R35Godz1lla

Maybe Detroit would take Virtanen, Ballard, oops I mean Sbisa and a Benning special 2nd round pick for Larkin .

Another name I heard allot in connection to who Vancouver may be looking at in 2014 was Nick Ritchie. I feel as though he is where Virtanen should be at, had he been able to go strait to the AHL instead of right to the Canucks in his Draft+1 year. In fact I feel as though Virtanen is the more skilled of the 2 ( Ceiling wise ) and the fact that he is possibly the more skilled player has resulted in his progression being a longer go ( given all the hurdles he has crashed into thus far ). Now I have not seen allot of Ritchie as I don't follow the ducks very much, but to me he seems to understand his role allot better at this stage of his development and is playing to his current strengths, where as Virtanen tried to be more than what he was ( given injuries, deployment, fitness level, ETC. ) and it hindered his progression. Never hurts to play on a team with Getzlaf, Perry, Kesler, Etc. either, when compared with who Virtanen has played with. Please be sarcasm . I mean, sure he regressed a bit this year, but other than Zetterburg, all of Detroit took a step backwards.

I think his shoulder injury set him back a little bit as well. I mean i am no Dr.Recchi or anything so I can't say for certain. Seeing as like you mentioned he is working on his work ethic and consistency, as well as his fitness level I think his shot and his hands should start to come back, honestly his next hurdle is probably re-gaining his confidence from his Junior days without the cockiness that has led him to the situation he is currently in.

Agreed 100% . I myself don't understand peoples need to have others drop down to their level of negativity, sure one of the " Other " guys would be nice right now, but reality is Virtanen is the guy the Canucks selected. Every single draft teams miss out on a guy they should have picked instead of the player they did, guys like Forsberg and Larkin for example. That said if the draft was a sure thing, with no subjectivity or risk, the leauge would just hand out the next guy on the list and there would be no need for teams to pre-scout, do interviews, dig into family history, talk to coaches and teammates, watch hours of game footage, travel around the world to see them in person, ETC, ETC, ETC. That's what makes the draft so fun, you don't truly know who picked a winner or a looser until at least 4 or so years after the draft. Right now It's a tad early to say with absolute certainty, but it looks like halg the league messed up not selecting Boeser, sure makes things like drafting Virtanen sting less. Also, for all we know drafting Nylander or Ehler's would have made management push harder last year and this for playoffs instead of just letting things fall where they have and we would have picked outside of the top 5 this year and last, as well as traded away some picks and prospects for players in the kin of Derek, Roy . . . Maybe Virtanen figures it out in one of the next 2 year and maybe he busts out of even the AHL. We will just have to wait and see, so at this point I chose to be positive and hope he can become that 20 goal, hard hitting, pain in the ass fore-checker that every team would love to have ( or possibly has ) .