He is a big fella (almost 6’4 I think, 205+), with room to grow more. He is already strong, but that will be an area of focus for him going forward. For a player his size especially, he has elite speed. He’s a dominant power forward, plays both ends of the ice (both as evidenced by his obvious stats, scoring touch and assists wise, and by the fact that almost every report cites his defensive game as being a huge positive). He played all situations for UNH and Team America (F*ck Yeah).

He’s got a great slap & wrist shot, exceptional puck handling, good touch on his pass, great speed with room to improve, solid strength with a lot of room to improve. He plays the boards as well as you’d want an elite power forward type to.

As far as comparisons, when he was drafted he was seen as a John LeClair type of guy (commence salivation). He was also said to fit the “mold” established by Carter & Richards as elite two-way players who could dominate both ends of the ice. He was seen as a close #2 to Patrick Kane, with Kyle Turris also being seen as a potential dominator.

He doesn’t necessarily have any “weak” points in his game, so much as some points that could use a lot of polish. It’s not that he’s slow (he’s darn fast) or weak (he’s very very strong, and he does play a great physical game), but he will need to get stronger and faster to be elite at the NHL level. He has the capability to do so, and has all the talent in the world, ceiling being a LeClair HOF caliber guy. A current player comp might be Rick Nash, if vanRiemsdyk continues his development. Given the Flyer’s apparent ability to mold exceptional forwards, there is no reason to think he won’t continue that development.

I don’t know about ETA, but judging that Giroux took ~2-3 years to call up and was significantly more “raw” coming up, even though Riemer’s a different player completely (the NFL equivalent could be a bruising Adrian Peterson compared to the fleet-footed Brian Westbrook), he should still be up within the next year or two. If he adjusts quickly to the AHL this year and shows he can dominate, he might even be up next year (perhaps a Briere trade to make room for him? Hah, just a scenario). More likely, I think, would be to expect this current trial in the AHL to be a few games to get his feet wet, and then my guess is he will at the very least start next year in the AHL, perhaps be a periodic call-up (a la Giroux before he stuck) for injury, and then be given every opportunity to make the squad in the 2010-2011 season.

When he does make the squad, my guess is that there would be nothing to prevent him from having a Bobby Ryan (also a great power forward) type impact right away, replacing Knuble on the 1st or 2nd line.