Is Tyler Toffoli the real deal?

With eight goals in his last seven games in the American Hockey League, and five in his final three with Manchester Monarchs, Tyler Toffoli left Dean Lombardi handcuffed to summon him for his latest recall to the big club. His last trip to Hollywood, Toffoli produced at a rate of a point every other game; not too shabby for a rookie. However, lost in the season stats are the fact that most of his damage was done out of the gates, with points in each of his first five games this season, including seven points over that stretch and 15 points through his first 18 games.

He was really set up to succeed, after Darryl Sutter situated Toffoli in the 2012 champs' top six, alongside veteran Mike Richards and occasionally Jeff Carter.

As gifted and noted of a goal scorer that Toffoli has always been (109 over his final two OHL campaigns) and projects to be, his hot start in Los Angeles promptly came to a halt once the Kings slid into December. Between December 11^th and February 3^rd, he followed up his solid first two months with 18 donuts in 19 contests, seeing him shift from the top line to the second unit down to the a checking role and finally a healthy scratch.

It was an inevitability for him to get demoted before really being able to put his skill to use, logging heavy minutes in Manchester with the Monarchs. Specifically, his stint during the Sochi break was where he re-discovered his scoring touch, notching 11 points over his last eight AHL games and seven over the last three.

In is return to the Kings on Wednesday night and again last night, Toffoli was properly utilized on the top line, matched with franchise player, Anze Kopitar and top sniper, Carter. It worked out well with two helpers to his name on Wednesday.

Tyler Toffoli's Most frequent line mate generator by Frozen Pools for Wed, February 27th

Toffoli should absolutely be able to continue this production going forward as long as he is continually used with skilled players. Expect the majority of his production to come in the form of finding the twine rather than teeing up his linemates. That is of course unless Carter continues to occupy the same line as him, as you will need to scale back your expectation for Tyler even so, since Carter will be the primary target man undoubtedly.

If Toffoli eventually ends up back with Richards, with whom he has had a tonne of success with previously, then you can expect his goal scoring to increasing accordingly. Conversely, if his current line does prove to have staying power, then he will definitely still get in on the action. It just means you may need to adjust your expectations as far as your projected category strengths are concerned. This is because you'll assuredly see more nights like Wednesday evening, where assists begin to fill his score sheet more often than he's probably ever been accustomed to in contrast to his typical Cy Young numbers (Goals much higher than assist for those not familiar with the baseball reference/comparison).

On a different note, Drew Doughty's confidence is clearly back up, as well as likely, Slava Voynov, who was the best member of an otherwise suspect Russian Defense core at the Olympics. This can only bode well for L.A. as offensive rushes originated from the blue line and carried in from the defensive zone are more probable when the two afore mentioned blueline killers are back at the top of their game, offensively.

All in all, it's a great thing that Toffoli is back in Silver & Black as this stud has a lot of productivity lying ahead. Feel safe to throw him into your starting lineup confidently on a nightly basis for the foreseeable future.

Give Anthony Lancione a follow on Twitter @Anthisdaman.