TOMapleLaughs
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Posts posted by TOMapleLaughs
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Hard to argue against Doughty. Standout on two gold medal and cup winning teams. And i don't even him. Wasn't he accused of rape? Not sure.
Wouldn't mind Ekblad if we landed McDavid or Eichel next year. But i think the Canucks will try very, very hard to screw themselves out of that.
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As if Rutherford wasn't a much better, proven GM.Looks like PIT won't be trading with VAN any time soon.
~evil laughter~
First Benning, now Desjardins.
Rutherford: "I thought we had a deal, then he decides to go the other way."
Look at it this way, Jimmy, if Benning signed with PIT, you'd be out of a job opportunity.
Thinking Pittsburgh will be doing just fine. The 'omg Willie' talk is just to stir up some ticket sales. Same with 'omg Linden' and 'omg Benning' talk. But it's something i guess.
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Talked to a Rangers fan in NY. Said he figured his team had no chance vs. LA. Just too big. 'They couldn't get in the hashmarks.'
Boston would've had a better shot, but only marginally better. imho they've dipped a bit since 2011.
Pittsburgh if they had Kesler and a healthy Dupuis would've done well too imho.
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From Rossi:
Team and league sources said Rutherford spent Thursday night and Friday morning meeting with Willie Desjardins, a minor-league coach with only two years of experience as an NHL assistant. Topics discussed included assistant coaches, contract length and Desjardin's possible salary, the sources said.
We couldn't make it work, Rutherford said, adding he will start another coaching search next week.
I'm going to take the weekend to sort some things out, Rutherford said. I'll work off the same list I had, but it will be expanded by two or three names that for whatever reason weren't considered for interviews the last time.
Much respect for Willie in that Rutherford had much interest in him. But if they have sights on Babcock next season, then wtf ever, right?
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God I hope not.George Richards: I wouldnt be surprised if Van and Fla work something out [at the draft] MacLean: Me neither
People compare it to how we landed the Sedins and that worked out. (10 years later)
But pardon me if i'm wrong here, but weren't the Sedins a package deal at the time and it absolutely required some wheeling and dealing by any team to land them?
It's a helluva lot simpler and less expensive to just use the picks you have. We've helped out the Panthers quite a lot already, thanks.
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Frankly I don't think it even matters who the coach is during the beginnings a rebuild.
I hope the guy knows what he's getting himself into. And I certainly hope the Canucks aren't in denial of where they're at.
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That site recently has dove right into the advanced stats which are useless without context. At the end of the day, simply watching the player play, esp. in key situations, reveals more about the player's potential than anything. I found Drouin to be capable of controlling the play in key situations, distributing the puck swiftly and accurately while Ehlers hung onto the puck too much, fell down and turned it over in similar situations. You can easily tell who the better prospect is.
That NYI article above mentions Dal Colle's skating as a major issue. I agree that he's noticably slower than Virtanen (who isn't?), but is he a potential underachiever because of his lack of speed and relatively slight size? If he doesn't want to be a Canuck anyway, I can see Vancouver passing on him to draft Virtanen, as what has been predicted on a mock list i vaguely remember seeing.
To me Virtanen is the obvious pick if available.
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^Stop.
Thinking we could trade the pick for a body. A good one. Also not moving Kesler at draft. Only way to build ticket sales immediately.
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Here's hoping our pro-scouting has learned from this and we don't trade for another overpaid, underperforming, post-concussion case with animal killing and religious psychobabbling tendencies.
I welcomed the Booth trade with open arms though. Based on improvement potential. But for him to have worked out he would've needed to become a 1st LW, which was a spot taken by D. Sedin. Impossible. So i guess we're all learning here.
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Why?I was kinda hoping we could scoop Demko at 36
Never mind.
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What? I heard he started cutting weight. Isn't that what he should be doing?Anyone notice the stats for Richie from the Combine? Now registering as 6'3" 236 lbs. Assuming that he hasn't quite finished growing, he could easily top out in the 6'4" 250+ lbs range. Would be like getting hit by a train!
Please note, this is not an endorsement to draft him! Can't say I'd hate having him as a prospect though!
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Agreed he'll buy in. To a degree though. He's going to be picked for whatever offense he can muster and if he's not getting a legit shot in due time...Im sure many of the questions Nylander was fielded at the combine were defense related. If teams think he will buy in they will take him. Hes too skilled not to take a gamble on in a weaker draft at 6th.
I think picks farther down the line than 6th overall you can afford to milk in development for years and years. Detroit does this year after year. The Canucks tend to go a bit to early for their small skill risk picks.
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All of them face tougher minutes though. But you're right.Rick Nash, Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton are even worse than the Sedins in big games.
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I haven't heard many scouts question Virtanen's high end 'potential' actually. Just the consistency. There would be a rolling of the dice in that regard, but his speed and shot set him apart from Ritchie, who's also good, but a bit different. I fear for him because people are going to want Lucic from him, but he's got an injury history and a tendency to take bad penalties, unlike Lucic. He's more like a Clowe imho. I don't see Burke passing on him though.As far as competition goes, it's way better than any CHL league. It doesn't mean that the league itself produces more NHL calibre players than CHL, but it's a way tougher league. I guess it depends on which players you're talking about. I doubt that there are too many players from the CHL that would be physically dominant in Allsvenskan or in the SHL.
If we're not leaning towards the more skilled option in Nylander, then i think Ritchie is a way more interesting option than Virtanen. I also think that he's a safer option than Virtanen. If you're gonna bring up what "scouts are saying about Nylander", then you should also bring up that there are plenty of scouts that are questioning Virtanens high-end potential. Doesn't really sound 6th overall worthy to me.
Don't you think it's unfair to compare a 5'8 with a 18 year old 5'11 player that could even grow an inch, or even 2? To me, that's like comparing oranges with bananas. Sure, Nylander is not huge, but don't make him sound like a dwarf. Also, Nylander is a better skater than Schroeder, and his hockey IQ is also higher. They're nothing alike.
The reason why the Canucks drafted Schroeder was because he was a top-rated player in the draft. Top 5 on the NA skaters list. He dominated the NCAA at a very young age, and even had a successful u20 tournament under his belt. There was a risk there for sure, because of his size for an instance. Canucks management gambled hard when they picked Schroeder. As Gillis said, they didn't think that Schroeder would be available at their spot, so they picked him. They thought he was the BPA. He didn't pan out great, but neither did Scott Glennie or Magnus Paajarvi who were selected earlier. Now we are in a great position. We have the 6th overall, and we have a feeling of which players will be there at our spot. There's a group of players that will most likely go top5, outside of that, there are a few players that are 6th overall worthy. None of those are heavily undersized, like Schroeder was/is. Can't really compare the situation we're in now, with the situation we were in when we picked Schroeder at 22.
The Schroeder pick busting is what i'd like to call foreseeable. And i can't help but feel that Nylander will end up being not like Schroeder, who's an outright bust, but a qualcomp-type player who vanishes in big games against big teams. Like Raymond and, well, the Sedins.
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Hoping one day the team will learn to let these guys drop further.Or take Virtanen at #6
And take one of the smaller skilled guys who drop, Like they always do at #36 like Fabbri or Vrana
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Hmm, 2nd swedish league better than any chl league? Not sure if i'm agreeing with that. I always find this 'he plays against men' argument to be irrelevant, as there are a lot of kids in the chl who are physical beasts that would manhandle any of that league's 'men.' But that i suppose is subjective and pointless to argue about.I'm not talking about the way he's getting his points. I'm talking about the way he's PLAYING. And this crap about him getting his points against weak opponents became old long time ago. Come up with something new.
Of course it is a concern for you. You gotta have something to whine about cuz you're just another guy on CDC who's obsessed with size. Also, look up guys like Oliver Ekman Larsson, Hampus Lindholm, Andre Burakovsky and Filip Forsberg. Where did they play in their draft years? That's right, in the same league as Nylander played for the major part of his draft year. And their numbers weren't even close to his. You've no freaking idea why he didn't produce in MoDo. But he did produce in the swedish 2nd league, a league that's still very good. Waaaay better than any CHL league.
Yeah let's pick a guy with 3rd line ceiling and questionable hockey IQ. Great idea.
Yes you're truly a drafting guru. We should've pick Jamie Benn (5th rounder) with our 1st round pick. That would've been great, not so likely though. You probably didn't even know who O'Reilly was coming into that draft anyways.
All i'm saying is that the kid has some definite red flags. There is no sure fire talent there. It's a big risk. Just like with Virtanen, who has an a-rated shot and a-rated speed and imho has more of an upside than Kassian, who we still think is a potential top-liner here.
I knew Schroeder was a bad pick the second I saw him. He's clinging onto an Nhl career at this point and will need to be a qualcomp player, like Nylander and Ehlers, to succeed in any fashion. Just how many sheltered-types are we planning to build with anyway? Time to get real.
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Thanks, i'm sure there are some points in there, but I stopped reading at basketball talk.I think we can all agree that the Sedin's were great draft picks. Drawing a comparison where we cannot beat SoCal teams and a discussion about drafting is like bitching about your boss over beers on a wednesday arvo.
The TEAM has to be able to stack up physically and create match up problems. Not one guy we will draft at #6.
In a different world, look at the Miami Heat? One of the smallest teams in recent history. They still have some of the most challenging match ups in Dwayne Wade, Lebron James and Chris Bosch by position. Point is match ups can be created with, and without, size but also with extreme levels of skill and athletic ability. Chicago does this in the NHL.
And in our world look at So Cal teams? They are a challenge more because Patrick Maroon and Dwight King skate circles around Kassian than because the Twins are small. When put in an offensive role, the Twins have ELITE fitness, win corner battles and cycle the puck until guys are exhausted. Then pop out of the corner and score. They win their match ups. It was a mistake asking them to draw defensive matchups against SJ, Anaheim or LA. What we need is a defensive line that offered more than just Ryan Kesler as a brute athlete that could match up to Getzlaf and Perry, Thornton, Marleau and Hertl.
We are in strife, even though I love him, because Richardson is near 30 lbs smaller than Manny Malhotra. Because Kassian and Booth were only physical factors for small parts of the season. And when they were (see games against St Louis, Toronto), surprise, we did well (hint, hint). Because Higgins is smaller than Torres. We had a team capable of match ups and let it wither away.
Correct, stats are not everything.
Its supposed to be an exercise in scouting?
Scouting tells us who has what skills. Ritchie IS extremely skilled. So is Draisatl. Probably more so.
The combines add an honest measure of where guys are at in terms of physical prowess. No surprise, Ritchie had the best brute strength. But he did not stack up in VO2 and endurance stuff. I would not draft Bennet when he could not do a pull up! To truly project a big guy as being able to use his size, they need to be able to skate all day (see Kopitar, Seabrook). So Virtanen, even though a tad smaller, (who displays this as an explosive skater on ice ranks higher than Ritchie to me. One who has to teach his body, say Kassian (or Ritchie), to play at an NHL pace and still be explosive is a bigger risk factor than lacking size. That player may, or may not learn to be the athlete that many guys he will compete against in the NHL already are.
That Nylander exhibited that he was one of the most explosive and gifted athletes (athlete, I'm not talking about skills) is extremely telling. A guy who can offer agility, power, explosiveness when other guys are out of puff is a potentially lethal weapon. Especially when scouted as having perhaps the best skill in the draft. He would be a very good pick IMO.
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We should set some rules for comparison. What's the point of using the year after MacA was drafted? Not only that, but why use MacA at all if scouts deemed him a 3rd round talent?That is all assumption, Nylander could beat Backstorm's point totals. Players develop differently, players will have different point totals at junior does that mean they'll be worse? No. It's just an assumption you are coming up with. Also, Backstrom wasn't quite a PPG player in the SHL. Zetterberg wasn't quite PPG in a division lower than Allsvenskan and now look at him.
Clarke MacArthur had 75 points in 62 games, Virtanen had 71 points in 71 games. I guess Virtanen won't be as good as MacArthur right?
Stats aren't everything. And while i pointed out Nylander's as compared to Backstrom's, that's only because Nylander apparently offers relatively nothing but offense. Perhaps if he was a 200ft player, hit the odd guy, or scored es goals in intense traffic, you could come up with some non-stats-related hoopla. But bottom line is the only excitement is based on qualcomp power play u18 tourney numbers and an inflated combine (which didn't feature Virtanen.)
Nylander's red flags concern me more than Virtanen's. The skill, whatever it is, just doesn't seem transferable. Magnus Paajarvi?
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I'm not entirely sold on this work ethic and drive to develop a 200ft game if he didn't have it to stick around in the SHL this season.Wasn't backstom all but a month of his draft year? Wasn't he also 19 all but a month after the draft year where he became a ppg player?
Just for comparison sakes, Nylander was 17 all season, and will be 18 all next season.
I think comparing Nylander to Shirokov is a bit of a stretch, I wont pretend to be a Nylander pro because I am far from it.
But I think he does have an incredibly high ceiling, his production in Allsvenskan to finish the season off was quite spectacular.
Here is a quote from HF:
"
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2011
Country:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JJTT
This simply isn't true.
SHL: 22th best point totals as U18 player (16th in ppg)
Allsvenskan: 4th best point totals as U18 player (1st in ppg)
SuperElit(last year): 20 best point total as U18 player (7th in ppg)
WJC-U18 6th all time on points, (Best swede)
He is nowhere near where Bäckström was in his draft year. Bäckström played full season in SEL, U20's and WC's. Nylander did none of that. Let me correct your errors
SuperElit(last year): Most points and by far 1st in ppg among u18 players, second best u17 season ever in terms of both points and ppg.
Allsvenskan: Highest point total and highest ppg by a u18 player ever. He played for two teams, I guess you didnt add those points together.
And for the WJC-U18 you can add that he had the highest amount of points ever by a swedish player .
So yeah, his point totals certainly supports the "hype".
Edit: I suppose you ment "all time" on all the stats, in that case you should compare him with other U17 players last year, not U 18.
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He may not have the full 200ft game, but I think he will have the work ethic and the drive to develop it, as long as we take the time to develop him and teach him.
I am very much so open to drafting him, I think he has the makings of a very special player.
I think he was poised to be a consensus #1 pick this season, but he fell because of various concerns.
There are safer picks to make at 6th, certainly. I just don't see him lighting up SoCal teams, just as the Sedins have had a lot of trouble. Even if he's as skilled as hoped, he's going to have to be a sheltered player, imho. A power play-type. Doesn't sound all that appealling, given what we know about relying on these types for playoff victories.
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If passing to the other pointman on the power play is 'dominant' then yes. Didn't he have a 7-point night featuring this play? The other pointman apparently had a pretty hard shot. Too much is being put into this performance imho. It's not transferable.You should go back a page or 2 and read Bilbro's post. Just because he didn't put up 10 points against USA and Canada doesn't mean he didn't do "anything" as you're stating. If you watch Nylander in the U18, you see a man amongst boys. Totally dominant, even against the US. Nylander also didn't have the most talented line-mates, or as much of a talented team as the US or Canada. Nylander made Axel Holmstrom in the tournament. That speaks for itself.
You have to go beyond a narrow amount of games against some pretty weak competition if you want a better grasp of what the production is imho.
The one goal in 22 shl games is a concern to me. This is well behind Backstrom's draft year pace. Backstrom became a ppg shl player the year after he was drafted. Will Nylander? Doubtful.
But why does this matter? Well, if Nylander is reportedly horrible at defense like most amateur scouts say, then he'll need to put up Backstrom-like offense to counter it. Otherwise he'll be in the doghouse more often that not.
If that offense isn't there then he may become a well-sheltered qualcomp player. That just doesn't sound too exciting to me. I would much rather have a guy who the coach wouldn't be scared to play against top opponents in any situation.
For this draft at #6 i didn't expect an elite talent anyway. It's not there at 6. It might not even be there at 1 or 2.
The Canucks would be better suited chosing a low-risk, big, fast dependable winger type like Virtanen than a low-percentage chance at being one-dimensionally elite, small qualcomp-type player like Sergei Shirokov, er, Willie Nylander.
If the Canucks had made moves like what i'm suggesting in the past, they'd probably have ROR instead of Schroeder. Makes sense, doesn't it?
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I wonder how he scores all those goals with no hockey sense. Does he do it all on his own then? Well that's very good too.Lacking hockey sense is a bigger issue than being an 18 year old kid needing to put on weight IMO.
Or maybe he has hockey sense after all. After watching him a lot, yes he could pass a bit more, but the goals from thin air are a big plus. Also he offers more options playing without the puck. He takes pucks away a lot and is fairly reliable on the backcheck. At least when compared to Nylander and Ehlers. From what i've seen at least.
Virtanen's main prob. is consistency. After he's back from shoulder rehab i fully expect him to really take off as a prospect.
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Maybe. But i think it's a question if that ceiling being realized. Could take awhile. I think somebody said 10 years. But don't recall entirely. Long thread.Nylander has a way higher ceiling. He may go top 5 after his combine and the U-18's.
The combine, dog and pony show as it is, shouldn't affect much. He had a good tourney, but I was just as impressed by Virtanen. Esp. after learning he had a shoulder ailment at the time.
He's 200lbs now. Imagine him being a 215-220lb wrecking ball with dynamic scoring ability including his a-rated shot and speed. Very enticing.
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Thinking Virtanen has more transferability than Nylander. Kid looks real good, with and without the puck. Just needs to work on consistency and using his teammates more. Less of an issue than 'must gain 20-30lbs.' Esp. with an a-rated shot and a-rated speed.
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He's right. Teams that don't get into the playoffs have no shot at the cup at all.Darryl Sutters' comments after the game, said, "any team that gets into the playoffs, has a chance at the cup".
[Confirmed] Willie Desjardin: VAN Head Coach
in Canucks Talk
Posted
Always respected Rutherford as a GM. Didn't have much in Carolina to work with, but knew what it took to ultimately build a winner regardless. (Besides the Nhl re-working the rules to favour them and their utter lack of defense that is.)