Production is always going to be an important factor when you judge a player. Someone on HF went through all the first round picks who made the NHL in recent years and there were only two players who made it with production similar to Virtanen, one of them is Ben Eager. Now some will say that it isn't fair to reduce the sample size to just first round picks because you ignore players like Burrows, who was in the ECHL and made his way up. But like someone else pointed out in this thread earlier Burrows improved by leaps and bounds every year. He was certainly not on anyone's radar as an 18 year old. Most first round picks are quite noticeably ahead of other players in their draft season, it is then up to them to continue improving. If you stagnate then other players will most certainly end up passing you. Ideally you want your prospects to be an upwards trajectory, improving every single year. This is the reason why if I had to choose between a guy like Adam Gaudette and Virtanen, I take Gaudette every single time.
Regardless you ignored the rest of my post simply to focus on production. I certainly did not "make this all about PPG", but even if I had it is just an disingenuous to say that production is not even relevant when judging a player. I watched quite a few Utica games last year and made sure to focus on Virtanen so its not like I am going off of a stat sheet. There were so many instances where I saw Jake flying down the wing with a D maintaining gap control and keeping him to the outside and Jake would put a wrister on net with no one crashing the net, which the goalie would easily parry away. I question how many of his shot attempts came from legitimate scoring chances as to me the only time he really looked dangerous was when he got the jump on a defenseman and was able to then exploit the difference in speed. This is why I said most of his points came off of the rush. If Jake is going to be a power forward that needs to change, he needs to start crashing the net. He needs to use his size to carry the puck down low, protect it and use his cycling game.
The bolded is meaningless to me. Virtanen could have an epiphany and become a star in the coming years and it still won't change the fact that in the first three years that he was drafted he was a disappointment due to his lack of progression. Unlike you I don't have a crystal ball that tells me that Jake will be a top 6 player a few years from now. Throughout this discussion I have commented on the player he is right now and not the player he will be in the future. I do not like to make definitive statements about prospects. I have been following amateur and pro hockey for long enough to know that such statements don't work out well in the long run.