Jake Virtanen, Adam Gaudette, and the inarguable problem of the bottom 6.

ChilliBilly

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Aug 22, 2007
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when do you guys think hoglander will make it to your team?
I am more optimistic. I think he has an OK shot this coming season and is probably likely to make it the following season. I see some comments this is just he’s a couple years away. We’ll see, He might never playing the NHL, but I think he has a skill in a bit of nastiness that he will do just fine.
 
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mriswith

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Oct 12, 2011
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23 million dollars spent on the bottom six and Utica, but sure the guy making 1.25 mil who almost potted 20 this season is the problem with the bottom six.

Sure.

If Jake made Pearson/Toffoli money then the criticism would have a point but the guy barely makes over a million dollars. I would literally replace every winger on lines 2-4 with Jake clones if they all made 1.25 mil too and I'd laugh my way to the bank for doing it.

The other 22 million wasted on the bottom six and Utica is the problem.
 

Love

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Feb 29, 2012
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23 million dollars spent on the bottom six and Utica, but sure the guy making 1.25 mil who almost potted 20 this season is the problem with the bottom six.

Sure.

It’s just insane to me that not even one media member in this market is saying this. Craziness. Such an echo chamber.
 
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m9

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Absolutely. Can't separate the pick from the player. And Benning doing the exactly the same thing, comparing him to Alex Tuch who was from the same 1st round as a reason he was disappointing.

That ship has sailed. At this point all that matters is :

1) Is Jake Virtanen, as he is, a useful player?
2) Does he provide value over and above his cap hit?

In both cases, the answer is obviously yes.



The Pearson case is fascinating.

The guy was a negative-value cap dump when we got him, and miraculously - in good part due to an obscene amount of EN points - had a 'career year' and re-established himself as a player with positive value.

And then tanked down the stretch (5 points, -11 in his last 18 games when you take out EN points) and further tanked in the playoffs (finished the playoffs on an 11 game, -7 pointless streak). And is out of contract next summer, and highly unlikely to be re-signed at that time.

And there literally isn't a peep about him. This is literally the most obvious player in the world to be moving away from and they've caught a huge break in that they'll likely get assets back in a trade and not have to add. And he clears more cap space than Virtanen and Stecher combined.

But instead they're going to clear less money by clearing out better players who hold more long-term utility for the club.

In regards to Virtanen, why is the answer to #2 "obviously yes"?

That was the correct answer last year, I'm not sure it's the answer going forward with a bigger contract.
 

MarkMM

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Jan 30, 2010
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23 million dollars spent on the bottom six and Utica, but sure the guy making 1.25 mil who almost potted 20 this season is the problem with the bottom six.

Sure.

If Jake made Pearson/Toffoli money then the criticism would have a point but the guy barely makes over a million dollars. I would literally replace every winger on lines 2-4 with Jake clones if they all made 1.25 mil too and I'd laugh my way to the bank for doing it.

The other 22 million wasted on the bottom six and Utica is the problem.

I think the issue is that Virtanen is going to get a raise that makes him no longer good value, with too many inconsistent question marks, but enough value that we can hopefully dump the ludicrous other contracts Benning signed into that $23M junk.
 

HockeyNightInAsia

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I have been reading Virtanen would get $3mil or even upwards in arbitration. This seems inconsistent with some of the basis for debate here..... Of course at say $3.25 mil it's still better money spent than Loui.....
 
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604

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How is the bottom six our problem when our top 6 didn't score in 3 of our 4 loses despite a lot of PP time.

The biggest problem with the bottom 9 is the wasted salary space. I'd bet based on actual production, our bottom six was decent this year, particularly the 3rd line.
 
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Peter10

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How is the bottom six our problem when our top 6 didn't score in 3 of our 4 loses despite a lot of PP time.

The biggest problem with the bottom 9 is the wasted salary space. I'd bet based on actual production, our bottom six was decent this year, particularly the 3rd line.

When you dont have a useless overpaid bottom 6, you can use that capspace to bring in pieces (top 4 D) that actually help you be successful.
 

604

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When you dont have a useless overpaid bottom 6, you can use that capspace to bring in pieces (top 4 D) that actually help you be successful.

True...the more I look at it, the less likely we'll be able to move a guy like Eriksson. Nobody else is really even worth moving right now.
 

vanuck

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It’s just insane to me that not even one media member in this market is saying this. Craziness. Such an echo chamber.
The only thing I can think of is that they're playing 5D chess and are trying to drive down his value so they can re-sign him for cheap, while nothing is said about Pearson so they can hope to move him for a somewhat decent pick. Out there, I know...

Because other than that, shipping him out because of narratives is a dumb idea.
 

PuckMunchkin

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I don’t think it’s wise to bail on JV or Gaudette based on the or first playoff experience.

Agree 100%

Just like we should not make long term plans in goal based on Demko's 3 games.




Issue with the premise of the OPs post is that the sample size of Jake playing with Miller + Horvat is minuscule (14.7% of JVs shifts). It could just be a matter of EP and Miller doing EP and Miller things more by happenstance during those shifts.
Away from those two he was a slightly negative corsi rel% and slightly positive fenwick rel% player.

Other issue, for me... He has added 1 wrinkle to his game. He now stops at the half board and looks to pass to a trailing player every now and then. Other than that he plays exactly like he has always played.

His up tick in goal production is pretty much explained by his 33% increase in shooting%. His expected goals for was actually slightly lower than last year.
 

Zippgunn

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How is the bottom six our problem when our top 6 didn't score in 3 of our 4 loses despite a lot of PP time.

This. Also Virts got gifted tons of high quality icetime in the playoffs (as did Gaudette) and they got 3 points combined.
 

tantalum

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Pearson hasn't escaped my noticed...If it wasn't for Real Gud going the other way I'd have been upset with the deal. I don't think he's much of a player and certainly not one you can rely on to be in the top 6 nor fill in for more than a few games.

That said, while Virtanen had decent numbers he also make some almost back breaking mistakes and that does hurt his overall effectiveness. His lack of professionalism, which is very real, is also a major issue.

While there are a half a dozen or more players that in an ideal world would be gone well before Virtanen, I'm also not concerned if he gets moved.
 

Fatass

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This. Also Virts got gifted tons of high quality icetime in the playoffs (as did Gaudette) and they got 3 points combined.
When JB recently said publicly they need to evsluáte the future of some of their RFAs, he wants to dump salary but won’t use first or second round picks to do so, tells me he’s going to use RFAs (Jake and Gaud and Stecher) to dump Loui, Sutter, and Baer.
 

xtra

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When JB recently said publicly they need to evsluáte the future of some of their RFAs, he wants to dump salary but won’t use first or second round picks to do so, tells me he’s going to use RFAs (Jake and Gaud and Stecher) to dump Loui, Sutter, and Baer.


If you were another team would any of those 3 be enough to take one of this contracts? Svens contract with maybe Jake could be a deal but the sutter/loui ones would take much more imo
 
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F A N

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Pearson hasn't escaped my noticed...If it wasn't for Real Gud going the other way I'd have been upset with the deal. I don't think he's much of a player and certainly not one you can rely on to be in the top 6 nor fill in for more than a few games.

He has produced 36 goals and 57 points in 88 regular season games as a Canuck and playing mostly on Horvat's line which tends to face the toughest competition. That's real solid top 6 production. Not sure why you would suggest that we could not rely on him to be in our top 6 or fill in for more than a few games. He's been a fixture in our top 6 alongside Horvat since he arrived here. He's played the bulk of his career as a top 6 forward and produced like one for the bulk of his career. Just because he may not be a desirable long term fit here shouldn't take away from what he has accomplished here. He's been a great fit alongside Horvat.
 

Fatass

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If you were another team would any of those 3 be enough to take one of this contracts? Svens contract with maybe Jake could be a deal but the sutter/loui ones would take much more imo
Loui and Sutter have much higher cap hits then they have left owed in real dollars. The current Covid crisis has some team’s cash strapped, and saving millions (7 million over two years with Loui; less with Sutter) will be attractive.
 

VanJack

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Jul 11, 2014
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This thread has the wrong title.....if we had more affordable bottom-six forwards like Gaudette, Virtanen, Motte and MacEwen, we'd be light years ahead. They're not even remotely the problem going forward.
 
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Canucks1096

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Feb 13, 2016
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Is the bottom 6 really that bad or are people just like to exaggerate and have ridiculous expectations? Some People tend to be like on this forum.

Jd Burke said 2018/2019 Canucks were outscored 2-1 when the bottom 6 was on the ice. Can you somebody gather that stat for this year? I actually don't think it's That bad however I don't have the numbers to show as an argument since I am too lazy to find some
 

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