Jordan Kyrou signed a junior hockey contract with the Sarnia Sting just two months after he turned 16. No one will hand out gold medals for putting up 60 goals and 181 points in three seasons of the OHL, but Kyrou didn’t waste any time proving that, in his case, talent was always ahead of his potential. 

Potential in a young athlete is a blinded Hail Mary toss most of the time. There’s just no way to tell if talent can make the climb in the pros. For the Blues and Kyrou, there was certainly a lot of hope and potential when he was selected 35th overall in the 2016 NHL Draft, which took place just a little over two years after that signing with the Sting.

Kyrou ripped off another 109 point season before making his American Hockey League debut with the Chicago Rampage in the 2018-19 season, netting 43 points in 47 games. OHL or AHL, it didn’t matter. Kyrou could compete. 

Here’s the thing. I placed most of my chips next to Kyrou when he and Robert Thomas started heating up the prospect train for the Blues. As Thomas ascended quickly, assisting on a playoff series-clinching goal against Dallas, Kyrou was finishing up his first minor league season in San Antonio. These days, the two are young guns on a team quickly showing the NHL that they have plenty of offensive firepower. 

Against Anaheim on Saturday, Kyrou scored 20 seconds into the game. He has five goals and five assists through the team’s first nine games in this pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season.

He collected three points on Saturday in less than just 13 minutes of ice time. Kyrou was playing with Jaden Schwartz and Brayden Schenn that night. Another line had Mike Hoffman and Thomas. The top line had Zach Sanford, Ryan O’Reilly, and David Perron.

Can you imagine when Vladimir Tarasenko is gearing up to return next month, and someone on Twitter saying, “But where is Kyrou going to play?!” That’s how fast things are moving with Kyrou and the Blues, a team with four legit lines that can hurt another team. Just ask the Ducks. 

Kyrou’s ten points are two shy of his NHL total, which spans 53 games, and already loom over the nine points he put up last year in 28 games. Ten points in nine games versus nine in 28 doesn’t make the 22-year-old kid an instant legend, or something you can easily expect to see duplicated in the next 10-15 games, but it’s a promising start from a kid who knew how to play the game with bigger bodies at a very young age. The learning curve for this kid isn’t as vast as it is for the average NHL player under 25. 

You wouldn’t put his goals into the “lucky bounce” category either. Kyrou is making goaltenders look foolish for wearing so much padding and stopping so little. He flies in, swoops around defenders like traffic cones, and doesn’t forget about his teammates. One of the best things about Kyrou is that he isn’t selfish with the puck, and he helps his teammates flourish.

Big talent isn’t programmed to do that; that’s where a brain comes into play. Kyrou plays with intuition and smarts out there, making every second count. That’s why you see him playing with vets like Schwartz and Schenn.