Nikita Tryamkin | D

[JeremyCuddles]

17 hours ago, Slegr said:

I've been wondering the same thing, as I feel we might just make it in next season. If he can play for us next post-season, does it impact his status with the expansion draft?

I imagine Russia is considered a pro league but I have 0 clue whether or not he'd be exempt. Honestly I think we are losing a goalie anyway so it won't matter if we have to expose Stecher or Hutton on defense in order to protect Tryamkin, assuming he is even worth protecting. Either way that's a problem for tomorrow, if he can play in February you let him play in February. Expansion draft exemption be damned.

[Hairy Kneel]

2 hours ago, Rob_Zepp said:

Yet he was an all-star and as recently as a season ago named the KHL's best Dman.   

Yeah that's what I was watching for but didn't see it. Tryamkin outplayed him in the playoffs head to head. 

[Rob_Zepp]

3 minutes ago, Hairy Kneel said:

Yeah that's what I was watching for but didn't see it. Tryamkin outplayed him in the playoffs head to head. 

On that, we fully agree.   My personal observations is the big guy has NOT improved at all though while in KHL and that is a concern I would have if I was part of the Canuck management team.

[Gurn]

6 hours ago, Vanuckles said:

That's like saying most shark attacks happen in shallow waters. It's typically where the people are...

And 

speed was a factor in the crash...... I've never seen two stationary objects collide.

[VIC_CITY]

On 5/22/2019 at 2:35 PM, Rob_Zepp said:

Yet he was an all-star and as recently as a season ago named the KHL's best Dman.   

That speaks volumes about the KHL. Larsen is absolute trash. I bet you Reid Boucher would be a top 20 scorer in the KHL.

[higgyfan]

7 hours ago, VIC_CITY said:

That speaks volumes about the KHL. Larsen is absolute trash. I bet you Reid Boucher would be a top 20 scorer in the KHL.

Nigel Dawes is the leagues 2nd best in points and 1st in goals.  KHL has really lost it's status over the years..

[Hairy Kneel]

1 hour ago, higgyfan said:

Nigel Dawes is the leagues 2nd best in points and 1st in goals.  KHL has really lost it's status over the years..

Dawes disappeared in Atvo's post season. 

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

3 hours ago, higgyfan said:

Nigel Dawes is the leagues 2nd best in points and 1st in goals.  KHL has really lost it's status over the years..

Nigel Dawes was an AHL all-star and top player before going to the KHL. His last AHL season, he scored 41 goals (one goal off the league lead, in 14 fewer games than the leader) and 72 points in 67 games, followed by 14 goals (league leader) and 22 points in 20 play-off games. He was clearly one of the AHL’s top players when he left North America.

 

When he went to the KHL, his first few couple seasons, he scored around 0.65 points per game. This after being a point per game or better scorer in his previous couple seasons in the AHL.

 

His last full season in the NHL, Dawes scored 32 points in 66 games.

 

In his first full season in the KHL, Dawes scored 33 points in 52 games.

 

Dawes didn’t become a KHL all-star until his fourth season over there. It took him a while before he became one of that league’s scoring leaders.

 

His production has actually improved into his 30’s.

 

But when you really look at Dawes’s career, it tells you a few things about the leagues he’s played in. Based off Dawes’s numbers, the KHL is a much tougher league to score in than the AHL. Dawes was scoring around twice as much in the AHL compared to the KHL. And his NHL scoring (when he actually played a full season in a regular role) was just slightly less than what he produced in his first couple KHL seasons.

 

This all basically fits with NHLe translation factors (league equivalencies). The KHL has an NHLe of around 0.74. The AHL has an NHLe of around 0.47. This means that KHL points are worth 0.74 points in the NHL and AHL points are worth 0.47 NHL points.

 

When you look at Dawes’s performance in the years he was moving between the NHL, AHL, and KHL, his results fit pretty well with expectations, and support that argument that the KHL is a much tougher league to score in than the AHL, and is actually closer to the NHL than the AHL, in terms of the scoring equivalencies.

 

You see the same thing with the other names that pop up in this thread, when people try to diminish the KHL (and Tryamkin’s achievements in that league). 

 

Philip Larsen and Sergei Shirokov are the latest examples I’ve seen bandied about. Let’s take a closer look at those players.

 

Philip Larsen was quite successful in the AHL. He age 21 season, as a rookie, he put-up a respectable 22 points in 54 AHL games. He second season, 10 points in 12 GP (majority of that year he was playing in the NHL). The season before he left for the KHL, Larsen scored 7 points in a shot stint of 7 AHL games.

 

So while we don’t have huge samples to look at, based on the numbers we have, Larsen was pushing toward being around a point per game player in the AHL, before leaving for the KHL.

 

In the KHL, Larsen scored 25 points in 56 games his first season, and has been a career 0.58 points per game player in the KHL.

 

In Larsen’s case, the NHL numbers are not all that informative, as far as comparing league scoring rates. At least when you consider the context. Larsen has played as a top offensive Dman and 1PPQB in the AHL and KHL. In the NHL, he’s been a 15 minutes per game depth player. So you can’t expect him to produce a league equivalent scoring rate in the NHL, when his usage at that level is drastically reduced. Also, Larsen falls into a category of player you often see succeed overseas. He needs to play in a prime role to be successful, but he’s not nearly good enough to earn a top lineup spot in the NHL. That’s why he was able to be a dominant points producer in the AHL, and a top offensive Dman in the KHL, but basically just a fringe guy at the NHL level. He’s in a class of players who are too talented to spend their careers in the American League, just right for the KHL, and not talented enough to be top players in the NHL. 

 

As for Shirokov, he played two seasons in the AHL. Both years he was named an all-star. He was arguably the best player down on the farm for those two seasons (where he finished 2nd and 1st place in team scoring). But he happened to playing be in a Canucks system during the height of the Sedin era. Tough squad to crack as a top line offensive player. In Russia, he was a young star player, one of the premiere talents for CSKA at the time, and he had a clear path mapped out as an elite player in the KHL. So Shirokov being a top KHL player isn’t at all surprising.

 

He was a top player in Russia before the left, came to North America, and became a top player in the AHL. He left North America, went back to Russia, and continued being a top player in the KHL.

 

Had he stayed in North America, Shirokov would have likely remained a perennial AHL all-star and top scorer, and possibly even earned an NHL role. But his choice was to either continue riding the bus in Manitoba and hoping to catch a break (while the Canucks were winning Presidents’ Trophies and the Sedins winning scoring titles), or go back to his country, earn more money, and be a star player in the top Russian league, while playing for his hometown team with CSKA.  I know which one I’d have picked, if I were in his shoes at that time.

 

Anyway, the point is, none of the successes Dawes, Larsen, or Shirokov have enjoyed in the KHL should be seen to diminish that league, or their quality as players. These were all elite talents at the AHL level (and this was mostly as young players in their early to mid 20’s), so it only makes sense they’d be successful in the KHL, especially during the prime years of their careers. Had they stayed in North America, they’d probably be tearing up the AHL, at the very least. They might even be pushing for NHL spots.

 

And had some of these guys come up a decade or two later than they did, with the current landscape, when it comes to undersized players, who knows what their paths would have been? A young Nigel Dawes coming up today might have been the next Cole Caufield.

Edited May 26, 2019 by SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME

[JeremyCuddles]

^ so what you are telling me is in order to become a NHL star you need to average 2 PPG in the AHL. The great CDC meme may actually be true 

[Nuxfanabroad]

If a Tree thaws in Siberia, does it make a sound?

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

36 minutes ago, N7Nucks said:

^ so what you are telling me is in order to become a NHL star you need to average 2 PPG in the AHL. The great CDC meme may actually be true 

 

 

I know you’re kidding, but in a way, it’s kind of true.

 

I think had Pettersson played in the AHL this past season, in a first line role and with talented wingers (like with a Boeser quality guy on one side), he’d probably have torn that league up and might very well have flirted with something close to 2 points per game.

 

Or if you took Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen, and plunked their line into the AHL for 2018-19, they’d have eaten that league alive and likely scored over 2 points per game each.

 

That doesn’t mean a prospect or developing player needs to score 2 points per game in the AHL to have any hope of ever becoming an NHL star. But I would expect many of the elite NHL players of today would be able to score 2 points per game against AHL level competition.

 

I mean, league equivalencies (like NHLe) are simply the average of what all the players who moved between leagues produced, from one season to the next. Individual results will vary, especially when players take on different roles and levels of opportunity. But the numbers are the numbers, and they’re based on what actually happens when players move between these leagues.

 

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME

[JeremyCuddles]

4 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

 

 

I know you’re kidding, but in a way, it’s kind of true.

 

I think had Pettersson played in the AHL this past season, in a first line role and with talented wingers (like with a Boeser quality guy on one side), he’d probably have torn that league up and might very well have flirted with something close to 2 points per game.

 

Or if you took Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen, and plunked their line into the AHL for 2018-19, they’d have eaten that league alive and likely scored over 2 points per game each.

 

That doesn’t mean a prospect or developing player needs to score 2 points per game in the AHL to have any hope of ever becoming an NHL star. But I would expect many of the elite NHL players of today would be able to score 2 points per game against AHL level competition.

 

I mean, league equivalencies (like NHLe) are simply the average of what all the players who moved between leagues produced, from one season to the next. Individual results will vary, especially when players take on different roles and levels of opportunity. But the numbers are the numbers, and they’re based on what actually happens when players move between these leagues.

 

 

Honestly, I really like your post cause it just goes to show that the demand for players to be in the AHL is a bit overstated. It's nice to have for sure, but other leagues are either on par or ahead of AHL in terms of competition and development. 

[VIC_CITY]

1 hour ago, N7Nucks said:

Honestly, I really like your post cause it just goes to show that the demand for players to be in the AHL is a bit overstated. It's nice to have for sure, but other leagues are either on par or ahead of AHL in terms of competition and development. 

Yes but you can't discount the value of experience on North American ice. Some players games just aren't suited for the smaller ice surface. Obviously this isn't always the case, but I would say that success in the AHL suggests that their game would translate better than if a player had success playing overseas on a larger ice surface. 

[JeremyCuddles]

22 minutes ago, VIC_CITY said:

Yes but you can't discount the value of experience on North American ice. Some players games just aren't suited for the smaller ice surface. Obviously this isn't always the case, but I would say that success in the AHL suggests that their game would translate better than if a player had success playing overseas on a larger ice surface. 

I don't think it's ice size that is causing fits for Euro and Russian players. It's the 82 game schedule and the level of competition in the NHL that causes problems. Success in the AHL doesn't mean you're better suited to handle the NHL either. Goldy was very good in the A. Hasn't done anything for him at the NHL level. Petey, Aho, Heiskanen, Rantanen all found success in the NHL without AHL experience. If the talent and work ethic is there, any learning curves can be done in the NHL. They practice all summer on smaller ice, they do weeks of preseason on smaller ice, and all their practices during the season are on smaller ice. The transition isn't so difficult that they NEED AHL time or anything or that the benefit is that much greater. Juolevi left North America to get better experience in Liiga, and if not for his season ending injury I would argue he'd have graduated to the NHL without a full AHL season. I dunno, I just don't see the AHL as a must for prospects or even super beneficial to have. Talent and hard work finds a way to succeed in the NHL.

[VIC_CITY]

On 5/26/2019 at 3:34 PM, N7Nucks said:

I don't think it's ice size that is causing fits for Euro and Russian players. It's the 82 game schedule and the level of competition in the NHL that causes problems. Success in the AHL doesn't mean you're better suited to handle the NHL either. Goldy was very good in the A. Hasn't done anything for him at the NHL level. Petey, Aho, Heiskanen, Rantanen all found success in the NHL without AHL experience. If the talent and work ethic is there, any learning curves can be done in the NHL. They practice all summer on smaller ice, they do weeks of preseason on smaller ice, and all their practices during the season are on smaller ice. The transition isn't so difficult that they NEED AHL time or anything or that the benefit is that much greater. Juolevi left North America to get better experience in Liiga, and if not for his season ending injury I would argue he'd have graduated to the NHL without a full AHL season. I dunno, I just don't see the AHL as a must for prospects or even super beneficial to have. Talent and hard work finds a way to succeed in the NHL.

I agree, I think it's pretty obvious that AHL experience isn't a must. All I'm saying is it's a different type of game league vs league and when it comes to prospects, we can't discount the value of NA pro experience. Those elite European players you named have made the transition somewhat seamlessly, but they're the exception, not the rule.

[18W-40C-6W]

On 5/26/2019 at 6:34 PM, N7Nucks said:

I don't think it's ice size that is causing fits for Euro and Russian players. It's the 82 game schedule and the level of competition in the NHL that causes problems. Success in the AHL doesn't mean you're better suited to handle the NHL either. Goldy was very good in the A. Hasn't done anything for him at the NHL level. Petey, Aho, Heiskanen, Rantanen all found success in the NHL without AHL experience. If the talent and work ethic is there, any learning curves can be done in the NHL. They practice all summer on smaller ice, they do weeks of preseason on smaller ice, and all their practices during the season are on smaller ice. The transition isn't so difficult that they NEED AHL time or anything or that the benefit is that much greater. Juolevi left North America to get better experience in Liiga, and if not for his season ending injury I would argue he'd have graduated to the NHL without a full AHL season. I dunno, I just don't see the AHL as a must for prospects or even super beneficial to have. Talent and hard work finds a way to succeed in the NHL.

Every player is different. Each player has parts of their game they need to work on to make it to the nhl unless they are just “that much better”. Whether that be time to get physically bigger (OJ) and adjust to the speed and physicality or to learn to process the game faster  (JV, AG) each league can offer different benefits and weaknesses. It’s up to coaches and player development teams to sort out where a player will take the next step developmentally. The AHL is a good league for players to learn NHL systems but it’s also not the most effective for highly skilled players. There’s a lot of “journeymen” who don’t have high end skill / process the game well on many teams. This ends up limiting the offensive development of players imho. Personally, I think the European leagues are better at developing offense, while the AHL is better at developing two way players, goalies and defensive dmen. 

Edited May 29, 2019 by 18W-40C-6W

[JeremyCuddles]

13 hours ago, VIC_CITY said:

I agree, I think it's pretty obvious that AHL experience isn't a must. All I'm saying is it's a different type of game league vs league and when it comes to prospects, we can't discount the value of NA pro experience. Those elite European players you named have made the transition somewhat seamlessly, but they're the exception, not the rule.

It's true, I did name some elite players. But with that said Aho was also drafted outta the second round. He was not considered elite when he was drafted. Same with Tryamkin. Even some less talented at their draft players can develop just about anywhere. It really depends on the player and what they need to work on. I won't discount NA pro experience, I just don't hold it in as high regard as others. We can't discount the leagues Euros and Russians are playing in either.

[HockeyHarry]

On 5/26/2019 at 1:55 AM, VIC_CITY said:

That speaks volumes about the KHL. Larsen is absolute trash. I bet you Reid Boucher would be a top 20 scorer in the KHL.

But Reid B can’t skate so on the big ice he’d be -30 but with 20 powerplay goals.

[Slegr]

Watching more of the finals, and pretty sure none of our defensemen would survive based on what they're letting go, but Tryamkin would thrive.

[Rush17]

20 minutes ago, Slegr said:

Watching more of the finals, and pretty sure none of our defensemen would survive based on what they're letting go, but Tryamkin would thrive.

I'm losing faith he's going to come back