Stiffer Competition Awaits Bruins Prospect Donato At Harvard
WILMINGTON (CBS) -- A little more than one year after the Bruins drafted him in the second round, we finally got to see how Ryan Donato would fare against top-level competition.
Donato, selected 56th overall by Boston in 2014, spent the 2014-15 season playing for mostly for the Dexter School. Last week, he returned to Bruins development camp for the second time since his draft day. He passed the stiffest tests despite having played against lesser competition for months during a crucial development season.
"I think he's looked really good," Bruins development coach Jay Pandolfo said. "In all the battle drills and all that stuff he's competing really hard. You can see the skill level when he's around the net. So I think he's progressing really well and we're really looking forward to seeing him play next year at Harvard. He's the type of guy I think that when he plays with better players, he's going to make them better and it's going to be better for him."
Pandolfo was talking about the 19-year-old Donato days before the Bruins' prospects scrimmaged at Ristuccia Arena. During the 50-minute game, you could see everything Pandolfo was talking about. Donato had the skills and creativity to make things happen, even if sometimes the 6-foot, 181-pound forward was unable to outmuscle some opponents. He landed on his rear end a couple of times while battling in the corners, but that was just because he was competing hard against stronger players. The Bruins would rather Donato get knocked down than avoid the action.
Some might have accused Donato of avoiding challenges last season. He had 18 goals and 53 points in 31 games at Dexter. Over the course of the season he also played four scoreless games for the USNDP Under-18 team, 13 games for the South Shore Kings (5-5-10) and eight games for the Omaha Lancers of the USHL. He had five goals and 10 points for the Lancers.
He could have played the whole season in the USHL, but for reasons that have gone mostly unexplained he stuck around New England to play at Dexter most of the winter.
If anything, the season taught Donato what it's like to play with many different players and in different parts of the country.
"It was fun. It was just a challenge to make sure you're keeping your head between the glass and making sure I'm just playing my game," he said. "That was a little difficult. But I think at the end of the day I had a great time seeing all the new faces, meeting a bunch of new people and also learning a lot hockey-wise. It just prepared me best for college hockey."
If the Bruins would've rather seen Donato play against the best competition all year, publicly they're not letting on.
"He did end up going out to Omaha and playing in the USHL at the end of the year and I think that was a good step for him to see the difference in what he was playing against during the season," Pandolfo said. "And he went in there and did a great job. I don't think it's a lost year of development. He's taken all the stuff that he's learned here and he's done the work off the ice and he's definitely shown improvement already. So he's going to improve that much more when he's playing against bigger guys and college guys all year long next year."
Donato's whirlwind tour of the hockey universe will end for a while when he starts playing for the Crimson this fall. On top of the pressure of being a star player with ties to the Bruins, Donato will have to deal with playing for his father/coach Ted Donato.
"I've already had him breathing down my neck for the last 19 years," the younger Donato said. "I've kind of got that feeling [before]. But I'm excited and I only think it's going to make me a better player being pushed by him."
College will provide a greater on-ice test than anywhere Donato previously played. Better teammates, though, should also take some of the heat off Donato and allow him to better show off his skills. He got his first taste of not being the center of attention with Omaha.
"The thing is, at Dexter I feel like I was getting a lot of pressure on me, always two guys trying to hack me, whack me, get in my head," Donato said. "Out there [with Omaha] I felt like I had a lot more space and there was also five or six guys that were just as deadly. So I think that when I got out there I had a little more time and space even though the pace was a little bit faster."
The pace will increase this winter and we'll see if Donato's development can keep up.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.
