My limited research the past couple weeks has me pretty high on the forwards in the Canes range. I like Pettersson, Suzuki, Tolvanen, and Vesalainen in that order. Suzuki has the IQ that the Canes seem to love. Tolvanen, as a pure upside scoring RW with a solid build, is headed to the NCAA which the Canes seem to be fond of. Vesalainen had everything the Canes need right now with potential to be a Nic Roy pick on steroids. I'd be pretty excited if the Canes' staff picked him as it's a vote of confidence on a very high-upside forward. Liljegren would follow similar logic for me. With the Canes hit rate on D-men I'd be excited to see what they could do with Liljegren's development.
For a while Tolvanen seemed a perfect Canes pick...he checked all the needs. But if you're worried about skating, then he's got a long way to go. His stride is apparently horrendous. And he's not a big guy. But he is a Finn...
Vesalainen could easily be a Canes type of player. The kid has got stupid skill and is a very good skater for somebody his size. The rap on him is that when he moved up to play with men, he didn't perform nearly as well. This is something that isn't all that rare, especially given that many youngsters prove to be deferential to the older players. His stock rose again given his dominating performance at the WJCs.
Petersson scares me as his body type has been characterized multiple times as one that won't support a lot of weight gain. Even if he was able to muster 10 or 15 pounds he'd still be considered "slight".
Suzuki seems like another type of Canes pick, although I don't get the characterizations as small - he's 5'11" and almost 185 lbs. That's the same size that Skinner and Crosby were coming into the league. He's super smart and as his coach has said, "...makes everybody around him a better player". We like those types.
Last season taught me not to fall in love with certain prospects, because we don't know who RF wants, if he's even going to use the pick, and we're only going to get 1 of them. Would rather read up on our player after we pick him.
How do you build up the appropriate amount of hype so that the invariable disappointing selection is the life crushing event it is supposed to be?
^^^ this guy gets it also
....said the president of the "no fun club".
To me it's more than mechanics. I'm a big guy, I get how hard it is to be graceful on skates. Technique it all you like, can't make a ballerina out of a moose. It's about refining what you do have and finding a way to make the plays. I'm not betting against the guy, I'm just saying he's gotta carve a niche.
I can only speak from my viewings of him at camp, Traverse City, and the WJCs. He was dramatically better this past Summer than the one before....now granted he was starting from an extremely low bar. But he was better in the videos that I watched of him this season in the Q and better still in the WJCs. The thing Roy seems to do well is identify where he needs to be, almost in an anticipatory manner and get to his spots effectively. I'm not expert on mechanics but his first Summer camp he had trouble making simple turns. By the end of camp he was already more able to make tighter moves. I think that the Rask comparison is very appropriate, given how Victor improved each and every year. He's never going to be speedy, but he's smart and understands angles and positioning. Roy's hands are better than 90% of the guys in our system right now. He may never be a 1st liner, but he does have middle 6 potential if he continues to advance his skating.
