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gameburn2

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Everything posted by gameburn2

  1. Good question. If Green has been good for enough younger players... and his judgment is trusted, then he could be the coach they hire. Given the value of Virtanen to this team... a rebuilt Virtanen would be a huge credit to Green. We lost Kassian because of discipline issues... can you imagine if V. goes the same way? Yikes.
  2. I agree. Good for him to see what the value is in hard work. V. has such natural skating and physicality, I suspect he needs to learn the game; he may have had it too easy for him up to the last year.
  3. Wouldn't be the first time a coach has been good for the players he knew from earlier teams. Virtanen was expected to give the team something it didn't have last year (or the year before that): a physical forecheck. And some swagger. That's asking too little of a player, they should have asked for more: put him on the pp, put him in important minutes. Talked to him about patience, maybe gave him some assignments as a defensive specialist. Maybe he needed Utica, but maybe not. A different coach might have got it to work out for V without the need for Utica. It's frustrating for a fan, because you can see plugs like Megna and to some extent Skille and Chaput playing in the NHL, getting practically no points, and you wonder why someone like V. isn't in the lineup. But development is a process that fans -- including myself -- have little sure knowledge of. Could V. learn while in the NHL? Or is he better to have uninterrupted opportunity in Utica, a full year or even more?
  4. And put him on the left wing. A lot of his goals seem to come from that side, as do some of his best passes. I think he has the ability to get the space you need to play on the off wing.
  5. Hutton, Stecher, Boeser: all came in mature and ready to go, made the team without much if any time in Utica. What do they have that Jake doesn't have?: they are older than Jake was last September-October (when he failed, partly due to poor preparation.) Tryamkin had major seasoning in the KHL. That year or two is significant. We are seeing that with Griffin Molino too. I'm not sure any of these guys are going to be as impactful as Jake will be -- with the exception of Boeser -- who has it easier as a sniper and pp guy. Jake is expected to have something akin to Boeser's scoring touch AND hit like a truck. This is asking a lot, probably too much in fact. I hope Utica has taught him to concentrate on the defensive side of the game and on goal scoring/play-making. The hitting doesn't require teaching, at least not in the same way. Jake seems to use the rush to score a lot of his goals. That's not enough, he has to learn more about the forecheck and cycle parts of the game too. He has made some nice passes with the Canucks (presumably he has done this in Utica too) and will probably develop this further. I worry about his judgment and discipline, but again: a lot of men don't mature til their mid-20s. As long as he is impactful for 6 or 7 good years, this will be all we can ask for. From 24 to 31 years of age: not bad. But I think he makes the team next Fall, and puts up 30 to 35 points. So maybe 8 impactful years. A new coach won't hurt his chances either.
  6. What I was thinking of was the play-making. You're right, he will never be C. or McD. Nevertheless, I would argue that current players who have too much speed -- yes too much -- learn to make plays. He has to vary his game. I hope and pray he learns to make plays in Utica. It's the best way to see the whole sheet of ice.
  7. A good player for Virtanen to watch and learn from is Crosby -- maybe even McDavid. Both are players that have blazing speed (especially McD, of course) who get more assists than goals. He can make great passes, but I think his bread and butter up to this point has been the north-south power game. Better passing and a willingness to draw penalties rather than take them: this would put in the elite end of the game. He needs more patience and maturity.
  8. The Sedins are a huge liability as we speak. They are un-injured, have had better line-mates this year (Hansen, then Eriksson and Granlund are not bad at all), still get prime time on pp and offensive zone starts, and are even getting 2nd and 3rd pairing D against them since the other lines have become relatively better. In spite of all this they are a huge mess on plus-minus and go entire games without a dominating shift. They are nowhere near as good as last year (or any year in the last 10) -- all of which suggests they are no longer factors on this team perhaps as early as this next January. I cannot imagine them being willing or able to come back beyond next year. I personally would like them to retire this summer -- or agree to be moved around Draft Day (even if we have to eat half their salaries.) It has been very very difficult for a lot of us (myself included) to realize what's happening with them. They are done.
  9. Virtanen is still a work in progress. I think he will be, at minimum, a Torres. He is a great passer and a fantastic skater. His problem is his other skillset: he hits like a truck. And in a market/on a team with so little physicality, this can be an easy option for him. He has to be a Neely type: hold the puck, make plays, go to the net like Horvat and provoke the occasional penalty (a la Burrows.) I think he is a young player, young for his age. Two tricky injuries in his Junior career have retarded his development. Nevertheless, he is the real deal, or at least could be. If he can be the player he is meant to be, he could be another Mike Bossy with a bit of Neely thrown in. Think of him as 19 and a half, rather than in his twenties.
  10. When I first read this, I thought you were a bit hard on WD. But in fact, he more or less benched him the last half of the game because of "lack of familiarity with the team's systems." LOL. So,... I think you may be right. Chaput and Megna stay with team -- even getting pp time -- but a future potential star gets to watch them play. Sad.
  11. Well, not all of the players you list will make the Canucks, so some version of what you are talking about is going to happen. Also, I think we picked up a draft pick or two for this summer's draft -- which means a potentially very deep Utica team. That said, what do you do if in October Boeser and Virtanen and maybe Dahlen and Juolevi out-play the likes of Skille, Chaput, Megna, Rodin, Gudbranson, Biega, (or Gaunce)? Do we really want to keep these 4 guys in Utica for a "good experience"? I want to see a reborn Virtanen and whoever else is ready to play in the NHL actually play in the NHL, hopefully next October/Early November. Some of the replays of Virtanen in Utica look very promising. Just bring Green up with him lol.
  12. I agree with you. I was thinking of previous games. My bad, really. He wasn't the problem tonight. I love his game. What's needed is succession: moving on to the new generation: admitting that Horvat is the number one player on the team, and that Stecher and Tryamkin are the key D. Miller sucked, actually. Too deep in the net, too passive. Time to move him. I would NEVER trade Gaunce. Like Virtanen, he has huge potential. Gaunce should be playing center. But without enough foot speed, he isn't quite there yet. The Canucks are so close: Boeser allows us to develop a pp, and to give us a winger to go with Horvat. Demko lets us move Miller for a round two or three pick. Trading Hansen and Tanev let us get more picks.
  13. Gaunce needs something... not sure what... reminds me of Jarvis btw: dull, plodding, smart as hell. Not what you need, sadly. I would keep Gaunce on the off chance he does what Bo did: learn to skate. I love Gaunce's heavy game: his hits matter, his defensive game is good. But NO SPEED. Maddening.
  14. Did he do anything with the puck? Never noticed him. Gaunce was better. Boucher supplanting Chaput is possible though. We have a LOT of plug-level players coming and going these days -- kind of discouraging. Emerson Etem... Vey... Cracknell... Chaput... Megna.
  15. I have always assumed that they didn't really mean what they said about competing for the playoffs -- at least as their number one goal. But if you look at the inability to move the older players, over-reliance on plugs and tweeners, the way they bungled Virtanen -- and now Rodin -- I think they might actually be saying what they mean. Which is sad.
  16. I used to think that most coaches were roughly equal. It's the players that play. But, I kind of agree with you: Babcock is getting a lot out of his players, and not by flooding the neutral zone/trapping or simply chipping and chasing. The Eriksson debacle is painful to watch, as is the decline of the Sedins. Less Megna, more Eriksson with the Sedins... and make them the official 2nd line. Period. Next year, presumably we get Boeser and maybe another young forward (Gaudette? Lockwood?) making the team. This will give Horvat more potential linemates, and more options for Sutter as well. The pp has been bad ever since Desjardins took over. Lately, the pp is bad for the same reason the team has not quite got there yet: inability to see that the succession has already happened: Stecher and Hutton, Horvat, and Baertschi need to be the core of the first pp unit. Tryamkin also needs time on the pp. And they need to practice the pp -- far too predictable, general inability to get to the net. Horvat is the exception, but he still doesn't play on the first pp unit often enough. Time for a new coach. One that can see the future. Presumably mgt is on the same page.
  17. Don't forget Virtanen. How does a guy go from being a regular late last year to the AHL the next? Most of us assume it's all Virtanen's fault. But coaching is/was a factor: and, again, the same pattern: plugs and the Sedins get any amount of ice time, but the future players of the team (Rodin, Virtanen, Tryamkin) are the last to get ice time. Horvat is leading the team in points/critical initiative: how long did it take for him to get ice time that reflected this? I don't know whether it's WD or the "rebuild on the fly" model that is the problem, but there is a pattern here.
  18. I wonder how we'd look today if they'd hired Trotz instead of WD. Trotz you would pay a bit more but you'd get so much more. The idea you have mentioned before about the "Babcock model" is right on: get the best coach you can find, then tell him he won't be fired for 5 or 10 years. Make him a reliable fixture, a genuine part of the management system. Instead of a poor-man's motivational speaker you can dump when things go bad for a while. I don't see Babcock's Leafs looking "passive" and certainly never slow.
  19. Although a month old, this comment says a lot. I would say though that when the West Coast Express took off, it gave us a pretty long run of good play. 10 years more or less, until last year. Even the Torts year was not as bad as this last year and the first half of this year. Keenan and Messier... that was the last really terrible time imo. Last year was less bad because of the rise of Hutton, Horvat, Virtanen and to some extent McCann and Baertschi. Ownership's surrender to Keenan was hard to watch at the time. He did bring in Bert, though, I think.
  20. That would explain why some of the games where "we didn't play our system" were so much faster -- e.g., the last game against the Leafs.
  21. After about 3 or 4 years (maybe even 5) I remember the Sedins suddenly finding another gear. Suddenly they went from future stars with potential to actual stars scoring in the top 10. Gaunce just needs that little extra acceleration: good for the fore-check, good for the break to open ice for a pass. His thinking game looks good, and he plays the only heavy game on the Canucks, other than Virtanen (and his is inconsistent, as we all know.) If he finds that gear, we have our other centre to complement Horvat.
  22. I haven't seem him play much. Is he looking like that now, almost a month later?
  23. It can be handy if a team has more than one coach too. I think a player who is not in the Matthews/McDavid range has a lot at risk: especially he/she doesn't really know if they are good enough or not. Jake needs one or two people who "get" him. I see him as physically-gifted player, with a surprisingly good read of the ice/vision. Some of his passes have been terrific. He shoots well and has a nose for the net. He also seems to get along with his mates. But his weaknesses are all mental: on ice and off. He has gone from being a Torres type headhunter at times to a tentative perimeter player, with no defensive sense at all most of the time. Obviously neither of these genuflections is good. If he does well with Green, then everything changes. Probably needs a full year in Utica, or most of the year and then a chance to return there for their playoffs if the Canucks finish where we all expect them to. If a coach appreciates his game -- and just wants to add to it/complement it -- then this will work out. He needs hours of ice time asap, practice time probably as well. And lots and lots of video of other players (and himself) at their best. He has shown too much already to be written off.
  24. One of three things are possible, maybe all: 1. Jake is nervous about shoulder injuries or similar. 2. Suspensions and a rep for cheap-shotting are making him hesitant. 3. He has been told by some key people (Trevor or Jim or even WD) that he was not drafted to be Torres 2.0 but to be a power forward who puts up points and who gets the other team to take penalties (and not take them himself.) This might make him too much of a finesse player for his own good. TBH, he has had moments where he has been brilliant, in particular his quick release from odd angles. Also, he has made some of the best passes I've seen this year. Obviously his defensive game has not been good, and his ability to figure out what kind of player he wants to be/can be is not great either. He finished well last year, and it seems unlikely he could be worse than last year... so... we have a mystery. My guess is that he will get another chance and show well. And never look back. I think the fact he can play the fourth line or work a pp, be a scorer or a hitter (on a team that lacks some grit) has been a mixed blessing. I remember Benning saying a couple of times that "Jake can help us now," rather than giving him a decent chance to develop. I think it was the hitting Benning thought was needed. This is Bad. The kid has to be much more like Bert and much less like Torres if he's going to fulfill expectations most of us have. Benning seems to think he's useful if he runs around a bit and defends well enough not to be a liability. Almost the opposite of what he needs, imo. He should have been sent to Utica the first day out of camp, he looked a bit chubby and seemed a bit confused out there.
  25. With an unapproved renovation thrown in: cheap 2nd round picks, fly-by-night players and has-beens. (From Cracknell to Skille to ...)
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