Kyle Connor’s road to stardom in the NHL has taken a detour to the AHL but his coach, Pascal Vincent, says this is nothing to worry about in the grand scheme of things.

“He’s a young player,” the head coach of the Manitoba Moose said Monday. “We have to keep in mind, even though he started in the NHL, he’s still a 20-year-old player and he’s coming out of college.

“There’s an adjustment and for him I think the adjustment might be a little bit tougher in the American League because it’s not as structured as the NHL.

“There’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of new players, the pre-scouts are not as deep. It’s not as detailed as it is in the NHL.”

Connor set NCAA hockey on fire with 35 goals and 71 points in 38 games at the University of Michigan last season. His start in the NHL was rockier. After making the Winnipeg Jets roster out of training camp, he scored once and added three assists in 19 games, missing some action with an upper-body injury. Once healthy, Connor’s playing time dwindled and he was reduced to press-box duty before being sent down.

He hasn’t been tearing it up in the AHL, but his production is starting to pick up. Connor has three goals and five points in nine games and seems to be finding some chemistry with new linemates Chase De Leo and Scott Glennie.

“It’s a different-style league,” said Connor.

He finds pro scheduling — with games almost every other day as opposed to the weekend games in college — is the most challenging adjustment.

“It’s a good group in here to help smooth that transition and the coaching staff.

“Everyone would tell you they want to score every single game… I’m a player that has to produce, so it has to be there.”

The Jets, who took Connor with the 17th-overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft, want him to succeed in a big way. He is being used in pressure situations by Vincent, including duty on the Moose’s top power-play unit.

“It’s gonna take some time,” said Vincent. “But what we see here is the fact that he can use his speed and we want him to be on the ice in critical times, so we used him at the end of the game last game.”

Glennie, a 25-year-old right-winger, is coming from a much different place. He’s trying to reclaim his career after missing the entire 2015-16 season while rehabbing from shoulder surgery. The eighth-overall pick by Dallas in the 2009 NHL Draft never panned out for the Stars and he’s been on a pro tryout with the Moose to start 2016-17.

He has three goals and seven assists in 21 games.

“His puck sense, I like what I’m seeing,” Vincent said.

“He wanted a second chance. (Manitoba GM) Craig Heisinger, when he first talked to me about him, he said, ‘Well, we have to make a decision. Do we want to give him a chance’ and we said, ‘Well let’s give him a chance and go from there.’ He took advantage of the opportunity.”

Glennie, who rode buses for four seasons with the Western Hockey League’s Brandon Wheat Kings, also has found the Moose schedule to be daunting.
“The difference in Winnipeg compared with Texas, where we had so many teams around us — we played them 12 times a year,” said Glennie, who apprenticed with the Stars’ AHL affiliate in Austin. “We’d bus there and bus home. You didn’t really feel like you were on the road. In Winnipeg in November, I think we were on the road for 22 or 23 days…

“The travel was really what I forgot takes a toll on the body.”

During his hiatus, Glennie went 549 days between games. He remains on a pro tryout, but he’s focused on earning a regular contract.

“The last four or five games I think I’ve been playing my best hockey,” said Glennie.

“Obviously, the first couple of games things were just happening. I got a couple of goals and a couple of assists right off the bat. Then I went into a bit of a lull… it was a bit of a transition for me. But now, honestly, I feel really comfortable on the ice again.”

De Leo, a 21-year-old centre in his second year as a pro, is helping his new linemates fit in. He understands the drill in the AHL perfectly.

“Every day is a tryout,” De Leo said. “That goes for all of us — we know that, obviously. There’s always guys trying to take your place and we’re trying to take other guys’ jobs, so that’s how I look at it.

“We’re all in this together. We all get it, as much as we want to be up there, you can’t have a bad attitude when you come down here. You’ve just gotta grind through it and enjoy it.”