Prospect Info: The Prospect Thread (Part XXXI)

[Snatcher Demko]

Where did anyone say that, or anything close to that? What is the point of this post?

Are you denying that this pick looks very poor right now or that the player is developing poorly, or that his current situation is very disappointing?



Yeah, he doesn't seem like a terribly dedicated guy.

That said, you wonder how management had such poor tabs on Virtanen and Tryamkin this summer that their conditioning went so far awry. Especially when Virtanen is actually living in the city. How do you not have Takahashi checking in with him once or twice a week?

Occam's razor - this team is really that poorly run and disorganized. Especially with young prospects it's very alarming.

So many interviews I've heard with prospects and roster players where there was an obvious and inexplicable lack of communication with Hockey Ops.

Remember Dan Hamhuis at the TDL? He didn't hear anything from management until a few days prior to the deadline.

 

[Snatcher Demko]

I have nothing to base this off other than that one tweet by Takahashi and a gut feel but I think he absolutely can't stand Jake. Is it coincidence that the team looks a lot better since Jake was sent down? I wouldn't be surprised if everyone was sick of his attitude, he comes off like a spoiled brat in every interview.

I'd say that is indeed a coincidence. Plus outside of two games against Arizona, the team hasn't looked good at all.

He's immature and most fans (here, anyways) were saying that he should spend the year under Green. And yet the Brass jerked him around for two months.

 

[StIllmatic]

I'd say that is indeed a coincidence. Plus outside of two games against Arizona, the team hasn't looked good at all.

He's immature and most fans (here, anyways) were saying that he should spend the year under Green. And yet the Brass jerked him around for two months.

Think he needs to be taught some humility and just needs time away from the city under strict guidance with Green. Will do him a lot of good. He needs to stop being so entitled and realize that if he does not put in the work to be in the best athletic form he can be in then he won't succeed. Virtanen is pretty limited offensively but quite gifted physically. He has all the tools but if isn't in the form to use them, what good are they?

 

[iloveloov*]

Think he needs to be taught some humility and just needs time away from the city under strict guidance with Green. Will do him a lot of good. He needs to stop being so entitled and realize that if he does not put in the work to be in the best athletic form he can be in then he won't succeed. Virtanen is pretty limited offensively but quite gifted physically. He has all the tools but if isn't in the form to use them, what good are they?

How is he limited offensively in any way?

 

[PhilMick]

Think he needs to be taught some humility and just needs time away from the city under strict guidance with Green. Will do him a lot of good. He needs to stop being so entitled and realize that if he does not put in the work to be in the best athletic form he can be in then he won't succeed. Virtanen is pretty limited offensively but quite gifted physically. He has all the tools but if isn't in the form to use them, what good are they?

I just realized exactly what Jake needs: Billet him at Bad Goalie's house! BG will whip that young pup into shape. This might be the best idea I've ever had.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

I just realized exactly what Jake needs: Billet him at Bad Goalie's house! BG will whip that young pup into shape. This might be the best idea I've ever had.

Yeah, and he's a bad goalie.... so Jake can shoot on him in the driveway and totally regain confidence in his shot!

 

[Hollywood Burrows]

How is he limited offensively in any way?

LMAO He scored 26 goals in 64 games in his last junior season and played his way out of Calgary's top 6. He's scored 7 goals since. He can't skate hard for more than 10 seconds without looking like he's about to collapse. Limited indeed.

 

[iloveloov*]

How is he limited offensively in any way?

Can anyone answer this without cherry picking stats and ignoring context?

LMAO He scored 26 goals in 64 games in his last junior season and played his way out of Calgary's top 6. He's scored 7 goals since. He can't skate hard for more than 10 seconds without looking like he's about to collapse. Limited indeed.

Yeah, he did score fewer goals while starting his season 5 months after a shoulder surgery that takes over a year to fully recover from. He did improve on his assists, defensive zone game, and overall points per game total.

He also scored 45 goals in 70 games the year before so I'm not sure waht your point is.

Are you saying his goal scoring his limited? I hope not because that's ridiculous and contrary to an honest assessment of his skillset.

Are you saying that his conditioning will always limit him? I hope not because that's also ridiculous and also runs contrary to an honest assessment of his skillset.

 

[VanJack]

I could see the Canucks leaving Virtanen in the AHL for a season-and-a-half until he figures out how hard you have to work to be a pro hockey player. If he doesn't get it then the Canucks may have yet another first-round bust on their hands....but I remember watching Cam Neely in his rookie season in Vancouver, and wondering back then if he'd ever figure out how to use that size and strength. Unfortunately the Canucks didn't wait.

 

[Ace101]

Can anyone answer this without cherry picking stats and ignoring context?



Yeah, he did score fewer goals while starting his season 5 months after a shoulder surgery that takes over a year to fully recover from. He did improve on his assists, defensive zone game, and overall points per game total.

He also scored 45 goals in 70 games the year before so I'm not sure waht your point is.

Are you saying his goal scoring his limited? I hope not because that's ridiculous and contrary to an honest assessment of his skillset.

Are you saying that his conditioning will always limit him? I hope not because that's also ridiculous and also runs contrary to an honest assessment of his skillset.

He's never demonstrated anything offensively great outside of his draft season where he had 45 goals and was just ppg only his goalscoring was impressive offensively. What if he had an unsustainable shooting percentage that one junior year then he's got nothing really exceptional going on offensively. He never led his junior team in points. You said he improved on his ppg the next season he did but it's not great that a top 10 forward pick got 52 points in 50 games especially when he's supposed to be a goal scorer. Going from 1ppg to 1.04 ppg is not that big of an accomplishment especially when one of the main reasons you were drafted so high dropped like a fly, it leads to what 3-4 more total points if he played 71 games again. Sam Bennet also got shoulder surgery and came back to play 11 games but got 11 goals and 13 assists in them, that's impressive and gives reasons to be optimistic not 52 points in 50 games. Jake looks much less promising then Steve Bernier at the same age think about that for a minute.

 

[Icebreakers]

So Dylan Strome is going back for a 4th CHL season. But Virtanen only needed 3.. lol. Strome had more points in 1 season than Virtanen had in 2 seasons. I still dont know why they rushed this man. I dont think he remembers the last time he was productive in a top 6 role. His draft season looks like the outlier right now.

 

[LickTheEnvelope]

So Dylan Strome is going back for a 4th CHL season. But Virtanen only needed 3.. lol. Strome had more points in 1 season than Virtanen had in 2 seasons. I still dont know why they rushed this man. I dont think he remembers the last time he was productive in a top 6 role. His draft season looks like the outlier right now.

In 17 AHL games Virtanen has 2 assists... :\

 

[Snatcher Demko]

In 17 AHL games Virtanen has 2 assists... :\

I wouldn't worry about the stats. This is a conditioning and maturity issue. The talent is there for him to be a 20g-20a guy at the least, we saw that last year. He gets his chances and can play reasonably well defensively.

That's why he needs to spend the whole year in Utica, needs to get in game shape and build new habits.

 

[iloveloov*]

I wouldn't worry about the stats. This is a conditioning and maturity issue. The talent is there for him to be a 20g-20a guy at the least, we saw that last year. He gets his chances and can play reasonably well defensively.

That's why he needs to spend the whole year in Utica, needs to get in game shape and build new habits.

^^^This. Jake has plenty of talent. He was probably the most talented player in the draft.

Jake's problem is intangible which isn't encouraging when this management has done everything to assure fans that its major strength is identifying intangibles in players. If they assessed Jake's intangibles to be good then they absolutely flubbed that evaluation because it's very obvious he has some maturing to do. This confirms the rumours that ownership influenced the pick because they wanted Jake Virtanen for marketing purposes or maybe they really like him and think he's going to be the best pick. If that's true then I can't complain because they own the team and it's their right but if it turns out badly I hope they'll have a little less confidence in their ability to assess talent and intangibles and maybe leave a little more of that to the experts like Jim Benning, John Weisbrod, and Trevor Linden.

 

[Kryten]

^^^This. Jake has plenty of talent. He was probably the most talented player in the draft

Rrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

 

[timw33]

^^^This. Jake has plenty of talent. He was probably the most talented player in the draft.

Please stop.

Ehlers/Nylander are way ahead of Virtanen on talent level. Not to mention Bennet and others further away from the JV epicentre.

 

[iloveloov*]

Rrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

I mean arguably he was the most naturally/physically gifted player. Between the ears he's as average as you can get but everything else like skating, shooting, and hitting he's elite at. Maybe I should've worded it better and said he might've had the best tools in the draft.

 

[Kryten]

I mean arguably he was the most naturally/physically gifted player. Between the ears he's as average as you can get but everything else like skating, shooting, and hitting he's elite at. Maybe I should've worded it better and said he might've had the best tools in the draft.

Okay he had some good raw tools to work with, He had nhl size and a local boy. He never had the elite tools that nylander or ehlers had and the only knock on them was not being as strong at the time. Nylander also had concerns over an attitude of superiority at the time. Jake had a huge advantage in his size while playing in a league of 16-19 year olds yet still never dominated or led anything despite a rare scoring jump luckily for him in his draft year. The writing was on the wall even in the draft threads on how bad he is as a player being lazy and reactionary instead of proactive.

 

[timw33]

I mean arguably he was the most naturally/physically gifted player. Between the ears he's as average as you can get but everything else like skating, shooting, and hitting he's elite at. Maybe I should've worded it better and said he might've had the best tools in the draft.

He hasn't shown elite shooting in like 3 years. He's stopped being able to score goals ever since his shoulder injury.

He barely hits. And he barely shows off his skating because he's out of shape.

 

[Snatcher Demko]

I mean arguably he was the most naturally/physically gifted player. Between the ears he's as average as you can get but everything else like skating, shooting, and hitting he's elite at. Maybe I should've worded it better and said he might've had the best tools in the draft.

Yeah I'd have to agree with you there, physically he was the most enticing package it was always hockey IQ that was the concern.

I wonder if he's just put on too much mass here too.

The other thing with Jake has been the shoulder injuries. It's as if he still has boy shoulders to go along with Jagr-like legs, and when he collides with opposing players they just aren't strong enough yet to prevent injury. I'd hate to see another injury, and so I hope he can pick his spots as far as hitting goes. I think he's been a bit reluctant to blow guys up lately because of the injury concern angle. In any event once his conditioning improves other part of his game should start to come around too. A tired player is a ****** player, no matter what the talent level.

 

[Red]

He also scored 45 goals in 70 games the year before so I'm not sure waht your point is.

Are you saying his goal scoring his limited? I hope not because that's ridiculous and contrary to an honest assessment of his skillset.

Are you saying that his conditioning will always limit him? I hope not because that's also ridiculous and also runs contrary to an honest assessment of his skillset.

Sometimes prospects regress. Virtanen had one extremely successful junior season. Since then, he's literally done nothing and looks more like the type of project teams pick in the late 1st round/2nd round, than a top 6 player.

 

[Rotting Corpse*]

Sometimes prospects regress. Virtanen had one extremely successful junior season. Since then, he's literally done nothing and looks more like the type of project teams pick in the late 1st round/2nd round, than a top 6 player.

And even at that, his "extemely successful season" was 71 points in 71 games; he was 3rd on his own team in scoring. His numbers were absolutely dwarfed by somebody like Ehlers.

In hindsight, maybe a guy who only managed 25 assists in his draft year in the CHL is maybe not a top-10 pick regardless of his gaudy goal totals.

It is kinda funny to look at the forwards selected from the CHL in the first round of that draft and if you simply ranked them based on their Points/GP in the year they were drafted you'd have a list of:

Reinhart
Ehlers
Draisaitl
Bennett
Fabbri
Dal Colle
Goldobin
Ho-Sang
Perlini
Ritchie
Scherbak
Virtanen
McCann
Bleakley

That's not really looking like a terrible ranking right now, given the zero scouting involved, and the absurd simplicity of just using raw points/game without taking into account league quality or anything else.

 

[VanJack]

You know, with the benefit of hindsight, that entire 2014 first round is looking pretty meh....Bennett isn't doing much in Calgary; and Draisaitl is nothing special in Edmonton....Ehlers has lots of flash and dash, but not lighting it up in the Peg either...Nylander might end up being the best of the lot, but just too early to know for sure.

 

[Rotting Corpse*]

You know, with the benefit of hindsight, that entire 2014 first round is looking pretty meh....Bennett isn't doing much in Calgary; and Draisaitl is nothing special in Edmonton....Ehlers has lots of flash and dash, but not lighting it up in the Peg either...Nylander might end up being the best of the lot, but just too early to know for sure.

Ehlers is T-13 in scoring in the NHL.

 

[Intoewsables]

You know, with the benefit of hindsight, that entire 2014 first round is looking pretty meh....Bennett isn't doing much in Calgary; and Draisaitl is nothing special in Edmonton....Ehlers has lots of flash and dash, but not lighting it up in the Peg either...Nylander might end up being the best of the lot, but just too early to know for sure.

???

Both Ehlers and Draisaitl are on track to be legitimate first line players, if they're not there already. As for your comment about the first round looking poor, there's a ton of other forwards like Reinhart, Bennett, Larkin, Fabbri, and Pastrnak who are already good to great NHLers at 20 years old, a Calder Trophy winner in Aaron Ekblad, and a handful of other promising prospects. Maybe the draft is lacking a Connor McDavid-esque generational prospect, but it's far from weak.