Kristoffer Gunnarsson | D

[Kanukfanatic]

Fans always say they want JB to take a chance on some players instead of picking the safe player with the lower ceiling.

 

Maybe that is what this pick was. And maybe it just didn't pan out.

 

I will give the benefit of the doubt to JB.

[TGokou]

3 hours ago, RetroCanuck said:

Agreed, but it was always a weird pick. Kid had little to no history of production and had nothing really going for him besides being a gym rat lol

Personally I don't see why they would bother wasting a pick on a low-upside, 'possible' 3rd pairing defenseman. I mean truthfully you can sign those guys out of any league if that's what you want. Always go for high upside pick, that way even your 2% chance of hitting a home run has a better statistical probability. 

[DeNiro]

13 minutes ago, TGokou said:

Personally I don't see why they would bother wasting a pick on a low-upside, 'possible' 3rd pairing defenseman. I mean truthfully you can sign those guys out of any league if that's what you want. Always go for high upside pick, that way even your 2% chance of hitting a home run has a better statistical probability. 

I think they were hoping for a Douglas Murray type late round pick with this. A big stay at home guy that can hit like a truck

 

I'm okay going with a low upside guy who has all of the fundamentals you want if they pan out. Unfortunately this time it didn't.

 

Good third pairing guys are necessary for championship teams. Whether you draft them or overpay for them in free agency is your choice. Whoever pick in the 5th - 7th round is very unlikely to pan out either way.

[JeremyCuddles]

14 hours ago, Kanukfanatic said:

Fans always say they want JB to take a chance on some players instead of picking the safe player with the lower ceiling.

 

Maybe that is what this pick was. And maybe it just didn't pan out.

 

I will give the benefit of the doubt to JB.

I mean, he had a low ceiling and wasn't a safe pick. He was 20 when we drafted him, had shown 0 scoring touch. Nothing about him was impressive. Pick was pretty sketchy even at the time. Sure it's a 5th rounder, who cares but still a pretty bad pick even at the time he made it I had no hopes for this guy.

[CaptainLinden16]

2 hours ago, N7Nucks said:

I mean, he had a low ceiling and wasn't a safe pick. He was 20 when we drafted him, had shown 0 scoring touch. Nothing about him was impressive. Pick was pretty sketchy even at the time. Sure it's a 5th rounder, who cares but still a pretty bad pick even at the time he made it I had no hopes for this guy.

 

One player has played an NHL game from the 5th round in 2017.  Even if one of these guys ends up being a stud thats a 1/31 thats 3.2% chance.  Lets not get too upset now.

 

5	125	Colorado	Igor Shvyrev	C	Magnitogorsk [Russia-Jrs]
5	126	Arizona	Michael Karow	D	Youngstown Phantoms [USHL]
5	127	Vegas	Lucas Elvenes	C	Rogle [Sweden-Jrs]
5	128	Arizona	Tyler Steenbergen	C	Swift Current Broncos [WHL]
5	129	New Jersey	Gilles Senn	G	Davos HC [Swiss-A]
5	130	St. Louis	David Noel	D	Val d'Or Foreurs [QMJHL]
5	131	Detroit	Cole Fraser	D	Peterborough Petes [OHL]
5	132	Dallas	Jacob Peterson	C	Frolunda [Sweden-Jrs]
5	133	Florida	Tyler Inamoto	D	U.S. National Development Team [USHL]
5	134	Los Angeles	Cole Hults	D	Madison Capitols [USHL]
5	135	Vancouver	Kristoffer Gunnarsson	D	Frolunda HC [SweHL]
5	136	Winnipeg	Leon Gawanke	D	Cape Breton Screaming Eagles [QMJHL]
5	137	Philadelphia	Noah Cates	L	Stillwater [Minn. H.S.]
5	138	Los Angeles	Drake Rymsha	C	Sarnia Sting [OHL]
5	139	NY Islanders	Sebastian Aho	D	Skelleftea AIK [SweHL]	22	1	3	4	6	2017-18
5	140	Calgary	Zach Fischer	R	Medicine Hat Tigers [WHL]
5	141	Toronto	Fedor Gordeev	D	Flint Firebirds [OHL]
5	142	Vegas	Jack Dugan	L	Northwood School [NY H.S.]
5	143	New Jersey	Marian Studenic	R	Hamilton Bulldogs [OHL]
5	144	Chicago	Parker Foo	L	Brooks Bandits [AJHL]
5	145	NY Rangers	Calle Sjalin	D	Timra [Sweden-Jrs]
5	146	Edmonton	Kirill Maksimov	R	Niagara IceDogs [OHL]
5	147	Minnesota	Jacob Golden	D	London Knights [OHL]
5	148	Columbus	Kale Howarth	L	Trail Smoke Eaters [BCHL]
5	149	Montreal	Jarret Tyszka	D	Seattle Thunderbirds [WHL]
5	150	Chicago	Jakub Galvas	D	Olomouc HC [Czech]
5	151	Washington	Sebastian Walfridsson	D	MODO [Sweden-Jrs]
5	152	Pittsburgh	Jan Drozg	R	Leksand [Sweden-Jrs]
5	153	Anaheim	Olle Eriksson Ek	G	Farjestad [Sweden-Jrs]
5	154	Nashville	Tomas Vomacka	G	Corpus Christi IceRays [NAHL]
5	155	Pittsburgh	Linus Olund

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

2 hours ago, CaptainLinden16 said:

One player has played an NHL game from the 5th round in 2017.  Even if one of these guys ends up being a stud thats a 1/31 thats 3.2% chance.  Lets not get too upset now.

True. Although unfortunately, that one player (“the other” Sebastian Aho) was a guy many fans were very aware of and had as a target for a potential late round overager pick.

 

So it’s inevitable that Gunnarsson will get compared to Aho, and some will see this pick as a missed opportunity.

 

Similar thing with Sasha Chmelevski, who nearly everyone was aware of, and stayed on the board until the 6th round. He hasn’t made the NHL, but looks a decent bet to at least get a cup of coffee at some point.

 

This isn’t meant as criticism of our drafting, or knocking the choice to roll the dice on Gunnarsson (or even Benning’s stated belief on draft day that “he’s gonna play”). Just that it’s easy to question the Gunnarsson pick when there were a couple “obvious” choices on the board in 2017, and they both seem to be developing quite well for their respective organizations. This creates the illusion that fans just using public rankings can actually out-draft our scouts in the later rounds (and it doesn’t help things that this was pretty much true for long periods of Canucks drafting history).

Edited May 16, 2019 by SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME

[Nucker 67]

Gunnarsson was a 5th round pick, and it sounds like he won't be signed by the Canucks? Goes to show most late picks are meaningless. 

 

Will be interesting to see which three players Benning drafts in the 6th round, that he won't sign 

 

[theo5789]

1 hour ago, NUCKER67 said:

Gunnarsson was a 5th round pick, and it sounds like he won't be signed by the Canucks? Goes to show most late picks are meaningless. 

 

Will be interesting to see which three players Benning drafts in the 6th round, that he won't sign 

 

We signed Gaudette, Jasek, and Palmu. Forsling was also a late round (5-7) pick.

 

Benning acquired those extra 6ths for players we signed for free as UFA. Who cares if they pan out or not, but if they do it cost us pretty much nothing to bring in. People lose playing the lottery all the time, yet keep trying anyway, these are just more lottery tickets. Not sure what's there to be snarky about here.

[Kootenay Gold]

There were a number of 5th round and later picks by the Canucks over the past 20 or so years that turned out to be serviceable players: Hutton, Brown, Hansen, Bieksa, Cooke, Sopel, Walker, Aucoin, Odjik and Bure are the more notable ones. Even though the odds are not very good; every once in awhile you beat the odds.

[mll]

Why is he already a UFA - it's normally 4 years for players taken out of the SHL.  Is it because he was drafted as a 2-draft over-ager and is already 22?

 

Edited May 17, 2019 by mll

[Quantum]

He's the Mackenze Stewart of his draft year. I'm okay with not signing him but man is it starting to suck that we aren't signing any of these late round defensemen we keep selecting. He joins a list of guys including: Brassard, Neill, Olson, and Candella who we are selecting in rounds 5-7 and simply not signing yet we are constantly worried about defensive depth at the AHL level.

 

I do believe not signing Brassard is a mistake.

 

Gunnarsson has no offensive upside so, meh. At least we traded down to get him and we picked up Palmu too because of that draft Day deal.

[CaptainLinden16]

20 hours ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

True. Although unfortunately, that one player (“the other” Sebastian Aho) was a guy many fans were very aware of and had as a target for a potential late round overager pick.

 

So it’s inevitable that Gunnarsson will get compared to Aho, and some will see this pick as a missed opportunity.

 

Similar thing with Sasha Chmelevski, who nearly everyone was aware of, and stayed on the board until the 6th round. He hasn’t made the NHL, but looks a decent bet to at least get a cup of coffee at some point.

 

This isn’t meant as criticism of our drafting, or knocking the choice to roll the dice on Gunnarsson (or even Benning’s stated belief on draft day that “he’s gonna play”). Just that it’s easy to question the Gunnarsson pick when there were a couple “obvious” choices on the board in 2017, and they both seem to be developing quite well for their respective organizations. This creates the illusion that fans just using public rankings can actually out-draft our scouts in the later rounds (and it doesn’t help things that this was pretty much true for long periods of Canucks drafting history).

I understand what you are saying, and you are THE prospect guy on this forum.  I would not say that the average guy or above average guy on here knows anything about Chmelevski or Aho. There are a lot of smaller forwards in the organization.  Maybe in the 5th round its not always best player available but you look at a team need like big bodied defensive defenseman.  The guy is physically impressive, so I am not sure how anyone can say definitively that he wasn't the boom/bust guy.  If he could think the game; with his body, he would be an NHL player.  They took a shot on him improving the mental side of his game, and it just didn't really happen.  I am not sure anyone was expecting him to ever be an offensive player in any capacity.  The league is also every year getting faster, so maybe they pivoted their thinking on what they want the defense to look like.  Gudbranson gone is an example of that.

 

These picks are so low percentage and so hard to figure out.  It's hard to say that there is any real skill at it when the best GM/Scout if probably shooting a 4-6% success ratio in this round while the average is doing 1-3%.  In order to truely evaluate someones quality at making these types of selections you would at least have to give them 10 years to get any kind of statistical significance and there is no GM that gets that type of leash.

 

I appreciate your depth of knowledge and insight on all of these kids.  One of the rare must reads on this forum.

[Noble 6]

52 minutes ago, CaptainLinden16 said:

I understand what you are saying, and you are THE prospect guy on this forum.  I would not say that the average guy or above average guy on here knows anything about Chmelevski or Aho. There are a lot of smaller forwards in the organization.  Maybe in the 5th round its not always best player available but you look at a team need like big bodied defensive defenseman.  The guy is physically impressive, so I am not sure how anyone can say definitively that he wasn't the boom/bust guy.  If he could think the game; with his body, he would be an NHL player.  They took a shot on him improving the mental side of his game, and it just didn't really happen.  I am not sure anyone was expecting him to ever be an offensive player in any capacity.  The league is also every year getting faster, so maybe they pivoted their thinking on what they want the defense to look like.  Gudbranson gone is an example of that.

 

These picks are so low percentage and so hard to figure out.  It's hard to say that there is any real skill at it when the best GM/Scout if probably shooting a 4-6% success ratio in this round while the average is doing 1-3%.  In order to truely evaluate someones quality at making these types of selections you would at least have to give them 10 years to get any kind of statistical significance and there is no GM that gets that type of leash.

 

I appreciate your depth of knowledge and insight on all of these kids.  One of the rare must reads on this forum.

 

@ForsbergTheGreat was pumping Chmelevski's tires consistently leading up to the draft IIRC.

[ForsbergTheGreat]

42 minutes ago, Horvat is a Boss said:

 

@ForsbergTheGreat was pumping Chmelevski's tires consistently leading up to the draft IIRC.

Yep, i had Chmelevski and Chekhovich as 3rd and 4th round picks.  Sharks got both of them in rounds 6 and 7 steals..  

[D-Money]

On ‎5‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 12:59 PM, CaptainLinden16 said:

 

One player has played an NHL game from the 5th round in 2017.  Even if one of these guys ends up being a stud thats a 1/31 thats 3.2% chance.  Lets not get too upset now.

 

5	125	Colorado	Igor Shvyrev	C	Magnitogorsk [Russia-Jrs]
5	126	Arizona	Michael Karow	D	Youngstown Phantoms [USHL]
5	127	Vegas	Lucas Elvenes	C	Rogle [Sweden-Jrs]
5	128	Arizona	Tyler Steenbergen	C	Swift Current Broncos [WHL]
5	129	New Jersey	Gilles Senn	G	Davos HC [Swiss-A]
5	130	St. Louis	David Noel	D	Val d'Or Foreurs [QMJHL]
5	131	Detroit	Cole Fraser	D	Peterborough Petes [OHL]
5	132	Dallas	Jacob Peterson	C	Frolunda [Sweden-Jrs]
5	133	Florida	Tyler Inamoto	D	U.S. National Development Team [USHL]
5	134	Los Angeles	Cole Hults	D	Madison Capitols [USHL]
5	135	Vancouver	Kristoffer Gunnarsson	D	Frolunda HC [SweHL]
5	136	Winnipeg	Leon Gawanke	D	Cape Breton Screaming Eagles [QMJHL]
5	137	Philadelphia	Noah Cates	L	Stillwater [Minn. H.S.]
5	138	Los Angeles	Drake Rymsha	C	Sarnia Sting [OHL]
5	139	NY Islanders	Sebastian Aho	D	Skelleftea AIK [SweHL]	22	1	3	4	6	2017-18
5	140	Calgary	Zach Fischer	R	Medicine Hat Tigers [WHL]
5	141	Toronto	Fedor Gordeev	D	Flint Firebirds [OHL]
5	142	Vegas	Jack Dugan	L	Northwood School [NY H.S.]
5	143	New Jersey	Marian Studenic	R	Hamilton Bulldogs [OHL]
5	144	Chicago	Parker Foo	L	Brooks Bandits [AJHL]
5	145	NY Rangers	Calle Sjalin	D	Timra [Sweden-Jrs]
5	146	Edmonton	Kirill Maksimov	R	Niagara IceDogs [OHL]
5	147	Minnesota	Jacob Golden	D	London Knights [OHL]
5	148	Columbus	Kale Howarth	L	Trail Smoke Eaters [BCHL]
5	149	Montreal	Jarret Tyszka	D	Seattle Thunderbirds [WHL]
5	150	Chicago	Jakub Galvas	D	Olomouc HC [Czech]
5	151	Washington	Sebastian Walfridsson	D	MODO [Sweden-Jrs]
5	152	Pittsburgh	Jan Drozg	R	Leksand [Sweden-Jrs]
5	153	Anaheim	Olle Eriksson Ek	G	Farjestad [Sweden-Jrs]
5	154	Nashville	Tomas Vomacka	G	Corpus Christi IceRays [NAHL]
5	155	Pittsburgh	Linus Olund

It's too early to tell for sure what most of these players will be (with the exception of Gunnarsson, I guess). But some of those players taken after Gunnarsson have some great upside though.

 

- Leon Gawanke scored the most goals out of all D-men in the Q last year. But who needs a puckmoving RHD who can score, right?

- Noah Cates was on Team USA in the Juniors, and made the NCAA (NCHC) all-rookie team. His NCAA team won the championship too.

- Jack Dugan made the NCAA (Hockey East) all-rookie team. Almost a PPG in his first NCAA season.

- Marian Studenic had a solid rookie pro season in the AHL, and has 3 assists in 5 games for Team Slovakia at the World Championships.

- Kirill Maksimov is a 6'4" RW who scored 40 goals in the OHL last year, 34 the year before.

- Jan Drozg scored a PPG in the Q, regular season and playoffs.

- Olle Eriksson Ek was back-up for Team Sweden at the WJCs.

- Tomas Vomacka was on the NCAA (Hockey East) all-rookie team.

- Linus Olund doesn't have much stats, but is a defensive forward coming off a solid AHL rookie season.

 

You can't win them all though.

[Nucker 67]

23 hours ago, theo5789 said:

We signed Gaudette, Jasek, and Palmu. Forsling was also a late round (5-7) pick.

 

Benning acquired those extra 6ths for players we signed for free as UFA. Who cares if they pan out or not, but if they do it cost us pretty much nothing to bring in. People lose playing the lottery all the time, yet keep trying anyway, these are just more lottery tickets. Not sure what's there to be snarky about here.

Sometimes later picks turn out. Gaudette and Hutton were really good picks in the 5th round. Canucks don't have anyone playing for them drafted later than 5th.

Jasek and Palmu? We'll see.

 

 

 

 

[CaptainLinden16]

27 minutes ago, D-Money said:

It's too early to tell for sure what most of these players will be (with the exception of Gunnarsson, I guess). But some of those players taken after Gunnarsson have some great upside though.

 

- Leon Gawanke scored the most goals out of all D-men in the Q last year. But who needs a puckmoving RHD who can score, right?

- Noah Cates was on Team USA in the Juniors, and made the NCAA (NCHC) all-rookie team. His NCAA team won the championship too.

- Jack Dugan made the NCAA (Hockey East) all-rookie team. Almost a PPG in his first NCAA season.

- Marian Studenic had a solid rookie pro season in the AHL, and has 3 assists in 5 games for Team Slovakia at the World Championships.

- Kirill Maksimov is a 6'4" RW who scored 40 goals in the OHL last year, 34 the year before.

- Jan Drozg scored a PPG in the Q, regular season and playoffs.

- Olle Eriksson Ek was back-up for Team Sweden at the WJCs.

- Tomas Vomacka was on the NCAA (Hockey East) all-rookie team.

- Linus Olund doesn't have much stats, but is a defensive forward coming off a solid AHL rookie season.

 

You can't win them all though.

You pick a year and I will post the games played points total for the 5th round.  I get that some of these players have promise, but promise is worth nothing in the end if they don't pan out.  I appreciate the insight as I knew none of that about those players.  Its great that some posters have this type of depth of knowledge.  

[RetroCanuck]

17 hours ago, NUCKER67 said:

Sometimes later picks turn out. Gaudette and Hutton were really good picks in the 5th round. Canucks don't have anyone playing for them drafted later than 5th.

Jasek and Palmu? We'll see.

 

 

 

 

Honestly whats been most impressive for me is Benning's 3rd/4th round picks. Madden, DiPietro, Rathbone, Tryamkin, Lockwood and Brisebois have all come out of those rounds and are very promising to find an NHL role someday.

 

Just wish Benning would have and would still acquire more of these picks 

[The Lock]

2 hours ago, RetroCanuck said:

Honestly whats been most impressive for me is Benning's 3rd/4th round picks. Madden, DiPietro, Rathbone, Tryamkin, Lockwood and Brisebois have all come out of those rounds and are very promising to find an NHL role someday.

 

Just wish Benning would have and would still acquire more of these picks 

Problem is, we can't sign them all. We are almost at the contract limit, so having more of these picks would be great, but then who doesn't get signed out of them?

 

Or do we then not sign the Stechers and the Tanevs on this team? (and my prediction is Rafferty might be another one of those from the little bit I saw at the end of the season, just throwing that out there).

Edited May 18, 2019 by The Lock

[Noble 6]

9 minutes ago, The Lock said:

Problem is, we can't sign them all. We are almost at the contract limit, so having more of these picks would be great, but then who doesn't get signed out of them?

 

Or do we then not sign the Stechers and the Tanevs on this team? (and my prediction is Rafferty might be another one of those from the little bit I saw at the end of the season, just throwing that out there).

 

We would get the picks by moving out contracts.

 

Also, players we draft don't have to be signed right away. We hold their right for a while until they prove their worth the contract slot. Not all of them would prove good enough anyway.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Horvat is a Boss