SamJamIam

That is a strange roster. Lot of odd inclusions and exclusions to my eyes.

Oh sweet baby Jesus. Only if their CHL team releases them...which London won't.

Keep in mind, that QoT calculation uses ice time not production. So it says he played with 2nd liners on his team but you have to also realize that a second liner on the Hitmen is like a 4th liner on a lot of CHL teams. They flat out sucked. It's not often that you can pin a team making the playoffs on one guy, but with Calgary Virtanen was that guy.

He had 45 goals. Somehow I doubt accuracy is an issue.

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1gvu6oU4Hg

It's a conspiracy!! Or "the plan" could just refer to the general consensus of scouting lists

They're Kings fans. They know more about pilates than hockey.

Ever been rich in Russia? You can have a pretty good time if you have some money to throw around. Ufa is a pretty cool place too. I'd much rather be there than Magnitogorsk or Chelyabinsk. Moscow and St Petersburg have their own drawbacks as well.

Great faith in the organization bud. We barely have a spot for Corrado or Jensen, so I don't think Gaunce is in our roster unless he really impresses.

It's just a trick of perspective. That fence is entirely decorative, the real one is hidden in the shot but looks like something out of Jurassic Park.

I'd say he's developing extremely well. CDC has gotten bored with him because he didn't make the team at 19 but he's just getting better and better. Expect to see him play very well in the AHL and get a call up.

Agreed...except for the misspelling of Cassels :D

I was in the Nylander/Ehlers camp before the draft but now I'm glad Benning made the choice he did. For advanced stats lovers like myself, Virtanen is a great example of why calculating the quality of teammates and competition based on ice time is a horrible idea, especially when a very gifted player is put on an awful team. It's safe to say that Jake wasn't with the best of linemates, but one would expect that QoT stats would reflect that. Sadly not so. Because the Hitmen were so lacking in quality players, their coach was forced to play at least one, often two, awful players on the second line. And while Jake could have been devastating on the first line, his coach realized that he could make his line productive regardless of who he put him with. So Jake got saddled with Fazleev and a rotating right wing of Mahon and Lang. By looking at the data, you would be seduced into thinking Jake was, as scouts claimed, not so great at using his linemates. After all, he wasn't playing with 4th liners but 2nd liners. Unfortunately, because guys like Fazleev were playing almost as many minutes at Virtanen, the resulting QoT for Jake was massively increased. In reality, Fazleev was terrible. He had five goals and 20 assists, the majority of which were from making routine passes to Jake in the neutral zone. He was the worst player for the Hitmen in terms of GF%. It's pretty clear he was both a poor defensive player and an awful finisher. It's no wonder Virtanen piled up goals on his own. However when put with players who could score goals, Jake was actually very smart about sucking defenders in with his speed before dishing off to the open man. I would say remarkably so given his reputation. I'm extremely excited to see what Jake can do with quality linemates who are more than warm bodies who fill up roster spots. With a quality centre, he'll rack up assists and put people's minds at ease that his vision is in fact quite good. Of course he's still more likely to look for the goal than the assist but I doubt many will complain too much about that given he's got arguably the best shot in his draft class.

I wasn't very high on Virtanen leading up to the draft. Primarily nothing made him stick out to me. I always acknowledged he had physical gifts but that was about it. However after hearing him speak to the press all day, I can see how Benning could have picked him based on his combine interview alone. He seems to have the mental makeup to be a real winner. I'll be very interested to see how he fares next year on the Hitmen.

It's based on a lot of quantitative analysis too, unlike your nonsensical downplaying of him. You've got quite the hate-on for the kid. Did Sam seduce your mom or something?

Ooooooooh. See I assumed you were referring to the 10th+ trade, not the roster player for 1st overall trade.

I've said before your sense of value is seriously broken. You're cut from this discussion until it's fixed

I doubt that Benning offered to give up a very promising but barely proven (ie high potential, relatively low value) prospect in Shinkaruk to Florida. You deal pieces which are overvalued or fairly valued on the market and newly-drafted prospects coming off of hip surgery aren't it. Plus what does Florida want with prospects? They need players in, or just past, their prime to be the glue that holds together a team of promising young guns. Otherwise they become the Oilers, and I think Tallon knows that and has even stated it in the press. My real question is, what would Florida want to give us the first overall without us giving up our 6th? Or alternatively, what else would they want if we offered a 10th (or similar pick) acquired from a Kesler trade?

I was gonna say, if he's this good at signing coaches and GMs, him and JB are going to be monsters when it comes to trades and FA signings.

If I was Neil Degrasse Tyson, I would assume you just captured that from my webcam after reading that post. My IQ dropped a few digits from that.

Yes, because Allah wills it. I would love to have Niskanen. He shoots right too which fixes a lot of our d pairing problems. The only question is what do we do with the rest of our money? Only assuming Jensen on the team, we could sign 2 FAs/acquire 2 players through trades at 6 million each. That's a lot of freaking cap space! Not to mention the depth we could have with that amount of cap space and a couple young guns.

They don't exist because it's BS.

Virtanen and Ritchie at 10th and 6th? Boy are you gonna be surprised at the draft.

He should do it more often. Although maybe he's just such a badass that only a Cup makes him smile anymore lol

Lunqvist was looking dead tired with his last few kick saves. That was inevitable.