Ihatetomatoes

Sounds good to me. The little Ive seen him he seemed prone to brain farts and loosing position defensively. Obviously he has an elite offensive game I just wonder if he's going to be good enough defensively. We know how Pouliot looked in the NHL and he's leading the AHL in points.

How has his skating looked. It seems like the biggest hurdle he's going to have to get over to be an NHL player

Impressive. Too bad the AHL doesn't track more analytical stuff to get an idea how well he does defensively. Team leading +/- is a good sign though

It's funny how it's almost always unanimous people will say you always take BPA when drafting high picks yet when talking hindsight people will say we needed a defender so we took a defenseman. Shouldn't this be looked upon as a fault then? If they chose by position instead of BPA? The majority of people aren't upset that we took Juolevi instead of Sergachev or McAvoy it's that we took him over Tkachuk. You won't find one ranking from that draft that had Juolevi ranked higher than Tkachuk. They either picked for position which is a poor decision or they had Juolevi ranked higher than Tkachuk which was a poor decision considering every scouting service had him ranked higher. It's not about being a clairvoyant it's about them wiffing on an obvious pick that looked bad at the time and looks worse in hindsight.

What does them being devoid of offense have to do with the ability to defend and be a positive +/- player? It sounds like a whole lot of excuses and just burying your head in the sand if you believe there is no reason to be worried about Juolevi's ability to defend after posting a -21 in 35 AHL games.

Plenty of defenseman on the same team have made the transition to the AHL from minors without nearly the speed bump that Juolevi has had. It's reasonable to expect some adjusting time but compare him to other guys like Rafferty or Teves or Chatfield. All of those guys made the transition to pro without even the experience of a professional season like Juolevi and haven't put up worry some +/- numbers, not sure why Juolevi gets the excuses. As for his junior numbers there are about a million guys who put up amazing numbers in Junior but don't cut it when making the transition to pro. I don't see how saying he put up great numbers in Junior means that's there no reason to believe that that's his normal.

You are making it sound like I'm trying to spin facts or create some narrative against Juolevi. Stating he was -12 in 18 games is just facts, I didn't realize you would think looking at his Junior numbers would have any relevance to his play in the AHL. Making excuses and creating narratives is what you're doing. If you want to go all the way back to his junior days to prove he can have a good +/- therefore there is nothing to worry about with his play in the AHL then fine but that's creating more of a narrative then looking at his most recent play in the toughest league he has played in yet.

Not sure where you're getting -0.44 from. -9 in 17 games is -0.53. He's had a 0.13 improvement.

Intellectually dishonest? Claiming his +/- was solid before his injury is being straight up dishonest unless you consider being -12 in 18 games solid. He's now -21 in 35 total AHL games. I'm not going to argue about +/- as a stat I'm just saying his +/- wasn't solid before his injury and it isn't solid this year.

He had the league's worst plus minus at a point last year before his injury. It is not a fairly new occurence.

Looks like Madden. Only plays 2 games in December. Kinda blows

"His story is like Rathbone's in that regard. Juolevi's junior team had a young player with strong offense but weak defensively, so they used the young guy on the first pairing, and put Juolevi on the second pairing to look after defensive responsibilities - and at the junior level, Juolevi excelled at that role. He pretty much maintained his offensive output, but also took on the enhanced defensive responsibilities" Not sure how it relates to Rathbone. Fox was just older and better. Rathbone wasn't on the second pairing to babysit a young player, he was the young player. Unless that's what you're trying to point out. I do understand why they put Juolevi on the second pairing but if you were paying attention that season London fans were just not impressed at all with Juolevi's play. He didn't excel in the role he was given and was outshone both offensively and defensively by Mete. It's revisionist history to say Juolevi excelled in the role he was put in. As for his play in Finland he did start to play well come playoffs but he struggled a lot during the season. Yes it's understandable as he's adjusting to pro hockey but all I'm trying to point out is that there were reg flags with Juolevi's development before he started racking up the injuries.

It's been absolute crickets out there for reports on Woo's play this year. I've been waiting and looking for some sort of report on his play other than just stat watching. Either there just aren't many Hitmen fans out there or his play has been mediocre so people naturally just don't want to $&!# on the guy. I'd love to hear someone who knows hockey to give a report on his play this year.

People who were looking for excuses would report that. Most London fans were just disappointed with his play saying he looked lazy and uninspired. Wasn't playing solid D and offensively being outshone by Mete who was playing like he wanted it. I've always found with prospects that as soon as the excuses start coming out it's a good sign that the prospect isn't progressing and isn't going to live up to the hype. Whether it's deployment, change of teams, weak teammates or conspiracies that the coach has a vendetta against the player so he's playing him on the second line. Soon as we start looking for outside reasons for lackluster play it's usually a strong sign that that player isn't progressing in development like expected.

You are not correct. The year after his draft there were plenty of people who watched him on the daily say his play regressed or at least stagnated. He was put on the second pairing and his scoring didn't progress. People will point out that the team lost key players as an excuse for his scoring but Victor Mete played on the same team and took over top pairing duties while also having his scoring increase. There have been many warning flags about Juolevi's development without the injuries, they just make it even worse.

Ya I saw that. Also odd because Bahl is a lefty and they invited 2 undrafted right handed prospects instead of Woo. Kinda hard not be be disheartened a little about Woo's development. Doesn't seem to be taken the next step and a few guys like Addison and Bahl who were drafted lower got the invite over him. Last year got me all hyped up that Woo could be a top 4 guy in the NHL but right now I'm more expecting a Jamie Benn type bottom pairing guy if he even cracks the NHL.

Not even an invite is a little disheartening. Has anyone watched his play this year? He's obviously regressed offensively, or just showing that last year was more a product of his stacked team but how has he been on the defensive end? Is he at least dominating in his own end?

I don't think it's silly. There were some red flags with his production and why he dropped so much in the draft and he isn't doing anything to erase those concerns. He's starting to remind me of JV. A guy who was drafted because scouts got all hot and horny about a players physical tools and ignored the rest. Like JV it there was always some excuse why he wasn't producing from coaches and deployment to teammates but as we've seen with JV most of that has held true. He's a decent 3rd liner and an ok 2nd line player. Not a bust but not good for a 6th overall pick. I can see the same trends with Pod, has a lot of tools to get excited for but the production isn't matching and there always seems to be an excuse why. In the end Pod has a really high floor so he should at least be an NHL player but unless his production starts matching his tools it's unlikely he becomes much more than a 3rd line player and we'll be looking back wishing be grabbed Caufield, Soderstrom or Heinola.

You know he couldn't make his KHL team right? He's in the VHL a worse league than the AHL

This is good to hear. Juolevi has always had the smarts and talent to be an NHL level defender but it seems that since he put on weight after his draft year his foot speed and skating really slowed down. It's something he's going to have to improve on but at the same time he might just be smart enough to overcome the lack of foot speed to be a solid defender at the NHL level. Just looking at Edler you can see how a guy can be effective at the NHL level even when he can't keep up with fast forwards. You just gotta take a few interference penalties a game like Eddy so you don't get made to look silly. Lol.

Nice. He looks a lot better than last year then?

Any team that has Leivo in their top 6 does not have enough depth for a guy like Baertchi. He'll be back

My point is that it wasn't either of their faults. It was a turnover in the Neutral zone to the fastest and best player in the league.

McDavid also blew by Tanev. Why aren't you pointing out how bad that play was by Tanev? Hughes was at least able to get a stick on the puck on fastest player in the league after a turnover in the neutral zone and McDavid having momentum.

He's not saying Ferland isn't a good fit just that Miller is a better player and is promoting stacking the 1st line vs spreading out the scoring. Also while we haven't seen them play yet lots of people will argue Ferland shouldn't be on the top line because if you look at his possession metrics he's always made his lines worse when playing on top lines in Calgary and Carolina. Not my argument but something people have pointed out