Prospect Info: Olli Juolevi, Pt. VI

[Bleach Clean]

Continue here.

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[thelittlecoon]

Better at defense than Matthew Tkachuk

 

[CanaFan]

Better at defense than Matthew Tkachuk

He's just not good at it yet. Also his offense isn't good because his coach used him as a defensive specialist. He's also super skinny but his skating has suffered because he weighs too much.

 

[thelittlecoon]

He's just not good at it yet. Also his offense isn't good because his coach used him as a defensive specialist. He's also super skinny but his skating has suffered because he weighs too much.

Don't know what you're getting at here

 

[BobbyJazzLegs]

really hoped he'd crack the roster this year buuuut not so sure after rookie camp

plz dont bust

 

[biturbo19]

I don't think it's even necessarily all that productive to talk about raw weights+weights when trying to ascertain how physically "ready" a prospect is. Guys can weigh in at all different sorts of numbers and be successful. Different guys can weigh in at the exact same number and be built completely differently. Sometimes it takes a player a while to really grow into their body and find the right sort of regimen and body composition for them to have their "man strength". It's one thing to "bulk up", get "stronger" and talk about doing all the right things; it can be another thing entirely when they get out onto the ice and see how it performs.

This organization seems to have a problem with getting prospects and young players physically prepared for seasons. Has everyone forgotten how poorly conditioned and sluggish Horvat looked even coming into his 2nd season with an NHL year already under his belt? Took him darn near half a year to work himself into shape over the course of the season. The trend has continued with others as well.



More than just building the right sort of strength and conditioning in the first place for a player like Juolevi...it's also going to be about learning how to use that strength effectively. He's been a beanpole, he hasn't had that strength to his game and he's learned to play without it. It may take time for him to really take advantage of that. Even Tanev when he came in was a complete physical non-entity. He'd take hits to make plays (as does Juolevi) but that was about it. He's learned over time to use some of his size to enhance what he does, but it wasn't overnight. Again, this is a teenager we're talking about here. Not everyone matures physically at the same rate.

 

[Bleach Clean]

well facts are facts and i am not insisting that my profile is correct, i am looking for someone to argue otherwise instead of the broad brush approach i see. and you can't reject my viewpoint because it is hard to disprove. i realize people like to argue and project prospects here, but that doesn't mean you reject logical arguments because they force you to be patient with a player.

and if you follow this thread you know that before this discussion i specifically asked people to identify such snowflakes and got crickets. nobody was willing to say who juolevi resembled as a prospect with or without my parameters. i share that difficulty. convince me guys resemble juolevi and i'm interested.

I think it's because his comparisons are largely irrelevant to the discussion. You may be interested. It may mean something to you and your analysis, but when discussing probability, the majority of defenders (of all shapes and sizes) and their progression is relevant. The snowflake approach is anecdotal. We cannot better infer from a smaller set of data than a larger one. The smaller data set (snowflakes) actually introduces more noise into the data. Thereby rendering it less useful than the larger data set.

Disregarding that base to highlight the snowflake subset is a reach for anecdotal evidence. It actually moves us further away from projecting Juolevi, not closer to.

what we have here instead is a group of people projecting a player using extremely crude metrics. "he doesn't have a career progression like other successful high d draft picks" is the dominant narrative, but i have yet to see anyone argue he resembles other high draft picks who either busted or didn't bust so that this is a fair comparison. you wouldn't compare the career trajectory of petterson and virtanen because of their similar draft position as a way of projecting how petterson is doing d+2. they are completely different players with different talents and different physical development when drafted. but folks here are doing exactly that with dmen.

To use your example: No, you wouldn't compare Pettersson and Virtanen in isolation. You would compare all forward prospects drafted in the top10 over the last 40 years. Make the data set as big as possible. Include as many 'types' of forwards as possible. It's so that we can reduce the 'noise' (talent, build, differences etc..) across the board. So as to render a more reliable data set. When the impact of these variables is reduced on the larger sample, then we know the impact of these differences will not skew the data so as to make it useless.

i do think this pre-season will be telling and help "put to rest" the uncertainties with this player. but i want to emphasize that even if the guy is a complete tire fire one on one in his own end, that's not the story. what you should be looking at is the mental skill set that got him drafted. does he have that vision and poise? because even low iq guys can be taught to play defence in their own zone, skating footwork can be improved, and if he is not yet there physically there is every reason to think he will fill out. in fact there is much more reason to doubt petterson will fill out than juolevi.

A pre-season will never put to rest talk about Juolevi's projection. No short sample will do this.

Size/Build is not the issue with Juolevi. The main argument levied against him is his performance against other teenagers (production). Is he slight compared to other teenagers? I would say not. So why does he under perform against his peers?

To me, this is fast moving outside the realm of Tkachuk vs. Juolevi. I have long since maintained that Tkachuk should have been taken ahead of Juolevi. What Tkachuk is doing post-draft only strengthens that argument. What Juolevi has done post-draft only serves to widen the gap between the two. That said, Juolevi still seems to have the ability to be a top4 NHL defender. The red flags in his draft+1 season do not wholly sink his projection in that regard, though they don't help.

 

[CanaFan]

Don't know what you're getting at here

Just sharing what I've learned about Juolevi in the previous thread.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Better at defense than Matthew Tkachuk

Is he though?

 

[thelittlecoon]

Is he though?

Yup!

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Yup!

**citation needed**

 

[sting101]

looked really good in the scrimmage today.

 

[Hit the post]

Better at defense than Matthew Tkachuk

I would hope that's a given since Juolevi is a defenseman.

 

[biturbo19]

People have no idea what normal prospect development is. ALways with the same bs excuses, "power forwards develop slower" "defencemen develop slower" What a bunch of bs.

All you have to do is look at the list of dmen drafted high in the draft and see when they were able to make the jump to the NHL. The vast majority of defencemen that turn out good make the jump by their draft + 2 season. The ones who fail to make that jump turn out to be disappointments/busts.

2012

Murray - d+2
Reinhart - still not a regular (d+5)
Rielly - d+2
Lindholm - d+2
Dumba - d+3
Pouliot - still not a regular (d+5)
Trouba - d+2
Koekkoek - still not a regular (d+5)

2013

Jones - d+1
Nurse - d+3
Ristolainen - d+2

2014

Ekblad - d+1
Fleury - still not a regular

2015

Hanifin - d+1
Provorov - d+2
Werenski - d+2


From what I've seen, Juolevi has a long way to go before cracking the roster and is well on track to be a disappointment.

Decided to extend out the list further past just to see.

2004

Barker - d+4
Smid - d+3
Valabik - d+5

2005

Johnson - d+3
Lee - d+4
Bourdon =(

2006

Johnson - d+2

2007

Hickey - d+6
Alzner - d+4
Ellerby - d+4

2008

Doughty - d+1
Bogisian - d+1
Pietrangelo - d+3
Schenn - d+1

2009

Hedman - d+1
OEL - d+2
Cowen - d+3

2010

Gudbransson - d+2
McIlrath - bust

2011

Larsson - d+2
Hamilton - d+2
Brodin - d+2


2012

Murray - d+2
Reinhart - still not a regular (d+5)
Rielly - d+2
Lindholm - d+2
Dumba - d+3
Pouliot - still not a regular (d+5)
Trouba - d+2
Koekkoek - still not a regular (d+5)

2013

Jones - d+1
Nurse - d+3
Ristolainen - d+2

2014

Ekblad - d+1
Fleury - still not a regular

2015

Hanifin - d+1
Provorov - d+2
Werenski - d+2


12 years of drafts, you can see some clear trends. Out of the 38 dmen drafted in the top 10 of the NHL draft, 20 made the NHL by their draft + 2 year.

Just because you make it to the NHL early doesn't mean that you'll actually live up to expectations, but if you don't make it by your d+2 season, chances are you'll be a big disappointment.

Out of the 18 dmen that didn't make the NHL by their d+2 season, only Pietrangelo is an actual successful draft pick.

This is silly though, and doesn't really accurately describe top defenceman player/prospect development either. As trendy as it is around here these days to parrot the "defencemen don't actually take longer to develop" and "good defencemen make it by their D+2 or they're not going to be good" narratives.

Firstly, it completely de-emphasizes the "made the NHL under this arbitrary D+2 threshold but still disappointed" defencemen...of which there are nearly as many as the "good" defencemen. That alone makes your point about this "magic D+2 threshold" of seriously questionable value. Basically suggesting there's a narrowly less than 50/50 chance of defencemen becoming a disappointment even if they make the draft by their D+2 year. If anything, that just emphasizes how hard it is to find stud defencemen and suggests that making the NHL quickly is far from the end-all, be-all of projecting NHL future value.


Secondly, you're confining things to an unnecessarily narrow band of cohorts in the first place. The day after the draft, it stopped mattering that Juolevi was a 5th overall pick. He goes into the same bin with all of the other chumps drafted behind him as "defence prospects trying to make the NHL".

And that's where, if you take a look at the top defencemen around the NHL...you realize it's entirely common for very good top defencemen to take until their D+3 or even 4 or 5 year to really establish a solid foothold in the National Hockey League.



Let's do a different list here, looking at roughly the top defencemen (and old guys who have been top defencemen) around the league by team, and when they established a solid foothold in the NHL:
-----------------------------

ANA: Fowler (+1), Lindholm (+2).

BOS: Chara (+2/3), Krug (+5).

ARI: OEL (+2), Hjalmarsson (+3/4/5), Goligoski (+5).

BUF: Ristolainen (+1/2), Scandella (+3/4).

CGY: Giordano (+5), Brodie (+4), Hamilton (+2), Hamonic (+3).

CAR: Faulk (+2), Slavin (+4), Pesce (+3), Hanifin? (+1).

CHI: Keith (+4), Seabrook (+3).

CBJ: Jones (+1), Werenski (+2), Savard (+3/5).

COL: Johnson (+2), Barrie (+4/5).

DET: Green (+2/3), Kronwall (+4/7).

DAL: Klingberg (+5), Hamhuis (+3), Lindell (+5).

FLA: Ekblad (+1), Yandle (+3).

EDM: Klefbom (+4), Larsson (+1/4ish).

MTL: Weber (+3/4), Alzner (+2/4ish), Petry (+5/6).

LAK: Doughty (+1), Muzzin (+6), Martinez (+4).

NJD: Greene (+6/7), Severson (+3).

MIN: Suter (+3), Spurgeon (+3), Brodin (+2), Dumba (+3).

NYI: Leddy (+2), Boychuk (+8), DeHaan (+4).

NSH: Josi (+4), Subban (+4), Ekholm (+5), Ellis (+3/5).

NYR: McDonagh (+4), Shattenkirk (+4), Skjei (+5).

SJS: Burns (+1*), Vlasic (+2), Martin (+4).

OTT: Karlsson (+2), Phaneuf (+3).

STL: Pietrangelo (+3), Bouwmeester (+1), Parayko (+4).

PHI: Provorov (+2), Gostisbehere (+4).

VAN: Tanev (+3/4ish), Edler (+3/4).

PIT: Letang (+3), Dumoulin (+7), Schultz (+5), Maatta (+2).

TBL: Hedman (+1), Stralman (+3).

TOR: Rielly (+2), Gardiner (+4), Zaitsev (+7).

WAS: Carlson (+2/3), Niskanen (+3), Orlov (+3/5).

WPG: Trouba (+2), Byfuglien (+5*), Morrissey (+4), Enstrom (+5), Myers (+2).


Out of 84 roughly top defencemen (aiming for 90 ie essentially surefire Top-3D), i count ~26 who solidly met this D+2 threshold...with a few asterisks included, and a few "maybes" on the outside. You can argue a few inclusions/exclusions here or there, but as a whole...We're talking roughly ~30% of the sample who meet the D+2 "good defencemen are ready immediately" threshold.

ie. It's actually more common that these Top-90ish type defencemen did not establish a solid foothold in the NHL until their D+3 season or later (in some cases much later). And that's just talking about guys registering games in the NHL, to speak nothing of guys there who struggled or played limited roles through their early years or when they really found their game.

Even if we narrow the sample to the cream of the crop, Top-30 types (per this >Informal HFBoards Poll< for convenience)...i count ~15/32 who qualify. About half. Which is about as strong as your odds of a Top-10 pick defenceman who makes the NHL by their D+2 year actually panning out well. And quite frankly, i don't think very many people were realistically projecting with any certainty for Juolevi to pan out as a Top-30 Defenceman. That's ambitious for a guy most (including Benning) suggested was unlikely to be a true #1D.


Now you can scream and cry until you're blue in the face about how that sample includes guys from all over the draft including late picks and even FAs; but the reality is, those are overperforming picks and guys who in a re-draft, would probably go in or around the Top-10 of most draft years. We simply weren't getting Juolevi with a later pick. Where he ends up down the road is what matters here. Not whether he meets some arbitrarily imposed threshold of NHL by D+2 or he's a disappointment, just because he was drafted Top-5. Especially a threshold built on some awfully shaky information, and skewed by a handful of outlier absolute Franchise Defenceman studs (which Juolevi was never really projected to be).


The takeaway here above all, should probably be that different players develop differently. Particularly defencemen. Trying to impose patterns on them to define a rigid timeline of development threshold pass/fail is rough guesstimating at best, total futility at worst. Different players develop differently, and track differently through stages of development. Nothing wrong with discussing it and sharing projections...but to use that information as some sort of hard and fast "well actually, you have no idea how development works" rule is too much.

 

[Johnny Canucker]

A lot of words to try to put a bow on this. Kids not looking for. Def not looking like a #5. Just admit it.

This is silly though, and doesn't really accurately describe top defenceman player/prospect development either. As trendy as it is around here these days to parrot the "defencemen don't actually take longer to develop" and "good defencemen make it by their D+2 or they're not going to be good" narratives.

Firstly, it completely de-emphasizes the "made the NHL under this arbitrary D+2 threshold but still disappointed" defencemen...of which there are nearly as many as the "good" defencemen. That alone makes your point about this "magic D+2 threshold" of seriously questionable value. Basically suggesting there's a narrowly less than 50/50 chance of defencemen becoming a disappointment even if they make the draft by their D+2 year. If anything, that just emphasizes how hard it is to find stud defencemen and suggests that making the NHL quickly is far from the end-all, be-all of projecting NHL future value.


Secondly, you're confining things to an unnecessarily narrow band of cohorts in the first place. The day after the draft, it stopped mattering that Juolevi was a 5th overall pick. He goes into the same bin with all of the other chumps drafted behind him as "defence prospects trying to make the NHL".

And that's where, if you take a look at the top defencemen around the NHL...you realize it's entirely common for very good top defencemen to take until their D+3 or even 4 or 5 year to really establish a solid foothold in the National Hockey League.



Let's do a different list here, looking at roughly the top defencemen (and old guys who have been top defencemen) around the league by team, and when they established a solid foothold in the NHL:
-----------------------------

ANA: Fowler (+1), Lindholm (+2).

BOS: Chara (+2/3), Krug (+5).

ARI: OEL (+2), Hjalmarsson (+3/4/5), Goligoski (+5).

BUF: Ristolainen (+1/2), Scandella (+3/4).

CGY: Giordano (+5), Brodie (+4), Hamilton (+2), Hamonic (+3).

CAR: Faulk (+2), Slavin (+4), Pesce (+3), Hanifin? (+1).

CHI: Keith (+4), Seabrook (+3).

CBJ: Jones (+1), Werenski (+2), Savard (+3/5).

COL: Johnson (+2), Barrie (+4/5).

DET: Green (+2/3), Kronwall (+4/7).

DAL: Klingberg (+5), Hamhuis (+3), Lindell (+5).

FLA: Ekblad (+1), Yandle (+3).

EDM: Klefbom (+4), Larsson (+1/4ish).

MTL: Weber (+3/4), Alzner (+2/4ish), Petry (+5/6).

LAK: Doughty (+1), Muzzin (+6), Martinez (+4).

NJD: Greene (+6/7), Severson (+3).

MIN: Suter (+3), Spurgeon (+3), Brodin (+2), Dumba (+3).

NYI: Leddy (+2), Boychuk (+8), DeHaan (+4).

NSH: Josi (+4), Subban (+4), Ekholm (+5), Ellis (+3/5).

NYR: McDonagh (+4), Shattenkirk (+4), Skjei (+5).

SJS: Burns (+1*), Vlasic (+2), Martin (+4).

OTT: Karlsson (+2), Phaneuf (+3).

STL: Pietrangelo (+3), Bouwmeester (+1), Parayko (+4).

PHI: Provorov (+2), Gostisbehere (+4).

VAN: Tanev (+3/4ish), Edler (+3/4).

PIT: Letang (+3), Dumoulin (+7), Schultz (+5), Maatta (+2).

TBL: Hedman (+1), Stralman (+3).

TOR: Rielly (+2), Gardiner (+4), Zaitsev (+7).

WAS: Carlson (+2/3), Niskanen (+3), Orlov (+3/5).

WPG: Trouba (+2), Byfuglien (+5*), Morrissey (+4), Enstrom (+5), Myers (+2).


Out of 84 roughly top defencemen (aiming for 90 ie essentially surefire Top-3D), i count ~26 who solidly met this D+2 threshold...with a few asterisks included, and a few "maybes" on the outside. You can argue a few inclusions/exclusions here or there, but as a whole...We're talking roughly ~30% of the sample who meet the D+2 "good defencemen are ready immediately" threshold.

ie. It's actually more common that these Top-90ish type defencemen did not establish a solid foothold in the NHL until their D+3 season or later (in some cases much later). And that's just talking about guys registering games in the NHL, to speak nothing of guys there who struggled or played limited roles through their early years or when they really found their game.

Even if we narrow the sample to the cream of the crop, Top-30 types (per this >Informal HFBoards Poll< for convenience)...i count ~15/32 who qualify. About half. Which is about as strong as your odds of a Top-10 pick defenceman who makes the NHL by their D+2 year actually panning out well. And quite frankly, i don't think very many people were realistically projecting with any certainty for Juolevi to pan out as a Top-30 Defenceman. That's ambitious for a guy most (including Benning) suggested was unlikely to be a true #1D.


Now you can scream and cry until you're blue in the face about how that sample includes guys from all over the draft including late picks and even FAs; but the reality is, those are overperforming picks and guys who in a re-draft, would probably go in or around the Top-10 of most draft years. We simply weren't getting Juolevi with a later pick. Where he ends up down the road is what matters here. Not whether he meets some arbitrarily imposed threshold of NHL by D+2 or he's a disappointment, just because he was drafted Top-5. Especially a threshold built on some awfully shaky information, and skewed by a handful of outlier absolute Franchise Defenceman studs (which Juolevi was never really projected to be).


The takeaway here above all, should probably be that different players develop differently. Particularly defencemen. Trying to impose patterns on them to define a rigid timeline of development threshold pass/fail is rough guesstimating at best, total futility at worst. Different players develop differently, and track differently through stages of development. Nothing wrong with discussing it and sharing projections...but to use that information as some sort of hard and fast "well actually, you have no idea how development works" rule is too much.

 

[Hit the post]

VAN: Tanev (+3/4ish), Edler (+3/4).

I'd argue those two had alot more competition to fight thru to get "those kind of minutes"; at least with respect to what we have know at present on the blueline.

 

[pitseleh]

The takeaway here above all, should probably be that different players develop differently. Particularly defencemen. Trying to impose patterns on them to define a rigid timeline of development threshold pass/fail is rough guesstimating at best, total futility at worst. Different players develop differently, and track differently through stages of development. Nothing wrong with discussing it and sharing projections...but to use that information as some sort of hard and fast "well actually, you have no idea how development works" rule is too much.

There is a clear distinction in your list though between players taken in the first round and players drafted late and who were late bloomers.

Basically the only lottery first round picks that didn't play in the NHL in their D+2 season are guys whose D+2 season coincided with the lockout (Seabrook, Phaneuf, Suter), except for Pietrangelo who had cups of tea in both his D+1 and D+2 seasons and De Haan who was barely in the lottery and seen as a reach at the time. Later draft picks always get treated differently - see a guy like Subban, who was clearly NHL capable in his D+3 season, and probably was in his D+2.

And something like 80-90% of the CHL players on that list were in the NHL by D+3.

 

[KingOfTheES]

You can put lipstick on a turd but it's still a turd.

 

[tantalum]

You can put lipstick on a turd but it's still a turd.

Or you can dress it up and use it as a mascot!

 

[rune74]

You can put lipstick on a turd but it's still a turd.

Now he's a turd?

Come on guys, at one time this place was better then this.

 

[Krnuckfan]

This is silly though, and doesn't really accurately describe top defenceman player/prospect development either. As trendy as it is around here these days to parrot the "defencemen don't actually take longer to develop" and "good defencemen make it by their D+2 or they're not going to be good" narratives.

Firstly, it completely de-emphasizes the "made the NHL under this arbitrary D+2 threshold but still disappointed" defencemen...of which there are nearly as many as the "good" defencemen. That alone makes your point about this "magic D+2 threshold" of seriously questionable value. Basically suggesting there's a narrowly less than 50/50 chance of defencemen becoming a disappointment even if they make the draft by their D+2 year. If anything, that just emphasizes how hard it is to find stud defencemen and suggests that making the NHL quickly is far from the end-all, be-all of projecting NHL future value.


Secondly, you're confining things to an unnecessarily narrow band of cohorts in the first place. The day after the draft, it stopped mattering that Juolevi was a 5th overall pick. He goes into the same bin with all of the other chumps drafted behind him as "defence prospects trying to make the NHL".

And that's where, if you take a look at the top defencemen around the NHL...you realize it's entirely common for very good top defencemen to take until their D+3 or even 4 or 5 year to really establish a solid foothold in the National Hockey League.



Let's do a different list here, looking at roughly the top defencemen (and old guys who have been top defencemen) around the league by team, and when they established a solid foothold in the NHL:
-----------------------------

ANA: Fowler (+1), Lindholm (+2).

BOS: Chara (+2/3), Krug (+5).

ARI: OEL (+2), Hjalmarsson (+3/4/5), Goligoski (+5).

BUF: Ristolainen (+1/2), Scandella (+3/4).

CGY: Giordano (+5), Brodie (+4), Hamilton (+2), Hamonic (+3).

CAR: Faulk (+2), Slavin (+4), Pesce (+3), Hanifin? (+1).

CHI: Keith (+4), Seabrook (+3).

CBJ: Jones (+1), Werenski (+2), Savard (+3/5).

COL: Johnson (+2), Barrie (+4/5).

DET: Green (+2/3), Kronwall (+4/7).

DAL: Klingberg (+5), Hamhuis (+3), Lindell (+5).

FLA: Ekblad (+1), Yandle (+3).

EDM: Klefbom (+4), Larsson (+1/4ish).

MTL: Weber (+3/4), Alzner (+2/4ish), Petry (+5/6).

LAK: Doughty (+1), Muzzin (+6), Martinez (+4).

NJD: Greene (+6/7), Severson (+3).

MIN: Suter (+3), Spurgeon (+3), Brodin (+2), Dumba (+3).

NYI: Leddy (+2), Boychuk (+8), DeHaan (+4).

NSH: Josi (+4), Subban (+4), Ekholm (+5), Ellis (+3/5).

NYR: McDonagh (+4), Shattenkirk (+4), Skjei (+5).

SJS: Burns (+1*), Vlasic (+2), Martin (+4).

OTT: Karlsson (+2), Phaneuf (+3).

STL: Pietrangelo (+3), Bouwmeester (+1), Parayko (+4).

PHI: Provorov (+2), Gostisbehere (+4).

VAN: Tanev (+3/4ish), Edler (+3/4).

PIT: Letang (+3), Dumoulin (+7), Schultz (+5), Maatta (+2).

TBL: Hedman (+1), Stralman (+3).

TOR: Rielly (+2), Gardiner (+4), Zaitsev (+7).

WAS: Carlson (+2/3), Niskanen (+3), Orlov (+3/5).

WPG: Trouba (+2), Byfuglien (+5*), Morrissey (+4), Enstrom (+5), Myers (+2).


Out of 84 roughly top defencemen (aiming for 90 ie essentially surefire Top-3D), i count ~26 who solidly met this D+2 threshold...with a few asterisks included, and a few "maybes" on the outside. You can argue a few inclusions/exclusions here or there, but as a whole...We're talking roughly ~30% of the sample who meet the D+2 "good defencemen are ready immediately" threshold.

ie. It's actually more common that these Top-90ish type defencemen did not establish a solid foothold in the NHL until their D+3 season or later (in some cases much later). And that's just talking about guys registering games in the NHL, to speak nothing of guys there who struggled or played limited roles through their early years or when they really found their game.

Even if we narrow the sample to the cream of the crop, Top-30 types (per this >Informal HFBoards Poll< for convenience)...i count ~15/32 who qualify. About half. Which is about as strong as your odds of a Top-10 pick defenceman who makes the NHL by their D+2 year actually panning out well. And quite frankly, i don't think very many people were realistically projecting with any certainty for Juolevi to pan out as a Top-30 Defenceman. That's ambitious for a guy most (including Benning) suggested was unlikely to be a true #1D.


Now you can scream and cry until you're blue in the face about how that sample includes guys from all over the draft including late picks and even FAs; but the reality is, those are overperforming picks and guys who in a re-draft, would probably go in or around the Top-10 of most draft years. We simply weren't getting Juolevi with a later pick. Where he ends up down the road is what matters here. Not whether he meets some arbitrarily imposed threshold of NHL by D+2 or he's a disappointment, just because he was drafted Top-5. Especially a threshold built on some awfully shaky information, and skewed by a handful of outlier absolute Franchise Defenceman studs (which Juolevi was never really projected to be).


The takeaway here above all, should probably be that different players develop differently. Particularly defencemen. Trying to impose patterns on them to define a rigid timeline of development threshold pass/fail is rough guesstimating at best, total futility at worst. Different players develop differently, and track differently through stages of development. Nothing wrong with discussing it and sharing projections...but to use that information as some sort of hard and fast "well actually, you have no idea how development works" rule is too much.

Nice effort, but your analysis is very lacking.

First off, did you miss the part where I said

Just because you make it to the NHL early doesn't mean that you'll actually live up to expectations

I'm not saying just make the nhl by your d+2 and you'll be a good player.

It makes much more sense to compare Juolevi to other dmen drafted high in the draft rather than guys drafted much later in the rounds. If you are taken late in the draft, it is because at the time of the draft when the player is 18, there are some holes to his game and you are much less ready for the NHL than a guy taken high in the draft.

It makes no sense looking at guys like Tanev, Krug, Giordano and comparing to a guy like Juolevi. The fact that these guys were late developers doesn't mean Juolevi will also be a late developer. The above players were so immature at the time of the draft that it will take many more than 2 years to develop and make the NHL.

Juolevi does not have any major significant holes like those guys did at the time of the draft.

It would be stupid to expect a guy taken late in the draft to make the NHL by the draft+2 season but it is a completely reasonable expectation for a guy taken high in the draft.

Again, pretty much the ONLY player drafted high in the draft and didn't make the nhl by d+2 and lived up to expectations was Pietrangelo.

You can continue sticking your head in the sand and talk about tanev, krug, etc but those guys have no relevance to Juolevi as their development curve is completely different to Juolevi's given how immature they were at the time of the draft.

 

[Pavel96]

Now he's a turd?

Come on guys, at one time this place was better then this.

Was the team better back then as well?

 

[rune74]

Was the team better back then as well?

What does that have to do with anything.

 

[CanaFan]

Nice effort, but your analysis is very lacking.

First off, did you miss the part where I said



I'm not saying just make the nhl by your d+2 and you'll be a good player.

It makes much more sense to compare Juolevi to other dmen drafted high in the draft rather than guys drafted much later in the rounds. If you are taken late in the draft, it is because at the time of the draft when the player is 18, there are some holes to his game and you are much less ready for the NHL than a guy taken high in the draft.

It makes no sense looking at guys like Tanev, Krug, Giordano and comparing to a guy like Juolevi. The fact that these guys were late developers doesn't mean Juolevi will also be a late developer. The above players were so immature at the time of the draft that it will take many more than 2 years to develop and make the NHL.

Juolevi does not have any major significant holes like those guys did at the time of the draft.

It would be stupid to expect a guy taken late in the draft to make the NHL by the draft+2 season but it is a completely reasonable expectation for a guy taken high in the draft.

Again, pretty much the ONLY player drafted high in the draft and didn't make the nhl by d+2 and lived up to expectations was Pietrangelo.

You can continue sticking your head in the sand and talk about tanev, krug, etc but those guys have no relevance to Juolevi as their development curve is completely different to Juolevi's given how immature they were at the time of the draft.

Well said. It's mind boggling how anyone can argue that players drafted as longshots or projects have any relevance to a player deemed by some to be "the best available" D at the time of the draft. Those players went late because they had massive holes in their game and require time and development to address them. Juolevi had no such issues. He could skate, pass, "elite IQ" we were told. What exactly does he require 3-4 years to develop? If he's got just as much to work on as a 5th rounder then why the hell did we take him 5th overall? Take a player who doesn't have that much to work on. I mean there were plenty of other good options at 5 for us.

 

[MS]

Well said. It's mind boggling how anyone can argue that players drafted as longshots or projects have any relevance to a player deemed by some to be "the best available" D at the time of the draft. Those players went late because they had massive holes in their game and require time and development to address them. Juolevi had no such issues. He could skate, pass, "elite IQ" we were told. What exactly does he require 3-4 years to develop? If he's got just as much to work on as a 5th rounder then why the hell did we take him 5th overall? Take a player who doesn't have that much to work on. I mean there were plenty of other good options at 5 for us.

Exactly.

The fact that Alex Edler took 3-4 years to make it after we drafted him in the 4th round out of a beer league in Sweden doesn't have any relevance to a player taken #5 overall as the top defender in the entire draft.

All those guys who were taken in the mid rounds and then made it are the unicorns with unusual development curves who were the few that made it out of hundreds of defenders drafted or signed by NHL clubs. We shouldn't be comparing Juolevi to unicorns, we should be comparing him to top-10 picks.

And with a top-10 pick, you shouldn't be getting a long-term project. You should be getting a guy who is a sure-fire bet and can step into your lineup very quickly. As Hanifin, Provorov, and Werenski did from the previous draft. If you've ended up with a project, you've taken the wrong guy who isn't developing well.

Again, people are putting the sort of expectations you should have for a #25 overall pick and putting them on a guy taken #5 overall ... and they're just not the same thing.