Prospect Info: At 16th Overall the Calgary Flames Select Juuso Valimaki

[crackdown44]

I haven't seen him at this camp but I feel that Valimaki is such a good prospect that I'd like to see him with top four minutes right away.

Hanifin - Valimaki
Kulak - Hamonic

I know there is zero chance this happens though

I don’t think it would be wise to launch a D rookie into a top 4 role with another young defenseman and have him play on his wrong side

 

[JPeeper]

JPeep, I agree. I honestly won’t be surprised will Kylington makes the team in October. I have a feeling he’s gonna have a monster camp.

I thought Ollie should have made the team last year based on camp. He has improved his defensive game and can move the puck up the ice like few can. Still don't know how Ollie made it over Kulak based on camp cause Kulak looked pretty bad in camp IMO. Honestly, having Ollie on the 3rd pairing who be good sheltering and his puck moving and offensive skills are solely missed on the 3rd line cause Stone has neither and Kulak is pretty meh.

 

[Fig]

I haven't seen him at this camp but I feel that Valimaki is such a good prospect that I'd like to see him with top four minutes right away.

Hanifin - Valimaki
Kulak - Hamonic

I know there is zero chance this happens though

Doesn't it make more sense as:

Gio - Brodie
Hanifin - Hamonic
Valimaki/Kulak - Stone/Andersson

7th Stone/Kulak

?

I'm almost guessing management is willing to give only one of Valimaki or Andersson a slot on the bottom pairing with one of Stone/Kulak being the 7th or vet presence.

 

[CraigsList]

I'd rather Valimaki be given time in the AHL before making the big jump.

 

[The Gnome]

I don't care where Valimaki plays as long as he's getting experience and is put into a situation where he'll succeed. If he upgrades our bottom pairing, I see no reason to hold him back. He'll be sheltered and still playing solid minutes for his development. What's more is he gets to hang with Gio who is one of the best dmen in the league and a solid leader for our young guys.

 

[JPeeper]

To think we have Vali and Hanifin on the left side for like a decade to come and still have gio for a few good years to help their development along. With Ollie and Rasmus as well our future on defense looks quite bright.

 

[Volica]

To think we have Vali and Hanifin on the left side for like a decade to come and still have gio for a few good years to help their development along. With Ollie and Rasmus as well our future on defense looks quite bright.

Yup. Two high end D prospects.
One surefire NHLer.
One high potential one.

No wonder Fox didn't want to sign.

 

[JPeeper]

Yup. Two high end D prospects.
One surefire NHLer.
One high potential one.

No wonder Fox didn't want to sign.

I know some really liked Fox but realistically he was like 5th on the depth chart behind Vali, Rasmus, Ollie and then out NHLers . Fox isn't mobile enough and isn't good enough defensively to only rely on offense. If you're going to be high end offensively and terrible defensively you need to at least skate well like Brodie or Kylington and Fox is super slow and not very agile.

 

[SmellOfVictory]

I know some really liked Fox but realistically he was like 5th on the depth chart behind Vali, Rasmus, Ollie and then out NHLers . Fox isn't mobile enough and isn't good enough defensively to only rely on offense. If you're going to be high end offensively and terrible defensively you need to at least skate well like Brodie or Kylington and Fox is super slow and not very agile.

Did you watch a lot of him in college games? Because at the WJC he was easily one of the best defensive players on Team USA. The only knocks I see on him are size and skating, and his skating isn't bad. It's just not extremely high end as one would like from a smaller player - he's got good agility but his speed isn't great.

 

[DFF]

Did you watch a lot of him in college games? Because at the WJC he was easily one of the best defensive players on Team USA. The only knocks I see on him are size and skating, and his skating isn't bad. It's just not extremely high end as one would like from a smaller player - he's got good agility but his speed isn't great.

I watched both wjc and not impressed with his defense

 

[Lunatik]

Did you watch a lot of him in college games? Because at the WJC he was easily one of the best defensive players on Team USA. The only knocks I see on him are size and skating, and his skating isn't bad. It's just not extremely high end as one would like from a smaller player - he's got good agility but his speed isn't great.

That is simply just not true

 

[SmellOfVictory]

That is simply just not true

Shockingly we disagree once again. :p But that team was not good defensively, and Fox was one of the only players who looked like he had his head outside of his own butt in the defensive zone.

 

[Lunatik]

Shockingly we disagree once again. :p But that team was not good defensively, and Fox was one of the only players who looked like he had his head outside of his own butt in the defensive zone.

I noticed mistake after mistake from him., He has elite offensive instincts, but his lack of size, speed and defensive awareness will make him him TJ Brennan v2.0

 

[SmellOfVictory]

I noticed mistake after mistake from him., He has elite offensive instincts, but his lack of size, speed and defensive awareness will make him him TJ Brennan v2.0

If nothing else that would make me feel better about the trade. I do recognize he's still got significant risk to him, but I think he's got a pretty high ceiling.

 

[Lunatik]

If nothing else that would make me feel better about the trade. I do recognize he's still got significant risk to him, but I think he's got a pretty high ceiling.

I never have felt he has that high of a ceiling because of all warts in his game. Nothing about his game other than his offensive instincts impressed me. In the NHL, that's just not enough. Undersized defenseman that are soft, not quick and below average defensively, simply don't exist in the NHL.

 

[JPeeper]

Disagree on Fox being even decent defensively, he had no idea where he was supposed to be in the d-zone in the WJC. He got beat to the outside routinely even after giving guys plenty of space.

I am no where near as mad as some others that we traded him away because I never though he'd pan out to be anything then a PP specialist (and we have Vali, Rasmus, Ollie, etc. already) and because he was never signing with us anyway.

 

[Fig]

For a while, I felt like Fox would be on par with what Will Butcher did in Jersey. How far off do you guys think that estimation is?

Butcher surprised a lot of people with his initial production, then cooled the hell off IIRC. I think Fox can surprise teams at first, but many will quickly figure out how to neutralize him.

 

[Tkachuk Norris]

Fox does not “make poor decisions defensively”. He occasionally gets out muscled or burned. But it’s not like he’s Dennis Wideman pinching at the red line, completely missing and giving up a 2-1. He can get faster and stronger but the guy thinks the game at an elite level.

 

[SKRusty]

Fox is the past.

Calgary still has some great D prospects in Kylington, Andersson, and Valimaki. Valimaki is a way more complete d-man than Fox so get over it and move on.

FOX is the one that chose not to be here so let him not be here.

 

[1989]

@SKRusty makes a good point. Fox is literally the new Tim Erixon, as I'm sure others have mentioned. Could be something, could be nothing, but he didn't want to be a Flame; there's plenty of great defensive prospects we, the fans, can look forward to.

 

[Lunatik]

Fox does not “make poor decisions defensively”. He occasionally gets out muscled or burned. But it’s not like he’s Dennis Wideman pinching at the red line, completely missing and giving up a 2-1. He can get faster and stronger but the guy thinks the game at an elite level.

Fox is smart defensively, like Klimchuk is a poor skater.

 

[InfinityIggy]

Who is Tom Erixon?

Anyways, Fox didn’t screw us over that bad really. We got to flip him into some solid assets.

 

[Mobiandi]

Fox is smart defensively, like Klimchuk is a poor skater.

I don't really like appeals to authority but it's clear Treliving thought highly enough him to the point where he was more willing to part with only picks rather than throwing him in the Hamonic deal

 

[Lunatik]

I don't really like appeals to authority but it's clear Treliving thought highly enough him to the point where he was more willing to part with only picks rather than throwing him in the Hamonic deal

What does that have to do with what I said?

 

[Mobiandi]

What does that have to do with what I said?

You've been downplaying a lot of Fox's abilities recently, but really if he was as bad as you were saying, he would've been an easy throw-in to secure Hamonic. I mean we only drafted with him with a third rounder after all

There was no shortage of interest in Fox around the NHL (i'm not gonna bring up all of the tweets with speculation towards this) but management was clearly very high on his current ability and potential and were steadfast in their desire to keep him until their agent revealed that he had a desire to test FA.

Even watching him at wjc, yeah he had some flaws, but he still looked very promising to me