Management Thread: Weisileaks

Not wanting to pay him more than $1.8m is actually smart. He's not that good, wasn't nearly as good as Hutton showed and basically got soft offensive minutes with the Twins and didn't do much with them. If Tryamkin was 6'2" he would've been forgotten by most by now, but he's a rare looking specimen so he's overrated beyond belief.

The team doesn't have a lineup place for him anyways unless he's the Hughes partner and then LOL, you think Hughes' plus/minus looks bad now, just wait.

Edler(35)-Schmidt(30)
Hughes-Tryamkin(27)
Juolevi-Myers (31)

That's a terrible defense IMO.

 

Canuck fans like:

 

I’m not sure what your point is here; I don’t think anyone is saying he was trash his entire career - the point has always been the signing was stupid and would age poorly and it has.

(hyperbole)
Your post is like signing Mark messier at 50 to an contract and saying well it’s a good deal cause he was good 20 years ago
(/hyperbole)

 

You could look at this data in either a pessimistic or optimistic light:

Pessimistic: He got lucky last year. Something like: "JV had a career year, shot an unsustainable 12%, scored 18 goals and is now regressing. NHL average shooing percentage is 7.8% (since 09-10 advent of modern NHL stats-tracking), so we expect him to be closer to that mark in the future."

Optimistic. He is getting unlucky this year. Something like: "JV was a career 9.2% shooter prior to this year, but showed solid growth over the past three seasons, increasing his shooting percentage from 7.7 to 12% over that time. We project a further increase to ~13.4% this year, but he is only shooting 4%. He should have ~3 goals instead on the 1 he has so far."

The reality is somewhere in between. True the NHL average shooting percentage is 7.8%, but it is 9.5% for forwards and 9.7% for right-wingers. Virtanen may not be an elite shooter, but his G/60, EVG/60, Post and Crossbars/60 (a stat where he is elite at 0.46 compared to his peers at 0.1) and especially his G/USAT (6.3% versus 5.6% average for right-wingers) suggest that he is an efficient and accurate shooter for his position. Something just slightly north of 10% shooting seems reasonable, which given his career 9% average suggests that he may have some room to grow. He, like the Canucks in general, has been an unlucky shooter this year, generating only 1 goal on 1.8iXG (per Natural Stat Trick). This is likely in part because he has been most commonly deployed with tremendously poor assist-creators in Beagle and Eriksson and has seen his PP time diminish by 10 seconds/game (0:53 to 0:43) compared to last year.

In short, Jake's under-performance this year is likely more anomalous than his over-performance last year. Yes, he should have been shopped after a good year last year, but to trade him now (at an all-time low in value) would be a foolhardy exercise, and to buy him out would be even more foolish given his above-average goal-scoring ability and (overall) upwards-trending career trajectory. Even if it is not the Canucks, I am all but certain someone will make of him a multi-year 20-goal scorer.

 

Jake is a prime candidate for a change of scenery. He's never going to find his game or the work ethic required to maintain consistency here. It's just too comfortable.

Trade him across the country to another team and he might (i'm betting he will) find his game but it's just not going to happen here in this situation. He needs the shock of a trade, and a new environment to open his eyes.

That's why taking the local kid is always a cautionary tale. Guys like Troy Stecher had the work ethic, to grind it out in college, and come home as an undrafted free agent. I'm not in his life or know what he's got going on, but maybe some adversity is what Jake needs.

 

This depends, and it's highly suspect that Benning/Desjardins were the guys to make the 'smart' decision here. When you bring a guy more developed guy over from Russia you can never be sure what you're going to get, like Nikita Gusev, Artem Panarin, and Vadim Shipachyov were all scoring at roughly the same rate in the KHL.

Ideally you bring Tryamkin over and he can quickly become a $3-4M caliber dman, like a Joel Edmundson. But if his reduced RFA contract value is less than he can make in Russia there's a high chance he leaves. It's basically a game of poker, the KHL raised so you have to either buy in and match or fold.

As long as you have the cap space I don't think it's a bad decision to give a KHL guy a little more than your comfortable with on a 1-2 year deal to bring them over and see what you get.

 

It's kind of shocking how hard Virtanen, Gaudette and MacEwen have been treated since the premature end to last season. They all had their warts, for sure, but Virtanen and Gaudette had had solid secondary scoring seasons, and MacEwen showed well down the stretch.

Then the bubble comes, and Green immediately relegates them all to the pressbox in favour of his veterans, and it looks like none of them have really re-gained any semblance of confidence since. And with their sporadic ice-time and dodgy deployment, it's not like they can really be expected to be producing tons of results right now, either.

 

I have to think this is in direct relation to Green's lack of extension.

He's coaching for his next job, not for the future of the Canucks as long as he doesn't have a future contract.

 

6 rebound goals in the 1st video alone.

Also, like I said, him beating defenders with his skating was never his game, as you can see from these highlights.

Also, he was not good his last year with Boston. Signing him was a completely avoidable mistake. Blaming coaching is ridicilious, he has been given 1000x the opportunities any other player not earning 6 mil per would get, while showing the least effort. Multiple reports of him being last on the ice and first off the ice for practices. etc.

 

Anyone with eyes could tell that Boston year was an anomaly.

Loui hasn't been right since he was KOed by John Scott.

 

Doesn't have a ton of motivation either with that retirement contract. Unlike someone like Edler, has zero ties with the club or city so why should he care?

Last on the ice & first to leave; Benning's six million dollar man. It's the fault of the previous GM right?

 

Aside from Virtanen, I agree with you. Jake had his chances and I think he would benefit from a change of scenery. If he started like Hoglander has, he would have grabbed a top-6 spot instantly, just like Hogs has done.

Gaudette and MacEwen are perfectly cheap bottom 6 guys. They have had to drag the corpses of those vets around.

 

Gaudette drags everyone down. Sucks to admit but he is an ineffective two way player.

They’re all replacement level.

 

I don't think anyone was saying he's always been crap. Loui in his prime was a legitimate two-way force.

But like many of us were saying at the time of his signing, his decline was entirely predictable. That last season in Boston was a shooting percentage mirage. His play-driving abilities had already evaporated. He was 30 years old (an age where age-related decline would be expected).

It was a terrible contract at the time and anyone with any foresight knew that. This wasn't a "good idea, panned out badly" kinda risk.

 

I don’t think Virtanen has been treated unfairly at all. His play has been uninspired slop this season right from the get go.

Gaudette...while I understand people wanting to see him on the wing because he’s simply not cut out to be a center he also hasn’t really done much. He’s had a few decent games but even in the wing you see a guy who is getting outmuscled. So I’m not quite sure he’s been treated unfairly...more he was miscast as a center.

MacEwan. He’s a 4th line player. I expect 4th line time. He’s a fair bit below the 10 min a game mark (he doesn’t feature on the PK or PP). But of course the most unfair thing for him is that he’s scratched in the regular. Due to that, for these three players he is the one I think has truly been unfairly treated. But he’s still only a 4th liner.

 

I agree he hasn't shown much defensively. He's been miscast as a centre. He's replacement level, but I'd rather have cheap, homegrown guys on the bottom 6 than overpaid useless vets.

 

Oh for sure. They just aren’t good.

A team with any sense could build a $6m bottom6 that would smash this one. It’s not hard.

This is why I dont appeal to nhl front offices. They do more dumb things than innovative things.

 

Of the three, MacEwen, Gaudette, and Virtanen, MacEwen is the only one I'd be sort of bummed out over a trade or selection in the expansion draft.

 

But Gillis

Forever and ever

Amen

 

I think it’s too early to give up on Gaudette. This season looks to be a write off, so let’s give him next season as a “prove it” year. I could easily see him being like Baertschi before his concussions, around the 40-50 point pace.

 

Excellent points.

I would counter that in isolation, I agree with everything you say.

However, when you look at what Loui, Roussel, Sutter Beagle bring, their cap hits, their ages, which players are past their prime and inevitably getting worse with each passing day, which players at least have a potential to improve, the way a young player will have a successful outing or period and promptly be "rewarded" by Green with riding the pine, and it just . . . it . . . it just makes me <sniff>. . . it makes me wannna <wail>. . . it just make me wanna . . . I can't, I can't go on . . . sorry, don't mind <sniffle> . . . don't mind me, I'll be fine <ungh, be strong>

 

Gaudette is going to be 25 year this year. I want to believe he will improve his skating and his hockey IQ, and somehow learn how to handle the defense rigors of intense games...but his limitations appear to be too significant to ever carve out a top 6 or bottom 6 role in the NHL.

Well run teams try and pawn off these sort of players (Virtanen and Gaudette) before it becomes apparent that there's been no progression in their career. Tampa has had the right approach of selling high on assets with massive flaws: Conacher, Erne, Miller, Namestnikov, Gusev, Connolly to name a few. Benning should have traded Virtanen a few years ago, and should have definitely traded Gaudette after last years campaign.

 

Gaudette needs to be given a run of games as a top-6 winger, probably next to Pettersson. Put Miller down to the 3C spot and try to create 3 scoring lines.

Gaudette is a scoring line winger. Period. He isn't going to play C in the NHL, and he isn't going to be a bottom 6 guy.

 

Should have traded Demko after the bubble too. Could have dumped a couple toxic contracts with ?Gaud and ?Demko as sweetener.

 

To me if a few hundred K and the comfort of playing in Russia is enough to keep him from wanting to compete against the worlds best in the worlds best league then he’s probably better off staying in Russia. Probably the lesson he’s already learned.