After much anticipation, Dvorsky lived up to the hype in his NHL debut

The St. Louis Blues have extended their longest win streak on the season to six in a row with a 4-1 victory over the Nashville Predators. One of the highlights of the night was the rookie lap and the emergence of highly-revered prospect Dalibor Dvorsky.

With the entirety of the Blues fanbase glued to the young prospect, it went just about as expected. The hype is real, and Dvorsky could be ready to go as an NHL regular very soon. Of course, the only reason why he got the call-up was due to the illness of Pavel Buchnevich, but now the Blues front office has a decision to make in retaining Dvorsky for the rest of the regular season.

Let's go over his debut, and whether he should remain on this roster into the playoffs.

Living up to the hype

Dvorsky has had quite the year. He was outstanding in the World Junior Championship back in early January. He had five goals and four assists for nine points in the five games he represented Team Slovakia. He has also had a marvelous tenure with the Blues American Hockey League affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds, with 20 goals and 23 assists on the season thus far.

Now, he logged some time at the NHL level, in an eye-opening start. Despite not registering much of anything on the box score, he was on the ice for 10:40 of ice time. During the Blues first powerplay, head coach Jim Montgomery pulled off a nice surprise by sending out the 19-year-old on the first powerplay unit. Dvorsky leads Springfield with 10 powerplay goals on the year, so anything could have happened in that moment.

Dvorsky also took five face-offs, winning two and losing the other three. Outside of the stat sheet, he looked like he adjusted to the NHL speed well. At times, he did look a bit lost and dazed, but there were more moments of brilliance and comfort from him as the game went along.

Enough to stay up?

This is a bit of a loaded question, as it isn't a matter of how well he played. Dvorsky could have done anything less than a hat-trick in his first career game, and it still would mean that he will likely be seeing himself back in Springfield once Buchnevich is back to being 100%.

This first time out does bode a good, solid look at the future of the Blues. They have something special in Dvorsky, much like everyone anticipated. This is a good sign of things to come, but right now, it is not the time to be experimenting with the playoffs around the corner. A few more games, sure, but not much longer than that.