Is Kassians lack of scoring in the AHL a cause for concern?

[Lockhart]

Too bad Jensen couldn't have played on the Wolves this year, I would have liked to see him and Kassian play on the same line.

[Lockhart]

Frank Corrado is 6'1 and 195 pounds at 19 years old, since when is that small?

Erik Karlsson - 6 foot 180 pounds

Brian Campbell - 5'10 190 pounds

Dan Boyle - 5'11 190 pounds

Mark Streit - 5'11 195 pounds

Ryan Suter - 6'1 195 pounds

Kevin Bieksa - 6'1 200 pounds

Kimo Timonem - 5'10 190 pounds

Keith Yandle - 6'1 190 pounds

Kevin Shattenkirk - 5'11 205 pounds

Kris Letang - 6 feet 200 pounds

Michael Del Zotto - 6 feet 190 pounds

Duncan Keith - 6'1 200 pounds

Nick Leddy - 6 feet, 190 pounds

Those small guys that "don't really do much in the big leagues" all happen to be in the top 25 of nhl defense scoring from last season and just happen to be the same size or even smaller than Frank Corrado. You don't know what you're talking about!

And regarding Cody Hodgson...... Look you may still be bitter about the way it went down with the Canucks, but you can't ignore the facts :

1. captain of his junior team

2. top 10 draft pick

3. former Chl player of the year

4. 5th ALL TIME points in a year by a Canadian at the world juniors, only behind the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Eric Lindros, Brayden Schenn..

5. 5th in rookie scoring last season despite averaging 13 minutes per game, while everyone ahead of him averaged 17 minutes or more. ( Thats 328 minutes of ice time advantage over a whole season they had on Hodgson)

6. Captain of his Ahl team

Everything points to him being more than an "decent second liner at best" as you say.

[Nino]

Playing with the Sedins will make him produce. Exhibit A, Alex Burrows.

Kassian with his size, can drive to the net, open space for the Sedins, pot the garbage goals around the crease, and finish from the Sedins setting up and he will stick up for the Sedins.

[TmanVan]

It's hard to compare height and weight cause most teams lie about that. I remember reading one listing that said Buff was only 230lbs.

[CookieCrumbs]

wow ur lucky the team you support won the presidents trophy 2 years running. what a pesemist.

[thehamburglar]

Some concern yes, but for our who prospect pool there. We need some players to step up, like Archibald has as of lately.

[Westcoasting]

wow ur lucky the team you support won the presidents trophy 2 years running. what a pesemist.

[Sergei Shirokov]

The truth is....the canucks just dont have the high draft picks like other teams. The pool is very shallow and players like kassian and schroeder just dont have enough support or complimentary players to play with. It makes all the differ in the world.

[22Sedinery33]

His job is not to score goals and hes not the next Bertuzzi as of yet, so some of you need to put your standards a little lower.

[Tangerines]

No not concerned. He will be a beast and just needs time. It's not a coincidence that every player on the wolves is underachieveing right now. Imo Arniel is doing a terrible job with developing our younger players. If you had watched any games or highlights this year of when Kassian scored he pretty much did all the work on his own. Even his assists were really nice. It wouldn't hurt if he had some good linemates to play with either. I'm sorry but Ebbet and Haydar don't really qualify as good finishers, or set up guys, this year anyway.

[hockeywoot]

I'm more concerned that our prospect team in the AHL as a whole looks like ass. Kassian is one of honestly very few potential bright spots. Schroeder doesn't look like he's going to pan out into much, Rodin who had potential seems to of fallen off, and really aside from Kassian the only real potential for anything resembling a first line player is Jensen.

Connautan is decent looking, Tanev at times looks good but recently his play has been pretty sketchy. A potential bright spot is Corrado who has been playing stellar and impressed a lot of people, but he's a smaller guy and not many small defensemen have done big things in the big leagues.

All in all, you have an aging top line in the Sedin twins, and you have no valid replacement. You have your second line C who is also aging, but more importantly, becoming very much injury prone and riddled with increasingly constant surgery, and no replacement. Even if we had Hodgson, let's be honest, Hodgson's play when he went almost 18 games without a goal or many points before he was traded and 'wanted out' didn't even scream to be that great of an 'elite' center talent. He'd probably be a 'decent' second line center at best.

We have holes on offense to begin with, and we don't even have anyone to rely on in the future to replace the pieces we do have that will need replacing in the next few years. We honestly have a pretty mediocre defense. I said a couple years ago whenever people started to call our defense 'top 5 in the league' that a bunch of average players does not work out to be a 'good defense'. It's an average defense. As is shown when Salo was out and we looked terrible in the regular season, or when Hamhuis went down are defense all but crumbled against Boston. Our defense is constantly one injury away, even to a depth player, to being considerably poor, and our offense is already streaky and unreliable in the playoffs, without even needing an injury.

Couple this with the fact that we have no bonafide number one D man in the prospect pool, and you're left with a rather disturbing picture. Our big window, has honestly all but passed with the improving of other teams around us. While I wouldn't shy away from saying it probably already passed with our lack of adding a big name forward when we needed one for the last two years, we don't seem to be any likely to get a big name D which would've potentially put us over the top either.

If the twins weren't getting up there in age before, with the addition to the current lockout, that's just one more year tacked on, and an already questionable window is suddenly even more closed.

As much as positive fans will try to hide from it, the future is looking mediocre. All of the bandwagon fans from 2003, and then from the Luongo era, didn't really get to see just what kind of team Vancouver usually was in the past. It was a mediocre one, that usually battled for the 8th playoff spot. We might not quite go back to that, but it's quickly approaching that territory again where we're more average than anything. Our prospect pool is mediocre, our current situation on both offense and defense is mediocre, and there is no real signs of reinforcement coming.

So, am I concerned about Kassian not putting up points? No, I am not concerned about that. He is one of our only real 'good shot' prospects.

Other than him, our only bright spot on the team, which has really been the only bright spot for years now, is our goaltending. Luongo was phenomenal. Schneider has a potentially good future on him, but that's just it. It's potential. No one knows how he's going to handle a full workload just yet, as it will be his first time in the NHL. And considering Luongo's career, and the fact he and Lundqvist have been the two best most consistent goalies in recent history, he's got pretty big shoes to fill. Not only will he have those expectations for the regular season to fill, he's got to do what Luongo had to do, which was to try and hide the shortcoming of the offense and defense of the team before him. Those bandwagon fans won't support him or the team when they start falling back down to earth as that 'window' closes, so he's going to have a lot of pressure on him while the bubble bursts.

Lack was just as good as Schneider was, with a worse team on the AHL, and is another great goalie prospect. But there's already been signs that he could potentially be gone given the situation above him. He's a good goalie prospect for a team with a 'franchise' goalie who is being pushed to be replaced, by another potential franchise goalie. If he doesn't walk, he's probably going to be traded. Schneider is really the only blue chip prospect that can become a top at his postition that we have. Outside of him, maybe Kassian, and maybe Jensen, instead of being worried about one of them, as I said before, I'm more concerned that those are all we have.

[nuck nit]

Correct me if I am wrong but the Wolves just benched Kas -with the forward knowledge and support of Vancouver management.

If there was no need for concern this would not have transpired.

[kmotamed]

We should trade him for this young guy out of Buffalo, think his name is Hodgson or something? =P

[-AJ-]

I voted yes. I honestly think that while the AHL's brand of hockey is a little different, that's no excuse. Even if it's just the AHL he should be workin' his butt off to prove that he's ready.

I didn't like the Hodgson trade, but I decided to withhold complete judgement until we saw if he (Kassian) actually performed or not. So far he hasn't done much in either the NHL or the AHL. He'd better get his butt in gear if he wants to prove me wrong.

[Noheart]

Trade Kassian for Schultz then see what happens to production for each player.

We have a good pro team and a crappy minor team and its usually one or the other with some exceptions.

We don't get good draft picks cause we kick a$$

So y'all need to just let out some gas during that morning wiz and relax

[Canuck Surfer]

I agree; the post you responded too was very negative and all is not doomsday.

But look at what LA did differently than us. Like us, with Kesler, Burrows and the Sedins they developed their best young players until they (Kopitar, Quick, Doughty) were ready for consistent prime time play.

What they did better was even more patiently collect an array of secondary talent and maintain a physically balanced team. Remember when we played them in the regular season before they hit their stride; they beat us up manhandled us. Their lineup is big and fast, on every line, in every position and very hard to match up against. Second; when they had no room at the top of their lineup they traded their up and comers (Schenn, Simmonds, Jack Johnson etc) for legitimate VETERAN core players who contributed to their run.

Sure we converted a questionable 1st rounder into Erhoff. But we have little results to date that have helped our cup runs for the other 1st rounders we traded (Bernier, Hodgson and Howden) where LA had Carter, Penner and Richards. Without Richards I don't believe LA beats us in the 1st round last year. Penner and Carter also scored key goals and played important roles. We got a buck rookie who had yet to learn how to train off his baby fat. Their GM simply outperformed our GM; even though Kassian will be a perfectly good player he was the wrong player at the wrong time!

Now as to the OP; no its not time to panic and we still owe it to ourselves to get what value we can from Kassian. Kassian is not the type of talent to carry a line, but he is capable of handling the the puck and converting when playing with good players. Plus of course you cannot teach size, speed or nastiness. You can teach durability and Kassian is clearly better but not yet where he needs to be with his training. It is a task to teach a big players body to carry high levels of intensity for big minutes. And they have to match the energy of the Dustin Brown's of the world to play a significant role. Its why PF's take longer to develop and why he still shows inconsistency. There are very few PF's with his speed and skills. So let him win battles for Haydar without putting his team at a disadvantage. Haydar is a career point a game guy in the AHL. We are asking him to demonstrate coming straight out of the corners to make plays which make his AHL line a success. If he can do that he may have a future playing shifts with the Twins.

Or be satisfied with developing him as a 3rd line physical force if he cannot. But what they are doing with Kassian right now, and he will have to step up to the task, is a great test to see if he can ultimately be a first line player.

At least in the future Kassian can also help us get closer to matching up physically with the Kings and Bruins?

LOL-worthy. Talk about being overly pessimistic.

This is not a REALISTIC prediction.

Our prospects are nothing special, but that doesn't make our future mediocre by any lengths.

We've been a top team for the last while. How do you propose we draft a franchise player, while consistently

picking between 25-30? In the short-to-immediate term we will still be a decent playoff team.

While it would be nice, it isn't reasonable to expect our prospects to be elite, impact players. Reasonable expectations, are for them to earn a spot, find a way to contribute, and improve their game over time.

Over the next 2,3,4 years I'd imagine the likes of Jensen, Lack, Kassian, Gaunce, Corrado could probably accomplish this. Of course, we can improve our drafting. But it isn't terrible by any lengths.

We're doing fine.

Look at the Kings. Outside of lotto pick Doughty, most of the youngsters (King, Nolan, Clifford, Voynov, Martinez) contributed as role players to a core of grizzled vets.

[Nino]

We should trade him for this young guy out of Buffalo, think his name is Hodgson or something? =P

[The Kassassin Train]

Buffalo would never take the trade.

[-Vintage Canuck-]

Yes.

[Ghostsof1915]

I actually think we need to make a hard look at our development system. I'm not happy with Chicago, and yes Arneil seems to be part of the problem. I thought Craig MacTavish wasn't good at developing young players, Arneil doesn't even seem to have a game plan.

I'm glad the Canucks only signed a 2 year deal. To be honest I think we need to re-evaluate our system to make sure players like Kassian, K-Conn, and others are getting the best coaching and development possible.