The ink was barely dry on his contract when Ryan Donato played his first professional game.Three days after his junior season at Harvard ended Authentic Brandin Cooks Jersey , Donato joined the Boston Bruins‘ lineup in the middle of a playoff chase in a top-six role with a spot on the power play.No pressure, kid.”I definitely had to learn quickly,” Donato said. ”Every game is important, so it had to click right away. I really didn’t have a choice.”Such is the task for Donato and a handful of other young prospects joining contenders in the eleventh hour of the NHL season. It has become common for teams with no postseason hopes to sign players out of school and play them late in the regular season like Vancouver did with Brock Boeser and Arizona with Clayton Keller a year ago.This season, some top teams are taking the chance, too.Just as the Bruins added Donato, Minnesota signed Jordan Greenway after his season at Boston University, Anaheim signed Troy Terry after the University of Denver was out of the NCAA Tournament and Nashville brought over Eeli Tolvanen from Europe after a full year in the Kontinental Hockey League – young talent added for the playoffs without the teams giving up anything, though coaches must now integrate a new player late in the season.”It’s tough if the kids aren’t good,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. ”With our team right now in the midst of this race, every little defensive situation has got to be done right.”Every shift is magnified this time of year, adding to the burden of trying to learn a team’s system. Donato, Greenway and Terry went right from college to the NHL, and Tolvanen had to adjust on the fly from the wider, European ice as Nashville tries to shore up home ice throughout the playoffs.”It’s kind of tough to come in the middle of the season and just jump in and you don’t know all the guys,” Tolvanen said. ”You have to do it at some point, so I think it’s a pretty good spot that I came a couple games before the playoffs.”Tolvanen benefited from two rounds of KHL playoffs with Jokerit and carried that intensity across the pond, while Terry and Greenway got a taste of playoff action in the NCAA Tournament. Donato’s season playing for his dad and former NHL forward Ted ended, and he suddenly had to ramp things up to carry a big load for Boston amid injuries to Rick Nash and others.Donato knew he couldn’t take a shift or a game off and has stepped up with seven points in his first nine games. Coach Bruce Cassidy wasn’t worried about getting the soon-to-be 22-year-old up to speed as much as seeing if Donato could handle the size, speed and pace of the NHL.”Most of these kids that come in are offensive-minded guys, so are they going to be able to make their plays and handle a man’s game?” Cassidy said. ”And he’s shown he’s able to do that.”Donato certainly had a body of work coming in, including leading the United States and tying for the tournament lead with five goals at the Olympics without NHL players. The other three young, late-season additions – all of whom also stood out at the Olympics – are being eased in.”We didn’t really do anything at the trade deadline because we knew that we were going to get Jordan Greenway http://www.losangelesramsteamonline.com/jared-goff-jersey ,” Boudreau said. ”He’s gone through the Olympics and the world juniors all in the last year, so he knows what a little bit of pressure is all about. Playing at BU, he’s always (on) one of the better teams playing in important games. We pretty well thought he could handle all this.”Nashville is betting Tolvanen can handle it, too. The impressive Finnish winger set a KHL record with 36 points as an 18-year-old and looked increasingly more comfortable in his first three games for the Predators, who have their sights set on a return trip to the Stanley Cup Final.”It’s important for him to see ice time before the playoffs,” coach Peter Laviolette said. ”The playoffs are a long haul. I think we learned that last year that you need a lot of people and a lot of parts and it’s important to get him involved in the game, with the team, in the systems.”Predators general manager David Poile recalled making one trade too many at a previous deadline and messing with his team’s chemistry.”You have to be careful on both sides because you don’t want to put a young player in a position to fail,” Poile said. ”You want to put him in a position to succeed. You also are very respectful of the players that have been with you all season long. It’s also OK to have depth but you don’t want to move everybody’s cheese too much.”In Boston, it helps that Donato is filling a spot vacated by injuries and showing immediately he belongs. In Nashville, Tolvanen’s reputation preceded him for anyone who saw what he did as one of the leading scorers at the Olympics.”It’s a special situation when somebody comes in this late and joins the team and under different circumstances, but it’s been great,” starting goaltender and fellow Finn Pekka Rinne said. ”Certainly it adds a new, special element to our team. I think it’s going to be beneficial down the road.”— BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) For all the buzz Rasmus Dahlin has generated at just 18, the Swedish defenseman joked he had never encountered a mob scene such as the one before him on Friday.There were as many as a dozen cameras and two dozen more reporters packed three- and four-deep surrounding Dahlin, seated on a stool at the NHL pre-draft scouting combine in Buffalo.”Yeah, it’s pretty awesome actually,” Dahlin said, his blond hair offset by the jet-black suit he wore. ”It’s the first time so many cameras, I think. It’s fun. I love it.”Dahlin had better become accustomed to it, because the lean, play-making and smooth-skating blue-liner should remain the focus of attention in the days leading up to the NHL draft being held in Dallas in three weeks. That’s when Dahlin is projected to be the first overall pick and join Mats Sundin as the only other Swedish-born player to go No. 1.”If that happens http://www.losangelesramsteamonline.com/brandin-cooks-jersey , I would be so glad and proud,” Dahlin said, his eyes growing bigger at the mention of Sundin, who was selected No. 1 by the Quebec Nordiques in 1989.At 6-foot-2 and 181 pounds, Dahlin is considered the most NHL-ready prospect in this year’s draft class for his all-around ability. He’s already drawing comparisons to other elite Swedish defensemen, such as former Detroit star and seven-time Norris Trophy-winner Nicklas Lidstrom and Ottawa captain and two-time Norris winner Erik Karlsson.”All those characteristics they bring to the game, Dahlin has the same potential to bring those same characteristics,” NHL Central Scouting director Dan Marr, told The Associated Press last week.”It’s not fair to compare him to those players, but everything that made them successful National Hockey League players, this kid has it in his game,” Marr added. ”This here’s a player that could be a cornerstone to a franchise. And he’ll be a staple on their blue line for years and years to come.”It’s not just one aspect of Dahlin’s game in which he excels, Marr said. It’s all of them.Whether it’s hitting, scoring or defending, Marr said Dahlin has ”shown he can rise to the occasion or rise to perform whatever needs to be done for that situation.”And the significance of Dahlin being in Buffalo for the combine wasn’t lost on anyone, given the Sabres own the top pick .General manager Jason Botterill isn’t tipping his hand on whether he’ll select Dahlin, but coach Phil Housley has already been crowing about the youngster’s potential.”I’ve been watching on YouTube, and boy it’s incredible,” Housley, a Hall of Fame defenseman, told The Buffalo News last month. ”He’s going to be a complete package in today’s NHL.”Among the prospects ranked behind Dahlin by central scouting are Russian forward Andrei Svechnikov, who played in the Ontario Junior League last season, and Boston University’s Brady Tkachuk http://www.losangelesramsteamonline.com/robert-woods-jersey , the son of former NHL star Keith Tkachuk.Dahlin is taking nothing for granted in saying, he’s not sure of the Sabres’ intentions.”Of course, nothing is done,” he said. ”But yeah, if I’m coming here, I would love to be here. I heard they have great fans and everybody loves hockey here.”Dahlin got his first taste of Buffalo’s hockey fans this past winter when he was part of Sweden’s silver medal-winning team at the World Junior hockey championships held in the city. Some five months later, the sting of a 3-1 loss to Canada in the championship game had mostly worn off.”At that moment it was pretty bad,” said Dahlin, one of four Swedish players disciplined by the International Ice Hockey Federation for refusing to wear the silver medal during the postgame ceremony. ”But now, if I look back to the tournament, it was a great tournament. It was awesome to be here. We had a great team. We were so close.”Dahlin was named the tournament’s top defenseman after finishing with six assists in seven games. At just 17, he then represented Sweden at the Winter Olympics, where he had an assist in two games. Add to that, Dahlin scored seven goals and 13 assists in 41 games with Frolunda of the Swedish Hockey League, and earned junior player of the year honors.”I went through so many great experiences. I’ve been to so many new places. I’ve grown as a guy, too,” Dahlin said attempting to put the year into perspective. ”I’m a teenager that’s growing every day just as a person.”Once the session with reporters ended, Dahlin made his way to a bank of windows overlooking Buffalo’s newly redeveloped inner harbor, and soaked in the view.—
