JeremyCuddles

Sounds like he has a lot of national pride, not unusual for anyone really. Says he follows our Russians, but don’t we only have like 2? Zhukenov and Goldy. Him and Goldy sound close. Might add Goldy to my list of untouchables. I am big on Svechnikov but I get the feeling we won’t be that lucky. I’m still lottery hopeful for any of the top 3 picks. Please give us Dahlin or Svechnikov. Sounds like he holds Brock in high regards. Brock’s dark horse captaincy gaining more traction. Might be reading into it too much but he didn’t mention Bo as a young leader. Probably just reading into it too much. Must be Trying to find a negative here. All in all sounds like we have a leg up on getting him back. Sounds like he doesn’t want to be another story of a Russian bailing on his team. A story I never truly believed. I did believe it was family related more than money.

Would rather he play for Sweden, but I am thinking he wants to get a leg up on what he needs to make the big club next year. AHL playoffs would definitely help in that regard. Just worried about potentially too many games in a calender year. Johnson said in an interview a while ago that these kids play too much hockey it hurts more than it helps in some cases. Particularly in regards to kids that really need to bulk up. Still doesn't hurt for Euro players to get more acquainted with the NA ice and the style. AHL gets a bad rep for not being particularly competitive in the eyes of some fans but it's a tough league. He has a good work ethic it sounds like and is dedicated to the franchise. I am really liking this kid.

From what I heard he is making little in comparison to what could be making here. Take that with a grain of salt though. It wasn't really backed by any hard numbers. Just word of mouth.

Boqvist and Dobson are pretty high on my personal list. Smith is a name I hear, not often but often enough that I might start looking into him more. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on him.

Yeah I heard Tkachuk was older, didn't know Hughes was too. Interesting bit of knowledge thank you. Being older in Junior is a bit nicer though, means only one extra year of junior before they can go to the A. Since I am pretty sure players drafted out of the CHL need 4 years of Junior before they can be assigned to the AHL, or be 20 years old. Not sure how that whole dealio works exactly. I have heard Bouchard is a very intelligent player as well. Particularly offensively though. Defensively he has the tools to be decent, but his ability to read plays isn't great. Skating is an easy win for Juolevi. Juolevi is the safer pick of the two for sure, which was one of his best assets when he was drafted too. Too many what ifs for Bouchard for me. I have been reading a bunch on him to see how he stacks up to Juolevi and the more I read the more hesitant I am to take him over any of the d-men in the top 10. Skating and defensive question marks, that's a huge yikes.

Bouchard is one of the older guys in the draft class. This is his 3rd year of Junior already, whereas some other draft eligible juniors are only in their second. Like Merkley for example. This is his second year of Junior.

I will say though, he is a older member of the draft class, the lack of top end talent on his team and the fact he plays so much might inflate his numbers. I am not trying to disrespect Juolevi, I am just curious why people would rate a 18 year old Juolevi over a 18 year old Bouchard and instead of letting me know why one might do that you complained about the fact I compared what little stats I could find on junior players. Oh well, expecting some form of discussion was too much to ask I suppose.

I did make mention of how much minutes Bouchard is logging which would imply being important in all areas, but sure nitpick the response. Lol. And in regards to Pouliot's Junior totals Bouchard out produces him too. Pouliot played on a stacked team as well if I recall correctly.

Why do people rate Juolevi over Bouchard if they were both draft eligible this year? Bouchard's offensive numbers in the OHL shred Juolevi's. And Juolevi played on a stacked London squad. I guess you could chop that up to a lack of options so Bouchard had to be the point producer. Bouchard also plays a ton of minutes for them. So I assume he's leaned on heavily for his defense as well. Juolevi's 2 years in Junior resulted in fewer points than Bouchard produced in this year alone. Bouchard's +/- shreds Juolevi's as well. Hard to find deeper stats on Junior players, forgive me for reaching here with the +/-. Lol. I am curious as to why people would rate a 18 year old Juolevi over a 18 year old Bouchard.

I miss Tryamkin. Dude was a force. Him and Guddy would make our blueline a much different entity. One day he'll come back. One day. We'll be so good together.

Jonah would have been roughly 8-10 when Holmstrom was on the back 5-7 years of his career. Not crazy to say he didn't watch some Holmstrom in his time. And Holmstrom was largely consistent throughout his entire career. Dropping 30-40 points late into his career. It was surprising to me when he said it as well. Didn't realize how recently Holmstrom had played. Having a guy like that on Vancouver would be pretty fantastic. He had a 15 year career in Detroit giving a good many goalies trouble.

I don't think it's a lack of intelligence. He seemed off this year. Skating wasn't where it was when he first got here. The plays he was making last year, he wasn't making this year. Not sure if he slacked on his conditioning in the offseason like Jake Virtanen the year he spent in the A. I think all our kids need to realize their spots on the team aren't guaranteed because we hold them in high regard. They have to fight. That's why I am not completely against having Benning go out and grab guys like MDZ, and Gagner, and Vanek. Say what you will about them, but at least they battle and come into camp like professionals. Vanek didn't have a team until pre-season if I recall correctly. He looked solid right from the beginning of the year and only got better as it went on. Hutton might have his confidence shot too. Which is hard to get back. Coach can only do so much in that regard. He can throw you in all the best situations for you to succeed, it's up to you to make the most of it. He needs to come into next season with a fresh mindset. Clean slate. Just gotta go out there and play. Maybe he thought his spot was solidified. Didn't have to battle as hard for his spot. I do think he is smart, a good skater, and good at moving the puck. He just needs to work his tail off. This is why I am really gonna miss the Sedins going forward. Their work ethic was second to none.

Jake made an emphasis that he'll be working on his hands this offseason. Really interested to see the Jake we'll get in September/October. His speed and size make him dangerous. Add puck handling and it would make him deadly. People look at his point totals and call him disappointing but he had little to no PP time and as a result had 0 PP points, only averaged 12 minutes of ice time and 5 on 5 he only had 45% of his starts in the offensive zone. It'll be interesting to see if they run him with Sutter again, they were a solid shutdown duo. With our center depth going into next season without Hank I wonder if our number 2 center is Sutter and they run Gaudette and Jake on the 3rd line with Eriksson. I could also see Gagner Eriksson and Jake as a line if they want to be safe and run Gaudette on the 4th line. Lots of options with the Sedins leaving two huge holes in our lineup.

To be fair Jake looked NHL ready physically and he didn't have the luxury of being in a men's league. So it was potentially waste a year in Juniors or potentially gain a valuable year in the NHL. Not much more he could do in Juniors and I don't think they were even using him in all situations which would have helped him develop. Most players go back to Junior for skating/physical reasons. Rarely do physically sound and fast players not make the NHL. He did look solid that 1st year. The offseason following really hurt him though. He was out of shape. But in hindsight it probably would have been better to leave him in Junior, then AHL. Sadly he was a victim of poor management. From the Hitmen and our own. Or he was just lazy that first offseason and got complacent. He said he thought they wanted him to bulk up which is why he was 230 some odd pounds. I dunno though, he looked pudgy and not buff. Lol.

Pronunciation wise the names are different, but keeping the pronunciation consistent could indeed be a problem. I could see commentators consistently calling Dahlen (dah-lin) instead of what I am pretty sure the correct pronunciation is (dah-leen). We already see the typo problem with the names already with many spelling Dahlen's name as "Dahlin". Gonna be a fun 10ish years with these 2 getting mixed up as members of our humble organization

Overseas leagues count as professional games I take it? Which means we could have left him un-signed for one more season to save us a year on his contract and Expansion exemption? Mono really screwed us over again.

Yeah I don’t believe in the league being out to get us. Hockey gods are.

There's only 5 teams "ahead" of us. We are the 6th worst team.

Yeah it does sound like he is defensively very good still. Injury is not good though. Hopefully it's not too serious. I really like him as a dark horse player for next year.

Like Lind? Big mistake there.

Playoff stats are kinda concerning. Is he being deployed differently in the playoffs? As a last year guy you’d think he’d be doing a bit better offensively but maybe he’s being used similarly to how Team Canada used him. Defensively sound physical presence.

I remember a lot of people being happy with the Jasek and Zhukenov picks, looking like a pretty good pick considering where he was picked.

Thanking Benning??!? Waaaaaaah

That was what led to Raymond and Hammer being injured, then losing Rome to suspension further hurting our D depth? Dang, Chara is a god.

8x8. Lock him up before he becomes a 10 million dollar player Benning.