A 3-1-1 finish on the swing - with visiting wins over the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens - and a 6-1-2 display through the month overall, which saw Yamamoto tally three goals and seven points, proved to Tippett and team members that the 22nd-overall draft choice was, without any doubt, primed for The Show.
"He's an NHL player. He's a very good NHL player," Draisaitl said at the time. "He's been showing it all year that he can play. Our line has been pretty good for the most part. We've been producing and generating chances. He's been a big part of that.
"He belongs in the NHL."
Coach Tippett, whose confidence in Yamamoto increased gradually, continued finding himself ordering the winger to the ice during critical sequences, including late in matches and in 3-on-3 overtime - responsibilities Tippett, a 15-year veteran bench boss, doesn't issue lightly.
"He came in and did little things that allow you to be a good player in a game and allow a coach to trust you in those situations. When a player does that and contributes to your lineup, he usually stays there," said the Oilers coach.
"He really looks like an NHL player to me."
Accompanying Yamamoto's ascension within the Oilers dressing room was his meteoric rise outside of it in the form of fanfare.
There's no better way to gain a follower in the game of hockey than by filling the net, and the small but punchy scorer was producing aplenty while flanking Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins. Thanks in part to 'Yamo,' the Deutschland Dangler and Nuge were top five in points produced since Dec. 31, with 49 and 41, respectively. "We got some chemistry going right away," Nugent-Hopkins said of his linemates via a video conference on Thursday. "It was definitely fun."
But Yamamoto captured Oil Country's collective heart in more ways. The 5-foot-7, 155-pounder's scale is juxtaposed by a 6-foot-8, 230-pound game, with instances of unflinching net-crashing and vigorous puck-battling displayed nightly. "It was so impressive to see him come in and win those battles," mentioned Nugent-Hopkins.
Adding to that is the diminutive figure's affable personality. There always seems to be a soft spot for the players punching far above their weight class and that much is true with Yamamoto, who's been subjected to no shortage of creature-like comparisons for the way he packages his game: wielding the intrusiveness of a water bug with the aggressiveness of a honey badger, and, as one Twitter user put it so perfectly, can be as dangerous on the ice as a "wasp in a car."
