Top-two pick to top scorer. Contributor to superstar. Occasional healthy scratch to occasionally earning upwards of 20 minutes a night and playing against top lines. Regardless of how one chooses to describe Tyler Seguin’s leap from his rookie year to his highly impressive sophomore campaign, the 19-year-old has shown that though his first year on the job featured flashes of brilliance, he has simply taken it to another level on his second try. 

If you’re surprised that by how much of a jump Seguin’s been able to make from his first year to his second year, perhaps you shouldn’t be. After all, it’s happened before.

“All the things that he went through last year in Boston, he went through with us,” Plymouth Whalers (Ontario Hockey League) head coach and general manager Mike Vellucci recalled this weekend.

Well, Seguin didn’t win the Stanley Cup in his first year in the OHL, but aside from that, Vellucci makes a great point. Though the season ended with Seguin hoisting the most coveted trophy in sports, his rookie campaign in the NHL was far from a walk in the park. After scoring his first career goal in just his second game (a tally that was assisted by Michael Ryder and Tim Thomas), Seguin hit some roadblocks in his first professional season, often appearing timid and not trusting his skill as much as he does now.  

That’s something that Seguin also experienced in his first OHL season. A fourth-liner to begin the 2008-09 season under coach Greg Stefan, Seguin had only one goal over his first 17 games. Stefan eventually left to take a scouting gig with the Hurricanes, and after Vellucci took over and promoted Seguin, the rookie saw improvement over the rest of the season and finished with a solid 67 points. It was that second year that saw Seguin really take off, and he finished the season with a league-leading 106 points.  

Through 18 games, Seguin’s 21 points this season put him just one shy of matching his rookie total, something it took him 74 games to achieve. Stats don’t tell the whole story, though. Watching Seguin, he’s clearly a different player. He’s just as fast as he ever was, but he’s using his speed more. He isn’t shying away from contact as much. He’s showing just why he was the top-ranked player in the 2010 draft, and he’s certainly reopened the debate over who should have been the first overall pick. 

"It's just experience," Seguin said recently. "Every game you play, you get more experience under your belt. That's what's been helping me out the most." 

Going into his second OHL season, Seguin knew what he was capable of based on the way he finished his rookie campaign. In the NHL, it was a similar feeling for Seguin as he entered this season. He has his four-point second period of Game 2 of the conference finals to thank for that.

“It helps your confidence when you can put a couple goals in in a big game and a big series,” Seguin said. “Obviously it's going to help you out knowing that you can tell yourself you can do it and help this team win games and make an effect on it. It definitely helped out in my mindset for sure.”

Though the leagues are much different, the adjustments that Seguin has had to make to each one haven’t been. Vellucci saw the similar improvements in the second year of Seguin’s OHL career that the Bruins are seeing now. 

“He was more confident his second year,” Vellucci, a former defenseman who played for the Hartford Whalers in 1987-88, said of Seguin. “He wanted the puck more on his stick. Big players, big-time players always want the ball or the puck, or whatever the sport may be. They want to be the go-to guy.“

Added Vellucci: “He had to play better defensively. When you're a scorer, sometimes you think you have to cheat defensively to get points, and that's not true. The better you play defensively, the better you're going to play offensively. That's something we stress to our players all the time. I know we did that Tyler on several occasions. When he played better defensively, he was better offensively for us.”

Seguin has taken pride in his defensive play this season, and Claude Julien hasn’t been shy about praising him for it. The lightning-quick forward knows he can create plays in his own end, and he’s pointed to it as an area in which he’s improved. 

Now, Vellucci watches Seguin and is proud of the player he’s become. Family commitments prevented him from attending Seguin’s day with the Cup in Ontario, but as much as a “bummer” as the timing was for Vellucci, he can take solace in seeing how Seguin has improved.

“I think the game just slowed down for him,” Vellucci said. “What I mean by that is he can see things a lot faster. Now he knows he has a little more time, he has the confidence of his coach. He's playing good defensively and he knows that if he does make a mistake, he'll be back out there. It's all those little things that probably go into why he's doing so well.”

Now that he’s making enormous strides in his second year in the NHL, does any of it ring a bell for the young forward?

“I think after a year under your belt, you're going to be able to adjust,” Seguin said recently in comparing his sophomore performances in both the OHL and NHL. “In my second year, I had 106 points in the OHL. It's a bit easier to do that there than here, but I'm just going to keep working on it and adjusting.”

Vellucci doesn’t see the improvement or adjustment stopping any time soon, and that could be very good news for Bruins fans.

“Last year and even in his draft year, everybody asked me what I liked about him. He wants to be the best player,” Vellucci said. “He wants to be the best player on the team, he wants to be the best player on the ice. He's striving to be the best player.”