TOMapleLaughs
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Posts posted by TOMapleLaughs
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The nights of the watch usually burn the bodies of their dead, right? Wouldn't that eliminate the possibility of a Jon Snow resurrection, at least into his own body? He could come back as his direwolf, but so what? The man looks to be dead for good.
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Winter is Coming, but there will be no Snow.
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9 times out of 10 the source is twitter.
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Virtanen is already miles better defensively than David Booth too. Watching his game progress this season in this way has been a treat.
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Virtanen is already better defensively than Torres ever was imho.
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Gilmour is what the Flames pray Bennett will turn out to be.
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While it would be nice to see him in a Canucks uni next season, by no means should we expect him to 'save the franchise' at 18yrs old. Perhaps the best move would be to let him stew in junior like Jeff Carter for another year. The alternative would be to bring him in early like Dustin Brown, but give him a limited role.
I have a feeling that due to the direction they've taken with his development, boosting his defense, that he will be coming into the lineup early. It's tough to say, because his attentive focus on defense has taken his offensive numbers away, so perhaps the 'lack of offense' will be reason enough to hold him back.
I guess we'll have to leave it in Jim and Trevor's hands. I'm fine with whichever direction they take. It's not like we're winning the cup next season.
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Agreed that he needs to change it up a bit, but I think he does. It's just the highlights that feature him putting 210lb men on their butts with reverse hits along the boards. Considering he's only 18 and has yet to fill out fully, that's a decent reason to get excited about the power aspect to his game.The problem with Jake is he skates in a straight line and that will be easily shut down in the NHL. If he doesn't learn to cut to the middle and use his speed, this guy will be a career 3rd or 2nd liner who will be a hitter and with some skill. However, if he can learn to cut to the middle using his speed, rather then skating in a straight line then you might have something special because his NHL speed is there.
If he starts skating into the middle with the puck, he will create more penalties with his speed. Instead, he chooses to skate in a straight line, which is easily shut down in the NHL. No way in hell the defence give you a straight line, you have to cut to the middle and challenge the defence.
Can Willie teach him this? Or should he go back to junior and work on his scoring before coming into the NHL. For me it's going back to the juniors and working on his scoring before joining the NHL.
Cutting to the middle has it's share of risks. Namely, knee injuries.
Anyway, he's a bulldozer. We can make new strategies that revolve around that zone entry technique until the league shuts it down with a vague reverse hitting rule that would apply only to Virtanen. Seen it before with Bertuzzi's push-off. However, that was a bit more of a cheat because it led to some cheap power play goals. Zone entries are hardly going to directly lead to goals.
Good to know that more people are starting to realize how good he is defensively now. Been saying that for awhile.
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Because those guys aren't franchise level players, the concern about not getting them has been overstated by many. If they do however still become the best players on TO and Winnipeg, then good for them.I'm not sure why you use a strawhat man argument that if benning wanted a franchise guy he'd get mcdavid. That was never a realistic possibility. Neither were any of the players drafted ahead of virtanen since they were gone by the time we picked. The nylander, ehlers and virtanen comparison is fair since all 3 we had a shot at.
I'm glad to see you've already judged nylander and ehlers to be not elite or stars considering they haven't played 1 nhl game yet, while on the other hand you have already declared virtanen better and a star when he hasn't played 1 nhl game either. I've lost some faith in benning since the sbisa signing so am not as enthusiastic about his judging of talent skills as you are anymore. I bought the benning hype when he was hired, but some of that shine has come off after this season.
CDC and Canucks bloggers are strange. I continuously get told to be excited about our prospects, but then also get told they aren't good enough. I also get told that Benning's plan is sound, be patient, etc., but he has already failed by selecting Virtanen, who he likes very much.
Well, I'm just going to ignore all that crap as usual. Virtanen seems more like a guy we needed here. He's not as redundant here and presents some much-needed pushback combined with obvious speed and skill. These are the types of players than have kicked our asses in the playoffs over the years.
I think one easy way to quantify NHL transferability is by watching their speed combined with how many times a prospect falls down. Nylander falls down while under pressure fairly easily, but not as much as Ehlers, who seems to fall down on purpose often to draw calls. Meanwhile, Virtanen virtually never falls down. Take it for what it's worth.
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At the end of the day it doesn't matter, since Benning the drafting guru selected Virtanen. Perhaps he thought as I do, in that expectations on those players are too damn high. They'll have to score a lot to make up for their defensive misgivings in the future and like it or not, they're not elite. If they were they would have made the NHL right away. Again, if we wanted a legit franchise level guy to build around, it would not have been one of those guys. It would have been McDavid. It looks like Benning has other plans, rather than relying on Ehlers or Nylander to somehow save the franchise. I hope they do well, collect a lot of regular season points on their respective teams, become Gaudreau-like stars, and earn big post-elc contracts asap.I disagree with that. At the time of the draft the canucks offensive output looked bleak being one of the lowest scoring teams in the league. This team desperately needed potential top 6 scorers and it was our biggest need. We also had no offensive studs waiting in the wings for when the sedins retired. I still think nylander or ehlers were the better pick and I hope virtanen proves me wrong, but he's got to start putting up points eventually. Nylander already had 32 points in 37 AHL games this year and looks like the stud he was projected to be. Virtanen right now still has people making excuses for his play. I'm praying virtanen pans out because to have the canucks highest pick since the sedins bust would just be so canucks luck for them.
The Canucks have bigger concerns imho if they want to win. Like the defense. Up front they're okay and the difference between Shinkaruk or McCann and those pseudo stars isn't enough to warrant the year-long panic that some Canucks bloggers have stirred up. "Benning is a drafting guru! Oh no he picked Virtanen! But Benning is a drafting guru!"
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The truth is you need all types of players to win. Virtanen is a type we sorely needed. Nylander and Ehlers weren't.
That could help to explain why we selected Virtanen.
I know a lot are expecting Ehlers and Nylander to become the next Patrick Kane, and they may be disappointed. First off, Kane is on Chicago, not TO or Winnipeg. So I think the peak for these guys will by Johnny Gaudreau, not Kane. And imho Gaudreau is a fraud.
People are also discounting Virtanen's skill imho. If you give him the same role those other guys have, in which they do nothing without the puck, then he will score, since his hands, speed and shot are about the same. But since Benning has decided he wants two-way hockey from him instead, we're seeing that in terms of his development. And he is far, far better defensive player than either of the other two, who again only come up so often here and in HF due to the teams that drafted them.
Where's the talk of Ritchie now? Fiala looks pretty good. As is Honka. Vrana was over a ppg in his AHL stint. As was Fabbri. Larkin. Kapanen. And of course Pastrnak, who made the jump into the NHL right away, where the two 'megastars' above didn't.
Anyway, Benning is a drafting guru. Case #1: As a drafting guru, he got this pick right. Right?
If we wanted true star-level offensive skill on this team, then we should've just followed my last sig. I think McDavid would have no trouble at all playing against Ehlers and Nylander.
Benning has a plan. I'm curious to see what it is regarding defensemen, but up front he, and Gillis before him, is building a solid character team. Hopefully a winner.
ps. Tyler Johnson wasn't even drafted. And he played in our backyard. Cue the 'where were we on that?'
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Can somebody provide a character update please, based on facial expressions and how he regarded ex-highschool classmates? Thank you.
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Markstrom ready now to play in NHL - Jim Benning.
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He was no Fernando Pisani.He was the Oilers best player during their cup run in 2006.
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People around here and HF have been doing nothing but jump up and down about Ehlers and Nylander since day one of pumping them up for the 2014 draft. I'm looking forward to some calm with that aspect of a season-long review for sure, because holy crap, they're not Gretzky and Lemieux, and I would hardly assemble a team around them.I don't disagree that Virtanen is the best fit for Vancouver out of him or Ehlers, but you have to give the Danish kid some credit.
Ehlers had the best point per game of any player in the regular season in the Q, and lead the league's playoff scoring despite playing about a series less than most other scoring leaders. The kid is special and he's going to be a first line player on most NHL teams, but the Canucks obviously wanted someone who may not produce as much offence, but can play with grit, and that's Virtanen.
As you can see though, Benning making a trade for Baertschi was one to address this team's lack of skill up front, especially on wing. He knows that we don't have that top-end talent at forward, with a bunch of good two-way forwards, and getting Baertschi fixed that. Alternatively we could have drafted Ehlers (or Nylander for that matter) and traded the 2nd round pick for a tougher forward around the league somewhere. There's no wrong answer to building a team, Benning just decided to draft tough and trade for skill. Probably the right call considering that it's far easier trading for a purely skilled guy than prying a team's tough potential top-6 forward off their hands.
Good to see Virtanen is making an impact at the pro level already. If he's bullying AHLers like he bullied everyone in the WHL, then I'm welcoming him on the Canucks with open arms. Tired of cheering on a team with no pushback or physical initiative at all. However, he's just one element.
I'm wondering if he'll eventually see Sedin time. That would certainly boost his all-important offensive ceiling, wouldn't it?
I think Trev brought it up in the preseason pow-wow. But what about Bartkowskiiiiiii...I hate the fact they do not talk about defence at all. No noise whatsoever...
Aside from mentioning they had their asses against the wall with Sbisa negotiations!
.... ?
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I am also not concerned with the forwards or the goaltending. But if we don't do something big to address the defense, be it with high picks, low picks, whatever, then we're going to blow it with the prospect group we've assembled thus far. If we pick up a project defenseman and let him take years and years to finally make the NHL, then winning likely isn't in the cards. But if we select a franchise-level defenseman instead and have him make an immediate impact, NOW we're talking.
I think Jim and Trev know this, and that's why they were pushing for Ekblad, not Reinhart, when they were in talks with Florida.
Should be an interesting summer.
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Who said it would be on purpose? We very reasonably finished 6th-last a short time ago and now the Sedins are 2 years older.Love the sig. Aquila and his bros would never approve missing the playoffs on purpose. They want the players and management to give full effort to be a competitive enough team each year so they can make the playoffs.
They are worried about losing fan interest, ticket sales, and revenue.
Benning is trying to retool on the fly like the Red Wings and get younger while the core still has a couple years of solid enough hockey left to make the playoffs but not be contenders.
Yet he doesn't want to mortgage the future.
Any true major changes and team building moves will take place after the Sedins finish their contract and become 2nd line players in a few more years time.
The Canucks will spin their wheels for another 3-4 years before there are any deep cutting roster changes to exorcise the demons of the core who failed in the 2011 final.
Note they're already losing fan interest through this pretend phase they're in, and we didn't even sell out those precious playoff games they oh so value.
Retooling on the fly doesn't exist. What the team is doing is exactly what Calgary did years before. Waiting for the core to grow stale for years and then finally collapse. I would rather short circuit that process and accelerate the rebuild using good draft years. I am tired of watching this team fail, decade after decade.
But I'll let Trev and Jim make the call. It's not like we as fans have any say.
ps. Why bring this up in a Virtanen thread? I support the Virtanen pick even though a lot of stat junkies do not.
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The population is expected to peak at 9-10 billion and then it's expected to fall, with developing countries making up 84-88% of the makeup and being most at risk when it comes to environmental concerns. While the concern for their welfare is valid, but if you want to get sinister about things, consider this: Why would the top economies not look at this as an opportunity to take advantage of the multitudes of 'disposable poor'? Is this why their access to things like condoms has been limited? Could be.
Birth rates among developed nations are falling and death rates (mainly from cancer) are climbing. We will see less demand from developed nations going forward into the 22nd century.
In Canada the issue is less population growth and more that burdened regions will be seeking our resources. Our growth rate is at roughly 1.2%, which is highest among G7 nations, and 2/3rds of that is due to international migration. Good thing we're a multiculti society.
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I'm just assuming Tesla will save the planet. Might be naive though. They might take it over instead.
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Bringing up the fukushima disaster here is met with 'meh whatcanyoudo?'
That's the default answer to most environment issues for most people. It needs to hit us in the face before we react, and by then we're probably not worried about discussing it on cdc.
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It's pretty obvious that AHL 'production' doesn't even matter. If it did, Linden Vey would be a legit top-6 forward in the NHL by now.Just remember Bo scored for the first time in his ninth game. I don't mind if Virtanen doesn't score, as long as he works hard and doesn't become a defensive liability.
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We had no problem letting Schroeds go to free agency last year. One would think that waiver eligibility isn't exactly job security.
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Lol I got an infraction on hf for 'dafaq' ...
Here's a general question about hockey's future:
Dafaq?
Jake Virtanen | #18 | RW
in Alumni
Posted
He rolled the Griffins. Monarchs much better team than Utica. End of the line for the Comets, who didn't get much from anyone in that series.
He tweeted 'Vancity (heart-eyes)', meaning, of course, he'll be playing with the Canucks next season.
If that happens, I'm fully expecting the (28yrs old) Raffi Torres comparisons to continue, because he'll be given that role in his first season, and since he'll gladly play any role for his team, he'll be smiling all the way. Then what of Kassian, who has done nothing but complain about his role on the team? We've seen the writing on the wall for awhile now. He may be on his way out. It's unfortunate, because we could use both player. Just speculation.
If he doesn't make the team, it will likely because of injury. Or 'injury.' And perhaps cap reasons. We'll see.