Zhukini

Or you let him keep playing well and away from his buddies here where he gets into bad habits

Well he hasn't given him any reason to bring him back up so that's no surprise

Monahan is still slumping but he looks to be better, Ristolainen is already a star, and Mackinnon is too talented to fall outside the top 10. It's not a knock on Bo but there are at least 11/12 VERY good players in that draft

Darnell Nurse is the only one in the top 10 that would drop further, you could argue Lindholm as well. Drouin proved he belonged. On top of that you'd have Alex Wennberg, Max Domi who could challenge Bo for that spot, and then Shea Theodore and Mantha is a reach.

The crazy thing is, in a redraft, Bo might even have dropped. Very top heavy draft and he's right there

I've seen Patrick Sharp thrown out as a comparable, but Dany Heatley, especially in San Jose is someone I keep remembering in terms of Boeser

His stats at 36, have only been better once, since turning 28. It's a dip from his Vezina ability back in the day but he's still a top tier goalie, 2 years should only change that slightly. 14 Million is coming off the books in that two years along with the 4.5 For Burrows and whatever Miller would get re signed too. There's your insurance for signing those players. I don't know why you brought up Gaunce and Rodin. They'll be making peanuts. Signing Gudbranson long term for more money is more worrying that re signing Miller for two years at 3 Million a year.

He's not re signing for 6 Million again, and the free agent class this Summer is weak. Money isn't an issue, even if we were a competitive team. What factor does age play? He's 36 now and his play has barely dipped from when he was 33. Even if it does, you just take the workload and go 55-25 instead of 40-40.

Jost is out so they've got Boeser playing Centre tonight which is interesting. No points through 2 which is predictable in a new spot but it's good news they trust him enough to give him that defensive role. UND trailing 2-0 almost through 2 though

That's one of my gripes with this team, there's simply no forecheck prescence that scares the opposition defence to rush and make a play. Back a few years, when we had Kesler,Torres, and Lapierre, the other defencemen constantly had their head on a swivel and it felt like we generated more offence because of it

Ya? Tell that to Bo Horvat. Heard people spouting the same nonesense

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but it's simply too early, you could have made this same arguement about Anthony Mantha after his first year in the AHL and look At him now. He's not doing well this year, there's no denying it, but to an extent, it was expected. I think Jake will be in the AHL next year too and that's when the numbers need to tell the story, not a nice comment or two from the coach.

For his lifestyle, being drafted by his hometown team may have been not very good for his development. It's 100% a maturity thing

It's most often done when players emerge in their last college season and draw a ton of interest then. If Boeser was at under a PPG for three years of college, and then exploded in his final year of eligibility, THEN I would be worried.

This is true, the Sedins are border line second liners now, but their value to the team extends beyond the points. It's like what Naslund and co did for them many moons ago. They weren't first liners any more but they protected the twins enough to get them some confidence so the switch to first pairing matchups wouldn't be as hard

Fair enough, there's generally a 5 year rule when it comes to prospects, so he should be given until then, but also you'd also like to generally see progression, not regression especially when not playing against NHLers

This is not Todd Bertuzzi we are talking about, teams don't tremble in their boots looking at Jake Virtanen in their lineup, mostly because they aren't comprised of underdeveloped 16 year olds like Junior was. he's 6'1. 215, that's a good size but nothing to fret over, especially when he doesn't hit, and moreso when a good chunk of that is fat.

The problem is that when we got to see him play this year, he was about as hard to play against as Vrbata on a bad day. He's not hitting, he's not doing much of anything other than float. Did Willie handle him wrong? Sure he did. This is his second coach now in Green and he's not setting the world on fire either, and I don't just mean in points. All I see regarding Jake are a bunch of excuses, he has a bad shoulder, the coach doesn't like him, he's playing the wrong position, he's only 20, at what point does it become his fault that he's just not that good, this year at least.

Really? If anything this season has shown most of his skills aren't AHL ready, not NHL

We'd also have Nichushkin instead of Horvat if that were the case for 2013 as well

Reports of him being last on the ice for practise and first off it. Plus he's a big party boy, and if you're into Vancouver nightlife, chances are you've seen him around more than any other Canuck

He's a big nightlife connesieur to put it politely. So is Evander Kane. Some guys just don't get it, lets hope it's not like that for Jake.

Kind of hard to do when they play in two different leagues no? Who was the last person Virtanen got a good hit on? Nichushkin more than a year ago?

The problem is for every supposed Dustin Brown you get in your bucket of gritty physical pests, you have much higher odds of ending up with a Zack Kassian or Steve Bernier, and Raffi Torres on a good day.

As long as young players buy in, Willie seems to have a positive effect on him. Jake will get there eventually, some humble pie in the A will do him good.