TOP PROSPECTS - JOLY

Over the last couple of weeks, Torie Peterson has been highlighting a group of young players who have shown tremendous promise in our Top Prospects series - keep an eye out for more profiles this week.
D'Artagnan Joly's 2017-18 campaign didn't start the way he envisioned.
Kept off the ice through the summer, the Flames' rookie camp, the Young Stars Classic tournament and the initial portion of the QMJHL season due to a back injury, Joly didn't hit the ice with his Baie-Comeau Drakkar until mid-way through October.
Despite the tough start and being limited to 55 games, he still finished second in team scoring with 23 goals and 68 points.
As per Prospect-Stats, a whopping 73% of Joly's 45 assists were primary helpers. He averaged 1.02 primary points-per-game, which ranked him ninth in the QMJHL.

When it came to special teams, he spent time on both the powerplay and penalty kill. Twenty-one of his points came on the powerplay - seven goals and 14 assists - and he was credited with a pair of short-handed assists during the regular season.
In the playoffs, Joly put up six assists in a five-game series against Halifax, all of which were primary helpers.
"A real good improvement (on his draft year)," Flames director of amateur scouting Tod Button assessed. "He missed most of his summer training with a back injury, he started late, but he caught up really quickly.
"Early in the season when I saw him, you could tell he was behind fitness-wise but we're really happy with his progress, especially in the second half of the year."

Seeing the Gatineau product take big steps in the second half of the year wasn't a surprise to Flames scouts - after all, his draft-eligible 2016-17 season was a similar story.
He had just four goals and nine points to his name until the calendar flipped to December in 2016, producing in short bursts in the first couple of months of the season. But as the winter wore on, Joly got into a rhythm.
He would end up scoring 16 goals and 48 points in 66 skates and put 160 shots on net. In the playoffs, he dressed for four games and scored once in Baie-Comeau's first round match-up vs. Charlottetown.
While his game could be described as raw throughout his draft-eligible campaign, the strides he made earned the admiration of Calgary's QMJHL scouts.
"Halfway through the year, we weren't very sure of him," Button admitted after Joly was selected in last year's draft. "But as the year went on and the playoffs went on, our scouts in Quebec - our three scouts - they really liked him and they really pushed for him."
Joly is an adept puck distributor, making smart decisions and finding his linemates with crisp passes, no matter the situation. He has shown he has a great shot and can take on a goal-scorer's role but trends more towards being a playmaker.
Strong on his skates, he has great speed and he is hard to knock off the puck while battling with his opponents.
He isn't shy about playing a more physical brand of hockey either. He'll initiate contact and can hammer his opponents with hard checks along the boards. Joly is happy to jockey for space in front of the net as well, drawing attention to himself and opening up space for his linemates to work.
The challenge now, as it is for most young players, is make gains in his conditioning and fill out his 6-foot-3 frame with more muscle.
"He's got to get in the gym and train now, make up for lost time, Button said. "It's hard to do but he can focus on the training."