There are no two ways about it: Tyler Seguin (No. 2 in the latest Gare Joyce mock draft) was going to be a hockey player. His grandfather, Marcel Seguin, was drafted by the Boston Bruins and played semi-pro for the Buffalo Bisons. Dad Paul was team captain and roommate of future NHL star John Leclair at the University of Vermont. Mom Jackie starred for the Brampton Canadettes, the same system in which little sisters Candice, 15, and Cassidy, 12, now play. "I love this game and one day I'll have my job be something I love," Seguin says. "It was just supposed to happen."

But no one knew it would happen like this.

Two years ago, Seguin was taken 9th overall in the OHL entry draft by the Plymouth Whalers. He considered playing for the University of Michigan, where he'd been attending Wolverines coach Red Berenson's hockey camps since the age of nine, but decided the OHL was the route for him. "Back then, I couldn't really picture myself in the shoes I'm in today," he says. "But still, it was the dream."

Seguin had a slow start to the 2008-2009 season, skating on the fourth line and seeing little ice time. It took a coaching change (GM Mike Vellucci returned to the bench) and a line change (Seguin started playing on the top two) to spur Seguin on to his first OHL goal, in his 15th game. After that, in a meeting with Vellucci, Seguin's NHL dream became a possible reality. Vellucci told Seguin they expected him to be a great player, and they didn't care if he was still only 16 years old. "I sat down with Vellucci and we talked," Seguin says. "I had new confidence, and I said now, the NHL dream is a real goal. Everything started clicking after that, and my improvement level shot up."

Seguin finished his rookie season with 21 goals and 67 points, and was firmly on the radar, alongside draft classmate Taylor Hall, who, with a 1991 birthday, had just completed his second OHL season. This year, the Seguin/Hall debate has raged. In mid-April, NHL Central Scouting made their opinion known, stamping Seguin the No. 1 prospect in this year's NHL draft. Still, the chatter continues, much as it did the year Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin were drafted, and on draft day, it will come down to what the Edmonton Oilers (picking first) are looking for: is it Hall, the dynamic wing who excels at one-on-one play? Or Seguin, the play-making, goal-scoring center?

Seguin, though, doesn't fit so neatly into that box. Yes, he's a dynamic playmaker up the middle of the ice, but he's also comfortable playing both wings and has an extra gear when he gets the puck.

"Most kids, we try to classify them as either a playmaker or a goal scorer, but Seguin is equally dangerous both ways," says one Western Conference scout. "He has the ability to make plays, to shoot, pass and find the open guy at very high speed, which is what has to be done at the NHL level. He's a very well rounded player, and is so dangerous because he can beat you with either the pass or the shot."

Seguin's snap shot comes with a release that is already NHL-caliber; he shoots from all areas of the ice, often catching goaltenders off guard with bad-angle shots. He improved so much from his rookie to his sophomore season that he more than doubled his goal total, finishing the year with 48 goals and 106 points, tied with Hall for the OHL scoring lead.

Seguin brought his play to yet another level midway through the season, after being cut from Canada's World Junior team while Hall went on to wear the red-and-white. "I think it hurt Tyler to not make the World Junior team," says Whalers assistant coach Joe Stefan. "But it definitely spurred him on for the last half of the year." So much so that Seguin was the OHL player of the month in both December and January, and went on to win the Red Tilson Trophy as the OHL's Most Outstanding Player of the Year.

"This year I showed I can score, and now I think I'm more of a complete centerman," Seguin says. "I've been concentrating on playing in my own end, because I know when I'm in the NHL it's going to be a big deal for the center to be good both in his own end and in the offensive zone."

That's something every NHL scout likes to hear. "The difference between Tyler and most other kids at this level is he wants to be a star in the NHL, knows exactly what it's going to take to get there and wants to do the work," Stefan says. "Some kids want it, but don't want to put in the effort or don't have the will or the drive to get there. Tyler is willing to do whatever it takes."