasn’t a dominant performance from him on the scoresheet, I think I’m getting more comfortable with his assessment as a longer-term, high-end project. He has the size, length of stride, confidence to break up plays off rush defense, and the assertiveness to drive plays through the middle into the zone. Filtering in changes of pace, drop passes, and protecting the puck in order to decide when to lean into that heavy and crisp snapshot gives him multiple tools to work with. I will bet on him continuing to improve and be effective.

Right away you can notice the length of his skating stride, his ability to dangle forecheckers one on one, and continuing to make passes in motion as he penetrates the zone. His size and skating stride give him an obvious advantage in most situations. He did try to settle a loose puck on a D to D pass on the offensive zone blueline and his momentum carried him in the wrong direction. He wasn’t to recover quickly enough and his explosion from a standstill left him trailing the play. Throughout the game, I saw him join the rush, lead the rush, look for potential big hits, and use a quick defensive poke when people came in his range. I think there is a lot of potential here.

Thoreson was by far the best defender on his team. His big body was a factor in this one as he was one of the more physical players in the game. What impressed me the most about Thoreson was his excellent skating while being a bigger guy. He showed off his skating ability in the first half by doing a spin at the blue line, opening up tons of space for himself to take the puck down the right side of the offensive zone. Thoreson was also not shy to move up in the play, on multiple occasions he would rush with his forwards creating odd man breaks. None of these were capitalized on but did result in shots on goal for his team in which there were not a ton of. When losing 6-0 there are usually not too many positives but I thought Thoreson’s play was a bright spot for Royal Blue.