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DallasDrake

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Everything posted by DallasDrake

  1. Exactly. At forward position even if your team is crap and loses you can still score the occasional point with individual effort (see Tolvanen 6gp 2+4=6) to make your stat line better but as a d-man not so much unless youre Karlsson. Yeah I thought from Bennings interviews that he was really high on Dubois especially after he switched to C and I thought he would be there where we picked. So I had us picking Dubois then if he werent there would be no brainer to take Tkachuck since he was BPA. After them I would have been happy with Logan Brown or Max Jones cause somehow I thought they looked like Bennings players. Juolevi was surprise but like I said thats where our needs were. But thats just me id rather watch fringe playoff team of Max Jones's and Tom Wilsons than stanley cup champions of Kadris and Radulovs.
  2. Been reading this forum for years now and as I am from Finland I decided to share my opinion of Juolevi since I follow our players closely. Ive read here that Finland was supposed to "defend the championship" at u20 and were big flop. Thats really not the case. The team had lost all the core players of gold team and was among the youngest on the tournament and consisted mainly of 17 year olds. Nobody here expected them to do much more than qualify from the group stage and that they didnt even achieve because of horrible coaching and how they built the team and how unexperienced it was. People bash Juolevi of his play in WJC but the team was built in stupid way that there were too many pure offensive d-men and not stay at home guys. So the coach decided to play those od in offensive roles and Juolevi earned more of a shutdown role as he was the only guy to be trusted heavy defensive duties in every situation. And thats why he was the captain not because of his character he was just million years more experienced and better than other guys. Their forwards were thrash. Altough former 1st rounder Borgström and this years prospect Tolvanen are making some noise in NCAA and USHL they werent really game changers. At least not at the time. Now to the point. Every game Juolevi was steadiest d-man of the team and his passing and decision making were just one level above everybody else on the team and thats where the problem was. His passing was top class but their forwards usually just simply didnt have the skill level to catch them on center ice or make the right plays which made the whole team look bad. He didnt seem to have problems coping with other teams top players on the d-zone either. His shot selections made clear he was playing hockey in NA and rest of the team in Europe. He was looking to get rebounds and directions in front of the goal but there never really was anybody so even the Finnish announcers thought it was just a bad shot. And afterall that was just a short tournament where unexperienced and nameless team didnt do much. I think Juolevi has much similarities with Sami Salo. After Salos playing days I havent really seen Finnish d-man who is so poised with the puck on the own end and always seems to make that easy and obvious play which is the hardest thing to do. Not physical but makes up to it with good hockey IQ and positioning. His shot is underrated and I think he has bit more offensive creativity than Salo. That makes him in my opinion potential #2 d-man on a good team. Absolutely not a game changer in offensive zone like Karlsson but really reliable all around d-man. I see prime-Edler(not the current one) with more agility and way better decision making. I was in the Tkachuck train at the draft and thought he was the obvious choise after Dubois wasnt there but I understanded the decision shortly after since Benning thought Juolevi were best d-man available and thats where our needs were. And we already picked grit with high pick in Virtanen.
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