Player Discussion Podkolzin (PbK) Thread Part 5

[MS]

Willie at least was kind of likeable. Green just came off like an ultra douche every time he opened his mouth. Canucks fans really should be entitled to legal compensation due to extreme emotional abuse given the last decade.

No discernible system, negatively affected every young player he came in contact with, and was an arrogant douche the entire time. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.

 

[petterdaddy]

No discernible system, negatively affected every young player he came in contact with, and was an arrogant douche the entire time. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Bro really made a career out of Jacob Markstrom dragging the Comets to the finals that one year. Team likely would have had better results if the twins just coached while they were still playing.

 

[MS]

Bro really made a career out of Jacob Markstrom dragging the Comets to the finals that one year. Team likely would have had better results if the twins just coached while they were still playing.

It was crazy how he even got to Utica in the first place.

He was a WHL assistant for like a year who took over a Portland powerhouse mid-season when their head coach got suspended and somehow turned 40 junior games into an AHL head coaching position.

 

[petterdaddy]

It was crazy how he even got to Utica in the first place.

He was a WHL assistant for like a year who took over a Portland powerhouse mid-season when their head coach got suspended and somehow turned 40 junior games into an AHL head coaching position.

Really regretting not shooting my shot for a coaching gig while Benning was in charge. I’ve literally never played hockey and I can’t skate but somehow I don’t think that would matter.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

Bro really made a career out of Jacob Markstrom dragging the Comets to the finals that one year. Team likely would have had better results if the twins just coached while they were still playing.

He owes getting an extension to Markstrom as well. That Canada went winless at the Spengler Cup after winning 4/5 years is just perfect. Getting a job in New Jersey sets him up really well for another HC job though. Thankfully it won’t be us.

 

[strattonius]

Green was such an arrogant ass. And about what exactly? It's like he made the show and had this chip on his shoulder that everyone else couldn't possibly understand the depth of being an NHL coach - at least that's how his smug personality came across with the media.

 

[credulous]

travis green wasn't a good coach but in retrospect he squeezed just about everything he could out of some truly putrid rosters

 

[petterdaddy]

He owes getting an extension to Markstrom as well. That Canada went winless at the Spengler Cup after winning 4/5 years is just perfect. Getting a job in New Jersey sets him up really well for another HC job though. Thankfully it won’t be us.

it’s so nice to not have to worry about signing or trading for a player who had a decent draft pedigree in 2010. I’m sure management has their own faults but at least I don’t need to suffer the heartburn of being able to predict signing Ferland like 5 months before it happened.

 

[HairyKneel]

I said prior to camp started that Podz had next to no chance to make the team - and he deservedly does not.

His reads and decision-making at the NHL level are just not there. The hope now is that he can simplify his game enough and be effective enough to become a "premium grinder", something like Jannik Hansen was.

He looked pretty good two years ago. He’s in his own kitchen though and the best thing for him to do is to play 20 min a night and retain his confidence. I still believe there is a very useful player there but time is running out for sure.

 

[Jay Cee]

This pick didn't look good from the very beginning. JD Burke had a full on semi about the guy and I think a lot of people thought that meant he was good- but he wasn't.

 

[TruGr1t]

This pick didn't look good from the very beginning. JD Burke had a full on semi about the guy and I think a lot of people thought that meant he was good- but he wasn't.

One of the upsides about TSN 1040's downfall was that JD Burke is now persona non grata in the Vancouver media landscape.

 

[Johnny Canucker]

15 posts about coaches etc in a players thread.

 

[bossram]

He looked pretty good two years ago. He’s in his own kitchen though and the best thing for him to do is to play 20 min a night and retain his confidence. I still believe there is a very useful player there but time is running out for sure.

I disagree on the meaning of “very useful”. He did look good on that run on the wing with Petey, but that’s kind of a freebie.

I still think he can be a premium grinder type player. But you’re right, the runway is running out.

If there’s a team out there that still values him remotely like a first round pick, I’d be looking to move him for a roster upgrade.

 

[bossram]

No discernible system, negatively affected every young player he came in contact with, and was an arrogant douche the entire time. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Bolded is not really true. Green was the only coach to get quality play out of Hoglander and in retrospect, his gradual increase in responsibility given to Horvat over his career seemed to be an optimal development path for him.

 

[geebaan]

Hate to admit but looking like I was wrong about this player. I saw a guy who worked hard, had an amazing shot, and at the time was playing great defensively in Russia. Non of that has seemed to translate.

 

[LemonSauceD]

Holland's first round draft history since from 2013 to 2018, 7 first rounders, is pretty atrocious.

Mantha (20)
Larkin (15)
Svechnikov (19)
Cholowski (20)
Rasmussen (9)
Zadina (6)
Veleno (30)

Larkin is the prize, Rasmussen seems to have finally turned a corner, and at least Mantha is in the NHL.

What’s interesting however is that Mantha was a projected top 10 pick. Zadina was projected as a top 3 pick. And Veleno heading into the season was projected to go top 3 (being granted exceptional status, perhaps this was more to do with the hype but he had a good minus 1 draft year). Hell Larkin I’m pretty sure fell a couple of spots from where he was projected as well.

In theory, he drafted guys who fell (no different than say Buffalo drafting Benson), but those guys happen to just not turn out to be good players respective to their draft position. It’s hard to fault him on his draft choices here. Perhaps development is where he should be criticized.

The only real question mark draft choice would be Rasmussen, who was a considerable reach selecting anywhere near the top 10 despite being hyped up in the weeks before the draft.

When you look at Benning, he considerably reached on the Virtanen and Juolevi picks while Podkolzin choice is up in the air, traded away draft picks for failed reclamation projects, and then botched his later draft choices as well not really drafting anyone of value after the 1st round besides Demko and Forsling.

Comparing Holland to Benning is dishonest at best. Holland was nowhere near Benning level bad. No GM within the last 20 years was.

 

[DFAC]

This pick didn't look good from the very beginning. JD Burke had a full on semi about the guy and I think a lot of people thought that meant he was good- but he wasn't.

Hate to admit but looking like I was wrong about this player. I saw a guy who worked hard, had an amazing shot, and at the time was playing great defensively in Russia. Non of that has seemed to translate.

I don't think anyone could have blamed management for picking him where we did - it just simply hasn't panned out with him for whatever reasons. There were always questions about his offensive upside but he was always regarded as a pretty high floor type of prospect who could bring a solid 2 way game with leadership/tenacity even if he wasn't scoring.

If anything, maybe his performance at the 2019 Hlinka cup where he had 8G 11A in 5 games inflated his pre draft stock and was a bit of an anomaly. He did go on to have a so-so KHL/VHL/MHL season and WJC too.

IIRC most of us on these boards wanted one of Zegras, Soderstrom, Boldy, Caulfield, Krebs or Newhook... which turned out into 3 superstars and 3 so-so players. I think most of us (myself included) were a bit suprised we went with Podkolzin and we were cautiously optimistic when his name was announced.

I really wonder if those 2 years in the KHL stunted his development with not much playing time/minutes. Have to think if he played in somewhere like the NCAA he would've probably turned out better. Oh well - it was a worthy gamble to take at the time, just didn't work out unfortunately for us.

 

[HairyKneel]

This pick didn't look good from the very beginning. JD Burke had a full on semi about the guy and I think a lot of people thought that meant he was good- but he wasn't.

JD Burke is an idiot and he wears a string tie.

I’m not saying he was the correct pick but i believe he can be a solid player.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

What’s interesting however is that Mantha was a projected top 10 pick. Zadina was projected as a top 3 pick. And Veleno heading into the season was projected to go top 3 (being granted exceptional status, perhaps this was more to do with the hype but he had a good minus 1 draft year). Hell Larkin I’m pretty sure fell a couple of spots from where he was projected as well.

In theory, he drafted guys who fell (no different than say Buffalo drafting Benson), but those guys happen to just not turn out to be good players respective to their draft position. It’s hard to fault him on his draft choices here. Perhaps development is where he should be criticized.

The only real question mark draft choice would be Rasmussen, who was a considerable reach selecting anywhere near the top 10 despite being hyped up in the weeks before the draft.

When you look at Benning, he considerably reached on the Virtanen and Juolevi picks while Podkolzin choice is up in the air, traded away draft picks for failed reclamation projects, and then botched his later draft choices as well not really drafting anyone of value after the 1st round besides Demko and Forsling.

Comparing Holland to Benning is dishonest at best. Holland was nowhere near Benning level bad. No GM within the last 20 years was.

Reading through the consensus rankings (and especially Bob McK's final ranking, which usually tells us how the draft plays out)..Virtanen and Juolevi were not massive reaches at all (like Seider in 2019), they were just picks that didn't pan out...

Podkolzin was also picked precisely around the point of the draft where most of the experts predicted.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

I don't think anyone could have blamed management for picking him where we did - it just simply hasn't panned out with him for whatever reasons. There were always questions about his offensive upside but he was always regarded as a pretty high floor type of prospect who could bring a solid 2 way game with leadership/tenacity even if he wasn't scoring.

If anything, maybe his performance at the 2019 Hlinka cup where he had 8G 11A in 5 games inflated his pre draft stock and was a bit of an anomaly. He did go on to have a so-so KHL/VHL/MHL season and WJC too.

IIRC most of us on these boards wanted one of Zegras, Soderstrom, Boldy, Caulfield, Krebs or Newhook... which turned out into 3 superstars and 3 so-so players. I think most of us (myself included) were a bit suprised we went with Podkolzin and we were cautiously optimistic when his name was announced.

I really wonder if those 2 years in the KHL stunted his development with not much playing time/minutes. Have to think if he played in somewhere like the NCAA he would've probably turned out better. Oh well - it was a worthy gamble to take at the time, just didn't work out unfortunately for us.

I agreed with most of your post,..but there seems to be a bit of revisionism as far as what the posters here wanted..Here is the poll from 2019 pre draft..

#1 Jack Hughes 54%
#2 Kaapo Kakko 95.1%
#3 Bowen Byram 77.2%
#4 Alex Turcotte 52.9%
#5 Dylan Cozens 27.4%
#6 Kirby Dach 38.8%
#7 Matthew Boldy 33.0%
#8 Visali Podkolzin 32.9%
#9 Trevor Zegras 34.4%
#10 Peyton Krebs 35.6%
#11 Cole Caufield 47.2%
#12 Alex Newhook 71.4%
#13 Philip Broberg 35.6%
#14 Victor Soderstrom 33.9%
#15 Ville Heinola 46.9%
#16 Moritz Seidar 33.3%
#17 Arthur Kaliyev 31.5%
#18 Cam York 28.3%
#19 Raphael Lavoie 34.2%
#20 Thomas Harley 51.9%
#21 Bobby Brink 53.8%
#22 Ryan Suzuki 29.0%
#23 Spencer Knight 34.6%
#24 Philip Tomasino 34.5%
#25 Nils Hoglander 24.0%

 

[Zarpan]

Reading through the consensus rankings (and especially Bob McK's final ranking, which usually tells us how the draft plays out)..Virtanen and Juolevi were not massive reaches at all (like Seider in 2019), they were just picks that didn't pan out...

Podkolzin was also picked precisely around the point of the draft where most of the experts predicted.

Juolevi was a reach in the sense that Tkachuk was a clear tier above him and I didn't see any ranking list that had Juolevi above Tkachuk. Even rankings that thought highly of Juolevi still ranked him below Tkachuk, so perhaps Benning was the only person who would have picked Juolevi ahead of Tkachuk.

With Virtanen and Podkolzin, at least there were a decent number of other people who would have picked them ahead of whoever else was available when the Canucks were picking.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Juolevi was a reach in the sense that Tkachuk was a clear tier above him and I didn't see any ranking list that had Juolevi above Tkachuk. Even rankings that thought highly of Juolevi still ranked him below Tkachuk, so perhaps Benning was the only person who would have picked Juolevi ahead of Tkachuk.

With Virtanen and Podkolzin, at least there were a decent number of other people who would have picked them ahead of whoever else was available when the Canucks were picking.

I dont want to rehash the whole MT/OJ thing (MT was my choice)..MT was rated higher, but OJ was not a massive reach . Calgary who were picking 6th had OJ/MT rated equally, and were going to pick one of the two..It was the wrong pick, but at some point it comes down to pure luck..Imagine if Michael Dal Colle, or Puljijarvi had fallen to us..?.. (who were ranked higher than Virtanen and Tkachuk)..we would have been ecstatic.

 

[bossram]

I dont want to rehash the whole MT/OJ thing (MT was my choice)..MT was rated higher, but OJ was not a massive reach . Calgary who were picking 6th had OJ/MT rated equally, and were going to pick one of the two..It was the wrong pick, but at some point it comes down to pure luck..Imagine if Michael Dal Colle, or Puljijarvi had fallen to us..?.. (who were ranked higher than Virtanen and Tkachuk)..we would have been ecstatic.

OJ, JV, and Podz were all reasonable selections based on the consensus ratings.

But wasn't the point of having an "eye for talent draft guru" GM that he could, y'know, outperform consensus draft rankings? This was a HUGE "selling" point by BenningBros at the time. That Benning could draft and Gillis could not.

In hindsight, Benning could not.

 

[ChilliBilly]

Benning was incompetent ... at the time I said he had a fantastic option. If you are not going to draft MT, then trade spots with one of the next 5 draft teams, there was a very good chance that he would still get OJ, and probably a 2nd rd pick. If not OJ, there were a lot of evenly ranked player in 11 - 17 range. IIRC. Weren't there 2 -3 d decent men that were in the next 10,
sergachev or Chychrun and Macavoy. Just sad.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

The Podkolzin pick wasn’t a Benning pick if my memory serves correct. I recall reading that Benning wanted Broberg, and once he was off the board, wanted to trade down but our scouts convinced him to take Podkolzin at 10th overall.