Tolvanen is not a player i want this team to give up on. When he finds his shot at the NHL level he will be a tarasenko esque player. He checks and goes to the hard areas. I like his game a ton and would like thisn team to be as patient as possible with him to develop his offense
Karl Taylor fixed most of Tolvanen’s “flaws” while he was in Milwaukee. He’s turned into a solid two way player that can finish his checks. Unfortunately he lost his accuracy on that wicked snipe in the process. Hopefully he’s focused on finding that part of his game again this off-season.
No one is given, opportunities, you have to earn them and he's not good enough to take time from Duchene, Forsberg, Johansen or Granlund.
No disagreement here - my point is only that his decline in performance is multi-faceted. But he needs to create and convert on ES opportunities to get back on the PP. If that doesn't happen, he seems like an interesting trade prospect that someone would take a shot on
Hopefully this is done electronically rather than by fax now....
This. Reminds me a lot of how Bemstrom is perceived up here. "He was supposed to be a sniper and he hasn't been, therefore OMG BUST TRADE HIM TRADE HIM".
I mean this really is the only fitting reply with someone using AnalogKid as a moniker.
Is he actually a 10 goal scorer playing 4th line minutes though? How much of his limited production this season was when playing with Johansen or on the PP (I know the latter, it was 1 PPG, 6 PPP)? McCarron scored 7 goals playing actual 4th line minutes (in only 51 games), and is better at the two-way/bottom 6 stuff than Tolvanen is. Ditto with Luff, who scored 3 goals (in 23 games). It's great he's rounded out his game, but if he's going to be on the 4th line, I'd rather go with actual 4th liners and free up the roster/power play spot for someone else who may actually be an NHL-level scorer.
Personally, I hope they give him another year, maybe two, to see if he gets his shot back. He’s only 23 and the organization has been really working with him to become a solid two way player (which he has accomplished). Now that he’s accomplished what the organization wanted he can spend the majority of his time focusing on his shot again.
Uh, I think you missed the point. Fine, call it 5 goals. Whatever. Yes, I think he's a good 4th line player even with 5 goals. He is better than Matt Luff as an "actual 4th liner". He's better at hockey, period.
I suspect the other side of the common "just keep adding stars and it'll magicaly make a team" flaw is the one of "you need X particular type of guy to fill Y specific role and that should cost no more than $Z". Flexibility is a good thing.
It's not necessarily that, but more if he's not going to play in the top 6 and likely ends up on the 4th line, what is the objective/role of our 4th line and does he carry out that role better than other players? I think he's very passable on the defensive side and he is willing to throw the body, etc..., but I don't know that he's particularly great at it either. It feels a lot like the normal "but his defense!" argument that always comes out when discussing offensive/production deficiencies--his defense is fine, but I think it's a bit overstated to compensate for him being such a letdown offensively.
