While Caleb Desnoyers has played both wing and center during his time with the Moncton Wildcats of the QMJHL, he projects as a center at the professional level for myriad reasons. The most important of which is that he’s an incredibly intelligent and detail-oriented forward who plays a solid, reliable 200-foot game.
Desnoyers’ high-end hockey sense is one of the best things about his game. It allows him to see the game from a bird’s-eye view almost, and identify and make the right play for the moment at hand.
He isn’t just out there exploiting mistakes made by opponents, though he is very good at using his awareness to spot mistakes and jump on pucks when opponents leave themselves exposed.
He taps into that awareness and intelligence to follow the path of the game as it unfolds, creating opportunities for himself and teammates with precision and deception.
It’s hard to say enough good things about Desnoyers’ playmaking as a standalone skill. That hockey sense lets him set up a pass from anywhere, and he’s constantly finding his teammates to pass to them in high-danger areas and succeeding.
There are flashes of a power forward game seen here and there, but he doesn’t have the pace to support that yet. But it could happen.
He’s constantly engaged both mentally and physically, whether he has the puck or not, and he’s an extremely detailed player who is going to make certain the play he’s creating is the best one. In other words, he isn’t going to take the shot himself if one more pass to a teammate is going to have better results. He’s good at utilizing his size, getting inside positioning on opposition defenders and driving to the net when the moment calls for it.
He’s a strong skater, though that should include the caveat of a particular aspect of his skating, specifically his small-area edgework (his composure in transition is also good).
Desnoyers is a capable skater—he isn’t out there lumbering around by any means, and he looks good on the forecheck, for example—but multiple aspects of his skating need to improve for his offensive game to translate to the next level.
The most important? His explosiveness. He lacks the separating factor that allows him to really pull away from opponents, creating space and time to make things happen. If he can add a layer of explosiveness to his skating, we can feel much more confident about his ability to create consistently at the NHL level. He could also stand to improve his top-end speed—again, something that will allow him to separate himself from opponents.
Another aspect of Desnoyers’ game that will need to improve with time, and one that is tied to the aspects of his skating that are lacking, is his pace. He has real power behind his game; he needs to utilize that power to push the pace with which he plays and add a real sense of urgency to his overall approach. Overall refinement of the positives of his game will also go a long way.
Even with those necessary improvements, his game has so much to like, and he has a very high floor.
Desnoyers is a solid choice for any team looking for a player who can contribute at both ends of the ice, probably in a second-line center role. He might rise to the occasion and snag that first-line center position if he improves his pace enough, because he has the mental acuity necessary to take on that responsibility.
However, a second-line role, where he’s operating at both ends of the ice, using those oh-so-good details, is more likely.
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