L’Italien made his mark on this event with his dynamic combination of size and speed. He continues to show that when he gathers speed through the neutral zone, he is an extremely hard player to defend as he is such a powerful skater who’s momentum makes opponents bounce off of him when he’s in stride and to make him even more effective, he can stick handle just as fast around opponents who try to stop him as well thus creating a lot of easy zone entries for his team. He uses all those same tools to be effective while in the offensive zone as well, powering his way to the net with great puck protection skills while also flashing some sneaky good playmaking ability in the process, understanding the right times to delay on entries and allowing for play to develop naturally. He might be the prospect with one of the most interesting skillsets in the upcoming QMJHL draft and wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of teams had him high on their lists come draft night.

Aside from a hat trick in the final game of the tournament I thought L’Italien’s performance to be a tad bit inconsistent. Despite that, there’s no denying the intriguing and plentiful offensive toolkit he possesses, and he was able to flash it more than a handful of times throughout this event. He was really trying to take defenders head on in one on one situations as often as possible, opting to try and get himself into high danger areas by overwhelming the opposition of his skill. With his combination of size and skill, this proclivity demonstrates that this is a player who is very confident in his own ability, sometimes to his own detriment. When he was able to execute these maneuvers, it turned into a highlight reel scoring chance, but when it didn’t it sometimes lead to a loss of possession and an odd man rush the other way. I thought he was using his size effectively along the boards in the offensive zone to protect pucks using his frame and extend his possession time with the puck, which allowed him to use his skill and playmaking ability to sometimes get pucks to the middle of the ice through a deke or pass to the slot area.

L’Italien’s skillset was on full display in this game with the Séminaire St-François forward using his creativity and size to create quality scoring chances and contributing on 4 of his team’s 9 goals. When he gathered speed through the neutral zone, he proved to be a difficult player to stop as he used that speed to drive out wide on defenders before putting his shoulder down and driving to the net and was able to draw a couple penalties on opposing defenseman who couldn’t contain him. He showed great awareness and patience on the ice being able to find open teammates in the offensive zone by delaying and waiting for lanes to open, slipping a pass through a defender stepping up on him to a trailing Bourdeau who buried it from the high slot for the 3-2 goal. There was some chemistry brewing with linemates Pouliot and Laframboise in this game as he deposited the puck into the back of the net on a two-on-one for a quick response to the first Team Marchand goal and later in the game, his second assist coming off a quick tic-tac-toe play around the net that was the eventual game winning goal.

L’Italien had himself a quiet game by his own standards, but a few big time plays in key moments showcased what he’s really about. He made a great cross-ice feed in the first period after he got the defender to bite before slipping a pass through him and onto the stick of Ryan Howard who buried it. Throughout the rest of the game he was attempting to leverage his skill to beat defenders in one on one situations, where he was able to create some highlight reel moments with his stickhandling when he was able to execute. I thought he did tend to over rely on his skill by forcing dekes into pressure which lead to a loss of possession and a transition play the other way.