6.
It was Fitzgerald who had watched Max Willman the last few years and mentioned to Assistant GM Dan MacKinnon, who is also the General Manager of the Comets, that Willman was a player worth looking at.
Fitzgerald had seen Willman play in college and again when he played with Fitzgerald’s son Ryan in the Flyers organization.
I asked MacKinnon what it was about Willman that made him a player they wanted to bring in on a try-out at camp and he pointed towards two 'critical' things. First, and we caught a real glimpse of it on Sunday night, was Willman’s skating ability, MacKinnon calling him a great skater, who could add to the organizational depth of speed. Undoubtedly, if you're going to be successful in this system and with the players on this team, you need to have the proper footspeed.
The other reason, which is a little more technical, was Willman wouldn’t create an imbalance in the Utica system, as he is not qualified as an American Hockey League veteran.
Teams in the AHL can only dress a maximum of five veteran players in a game. Veterans are qualified by the number of AHL, NHL, and European elite-level games. When putting together an AHL game roster, it’s also a bit of a math equation, which is why having a player fall under a non-veteran status, even though he’s 28 years old, helps an organization overall.
Of the 18 skaters, goaltenders not included, only six players can qualify as veterans, that is, having played in 260 or more professional games. But that’s not it. One of those six players must have fewer than 320 professional games.
Hockey math.
The whole point of the rule is to make sure AHL teams don't stack themselves with players who have an enormous amount of professional experience, keeping the league more of a 'development league'.
MacKinnon shared that when they signed Willman to a PTO they felt “if he showed well in camp - which he did - we would have a spot for him in the organization.”
Added MacKinnon: “He’s a great kid who works extremely hard and plays with a lot of pace. He has been consistently one of our best forwards so far in Utica, along with (Justin) Dowling and (Xavier) Parent.”