I watched Jonah Neuenschwander twice this summer and came away with a fairly simple conclusion: I need to watch him play against better competition.

The talent isn’t the question. Neuenschwander was so much better than the players around him in both games that evaluating some of the finer details became difficult. His skating, puck handling and passing immediately stood out, and when he decided it was time to take over a shift, there wasn’t much anyone on the other team could do about it.

The first viewing came against Ukraine in the U18 Division 1 tournament (a tier down from the top tier u18 IIHF tournament), where he was easily the most physically gifted player on the ice. Neuenschwander can fly once he gets moving and chased down just about any outlet his teammates threw into space. He could beat defenders with his feet, handle the puck at speed and create for teammates once he pushed the defense backward. He averaged four shots across my two tracked games with 3.5 coming from dangerous areas, so despite all of the skill on display, he was consistently getting himself into the middle of the ice rather than settling for offense from the perimeter.

The passing might have impressed me even more. Neuenschwander completed nearly 78% of his passes, with more than 20% going to dangerous areas of the ice. Even more impressive was that he completed 91.7% of those dangerous pass attempts. When he saw an opportunity to create a scoring chance, he usually executed it. He processes the game quickly, has the skill to move pucks through pressure and rarely seemed challenged by what defenders were showing him.

The second viewing at the junior level in Switzerland felt like watching a beer league team call in a guy who played college hockey five years ago.

Neuenschwander knew he was better than everyone else. He’d float through stretches of the game, pick and choose when he wanted to get involved, and then suddenly turn it on when his team needed something. He’d beat the initial defender with ease, pull another player toward him and put the puck directly onto a teammate’s stick for a dangerous chance.

That made some of the tracking difficult to evaluate. Lausanne spent much of the game packed into a conservative defensive-zone structure and was content to keep everything along the perimeter. Neuenschwander could beat the first layer of pressure, but there were several opportunities where he passed up chances to attack because there wasn’t much reason to force the issue in a game his team controlled. They outshot their opponent 23-7, and at times he played like he knew it.

That’s where my only concern comes from.

For as impressive as Neuenschwander’s skating looked when he wanted to create offense, the effort coming back the other direction could be terrible. In the first game I actually started counting how many seconds it took him to appear back in the frame after possession went the other way. For someone with his skating ability, there were too many occasions where he simply wasn’t interested in using it to get back into the play.

I don’t know yet whether that’s a Neuenschwander problem or a competition problem.

When you’re significantly better than everyone around you, it’s probably difficult to play every shift like you have something to prove. His defensive transition numbers were actually strong at a 61.5% success rate, and when he was engaged defensively, the skating and processing were more than enough to make plays. I just want to see whether the effort becomes more consistent when he’s playing against opponents capable of punishing him for taking a shift off.

He’s not someone who’s going to run around throwing huge hits, but he’s constantly involved in being a scummer through an unnecessary borderline play or something after the whistle. An extra cross-check, a slash around the ankles, shoving someone’s face into the ice after a battle or talking crap while everyone sorts themselves out. He plays with an edge that doesn’t necessarily show up through traditional physicality, but it’s definitely there.

Even his offensive transition numbers leave me wanting better competition before making much of a conclusion. He was involved in 45% of his team’s offensive transitions with a 69.2% success rate, but there were long stretches where he simply didn’t need to dominate possession because his team was already controlling the game.

Right now, I see a highly skilled, mobile forward who can create offense as both a shooter and passer, processes the game extremely well and has enough bite to make him even more entertaining. I also see a player who spent these two games picking and choosing when he wanted to dominate because, frankly, he could.

I don’t need another game of Neuenschwander proving he’s better than this level of hockey. I need to see what happens when the players across from him are good enough to make him play every shift.