Predators top prospect Tanner Molendyk finds AHL a grind with Admirals

A quick online search leaves little doubt about the expectations for Tanner Molendyk . He’s “on the fast track” … the Nashville Predators ’ top prospect and No. 25 across the NHL … a speed demon … potential replacement for Roman Josi “as their next stud d-man.

” As the end of his first regular season as a pro nears, there’s no reason to think Molendyk can’t live up to the hype. But he also just turned 21 and is still gaining confidence against bigger and more athletic competition than he’d ever faced while learning to navigate daily life without parents or a billet family handling dinner and laundry and bills. And in the mind of Milwaukee Admirals coach Karl Taylor, that’s perfectly OK.

Maybe even expected. “The thing the fans and all the pundits don’t understand is that for everyone except for the elite, elite one-percenters, eventually it gets hard at some point, right? ” said Taylor, who has earned a reputation for developing young players with Nashville’s AHL affiliate.

“And so for some people, that’s when they’re in junior, some of them that’s in the East Coast League, when they’re in American League, then NHL, sometimes it depends on all those things. “It’s a challenge because these kids have had a lot of success and not a lot of failure. And so each year we sit down with all our first-year players and let them know that failure will come.