Jake Virtanen | #18 | RW

[nergish]

On March 31, 2016 at 10:23 AM, Alflives said:

JV has a unique quality none of the other top picks do: Freakish Power.  Plus, he is the best skater of the bunch, stick handles well, and has a great shot.  No, IMHAO, he is a unique player, who will dominate games (as we have seen already, and he's still young) like no other player from that draft - except McCann, who is second best. 

I actually agree with your overall point, I mean... Jake is a very unique player. Out of his entire draft class, he's probably one of 2-3 that have been groomed as NHL players since they were literal children. Based on his strength and speed, he and his coaches have known he would be an NHL hockey player since he was probably 10 years old. You take a player with those particular assets every. damn. time. He has the NHL frame + dynamic agility... deadly.

 

I question his smarts (on-ice and otherwise) but from the perspective of sheer ability, he's just straight up special. He was slotted in at 6-10 in the draft probably 2 years before the fact. He is a valuable player, but I do feel he's gotta be a "secondary" guy for us to truly be competitive.

 

On April 3, 2016 at 8:57 PM, DownUndaCanuck said:

Not the only thing, but how do you compare points to physicality?

 

Pretty hard to do but I think when you're building a team, you try and get that offence going first as a foundation with two-way defensive ability as a foundation as well. Add-ons like physical forwards and mobile defencemen are built later on.

 

That's how the successful teams do it. They build a core with the important core pieces - fantastic two-way defensive centers, high-end offensive talented forwards, all-round top defencemen and then build tertiary players around them who have that physical edge etc.

 

For whatever reason we've gone the other way around.

This. I agree, we've worked backwards. But if you're building a new core, Bo and (probably) Demko are excellent excellent pieces to build around. We just need a true elite first-liner to put up points and a true 1D to play big, dominant minutes... Unfortunately those are probably the two most difficult/expensive players to get, and if we don't land one in this draft we may be treading water for quite some time. Jake is a perfect wildcard player if we do find those guys though. His presence will be felt even moreso in a secondary role. Either way his physical play... just deadly. I couldn't even imagine subtracting Jake from our lineup at this point.

Edited April 4, 2016 by nergish

[Hortankin]

6 hours ago, nergish said:

I actually agree with your overall point, I mean... Jake is a very unique player. Out of his entire draft class, he's probably one of 2-3 that have been groomed as NHL players since they were literal children. Based on his strength and speed, he and his coaches have known he would be an NHL hockey player since he was probably 10 years old. You take a player with those particular assets every. damn. time. He has the NHL frame + dynamic agility... deadly.

 

I question his smarts (on-ice and otherwise) but from the perspective of sheer ability, he's just straight up special. He was slotted in at 6-10 in the draft probably 2 years before the fact. He is a valuable player, but I do feel he's gotta be a "secondary" guy for us to truly be competitive.

 

This. I agree, we've worked backwards. But if you're building a new core, Bo and (probably) Demko are excellent excellent pieces to build around. We just need a true elite first-liner to put up points (Matthews) and a true 1D to play big, dominant minutes (Tryamkin)... Unfortunately those are probably the two most difficult/expensive players to get, and if we don't land one in this draft we may be treading water for quite some time. Jake is a perfect wildcard player if we do find those guys though. His presence will be felt even moreso in a secondary role. Either way his physical play... just deadly. I couldn't even imagine subtracting Jake from our lineup at this point.

 

[desiboynux4lifee*******]

I didn't mind his game today, he had two nice shots and this is what I ask from, wish he took the puck to the net a bit more but he is young

 

now my concern is Jakes passing is very bad. They are like grenades, its like making a player in nhl 16 with zero passing ability, that's were Button nailed it. He needs to improve his passing in the off-season, I don't know if Benning guys see this.

[CANUCK-EXPRESS]

33 minutes ago, desiboynux4lifee******* said:

I didn't mind his game today, he had two nice shots and this is what I ask from, wish he took the puck to the net a bit more but he is young

 

now my concern is Jakes passing is very bad. They are like grenades, its like making a player in nhl 16 with zero passing ability, that's were Button nailed it. He needs to improve his passing in the off-season, I don't know if Benning guys see this.

Maybe that's why he takes more questionable shots because he knows his passing isn't that great?

[Odd.]

8 hours ago, CANUCK-EXPRESS said:

Maybe that's why he takes more questionable shots because he knows his passing isn't that great?

Sometimes when Virtanen passes, he literally rifles the puck. Like when he brings it back to the point and passes it, it's so hard and the d losses possession. I haven't seen that a lot now but tonight there were 1-2 opportunities where he could have used Granlund but elected to shoot which is okay since he's a shoot-first mentality player which we'll need in the future. 

[wshdrvvn]

passing will improve when the game slows down a bit more for him, mentally.

[nergish]

12 hours ago, McHortanen said:

 

Ehhh... Matthews, sure. Anything can happen at the draft lottery.

Tryamkin looks nice, but he's not smooth/poised enough to suit that role. He brings a much-needed element to our blue-line, but he ain't no 1D.

A lot can occur in one offseason though! Benning knows what our needs are.

[Rex425]

I don't think the issue with his passing is accuracy, it's the velocity. His passes at times looks like a shot, but he will improve.

[Odd.]

6 hours ago, nergish said:

Ehhh... Matthews, sure. Anything can happen at the draft lottery.

Tryamkin looks nice, but he's not smooth/poised enough to suit that role. He brings a much-needed element to our blue-line, but he ain't no 1D.

A lot can occur in one offseason though! Benning knows what our needs are.

If Tryamkin can be a top 4, 15-20 point netter, while playing physical af, clears the crease, etc, then he's a successful 3rd round pick. You win playoff games with him in the line-up. 

[canuktravella]

1 hour ago, Odd. said:

If Tryamkin can be a top 4, 15-20 point netter, while playing physical af, clears the crease, etc, then he's a successful 3rd round pick. You win playoff games with him in the line-up. 

 thats odd that youd say that but true lol

[Noble 6]

Hopefully next season he can build is reputation as a guy that will hit anything and evrything HARD, but also clean. The clean part might take a little bit longer to figure out, but that's okay. He looks like he will be a key contributor for us for a long time. 

[87Crosby]

Nice little shoot out goal. Shows he has that shot in his arsenal just needs to learn how to use it effectively in the NHL. I see him as a top 6 winger for us as soon as next year if he can just work on his fitness and decision making this offseason. Also I want to see him with consistent line mates. Would be good if he actually knew his role any given night, not having to go from offense to energy every other game. 

[Honeydew]

That shoot out goal the other night was just amazing on how good his release is. Man did that puck ever just rocketed off the stick just blew my mind on how quick his release was. 

 

 

[Gstank29]

2 minutes ago, The 5th Line said:

 

Talk about hyping up a pretty standard wrist shot..

 

 

He played better in the middle of the season but finished ice cold with 0 points in the last 12 games and a -5

Who didn't look bad in those games side Baertschi and Horvat

[Derp...]

I still think he could be an elite Dman. Speed, size, skating, shot, imagine him flooring guys when they try to beat him... Dreams haha

[Maniwaki Canuck]

On 2016-04-05 at 1:40 PM, wshdrvvn said:

passing will improve when the game slows down a bit more for him, mentally.

This.  He's made some unreal passes this year as well as some bad ones.  All the "low hockey IQ" and "tunnel vision" stuff that was going around about him started to look pretty silly when he got on a roll after the WJC.  Of course there was some regression, but part of that also came from playing down the lineup.  Put him with Horvat and Baertschi and his passing will look just fine.

[Alflives]

1 minute ago, Maniwaki Canuck said:

This.  He's made some unreal passes this year as well as some bad ones.  All the "low hockey IQ" and "tunnel vision" stuff that was going around about him started to look pretty silly when he got on a roll after the WJC.  Of course there was some regression, but part of that also came from playing down the lineup.  Put him with Horvat and Baertschi and his passing will look just fine.

And he'll still be a crusher, who skates like crazy, can shoot the puck, and has a mean streak.  

[aGENT]

12 hours ago, The 5th Line said:

 

Talk about hyping up a pretty standard wrist shot..

 

 

He played better in the middle of the season but finished ice cold with 0 points in the last 12 games and a -5

It was a pretty nice/fast/accurate shot...

[SamJamIam]

13 hours ago, The 5th Line said:

Talk about hyping up a pretty standard wrist shot..

 

Sure thing bud.  You wanna blow smoke, go have a dart.

[Honeydew]

15 hours ago, The 5th Line said:

 

Talk about hyping up a pretty standard wrist shot..

 

 

He played better in the middle of the season but finished ice cold with 0 points in the last 12 games and a -5

There's others on the team that finished cold as well, you can't single out Virtanen playing cold when McCann was playing cold for quite sometime. 

 

That wrister was a good shot and it's not hyping it when we already know he has that type of release for his shot. I'm just admiring the release of it that's all. No need for more negativity for the Canucks as I'm trying to create some positive points about his skills.