More disappointing -- Yakupov or Schultz?

[oobga]

And btw, Naslund scored 52 points in 66 games his third season with the Penguins (second full). He went on to pretty much consistently score 20+ the rest of his career. He also wasn't a first overall pick. I would love it if Yak would put up 20 as an Oiler next year, I just don't think it's going to happen.

Looking at Naslund's interview he did that playing with Mario Lemieux who put up 161 points that year. I'm sure even Yak could be a near but below PPG guy with Lemieux as his center, and that season was 5 years after Naslund was drafted. Naslund scored 14 goals and 34 points in 76 games in 97-98 season, which was the 7th NHL season after he was drafted in the first round, that's 3 more points (3 less goals) than Yak had in his rookie shortened season. Naslund didn't break out until 98-99 which was 8 seasons after his draft year.

 

[Arpeggio]

Looking at Naslund's interview he did that playing with Mario Lemieux who put up 161 points that year. I'm sure even Yak could be a near but below PPG guy with Lemieux as his center, and that season was 5 years after Naslund was drafted. Naslund scored 14 goals and 34 points in 76 games in 97-98 season, which was the 7th NHL season after he was drafted in the first round, that's 3 more points (3 less goals) than Yak had in his rookie shortened season. Naslund didn't break out until 98-99 which was 8 seasons after his draft year.

I count four full seasons of NHL experience before Naslund scored 36 goals for the Canucks. And he scored 19 and 21 in two of those.

I'm asking for a 15 goal season from Yak in his third season in the NHL. That isn't too much to ask from a number one pick.

 

[Gone]

It's got to be Yakupov. He is carrying all the weight and pressure a 1st overall pick has, plus some being in this market.

Going from 1st overall to not even an NHL player (potentially) in 2 and a half years has got to be devastating for all the fans that went along with the rebuild. In this modern environment of overkill on the scouting, it says a lot about the decision makers.

Funny, a lot of players who were considered 'fallers' in NHL drafts tend to get selected by the Oilers (ex. Schremp). Had the Oilers not taken Yak, I wonder how far he would of fallen.

1. Oilers - Not Yak,
2. Columbus - 1 Russian bust was enough, no way they were taking Yak,
3. Montreal - Galchenyuk was their man,
4. NYI - could Yak of landed on the Island?

 

[oobga]

I count four full seasons of NHL experience before Naslund scored 36 goals for the Canucks. And he scored 19 and 21 in two of those.

I'm asking for a 15 goal season from Yak in his third season in the NHL. That isn't too much to ask from a number one pick.

And I count 7 years of development before he broke out. That 19 goal season barely counts since he did it playing with one of the greatest players to ever play (he actually got dropped off his line for not producing enough which eventually triggered him to be traded for nothing to Vancouver), and Yak did the equivalent to his 21 goals in 78 games already. Yak has had 2.5 years of development, and, as of now, ~2 full seasons worth of NHL games with 70% of those under a god awful coach.

The Naslund thing is just an example of how an very good player can take a long time to develop. Yak has crossed the line of being able to be held up against elite #1 picks, he's not going to be that level of player that can just do it all himself at this level. But he has the tools to be as good or better than Naslund if he's handled correctly and the team is patient with him IMO.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

Naslund attributed his poor play in Pittsburgh in having NO confidence, struggling to get more than 5mins a night, on the 4th line, while being benched whenever he made the slightest mistake.

(Sound familiar?)


Those same confidence issues followed him to Vancouver, until Mark Messier took him under his wing.

"I came to camp ready to prove Keenan wrong. I think I played one out of 7 or 8 exhibition games. I felt that I wasn't going to be given a chance so again I had to ask for a trade. At that point Brian Burke had been hired as the GM and he said no I want you to have some patience, I don’t want to trade you now. It was lucky that he responded that way. So basically I just tried to work as hard as I could and stay ready for when I was finally going to get the chance to play.

I think Pavel sat out that year and something else happened so I got a chance to play and it worked out well. I played with Messier and started having some success and scoring some goals. Then it kind of just snowballed and I started having more confidence and playing better".

 

[Aerrol]

Yak because his potential and history dictates he should have or be on his way to stamkosian-like numbers, but instead is trailing Boyd Gordon for points. Alot of it is attitude. Stamkos spent his summers working on his game, faceoffs, speed, shot. He embedded himself to hard work to become great. Yak spend his last summer drinking vodka and 'spending time with his buddies' as he eluded to pre-season

J. Schultz is close though, consistently seeing him dodge a hit, resulting in a mega change or goal, not sticking up for his goalie, and being out of position on periodical basis, he's more of liability than an asset

I'm on shoddy internet with my phone so I can't post a long answer to the main topic, but are you kidding me?!?!

All of this is flat out wrong. It blows my mind how biased people are vs russians and yak...

Yak arrived to train before all the Canadian boys, he is consistently said to be the first on the ice and last off at practice, and he DOESN'T DRINK. Schultz and the rest of the good ole Canadian boys are consistently seen out getting hammered... there was even a poster this summer talking about seeing Schultz drinking all the time in Kelowna. I don't even care if they drink and party if they can compete on the ice, but the double standard is ridiculous.

I agree with a lot of the other posts here concerning Yakupov - it's obviously a hockey iq and development problem, not effort, attitude or talent. If he were a red wing he'd probably be tracking on 30-40 goals by now...

 

[La Bamba]

Yakupov has been a huge disappointment. As history indicates, Yakupov should be on Hall/RNH's level by now but he's been nothing but a 3rd liner after his first season.

Schultz isn't really a disappointment because he's what I expected him to be. An offensive defenseman who can play around 20 mins a game.

 

[ScrillaVilla]

Yakupov has been a huge disappointment. As history indicates, Yakupov should be on Hall/RNH's level by now but he's been nothing but a 3rd liner after his first season.

Schultz isn't really a disappointment because he's what I expected him to be. An offensive defenseman who can play around 20 mins a game.

Excepts he's neither. Its still Yak though, I expected Ovechkin/Kovalchuk level skill, instead we got the russian version of Sam Gagner.

 

[sepHF]

Sorry for beating this drum:

Read opinions on Marcus Naslund's stay in Pittsburgh:
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=852768

Read this interview Naslund said about his experience in Vancouver:
http://www.puckreport.com/2009/11/markus-naslund-interview-in.html

:/


I fully expect Yakupov to flourish once he gains some confidence with a new team, a new team, in a new system.

He will no longer be the 'bust' of the group, and no longer be on the 'outside' of the core.

interesting post, thanks for that.

 

[oobga]

interesting post, thanks for that.

The sad part is that the new system and new culture that Yak may need to succeed is long overdue to come into this org that he's already a part of. Should have happened at the end of his rookie year at the absolute latest for the Oilers. Lowe and Friends out, qualified people with successful NHL team management experience brought in, qualified associate coach brought in to share the load with Krueger, or, if Kreuger was removed, an experience coach brought in to lead a team full of inexperienced players.

Didn't happen of course, but the possibility for the team to finally improve is still waiting for it to.

 

[Gambl0r83*]

I'm on shoddy internet with my phone so I can't post a long answer to the main topic, but are you kidding me?!?!

All of this is flat out wrong. It blows my mind how biased people are vs russians and yak...

Yak arrived to train before all the Canadian boys, he is consistently said to be the first on the ice and last off at practice, and he DOESN'T DRINK. Schultz and the rest of the good ole Canadian boys are consistently seen out getting hammered... there was even a poster this summer talking about seeing Schultz drinking all the time in Kelowna. I don't even care if they drink and party if they can compete on the ice, but the double standard is ridiculous.

I agree with a lot of the other posts here concerning Yakupov - it's obviously a hockey iq and development problem, not effort, attitude or talent. If he were a red wing he'd probably be tracking on 30-40 goals by now...

K
How is the entire post 'wrong'? The first part talked about hard work and his potential, as you eluded to. There was one semi joking statement about how he spent his summer, (vodka in russia b/c it's like beer in canada). This actually has little to do with him being russian..

The gist of the post was Yak was first overall, a natural goal scorer, and projected to score as much or even more than Steven Stamkos. How can you possibly blame all of his shortcomings on outside 'development'. The vast majority of a player's development is through THEMSELVES. They figure the game out through their vision and Hard Work. It is well known Stamkos spent his time off working on his face-offs, late nights spent perfecting his shot, and working out like a juice monkey on a mission. He knew he had to step on a higher plateau to achieve the same level of domination at this level.

Purcell stated how Stammer takes absolute pride in his game and you can see the pain in his face every time he's on the ice for an opposing goal, and that he'd come back the very next shift doing every thing he can to score a goal. That is all attitude. You can't teach or develop that, it's a choice.

When Yak takes a shot and misses a good opportunity, look at him, 9/10 times he will look up in the air and coast while the play is still live.
When we get scored on, watch Yak the next shift, he will do the exact same mistakes again as if the previous goal never happened.
When the oilers get a 3-2 or 2-1 and Yak doesn't get the puck, watch him when he does. He will not pass to anybody and try to take the zone on himself or take a shot from an unscorable angle/distance.

That's all attitude.
The problem with this kid, is not development or coaching, it's attitude in-game. Ya, sure he's on the ice first every practice, but that's because he just loves to play hockey. He believes he can dominate at this level with the same game he had in junior. There is no ambition to step to a higher plane, he just loves shooting the puck and will continue to play the same way he was played his entire career, until he realizes he has to change his game to play in the NHL

 

[Throttlehead]

K
How is the entire post 'wrong'? The first part talked about hard work and his potential, as you eluded to. There was one semi joking statement about how he spent his summer, (vodka in russia b/c it's like beer in canada). This actually has little to do with him being russian..

The gist of the post was Yak was first overall, a natural goal scorer, and projected to score as much or even more than Steven Stamkos. How can you possibly blame all of his shortcomings on outside 'development'. The vast majority of a player's development is through THEMSELVES. They figure the game out through their vision and Hard Work. It is well known Stamkos spent his time off working on his face-offs, late nights spent perfecting his shot, and working out like a juice monkey on a mission. He knew he had to step on a higher plateau to achieve the same level of domination at this level.

Purcell stated how Stammer takes absolute pride in his game and you can see the pain in his face every time he's on the ice for an opposing goal, and that he'd come back the very next shift doing every thing he can to score a goal. That is all attitude. You can't teach or develop that, it's a choice.

When Yak takes a shot and misses a good opportunity, look at him, 9/10 times he will look up in the air and coast while the play is still live.
When we get scored on, watch Yak the next shift, he will do the exact same mistakes again as if the previous goal never happened.
When the oilers get a 3-2 or 2-1 and Yak doesn't get the puck, watch him when he does. He will not pass to anybody and try to take the zone on himself or take a shot from an unscorable angle/distance.

That's all attitude.
The problem with this kid, is not development or coaching, it's attitude in-game. Ya, sure he's on the ice first every practice, but that's because he just loves to play hockey. He believes he can dominate at this level with the same game he had in junior. There is no ambition to step to a higher plane, he just loves shooting the puck and will continue to play the same way he was played his entire career, until he realizes he has to change his game to play in the NHL

Interesting take on him.

 

[GMofOilers]

This shouldnt even be close at all. Schultz is outscoring Yak as a dman since entering the league. On the d side of the puck its Schultz is actually better than Yak.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

Mr.Norris is loved by all in the organization and has been given preferntial treatment as he is a 'core player'. He was gifted WAY more minutes than he ever deserved.

Yak is played as a 3rd line grinder with extremely limited ice time.

 

[OilTastic]

Yak for me. 1st overall and we were all being told before the draft how great of a goal scorer he'd turn out to be, and how great of a shooter he is, and all he's done since his pretty good rookie season is regress. he also has only average NHL speed as far as i can tell, which probably isn't helping things. but hey, the Oilers turned him into a pretty damn good defensive player!!!! (-15 so far).

 

[La Bamba]

Anyone agree that Yakupov should be sent down to the AHL? Looks bad but he needs to score goals somehow.

 

[Aerrol]

First of all, thanks for posting a well thought out response. I agree with a lot of it. I'm still stuck on my phone on vacation so I apologize about the readability of this.

K
How is the entire post 'wrong'? The first part talked about hard work and his potential, as you eluded to. There was one semi joking statement about how he spent his summer, (vodka in russia b/c it's like beer in canada). This actually has little to do with him being russian..

Upon re-reading, I think that's where we primarily disagree. You see a little joke, I see another "Yak is just a lazy Russian" post. Certainly you must agree that calling russians lazy regardless of their actual effort is fairly standard in Canadian hockey circles, I've heard literally every Russian player get called lazy by clueless fans, even Datysuk! Doesn't this sound more like a statement of fact than a joke to you?

Alot of it is attitude. [...] Stamkos spent his summers working on his game, faceoffs, speed, shot. He embedded himself to hard work to become great. Yak spend his last summer drinking vodka and 'spending time with his buddies' as he eluded to pre-season

I do agree that "the entire post" was a bit much.

The gist of the post was Yak was first overall, a natural goal scorer, and projected to score as much or even more than Steven Stamkos. How can you possibly blame all of his shortcomings on outside 'development'. The vast majority of a player's development is through THEMSELVES. They figure the game out through their vision and Hard Work. It is well known Stamkos spent his time off working on his face-offs, late nights spent perfecting his shot, and working out like a juice monkey on a mission. He knew he had to step on a higher plateau to achieve the same level of domination at this level.

Purcell stated how Stammer takes absolute pride in his game and you can see the pain in his face every time he's on the ice for an opposing goal, and that he'd come back the very next shift doing every thing he can to score a goal. That is all attitude. You can't teach or develop that, it's a choice.

When Yak takes a shot and misses a good opportunity, look at him, 9/10 times he will look up in the air and coast while the play is still live.
When we get scored on, watch Yak the next shift, he will do the exact same mistakes again as if the previous goal never happened.
When the oilers get a 3-2 or 2-1 and Yak doesn't get the puck, watch him when he does. He will not pass to anybody and try to take the zone on himself or take a shot from an unscorable angle/distance.

That's all attitude.
The problem with this kid, is not development or coaching, it's attitude in-game. Ya, sure he's on the ice first every practice, but that's because he just loves to play hockey. He believes he can dominate at this level with the same game he had in junior. There is no ambition to step to a higher plane, he just loves shooting the puck and will continue to play the same way he was played his entire career, until he realizes he has to change his game to play in the NHL

I see a lot of this as hockey iq though, not really attitude. If he's training hard all the time, loving hockey or not, he has drive. There were reports of him training pretty much all summer and, again, he was the first one back in Edmonton to train. Way before our Canadian stars. He just doesn't have the hockey iq to really understand what he has to change. It's like working out - working hard doesn't mean you'll necessarily get results. Push ups don't help your leg strength, to take it to an extreme.

And this, I feel is where hockey iq and development clearly come in. It's on the coach and organization to explain to the player what their weaknesses are and how to correct them. Maybe Yak really has such low hockey iq that no coach could fix him, but let's look back at the many successful players we can be said to have developed this rebuild: Hall? Still a wreck in his own zone, same with Eberle. Marincin seems to have stagnated. The only one who seems to have improved a lot is RNH, drafted primarily on hockey iq, and even he isn't on a linear improvement. The Oilers suck at development. Eakins especially seemed to have no clue how to talk to ESL Russians. I don't think its a coincidence at all that Yakupov looked far less lost under a European coach. Yakupov clearly needs someone to go one on one with him extensively if he's ever going to find out how to score. He always finds himself out of position and out of flow with the game.

Sadly, I don't think that's going to be here anymore. We're either going to permanently ruin him in this tire fire or we're going to trade him for peanuts. I just hope that we trade him to a good organization because I'd love to see Yak do well.

 

[Staghorn]

Good arguments for both, but for me i have to go Schultz. He's probably the softest and weakest Dman in the NHL, doesnt stand up for teammates or his goalie, and generally just floats around. At least
Yak puts effort into his poorly allotted minutes. Schultz is just out for a skate, collect a cheque, know that a bigger cheque is coming. Bought into the Hall and Eberle School of Entitlement BIG TIME.

 

[Soundwave]

Good arguments for both, but for me i have to go Schultz. He's probably the softest and weakest Dman in the NHL, doesnt stand up for teammates or his goalie, and generally just floats around. At least
Yak puts effort into his poorly allotted minutes. Schultz is just out for a skate, collect a cheque, know that a bigger cheque is coming. Bought into the Hall and Eberle School of Entitlement BIG TIME.

How do we know Schultz isn't the negative influence? Hall and Eberle played well before Schultz got here.

There was always something that didn't rub me right about Schultz celebrating wildly in that meaningless Vancouver game I think late in the season where he scored to earn his rookie bonus and get more money.

 

[redgrant]

Yak doesnt strike me as a locker room cancer. Schultz certainly does. Zero effort on his part.

 

[Gone]

Anyone agree that Yakupov should be sent down to the AHL? Looks bad but he needs to score goals somehow.

If this is possible yes, it could only put him in a situation where he can succeed.

 

[McGoMcD]

Yak doesnt strike me as a locker room cancer. Schultz certainly does. Zero effort on his part.

Yaks shows up and plays. I got room for yaks. Schultz and Ebs are floaters. Replace them with some one who gives a -----

 

[ROSSter]

How you blame Schultz, a rookie defence man put in the #1 job on day 1, is beyond me. Defence in the NHL is tough, especially for a big minute #1 d man. It's why these guys command the big $$. With that being said, rookies can't just be thrown the keys and expected to succeed. Schultz should have been eased into his minutes.

 

[Throttlehead]

How you blame Schultz, a rookie defence man put in the #1 job on day 1, is beyond me. Defence in the NHL is tough, especially for a big minute #1 d man. It's why these guys command the big $$. With that being said, rookies can't just be thrown the keys and expected to succeed. Schultz should have been eased into his minutes.

This is very accurate and can be said for most of our players.

There is a lot of truth to what Eakins said about where we are as a team, the brain trust has failed miserably at getting veteran support players. The number one thing a team like this needs is a good goalie, and we don't have one.

Last nights game was lost inside of a few minutes of starting.

 

[Crobby]

Yaks shows up and plays. I got room for yaks. Schultz and Ebs are floaters. Replace them with some one who gives a -----

If this was the only criteria to be a successful NHLer I've made a huge mistake.

Floater or not, Eberle has more points already than Yak is on pace for this entire season.