Dixon Ward

Back on the topic of Jake. He is looking better each night. The injuries to Baer, Erikson, and Boeser will serve him well with more playing time and responsibility. He is playing with more confidence, he has his head up and I think he will be good for 20-30 goals in a year or two. With the offensive guys we have and will get, JV just has to use his talents and play smart. We forget that big guys tend to take longer. Jake is Draft+3 right now and looking better and better. Bertuzzi was Draft+7 before he scored 25 goals and Draft+9 before 30+ goals. He went back to Junior for 2 years. That would put Jake as a 1st year rookie this year.

I think it is important to remember that Matthews was still in his draft year and his year in the Swiss League was amazing. He is also much bigger than Elias so more ready to make the jump. However, EP's numbers are remarkable and it is awesome to have so much to look forward to EP Gaudette Virtanen is starting to look like a real player with untapped potential OJ Demko Dahlen Lind Gadjovich etc...

I don't think many GM's would agree with you on that trade. Glass is a fantastic prospect. What Lind has done is shown that he should have been drafted higher. He is also a fantastic prospect. I think if the draft were re-done, somebody would take him much higher. That is really cool that he is so good that we could even compare him to the 6th overall pick in his Draft +1 year. This is rare. Especially for the Canucks.

Petersson is the best prospect on the planet. Dahlin will be second after this. Canucks fans deserve to rejoice and dream. I thought it was funny that Sportsnet.ca had a story on it but it was a small note down the right hand side. If a Leafs prospect did anything close to this, it would be front and centre big picture and they would start producing a 30 for 30 immediately. Congrats to Elias, he seems like another great player and person to come from Sweden!

I tend to believe that highly skilled players do better as they play with better players. I don't think that EP's numbers are inflated. I think he is just playing with better players this year who can finish better and pass to him better. I think that last year's numbers were deflated more by the skill around him in general. Of course, what do I know!

I think that the signing of Gudbranson is directly related to OJ's development. They know that OJ will need some protection out there in his first year or two and Gudbranson is huge and a RHD. Del Zotto and Gudbranson give some time for OJ and this years draft pick to develop.

Elias needs 4 pts to pass the Vaxjo record for points in a season set last year by Olli Palola with 48 points in 52 games. He could win a league title, the Champions league, league MVP, all-time team scorer, 2nd all-time 19 year old scorer, in 1 season. I am pretty sure Jim deserves to be resigned just for this pick. He is doing this in a man's league and everybody keeps harping on his size. Like every young player he needs to fill out. But when I've seen him, he is not being pushed around, he is dominating.

I never understand why posters battling each other. This is about Juolevi. Any opinion is as useful as another. I believe he will suprise in 2-3 years and be as good or better than Edler who has been a #1.5 dman for us for years. Every coach has chosen to play him and lean on him. Vigneault, Torts, Willie, and Green all see something in him but the fans rag on him, because they want him to be Lidstrom or Karlson. I think Juolevi will be similar. Not quite a #1 but maybe. He has the size, skating, and hockey IQ to be a real pillar on defence for years to come. We never had a shot at Heiskanen so who gives a rat's a$$ about him. The Glass/Lind comparisons make much more sense because we could have had Glass.

His shot is similar to Boeser's in that it looks effortless, but is wicked and neither telegraph where it is going.

Goalies and defencemen are much better athletes than they used to be. Bo Horvat would score 150 points playing against Dana Murzyn, Neil Sheehy and Mike Vernon on a regular basis. In today's nhl you need specialized weapons to get through and score. Boeser has the shot and Petersson seems to have the shot and the creativity. These two look like they might be superstars. Dahlen, Horvat, Lind, Gaudette, Gadjovich, Baertschi, Virtanen, Goldobin and others appear, at this point, to have the skill, speed and shots to nicely complement these guys. I am psyched about the future and hope they re-sign GMJB.

I have been comparing Lind to Glass all year. At this point, stats wise, it is a dead heat. Lind with more ppg and Glass with better +/-. It is also interesting to compare him to Kiefer Bellows. Bellows was drated 19th the year before in what was considered a stronger draft if memory serves. Bellows has 13 less points in 1 less game. Better +/-. He is 1 yr older and was drafted higher. I think he has a bit less of and edge than Lind as well. Begs the question "why isn't anyone taking Kole Lind?"

Jesus Saves...and Gadjovich puts in the rebound! (A Phil Esposito say in Boston)

If you are a fan of a team and a prospect is putting up better numbers than some hall of famers at his age, you should be going bonkers. Fan is short for fanatic. I am cautious/realistic all day in my life. When I cheer for my team, I want to have hope and optimism. Peterson gives me that. It is just getting boring hearing that he is skinny every time someone celebrates his achievements

Elias is a spectacular prospect. The best we have had since the Sedins and Bure. His numbers are better than theirs at this point. We are all aware that it might not translate to winning an NHL scoring title. His lack of lbs. has been beaten to death. All of you trying to be the wise, future-cautioners are getting really boring. We get it. He's thin. He might not be the best player in the history of hockey. Just enjoy the fact that he is doing some pretty special things and enjoy the ride for now. Stop trying be smarter than everybody, we all get it!

Pouliot will help take the pressure off Juolevi and whatever PMD we draft this year. I really like this guy. Another great Benning trade.

I am not really concerned at this point if he will be this or that. I am just amped that he is ahead of Peter F...ing Forsbergs scoring pace right now. I know it might drop off, I know there are no guarantees, I know he needs to gain weight, and blah blah blah. I am just enjoying it. We haven't had a prospect this exciting since the Sedins and Pavel Bure.

On his second goal, the defenseman looks very anxious. I think the kid's got a reputation already in 17 games. Pretty cool

This guy has skill like few Canucks we have ever seen. Sedins Naslund Bure Mogilny are the only ones with his crazy high end skill that I can think of. Of course we all thought that CoHo was going to be a crazy high end guy when he led the WJHC in scoring. But it is pretty cool to observe his skills and stats.

I just geeked out on this, but here are the ppg of all the players from Brock's draft class who have played in the nhl. He is looking good but obviously a small sample size. Rd Pick Team Player Pos GP G A P PIM PPG 1 1 Edmonton Connor McDavid C 136 51 107 158 50 116.2% 1 23 Vancouver Brock Boeser R 17 6 8 14 2 82.4% 1 2 Buffalo Jack Eichel C 153 52 72 124 54 81.0% 1 4 Toronto Mitch Marner C 87 20 47 67 38 77.0% 1 8 Columbus Zach Werenski D 88 14 39 53 16 60.2% 2 35 Carolina Sebastian Aho R 91 24 29 53 26 58.2% 1 14 Boston Jake DeBrusk L 8 2 2 4 0 50.0% 1 18 Ottawa Thomas Chabot D 4 0 2 2 0 50.0% 1 10 Colorado Mikko Rantanen R 94 21 24 45 26 47.9% 1 20 Minnesota Joel Eriksson-Ek C 23 4 6 10 6 43.5% 1 16 NY Islanders Mathew Barzal C 12 2 3 5 10 41.7% 1 24 Philadelphia Travis Konecny C 80 13 20 33 57 41.3% 5 137 Pittsburgh Dominik Simon C 5 0 2 2 0 40.0% 1 7 Philadelphia Ivan Provorov D 92 8 27 35 36 38.0% 1 6 New Jersey Pavel Zacha C 80 10 20 30 29 37.5% 1 28 NY Islanders Anthony Beauvillier C 73 11 15 26 14 35.6% 2 32 Arizona Christian Fischer R 15 5 0 5 4 33.3% 1 29 Columbus Gabriel Carlsson D 6 0 2 2 0 33.3% 1 5 Carolina Noah Hanifin D 169 9 46 55 50 32.5% 1 17 Winnipeg Kyle Connor L 24 3 4 7 4 29.2% 2 37 Boston Brandon Carlo D 90 6 13 19 63 21.1% 4 102 Florida Denis Malgin C 49 6 4 10 8 20.4% 1 9 San Jose Timo Meier R 42 4 4 8 10 19.0% 2 56 St. Louis Vince Dunn D 11 2 0 2 2 18.2% 1 11 Florida Lawson Crouse L 79 5 7 12 53 15.2% 2 39 Colorado A.J. Greer L 7 0 1 1 18 14.3% 7 189 Columbus Markus Nutivaara D 71 2 6 8 8 11.3% 2 46 Pittsburgh Daniel Sprong R 18 2 0 2 0 11.1% 1 3 Arizona Dylan Strome C 9 0 1 1 0 11.1%

Good point

Is it just me or does anybody else want to compare Lias Anderson (4 pts in 10 games) to Petersson all season? We have the Lind vs. Glass thing and this one. At this point Elias is kicking ass on Anderson, but there is a lot of season left and Anderson has more experience at SHL level. Sure feels good though. They are even talking about Elias for the Olympic team. That would be cool for us and another great experience for the guy.

He seems to be good at getting his shot through traffic. Not a wicked shot just timely and get through.

I live in Kelowna and have seen both Lind and Benn play junior. Benn was the best player I have seen in our arena. He was so good he could coast for a while and then take over when the Rockets needed goals. He could also throw punches when needed. Draisaitl also played here but Benn was better. I would be cautious in proclaiming who Lind will be but he does look like he could make Benning look really good.

So far the strategy of letting him go straight back to the SHL and skip NHL training camp is paying off. He got comfortable and could focus on getting better, not all the hype from Canucks' fans who want him to be the savior right now. Cody Glass will be a very good nhler, but I don't think he has this level of skill.

I think folks need to settle down a bit on Olli. He is getting settled. He may not be a #1 defenseman, but he still has a great chance. He is not 20 until May or something. Let him have a year playing with men. If he turns out to be our awesome #2 for the next 12 years, then it is a great pick. Remember, in his draft year he won everything, he was unstoppable. He was considered by most the best defenseman available. Sergachev may be better in the short term, but we'll see in the long term. I still like the pick.