Time to End the Bash Jake Comments

[Hairy Kneel]

5 hours ago, alfstonker said:

 

Well if he is that good can you tell him to help Cassels and fix Suban's defence so we can get them up here?

You know Jake's 3 years younger than Stecher and Hutton can't throw him under the bus that fast.

[Horvats_Big_Head]

Everyone just needs to chill. 

[Baggins]

19 hours ago, wallstreetamigo said:

 

What does it have to do with whether I like Willie or not? I actually don't like or dislike him, for the record. I dislike some of his decisions and some of his weaknesses as a coach that he struggles to learn from. I don't know him personally so liking or disliking him as a person is impossible to determine.

 

 

You seem to be having difficulty with context. None of know Willie on a personal level so obviously I was referring to disliking him as a coach.

 

19 hours ago, wallstreetamigo said:

All I said though was why create unnecessary drama around a situation that you know the press is grasping for some red meat around?

 

And all  I'm saying is I don't see where the drama is in bringing the kid back to pack for relocating. Fans are turning it into drama. The press just reported Jake saying "what stuff"? To me that show's he's not the brightest bulb in the box. Meaning if drama was created it was by Jake not management.

 

19 hours ago, wallstreetamigo said:

I never said anything about Virtanen being smart or dumb either. I just said he truly sounded like he didn't know what Willie meant by his comment. I don't think that necessarily makes him dumb and I don't think there is any reason not to believe him. It sounded pretty honest actually.

 

No, I did. There's plenty of reason to question his intellect.

 

19 hours ago, wallstreetamigo said:

Maybe you have a bias against Virtanen. I mean, why are you automatically giving Desjardins the benefit of the doubt for a truly bizarre comment that I don't think I have heard any coach ever say to explain demoting someone but on the flip side you won't give Virtanen the benefit of the doubt for simply saying he didn't know what he meant by it?

 

Not sure how questioning Jakes commitment and intellect is me being biased. There's plenty of evidence there to question both.

 

19 hours ago, wallstreetamigo said:

I am on the other side in that I don't think Virtanen's comments were really all that big a deal. More like he got asked about something that he had no clue about.

 

I'm on the side that it's been blown out of proportion by fans as a result of Jake not being bright enough to know the difference between road trip packing and relocation packing. I actually thought it was pretty decent of the team to bring him pack so he could be better prepared to relocate. Instead, some like you, seem to see that a stupidity on the part of management.

[alfstonker]

12 hours ago, Team Bagues said:

Agreed, he was given a chance and he was not ready.

Fair enough.

Jake even mentioned in the interview that his age was working against him, in that he could not be sent straight to Utica.

No big deal, he played in the show for a year (instead of going back to junior, which makes a lot of guys look real good) when he should have been in the A, now he's in the A and can develop, figure things out then come up and contribute with the big club.

 

Jake it seems to me has no end of excuses for his situation. Even ones that make him look like a hypocrite.

 

I wonder, at 20 years of age did the league cause him to eat badly and turn up out of condition at the start of the season? Did the League tell him to slide off his checks, dial back his hits and generally swan about looking gassed and lost on the ice?

 

If none of these things had happened he probably wouldn't be in Utica now. Jake got the chance this season because he finished the season well after coming back from a disappointing WJC. THAT was the player the management and coaches expected to come back not the "tubby" out of condition gassed player who turned up at pre season.

 

NONE of that had anything to do with the League, or the management,  the coaches or the fairies at the bottom of Jakes garden - it was all down to HIM.

[alfstonker]

7 hours ago, Hairy Kneel said:

You know Jake's 3 years younger than Stecher and Hutton can't throw him under the bus that fast.

 

No one I know other than the media have the slightest interest in throwing him under the bus.

Did it not occur to the guy interviewing him to suggest to Jake "his stuff" may have been a catch all expression for things he needed/needed to do, before relocating to the other side of the continent?

Jeez I wonder why not?

[wallstreetamigo]

3 hours ago, Baggins said:

 

You seem to be having difficulty with context. None of know Willie on a personal level so obviously I was referring to disliking him as a coach.

 

 

And all  I'm saying is I don't see where the drama is in bringing the kid back to pack for relocating. Fans are turning it into drama. The press just reported Jake saying "what stuff"? To me that show's he's not the brightest bulb in the box. Meaning if drama was created it was by Jake not management.

 

 

No, I did. There's plenty of reason to question his intellect.

 

 

Not sure how questioning Jakes commitment and intellect is me being biased. There's plenty of evidence there to question both.

 

 

I'm on the side that it's been blown out of proportion by fans as a result of Jake not being bright enough to know the difference between road trip packing and relocation packing. I actually thought it was pretty decent of the team to bring him pack so he could be better prepared to relocate. Instead, some like you, seem to see that a stupidity on the part of management.

 

I don't dislike him unilaterally as a coach was my point. I like some things about him as a coach, dislike other things, and am neutral about some other things. My comments about this particular situation have really nothing to do with his coaching ability. I just think his comments were unnecessarily dumb. There were so many other innocuous things he could have said to just shut down the rampant speculation by both media and fans but he chose to go off on a really weird tangent that obviously got taken advantage of,

 

You are not willing to consider that maybe him being called back up actually had nothing to do with allowing him to pack his stuff (and that there were other reasons behind the scenes in terms of conversations with Virtanen about why) and that might be why Virtanen said he had no clue what Desjardins meant. None of us know but given the comments it is certainly a fair possibility rather than immediately reaching too hard to insult the 20 year old's intellect over it. I more question the coach's intellect on it to be honest.

 

You are assuming that was the actual reason they gave Virtanen when his comments seem to suggest that wasn't what was communicated to him as the reason for the call up. It has certainly been blown out of proportion which was my original point. That started with Desjardins though, not Virtanen.

[wallstreetamigo]

2 hours ago, alfstonker said:

 

Jake it seems to me has no end of excuses for his situation. Even ones that make him look like a hypocrite.

 

I wonder, at 20 years of age did the league cause him to eat badly and turn up out of condition at the start of the season? Did the League tell him to slide off his checks, dial back his hits and generally swan about looking gassed and lost on the ice?

 

If none of these things had happened he probably wouldn't be in Utica now. Jake got the chance this season because he finished the season well after coming back from a disappointing WJC. THAT was the player the management and coaches expected to come back not the "tubby" out of condition gassed player who turned up at pre season.

 

NONE of that had anything to do with the League, or the management,  the coaches or the fairies at the bottom of Jakes garden - it was all down to HIM.

 

Where and when has Virtanen complained about being in Utica? What excuses has he made? He actually said pretty the same things Benning said and sounded pretty aware of why he is there and what he needs to do.

 

Maybe he is this terrible cancer his detractors think he is. Who knows? But what say we give him the time to prove it either way before we reach so far to knock him down for no reason other than to deflect any responsibility off how Benning and Desjardins have managed the situation the last two years.

 

There is enough blame to go around here.

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

3 hours ago, alfstonker said:

 

Jake it seems to me has no end of excuses for his situation. Even ones that make him look like a hypocrite.

 

I wonder, at 20 years of age did the league cause him to eat badly and turn up out of condition at the start of the season? Did the League tell him to slide off his checks, dial back his hits and generally swan about looking gassed and lost on the ice?

 

If none of these things had happened he probably wouldn't be in Utica now. Jake got the chance this season because he finished the season well after coming back from a disappointing WJC. THAT was the player the management and coaches expected to come back not the "tubby" out of condition gassed player who turned up at pre season.

 

NONE of that had anything to do with the League, or the management,  the coaches or the fairies at the bottom of Jakes garden - it was all down to HIM.

Jake's fitness issues this year really surprised me. Everything I heard this summer suggested he was working hard and with the supervision of Canucks staff. During the weeks before camp, I heard from a source (who's usually pretty good) that Jake was training at Rogers Arena often twice a day and five or six days a week. What kind of program he was on, I just don't know. 

 

But it would seem that if he was training that much, it was mostly strength and muscle mass stuff in the weight room, and not so much on building up his conditioning/endurance. His camp weight, and issues once he hit the ice, pretty much tells us he wasn't training the way he needed to.

 

If that happened on the watch of Takahashi, Sanderson, and the rest of strength and conditioning staff, then the organization definitely owns much of the blame here. If it was Jake failing to follow their program, then it's on the player.

 

But we do know Virtanen was in town and was working out at Canucks facilities, so one has to wonder why he wasn't following a better designed program. Or why, given the past issues, the team didn't have somebody tasked to keeping Virtanen on specific targets (and the right targets). Especially since this whole thing is a repeat of a pattern we've seen in previous years (with Jake either not training adequately in the offseason or him not focusing his training where it needs to be).

 

EDIT: I say next year the twins put Jake in a spare room in their place in Örnsköldsvik and work the kid for a full summer on the Sedin program.

[alfstonker]

3 hours ago, wallstreetamigo said:

 

Where and when has Virtanen complained about being in Utica? What excuses has he made? He actually said pretty the same things Benning said and sounded pretty aware of why he is there and what he needs to do.

 

Maybe he is this terrible cancer his detractors think he is. Who knows? But what say we give him the time to prove it either way before we reach so far to knock him down for no reason other than to deflect any responsibility off how Benning and Desjardins have managed the situation the last two years.

 

There is enough blame to go around here.

 

I never said he complained about Utica but I would bet money if JB asked if he wanted back up he would be up like a shot - don't put words in my mouth.

 

Who are these detractors and what is this about a cancer in the room? You didn't hear that from me. Why are you addressing things to me I didn't say?

 

The only theme running through my posts is "he only has himself to blame" and I stand by that.

[alt kilgore]

Its time for Jake to end the bash Jake comments.

 

The onus is on Jake himself to get people, both amateur posters and hockey pundits, to start talking him up again. He has as many minutes as he wants now in Utica. Stop pouting and prove that you are too good for the Comets and the AHL.

[wallstreetamigo]

Just now, alfstonker said:

 

I never said he complained about Utica but I would bet money if JB asked if he wanted back up he would be up like a shot - don't put words in my mouth.

 

Who are these detractors and what is this about a cancer in the room? You didn't hear that from me. Why are you addressing things to me I didn't say?

 

The only theme running through my posts is "he only has himself to blame" and I stand by that.

 

As I have always said, he does have himself to blame. But he also has Benning and Desjardins contributing a lot to his development path getting sidetracked. Lots of blame to go around.

 

Virtanen needs to shut his mouth and prove everyone wrong about his focus, determination, and work ethic. He also needs to regain his confidence. Now that he is finally in the place he should have been at the start of this year, maybe he can start doing so. He should have been back in junior last year too. Would have been much better for him.

[LimitedEdition]

A guy like Chaput bas been very noticeable with limited minutes.  I'm not saying he's the second coming of Bryan Trottier, but he's taking what's given to him and making the most of it.  He seems to make a positive impact on every shift.  This is exactly what Jake needs to do and should be doing.  The NHL is a big boys league and like multiple people have said, it's not a developmental league.

 

Jake was a 6th overall pick and comes with high expectations.  However, being fast and big bodied, he arguably has a better skillset than pure finesse players to make his presence felt with limited minutes.  The situation he's in is squarely on his shoulders.  4th line duties and multiple scratches with the Canucks and 2A in 8gp in Utica.  It's not Willy's or Benning's fault.  It's his fault.

 

 

[VIC_CITY]

On ‎2016‎-‎11‎-‎29 at 4:06 PM, dpn1 said:

I just read the Hockey News article on Jake Virtanen and I am not sure how you all feel but it seems like the media is just making way too much of the thing now.  I admit to being a big Jake fan but it seems to just be getting stupid.  He is down there now and hopefully he will start to find the back of the soon.  I still feel his frustration is reasonable.  The coach, gm and prez didn't handle him well.  He needs to now shut up and put up the point.  Maybe the press will leave him alone then.

 

The only time anyone bashed JV is when he opens up his big mouth and says something insanely stupid. Other than that, he is exactly where he needs to be and there really isn't anything to talk about. So I'm not sure how media (or anyone for that matter) is making too much of his situation. There's nothing to talk about it.