Consistently one of the top players for the Florida Alliance Elite, Trevor Daley was an effective playmaking piece manning the middle of the ice, highlighted with some high-end skill and puck handling, he executed some slippery moves to get around defenders with speed before centering pucks to the slot to assist on some dangerous scoring opportunities. He has a quick glide, which gave defenders trouble as he subtly floated into spaces in the slot with great speed, caught a loose puck, and ripped a strong shot on net. He showed a versatile mix of scoring tools that helped him look dangerous off the rush, in tight to the net, and or firing shots from around the faceoff dots on the offensive zone cycle. Circling back on his playmaking game, he executed several great passes through feet, over sticks, and under bodies, with soft touches of the puck and delicate passes, he was tough to get a read on thanks to his deceptive fakes with his head, hands, shoulders, and hips. An agile skater to round everything out, quick on his feet and capable of dancing around traffic with relative ease, forcing opponents to collapse and give him space as if a player was too aggressive checking Daley, he showed he was more than capable of pulling off a dazzling 1-on-1 move, finding his way through or around the puck pursuing opponent.

Although not the outcome Trevor Daley and his Florida Alliance team were looking for during this years’ USA Hockey Nationals, Trevor Daley was still one of the top players in attendance, despite not dominating on the scoresheet as one may be used to. Arguably the top playmaker within the class, he set up numerous high-danger chances through lanes and seams that no one saw coming, making excellent deceptive moves before slipping passes off out of turns, on the backhand, or off of fake shots. Powerful in his twists and turns, he is a handful to contain and keep up with, making him all the harder to slow down as he scans the ice and seeks out open teammates. The processing skill matched with the puck skills enabled him to be first to locate options, and fire off quick passes to open ice before opponents could cut them off, demonstrating elite hockey IQ, pacing, and awareness. His transition game was also very strong, flying through the neutral zone up the middle of the ice, he easily gained the line on many occasions, working through the middle of the ice, distributing pucks to streaking teammates off the rush. He had a handful of nice scoring chances in the games viewed, whipping a extremely heavy wrister on net, but narrowly missed the goal on a few occasions. As a whole, still a very strong event for Trevor Daley, despite it perhaps not being his best hockey, going to show just how special a player he can still be.

Daley played with such finesse when carrying the puck up the ice and through defenders and made difficult plays look easy throughout this contest. He made some extremely creative passes including a backhand saucer from one side of the boards to the other for his teammate flying down the opposite wing and dished some unsuspecting passes through crowds when roaming along the half wall. He had some nice chemistry with Milojevic on the power play and created some high danger scoring chances when they exchanged cross-seam passes with one of them ringing off the post late in the game. He was dangerous in transition by combining his dynamic skating ability with some fast hands using quick pull backs and side steps make his way through opponents and sticking his legs out to thwart defender’s stick checks before making a quick away from pressure. He assisted on the only Florida goal when he slipped a puck to Max Oregan cutting behind the defenseman that was jammed into the net on the ensuing rebound. Daley was one of the main play drivers for his team and really pushed the tempo near the end of the game looking to will his team back in it, but the finishing touch just wasn’t there for Florida in this one.

Trevor Daley came into Day 1 of the USA Hockey Nationals and made an absolute statement. Although only scoring 1 goal, in which was the overtime winner – his performance merits much more than just surface level stats in this one. An absolutely dominant playmaker, I’d suggest he connected on 6-7-or-8 perfect passes to the slot from the perimeter, whether it be from the corner of the offensive zone, off the half-wall, when walking the blueline, from the forehand or backhand, he did it all in regards to moving the puck. He had some great solo rushes throughout this game as well, displaying great power and skill pulling pucks around defenders, executing slippery in-and-out moves, baiting defenders to make a move and quickly adapting to their efforts. He showed off some nice physical resiliency as well during this one while making these moves in tight to opponents; staying strong on his feet, he was tough to handle as a result of both his speed but also balance and strength. With a little bit better accuracy, Daley probably could’ve had 2-or-3 more goals in this one, narrowly missing the net in some prime areas on the ice, when placed in these dangerous spots within the homeplate he was quick to get his shot off but couldn’t quite always hit his target. His overtime winning goal came from an end-to-end effort, building speed with some strong crossovers, attacking the defenders head on with a linear bolt of speed, before cutting into the high slot and beating the goalie clean low-glove. This was perhaps one of the best games I’ve seen of Trevor Daley to this point in time.