Jared McCann | C/LW

[ice orca]

Virtanen-McCann-Kassian would be an interesting future line, big fast wingers with a smooth 2way center with a wicked shot. McCann and Kassian feeding Virtanen, thats a deadly combination of size, speed, shooting and playmaking.

[Dogbyte]

Virtanen-McCann-Kassian would be an interesting future line, big fast wingers with a smooth 2way center with a wicked shot. McCann and Kassian feeding Virtanen, thats a deadly combination of size, speed, shooting and playmaking.

Virtanen and Kassian are both RW's so ... I doubt it.

[CRAZY_4_NAZZY]

Virtanen and Kassian are both RW's so ... I doubt it.

Virtanen plays on both sides.

He is actually listed as a natural left winger.

http://www.whl.ca/roster/show/id/9453

So it is quite plausible he will play on the left wing in the near future.

[newgm]

Sorry but you are wrong. Opinions are subjective. Using facts to support opinions can make them more objective, yet they still remain subjective. There are too many cognitive biases that influence cognition to render any opinion truly objective. For example, which facts you choose not to include in your opinion is a subjective selection in itself.

Wow, try saying she sells sea shells by the sea shore real fast. Is that an objective subject?

[Canucks1219]

No, not all opinions are subjective. Opinions that are grounded in fact are OBJECTIVE - that is what OBJECTIVE means. Opinions that are not grounded in fact, such as your opinion that all opinions are subjective, are subjective opinions. If your opinion that 'all opinions are subjective' were true, it would mean that it was grounded in fact, which would make it objective, therefore your opinion is a self-contradiction, and therefore false.

Sorry but you are wrong. Opinions are subjective. Using facts to support opinions can make them more objective, yet they still remain subjective. There are too many cognitive biases that influence cognition to render any opinion truly objective. For example, which facts you choose not to include in your opinion is a subjective selection in itself.

Wow, you guys, I never knew that about Jared McCann. Please tell us more!

[LeanBeef]

After reading an article with Dubas saying that McCann reminds him of Couture and watching more of McCann's highlights, Dubas couldn't be more correct.

They skate, pass, and shoot the same way.

[Joel Heyman]

After reading an article with Dubas saying that McCann reminds him of Couture and watching more of McCann's highlights, Dubas couldn't be more correct.

They skate, pass, and shoot the same way.

Its a good comparison.

I like McCann's offensive upside a lot. Really too bad that Dubas got snagged by the Leafs, was hoping we could pick him up as AGM in a couple years. Hes gonna run Nonis out of TO

[bp79]

Buffalo did not lose all of their vets, but some guys wanted out because they didn't want to go through a rebuild. On that note, when we cleared out Kesler, that was it for this group. Sigh... Not sure why this isn't clear to everyone, given what we've seen for recent seasons, and esp. this past season. The vets are spent. The rebuild is on. Now what that entails isn't too clear to everyone either, but spending to the cap doesn't necessarily equate success. Just ask Leaf fans.

Being a devout fan of this team, I have been a life-long investor. And i'm concerned about the future as well as the past. The Canucks have always missed out on truly great players throughout their history and i'm really, really eager for that to change. I think this should be a concern for all of us fans. If we think we're going to see this team as-is lift the cup we're kidding ourselves. If we waste this season pretending instead of rebuilding, then that is a complete failure going forward imho.

Leaf fans regret their team not accepting a rebuild phase. Buffalo fans will not regret their team accepting theirs. This will become fact, and we need to acknowledge that.

PS. Can we take this talk out of here? It's nothing to do with McCann.

`Dude ur wrong to say were rebuilding.yes we have made changes i like mostpeople believe we are a stronger team this year with way more depth.and to say the twins are done cuz they had one bad year is foolish. they finally have thar right handed shot and the fact we have a more balanced team will make it harder for teams to just focus on the twins.I guess only time will tell whos right but i like are chances of making it next year. ps even ur user name is negative whats the deal bubs?

[Fred65]

This article is primarily about McCann's coach and his system

The OHL is a long way from the NHL and it goes without saying that coaching the Soo Greyhounds bears little resemblance to coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs.

But Sheldon Keefe has an interesting perspective on what impact Kyle Dubas, the Leafs stats-friendly newbie executive can have on a hockey coach, and as far as he’s concerned, it’s considerable.

“The biggest thing on our staff was that it created daily discussions and debate,” says Keefe of the spreadsheets he’d be given to review after games and the more in-depth breakdowns he’d look at during various points in the season. “What did we see in the game and the video compared with what the numbers said?

“We were constantly looking for solutions to try and make everything make sense. Instead of going just with the numbers or just what we thought we saw on the ice, we tried to go through everything to make it all compute so we could come up with a solution and a direction.”

There was enough success to turn Keefe from being curious about so-called ‘fancy stats’ to a believer.

The looming question as the Leafs take an obvious turn in how they run their hockey operations is what impact Dubas can have on the richest organization in hockey, one that seems to have failed to innovate despite having all the resources to be able to do so.

Analytics or advanced statistics weren’t a big point of the interview process when Keefe was hired by Dubas to take over the Greyhounds midway through the 2012-13 season. Dubas didn’t hire Keefe from the Central Canada Hockey League’s Pembroke Lumber Kings – the Junior A franchise Keefe owned and led to five league titles and the 2011 national championship — because he was versant in Corsi or Fenwick or PDO. Keefe had nothing more than a passing knowledge of advanced stats and most of what he knew he’d gleaned from following Dubas and others on Twitter.

“He began to build an interest,” says Dubas. “And then he began to see the synergies between what the theory was and what the numbers were saying and the value in altering our strategy a little bit. It just takes time. It’s slow and you have to slowly present the ideas and they might be rejected or they might be wholly accepted or it might be somewhere in between.”

Keefe, 33, says that being open-minded about what he could learn about his hockey team via data as he settled into his first OHL coaching job helped transform his outlook on the sport he’d been playing and coaching his entire life.

“I look back at what I valued and how I coached in Jr. A and I don’t even recognize myself,” Keefe said while taking a moment to talk about his old boss while on vacation in Arizona. “I believe I have an understanding of the game now that works for me and our organization that I just did not have previously before getting introduced to this.”

Now, how much impact a 28-year-old, rookie assistant general manager can have on the likes of Leafs coach Randy Carlyle, who was playing in his 10th NHL season the year Dubas was born, is a matter of debate.

Under Carlyle the Leafs have been one the worst possession teams in the NHL and in his last few years coaching Anaheim the Ducks, they weren’t much better.

The question is: is it Carlyle’s system, the Leafs personnel, or a combination?

When Leafs president Brendan Shanahan talked Tuesday about those in the organization who were “afraid” of certain terms and concepts, it was hard not to imagine general manager Dave Nonis or more significantly, Carlyle as foremost among those who recoiled at the idea of ‘spreadsheet hockey.’

But Keefe says change can come quickly to those open to them, and Dubas is the right kind of teacher.

“He has a very articulate way of explaining how these numbers can help and the theories behind them versus saying ‘hey, look at these numbers’,” says Keefe. “He presents them in a way that’s a lot less intimidating.”

In the beginning, Keefe says his implementation of advanced stats wasn’t very advanced: It was the basics — Corsi, Fenwick and PDO – which taken together capture how much each team has the puck; how often they shoot it and how much ‘puck luck’ and goaltending are reflected in goals for and against.

Last season Keefe said he began incorporating data – more as a guideline or a support — in how he deployed his lineups.

But the real breakthrough came when he found himself developing his own data to test his theories about how to play and coach the game.

“I ended up being hungry for the numbers and what they could do as far as helping develop a system of play that could possibly influence those numbers,” said Keefe.

The biggest revelation, he said, was finding the relative risk of a turnover in the defensive zone by over-handling the puck in their own end was far out-weighed by the benefits of exiting the defensive zone in control of the puck, which in turn allowed the Greyhounds to enter to offensive zone in position to make plays.

Chipping pucks out or rimming them off the glass became taboo. Instead the emphasis was on making as many passes inside their own zone as needed to leave the zone with control.

With a small, young, skilled team battling on the wall wasn’t conducive to the lineup he had, and by doing his own analysis – “I don’t have a fancy name for it” – he found that there was strong correlation between having the puck exiting the zone and keeping it in the other team’s end.

Keefe favoured a rugged, tough game when he played and early in his coaching career, but this past season he come to acknowledge that he underrated other attributes.

“Just like anyone else I valued size and strength and toughness and physicality – and I still do,” says Keefe. “However at the Junior level and Kyle feels the same way – we weren’t prepared to sacrifice skill and ability in order to get bigger or tougher.”

There are risks – “we looked kind of chaotic at times,” said Keefe – but upon review the damage caused by the inevitable turnovers in their own zone were minimal compared to the benefits of making the plays needed to control the puck.

Keefe emphasizes that he’s not claiming to have reinvented the wheel, and takes pains to point out that a successful season in the OHL – the Greyhounds won 44 games and finished second in the deep western conference –doesn’t make him an expert on what it takes to win at the NHL level.

But he’s a hardened hockey man who has worked closely with Kyle Dubas and is here to say that there is a lot to be learned about the game from the way his old general manager – now the youngest executive in hockey — sees the game.

The question now is what will Randy Carlyle see?

[Robongo]

The question now is what will Randy Carlyle see?

Randy is going to be seeing the door by the end of the year.

[ashlynnbrookefan]

`Dude ur wrong to say were rebuilding.yes we have made changes i like mostpeople believe we are a stronger team this year with way more depth.and to say the twins are done cuz they had one bad year is foolish. they finally have thar right handed shot and the fact we have a more balanced team will make it harder for teams to just focus on the twins.I guess only time will tell whos right but i like are chances of making it next year. ps even ur user name is negative whats the deal bubs?

Did you spell their* as thar? All your points immediately become invalid after that. If someone wants a top prospect to help rebuild the team then let them, another first round exit or barely missing the playoffs next year doesn't help the organization. I want to see this team win a cup and everyone has a different way on how they would go about building that team. If you think this team as is, is capable of winning a Stanley cup you are delusional but the goal is to make that team. I'm willing to suffer through a few bad years to get there, not saying that's the only way or that it would even work but that's the shot I would, and as a fan am willing to take. It'll be really frustrating if they start to tear it down in a few years and we don't get value for guys and we are late to the party, again. Jared McCan is a guy all Canuck fans should be excited is in the system, it's about time we build some depth.

[Pears]

After reading an article with Dubas saying that McCann reminds him of Couture and watching more of McCann's highlights, Dubas couldn't be more correct.

They skate, pass, and shoot the same way.

Couture without the diving would be incredible.

[avelanch]

McCann Has been signed per my gamecenter app

also:

Vancouver Canucks ‏@VanCanucks 28m

OFFICIAL: #Canucks have signed Jared McCann. MEDIA RELEASE: http://ow.ly/zy9CL pic.twitter.com/pRQ9tMB7SC

[Fred65]

Randy is going to seeing the door by the end of the year.

That's what I was thinking and who knows Nonis too

[Steen]

Congrats on the contract, nice to see him officially on the team.

[Henrik Kesler]

Randy is going to be seeing the door by the end of the year.

I'd wager he doesn't last 30 games this year.

[MoneypuckOverlord]

I'd wager he doesn't last 30 games this year.

Doubt it. They will tank with the current staff in hopes of landing the number 1 pick.

The roster moves they made this summer says it all. A bunch of lateral movements. (3rd line player replacing 3rd line player, Raymond ========> Santorelli etc etc) no roster upgrades whatsoever, Florida Buffalo, and even Vancouver made strong moves to boost their team.

[Gyllenhaal]

Good article on McCann

http://www.theprovince.com/sports/hockey/canucks-hockey/Botchford+Jared+McCann+brings+edge+attitude/10060099/story.html

Jared McCann brings edge and attitude to Canucks

The first time Jared McCann was on the ice he was awkward, knock-kneed and in figure skates.

He left crying, and vowing he’d never be back.

“I just remembered falling a lot,” McCann said. “It was just really hard.”

Fortunately for the Canucks, he changed his mind.

The Canucks wasted no time in signing the second of two first-round picks they acquired at the draft in June, announcing Thursday that McCann had inked his entry-level contract.

If it wasn’t clear on draft day how much the Canucks like their McCann pick, it should be by now.

Vancouver GM Jim Benning had a deal in place with Garth Snow and the New York Islanders to trade their No. 24 overall pick, but would do it only if McCann wasn’t available.

He was.

The Canucks love his shot and his edge, which he colourfully detailed at Vancouver’s recent prospects camp, telling reporters how much he adored cross-checking kids in the face when he played lacrosse.

“Everyone loved it,” McCann said of his quote, not backing off.

“I don’t want to be pushed around. If someone is going to stick me, I’m going to give it back.

“I’ve always had a spur in my game. I’m not afraid to do what it takes. It’s the type of game I play and that’s what I’m good at.”

Along with another 2013 first-round pick, Bo Horvat, McCann should help change the look of the Canucks’ prospect pool for the first time in a long time.

Both are hard, edgy forwards, something the Canucks haven’t drafted since Jannik Hansen in 2004 and Ryan Kesler in 2003.

There just hasn’t been a lot of attitude acquired in the past decade of drafts, which have included Mason Raymond, Michael Grabner, Cody Hodgson, and Nicklas Jensen.

And it’s McCann’s “opponents are going to hate me” promise over anything else that has been winning over people around Vancouver who were apprehensive when he first responded to the Canucks drafting him by saying: “It is what it is.”

But McCann was more reacting to having fallen to No. 24, because many had projected him as a possible top-10 pick.

The Canucks were actually one of the teams he enjoyed watching while growing up in London, Ont., and Kesler was the player he modelled his game after.

With that Kesler style, McCann was extremely effective last year with Sault Ste. Marie, putting up 62 points in 64 games. When the season ended, he was still just 17 years old.

He was playing at around 185 pounds, but sees himself getting closer to 210 pounds as a pro.

McCann is now one of the critical players in what is probably the best group of prospects the Canucks have had in this century.

At prospects camp, he was one of five first-round picks. With the numbers, it should mean there won’t be any easy rides to the NHL.

“We’re all competing for those jobs,” McCann said. “Whoever earns it, gets it. It will be tough. There are a lot of older guys, like Brendan Gaunce, Dane Fox and Bo Horvat. They’re all good players.

“I’m just looking at it, like trying to be the best out there. I want to play (in the NHL) and I want to play as soon as possible.”

[MJDDawg]

A little satire for a Friday, with a grain of truth.

McCann is tough to play against now and will only get better. I'm actually almost more excited about McCann's potential than I am of Virtanen's. Hopefully they'll both be pillars of our franchise for years to come.

http://hockeynationcity.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/canucks-look-to-replace-veteran-asshole-with-up-and-coming-asshole/

CANUCKS LOOK TO REPLACE VETERAN ASSHOLE WITH UP AND COMING ASSHOLE

JULY 24, 2014

WYATT ARNDT LEAVE A COMMENT

When Ryan Kesler eventually wormed his way out of Vancouver this off-season, it left quite a hole in the lineup. Not just with the skills the former Selke winner brought to the table, but the asshole quotient as well. The Canucks looked to rectify that by drafting potential superstar asshole Jared McCann. McCann, drafted 24th overall at the draft this year, signed his entry level contract today with the Canucks.

“When we lost Kesler, we lost our ‘asshole’. You know the guy, every group of friends has one. He’s a dick to everyone, he gets on your nerves, you constantly question why you’re friends with him, but at the end of the day, he’s ‘your’ asshole, so you put up with him. With Jared, we hope to have the future star of NHL assholes on our team.” explained newly anointed GM Jim Benning.

Scouting reports say McCann already excels at certain aspects of being an asshole, such as never leaving a tip when he goes out for dinner and always bragging about bedroom conquests. Some people in the Canucks organization are concerned he doesn’t show enough on ice asshole tendencies, and have hired a special coach to help teach McCann how to bang his stick on the ice repeatedly for a pass even when he’s not open, and refusing to pass to his team mates at all times.

[Knucklehd]

A little satire for a Friday, with a grain of truth.

McCann is tough to play against now and will only get better. I'm actually almost more excited about McCann's potential than I am of Virtanen's. Hopefully they'll both be pillars of our franchise for years to come.

http://hockeynationcity.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/canucks-look-to-replace-veteran-asshole-with-up-and-coming-asshole/

CANUCKS LOOK TO REPLACE VETERAN ASSHOLE WITH UP AND COMING ASSHOLE

JULY 24, 2014

WYATT ARNDT LEAVE A COMMENT

When Ryan Kesler eventually wormed his way out of Vancouver this off-season, it left quite a hole in the lineup. Not just with the skills the former Selke winner brought to the table, but the asshole quotient as well. The Canucks looked to rectify that by drafting potential superstar asshole Jared McCann. McCann, drafted 24th overall at the draft this year, signed his entry level contract today with the Canucks.

When we lost Kesler, we lost our asshole. You know the guy, every group of friends has one. Hes a dick to everyone, he gets on your nerves, you constantly question why youre friends with him, but at the end of the day, hes your asshole, so you put up with him. With Jared, we hope to have the future star of NHL assholes on our team. explained newly anointed GM Jim Benning.

Scouting reports say McCann already excels at certain aspects of being an asshole, such as never leaving a tip when he goes out for dinner and always bragging about bedroom conquests. Some people in the Canucks organization are concerned he doesnt show enough on ice asshole tendencies, and have hired a special coach to help teach McCann how to bang his stick on the ice repeatedly for a pass even when hes not open, and refusing to pass to his team mates at all times.

LOL, that was a funny!