One veteran NHL scout who took in the game is much less equivocal: “I don’t ever think that anyone has locked up the No.1 slot in December. Only when the season is over and you’re listing the players am I comfortable saying who’s No. 1. Right now, though, he’s at the head of the pack. He’s the best defence prospect really since Victor Hedman but he has so much more to offer [than the Tampa Bay defenceman] with his mobility and puck skills.”

Likewise, the phenom’s teammates enthuse almost without reservation. Frolunda blueliner Jonathan Sigalet passes over the physical aspects of the game and points to Dahlin’s vision and instincts as the assets that set him apart from other prospects. “In a dozen pro seasons, I never played with or against a defenceman who has anything close to his ability to read the play out there and his sense of time and space,” says Sigalet, a Vancouver native who spent a decade in the AHL and KHL before heading to Sweden in 2014. “I’m not talking about young defencemen. I’m talking any defenceman. His skating is off the charts. So are his skills. But there’s some stuff that you can’t teach or work on and are can be hard to describe but you know it when you see it.

“And really, it’s hard to put into words how hard it is to break into this league for a kid barely 16-years-old like Rasmus was last season. And there were times he made it look easy.”

Of course, on that last point, it went well beyond the ease with which Dahlin stepped into the Frolunda lineup. Even at 16, he was no ordinary middle-of-the-roster player. Nightly he produced the stuff of highlight reels. His outrageous undressing of veteran defencemen with McDavidesque dangles left opponents and scouts scratching their heads. Did he really just do that? And exactly how did he do that? Dahlin’s emergence over the course of last season moved him to the head of the pack of 2000-birthdays. He’s poised to be the first true millennial superstar, at least as far as birth certificates go.