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Posted (edited)
12 hours ago, hammertime said:

Feel like Lenni Hameenaho needs to be talked about. IMO he's a top 20 1st round quality pick that seems to have slipped through the cracks. Or just isn't getting the respect he deserves for whatever reason?

 

Hamee time. 

 

12G 13A 25pts in 59 games in Liiga. 3g in 8 playoff games Hameenaho is just so money in the paint. 

 

Just watched Recruits lowlights vid on him and it's just such a crock of $#!T. Makes him look super weak on pucks and low compete which couldn't be further from the truth. @Recruits "Do better". His scrappyness is literally the first thing you notice watching him. He puts up all his points in the dirty areas against men. His checking and board play are top notch he'll pick a lot of pockets in the neutral zone and draw a lot of penalties on hooks n trips off players he just embarrassed. He's not the most exciting in terms of edge of your seat plays but he's always contributing all over the ice. He's got what I would call great fundamentals and it shows in how well his coaches trust him in all situations in Liiiga. 

 

League Quality

1. NHL

2, KHL

3. SHL

4. AHL

5. Liiga

6. NL

7. Czech Extraliga

8. VHL

9. DEL

10. Allsvenskan

 

Comparables that he has out produced this year. 

 

Sale ranked top 10 has 14 points 49 games Czechia

Dvorsky ranked top 10 14 points in 45 games Allsven

Haltuunen ranked late 1st 1 point in 28 games Liiga. 

Juraj Slafkovski 1st over all 2022 17 points in 49 games Liiga

He's out produced Kemell and the 3 swedes from Djugardens this year. 

Jiri Kulich 15 points in 52 games Czechia 

 

Anyway Ill get to my point what he's done this year is remarkable and he isn't doing it by riding coat tails and putting up filler points he's worked his tail off for his points and has not in my opinion gotten nearly enough respect. People ranking him in the 50's and 60's + are making a mistake. Some lucky team is going to run to the podium and get him at a number he has no business still being on the board at. Let's put a lil respect on Lenni Hameenaho's name come draft day. If he makes it to our 3rd we cannot pass on him. The fact that he's not ranked at least a late 1st early 2nd on every draft board makes no sense to me. Kid is battling men in the crease he was 3rd in scoring for Assat in the playoffs.  

 

 

I don't have much of an opinion on Hameenaho. Thought he was decent at U18s last year. Finished 9th on the team in scoring as the 4th youngest player on the team. But your comparisons are completely infelicitous. More appropriate comparables from the same year and league for his 17 year old season would be Topi Ronni (6'2, 2nd round to Calgary), Santeri Sulku (6'4, 7th round to Philly). https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/u20-sm-sarja/stats/2021-2022?age=u18&sort=ppg Slafkovsky actually almost doubled Hameenaho's offensive output last year when they were 17. Obviously Dvorsky, Kulich, Halttunen, Sale all had much better U18 seasons.

 

As for his 18 year old (U19) season, yes he outproduced Kemell and Lekkerimaki's regular seasons (both of which were universally agreed to have been underwhelming), but by my conversion factors, Ohgren's season was about equal to Hameenaho's, while Ostlund's was clearly better. More direct recent comparables (just from Liiga to keep it simple) would be Roni Hirvonen, Roope Hintz, Juuso Pärssinen, Alex Texier, Jani Nyman. Still not a bad group. https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/liiga/stats/all-time-season?age=u19&sort=ppg. Second round seems most likely.

Edited by HighOnHockey
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On 5/5/2023 at 4:07 PM, hammertime said:

I fully agree I also personally really want us to draft size and speed we have some skill we need some size that can not only keep up but push the tempo. As we have seen Pete can turn ahlers into 1st liners looking at you Pederson, Di Guiseppe, I would absolutely love to get a Todd Bertuzzi to ride shotty with him. But maybe we don't have to draft one maybe we sign a few more Dakota Joshuas and one becomes Anson Carter. Hughes Schenn was one of the best value if not the best value pairing in the league. 

 

To the whole. No prospect since Towes thing. Gavin Brindley would also like a word. You can probably find him in the 2nd round. 

Gavin Brindley

Center -- shoots R
Born Oct 5 2004 -- Estero, FL
[18 yrs. ago]
Height 5.09 -- Weight 165 [175 cm/75 kg]
 
 
Gavin Brindley hockey player photo 
 
 
 
  Regular Season Playoffs
Season Team Lge GP G A Pts PIM +/- GP G A Pts PIM
2020-21 Tri-City Storm USHL 51 9 13 22 18 -1 3 1 1 2 0
2021-22 Tri-City Storm USHL 51 14 28 42 33 9 3 1 1 2 0
2022-23 U. of Michigan Big-10 41 12 26 38 22 21          

 

 

 

 

I want the next Sieder Tkachuk too but does our GM?

 

 

I can actually see Brindley becoming a very good player, this years Stankoven imo. 

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On 5/6/2023 at 12:36 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

Matthew Wood was almost at a PPG in the NCAA as a 17-year-old.  This is unheard of.  Last guy to do that was Jonathan Toews.  Wood trained with Bedard for a year when he was 14 and lived at his home.  He has a deadly wrist shot and is huge.  He will never be the best skater on the ice, but if he can improve his skating 10% he will be a beast of a power forward.  They may even play him at centre next year, so he may pull a Tage Thompson and switch to centre.  A 6'4" 220 pound right-handed 2C would be like Manna from heaven for the Canucks.  We haven't had one of those types of guys since Ryan Kesler.

 

In 5 years, Matthew Wood may become one of the best players in this entire draft.  Tage Thompson was taken at 26 in 2016.  In a draft redo he goes top 5.  Same thing can happen with Wood...

I actually think Tage T is a good comparable to Wood, the way Wood uses his long reach (uses a long stick for his size as well) to perform dekes and control the puck is similar to guys like Thompson and Malkin. Guys his size usually dont have the silky mitts he does. Would be a great pick if we selected Wood then molded him into a second line center.    

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Posted (edited)

@HighOnHockey What do you think Fisker-Molgaard's ceiling is? I think he will almost for sure be an NHL'er one day, but given that you're a fan of his, I was wondering what type of role you think he'll have. Also, is there a reason why Finns such as Kiiskinen (winger) and Karki (defence) aren't getting a lot of attention? Not to make lazy comparisons, but Finns like Hintz and Lindell sure made for incredible 2nd/3rd round picks...

Edited by Herberts Vasiljevs
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18 minutes ago, HighOnHockey said:

I don't have much of an opinion on Hameenaho. Thought he was decent at U18s last year. Finished 9th on the team in scoring as the 4th youngest player on the team. But your comparisons are completely infelicitous. More appropriate comparables from the same year and league for his 17 year old season would be Topi Ronni (6'2, 2nd round to Calgary), Santeri Sulku (6'4, 7th round to Philly). https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/u20-sm-sarja/stats/2021-2022?age=u18&sort=ppg Slafkovsky actually almost doubled Hameenaho's offensive output last year when they were 17. Obviously Dvorsky, Kulich, Halttunen, Sale all had much better U18 seasons.

 

As for his 18 year old (U19) season, yes he outproduced Kemell and Lekkerimaki's regular seasons (both of which were universally agreed to have been underwhelming), but by my conversion factors, Ohgren's season was about equal to Hameenaho's, while Ostlund's was clearly better. More direct recent comparables (just from Liiga to keep it simple) would be Roni Hirvonen, Roope Hintz, Juuso Pärssinen, Alex Texier, Jani Nyman. Still not a bad group. https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/liiga/stats/all-time-season?age=u19&sort=ppg. Second round seems most likely.

Was a big fan of Jani Nyman and Topi Roni last year I made multiple posts about each of them. 

 

Since the age cut off for hockey teams is Dec Hameenaho would have been one of the youngest players on every team he played on growing up where Slafkovski separated by 4 months having a March birthday would have been one of the oldest and biggest. Thus given more opportunity. Now I am only using the comparable to shine some light on Hamee of course I'm not saying he should be in top 5 conversation. But I do feel he deserves Table 5 consideration and shouldn't be swept under the rug. If you look at the adversity these kids have to overcome to get where they are only a very small portion of NHLers are born between October and December as those players growing up were always the youngest and likely the smallest on their teams and often got weeded out, didn't play as much, struggled against the older kids, and quit hockey. The ones that managed to overcome this disadvantage and make it to the show also represent an inordinate percentage of high end players when compared to players with more advantageous birthdays. Jan-March. 

https://thehockeynews.com/all-access/underdog-eat-dog-world-late-birthdays-responsible-for-top-talents

Only 6.6 percent of players in league history have been born in December, tied with November for lowest among all months, compared to 10.4 percent for those born in January, which is tops.

Yet new research may give hope to December underdogs across the hockey world.

That’s the upshot of what professors Ben Gibbs and Jonathan Jarvis of Brigham Young University found in their study, “The relative age effect reversal among the National Hockey League elite.” Gibbs and Jarvis employed 20 students to crunch data for North American-born NHLers (excluding goalies and undrafted players) from 2008-09 to 2015-16. They divided players into four quarters by birth month – January-March, April-June, July-September and October-December– and then looked at points and salary.

What they found was surprising. Although more players are born in the first quarter of the year, those born in the last quarter score more and make more money. Not only that, the gap between first-quarter players and fourth-quarter players increases as you progress up the scoring and salary charts. When you get to the top 10 percent of scorers, those born in October-December average nine more points per year and 51 percent more in salary than those born in January-March.

How is this possible? Gibbs and Jarvis call it the “underdog effect,” and they give three reasons for this seemingly bizarre anomaly: resiliency, talent and the age cutoff for the NHL draft. And it all begins back in minor hockey.

RESILIENCY
Throughout Canada and the U.S., the cutoff age for minor hockey is typically Dec. 31. This means that kids born in the fourth quarter of the year lag six to 12 months in growth behind those born in the first quarter. These runts of the litter are quickly culled out of competitive hockey because the cutoff age is artificially skewed to favor first-quarter birthdates.

In academic lingo, it’s called the “relative age effect.” Since kids born in January-March are usually bigger than those born in October-December, Gibbs and Jarvis suggest coaches mistake size for talent and discard the younger, smaller players. “The kids that are small just never get a chance to be coached long enough to be able to put in the hours, and so we lose kids who could possibly make it to the NHL because they’re just not chosen to be on their 11-year-old all-star team or 12-year-old minor hockey team,” Jarvis said. “They never get the chance to develop and are dropped from competitive hockey.”

But here’s the kicker for underdogs. For those born in October-December who manage to make it through minor hockey and then junior, they become psychologically stronger because they’ve had to deal with more adversity because of the cutoff age than those with January-March birth certificates. By the time they make the NHL, they’re more resilient. This, in turn, makes them better players. “Of course you need talent to overcome the arbitrary age cutoff in minor hockey, but you also need more resiliency,” Gibbs said. “The results show that this artificial advantage for those born in the first quarter doesn’t carry over into the NHL, because resiliency and true talent eventually take over.”

 

When you say.... Oh he has an early birthday he's a year older etc. And I just don't think it's nearly the be all end all argument that you seem to.  It's worth consideration.

 

To say that 19 year old Ostlund who put up 10 goals 31 points in 49 games in a lesser league was "clearly" better than Hamee's 18 year old 12 goals 25 points in 59 games in a much higher league  is quite an overstatement in my opinion. Especially when you consider Ostlund Leks and Ohgren played on a pretty stacked Djugardens. While Hameenaho was relied upon by Assat in the playoffs and was their 3 leading scorer. I would call that very positive progression.

 

Anyway it's just my $0.02 but I think Hameenaho absolutely deserves to be considered a 1st round talent in this draft. 

 

 

 

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The Canucks will get a great pick at 11. Taking out the top 5 in case we don't win the lottery,  If it's Wood, Dvorsky, ASP, Benson, Reinbacher, Leonard or Perreault we should be excited.  Any of those aforementioned would be huge.  

 

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On 5/6/2023 at 12:36 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

Matthew Wood was almost at a PPG in the NCAA as a 17-year-old.  This is unheard of.  Last guy to do that was Jonathan Toews.  Wood trained with Bedard for a year when he was 14 and lived at his home.  He has a deadly wrist shot and is huge.  He will never be the best skater on the ice, but if he can improve his skating 10% he will be a beast of a power forward.  They may even play him at centre next year, so he may pull a Tage Thompson and switch to centre.  A 6'4" 220 pound right-handed 2C would be like Manna from heaven for the Canucks.  We haven't had one of those types of guys since Ryan Kesler.

 

In 5 years, Matthew Wood may become one of the best players in this entire draft.  Tage Thompson was taken at 26 in 2016.  In a draft redo he goes top 5.  Same thing can happen with Wood...

He has the potential to be a more physical version of Rantanen 

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14 hours ago, hammertime said:

Feel like Lenni Hameenaho needs to be talked about. IMO he's a top 20 1st round quality pick that seems to have slipped through the cracks. Or just isn't getting the respect he deserves for whatever reason?

 

Hamee time. 

 

12G 13A 25pts in 59 games in Liiga. 3g in 8 playoff games Hameenaho is just so money in the paint. 

 

Just watched Recruits lowlights vid on him and it's just such a crock of $#!T. Makes him look super weak on pucks and low compete which couldn't be further from the truth. @Recruits "Do better". His scrappyness is literally the first thing you notice watching him. He puts up all his points in the dirty areas against men. His checking and board play are top notch he'll pick a lot of pockets in the neutral zone and draw a lot of penalties on hooks n trips off players he just embarrassed. He's not the most exciting in terms of edge of your seat plays but he's always contributing all over the ice. He's got what I would call great fundamentals and it shows in how well his coaches trust him in all situations in Liiiga. 

 

League Quality

1. NHL

2, KHL

3. SHL

4. AHL

5. Liiga

6. NL

7. Czech Extraliga

8. VHL

9. DEL

10. Allsvenskan

 

Comparables that he has out produced this year. 

 

Sale ranked top 10 has 14 points 49 games Czechia

Dvorsky ranked top 10 14 points in 45 games Allsven

Haltuunen ranked late 1st 1 point in 28 games Liiga. 

Juraj Slafkovski 1st over all 2022 17 points in 49 games Liiga

He's out produced Kemell and the 3 swedes from Djugardens this year. 

Jiri Kulich 15 points in 52 games Czechia 

 

Anyway Ill get to my point what he's done this year is remarkable and he isn't doing it by riding coat tails and putting up filler points he's worked his tail off for his points and has not in my opinion gotten nearly enough respect. People ranking him in the 50's and 60's + are making a mistake. Some lucky team is going to run to the podium and get him at a number he has no business still being on the board at. Let's put a lil respect on Lenni Hameenaho's name come draft day. If he makes it to our 3rd we cannot pass on him. The fact that he's not ranked at least a late 1st early 2nd on every draft board makes no sense to me. Kid is battling men in the crease he was 3rd in scoring for Assat in the playoffs.  

 

 

Where did you find this league quality ranking from?  Very interesting, I'd thought Allsvenskin would have been ranked much higher.  

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3 minutes ago, Herberts Vasiljevs said:

@HighOnHockey What do you think Fisker-Molgaard's ceiling is? I think he will almost for sure be an NHL'er one day, but given that you're a fan of his, I was wondering what type of role you think he'll have. Also, is there a reason why Finns such as Kiiskinen (winger) and Karki (defence) aren't getting a lot of attention? Not to make lazy comparisons, but Finns like Hintz and Lindell sure made for incredible 2nd/3rd round picks...

I like Fisker-Molgaard but I'm not sure the ceilling is all that high. Two-way 15-17 minute center, but like you said he's one of the safer picks in the draft. I'm not sure I'd take him first round, but I wouldn't be surprised if he goes late first. Not that I watched any of the second division U18s but Molgaard dominated it with 6 goals and 6 assists in 5 games. And to have done what he did in SHL this year at 17 and under 170 lbs is pretty wild. I could see him being a 50 point middle six center in the NHL.

 

On the Finnish players, I think there are a few quirks to the Finnish league/system. It is similar in quality to Swiss NL and the top Czech league. Their junior league is a bit of a step down from any CHL leagues, USHL, MHL or SuperElit, but probably a slight step up from the top Czech junior league or BCHL. It's a bit misleading because Finland is putting out more high end NHL players lately, but their league tends to lack top end quality because they have a smaller population and don't allow a lot of imports, meaning there's more opportunity for locally grown teens. So you'll see guys like Heponiemi or Raty light it up at 19 and you just can't put too much stock in it. I had my eye on Karki coing into this season, but the fact he's not playing pro yet his 18 year old season is cause for hesitation. Kiiskinen is much more interesting to me. He's got a little bit of Eduard Sale. Sturdy on his skates, decent frame, smart, skilled, but not one particular skill that really wows you (for Sale maybe his shot). But still, Hintz was 6'3 and produced at about the same rate in their U18 seasons (about 3 months apart). Hintz produced pretty solid numbers in Liiga in his U19 season. Esa Lindell put up better numbers in his U18 season than Karki did this year in his U19 season. So I'd say Kiiskinen is at least a slight step down from Hintz as a draft eligible prospect, but Karki is probably a significant step down from Lindell.

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21 minutes ago, hammertime said:

Was a big fan of Jani Nyman and Topi Roni last year I made multiple posts about each of them. 

 

Since the age cut off for hockey teams is Dec Hameenaho would have been one of the youngest players on every team he played on growing up where Slafkovski separated by 4 months having a March birthday would have been one of the oldest and biggest. Thus given more opportunity. Now I am only using the comparable to shine some light on Hamee of course I'm not saying he should be in top 5 conversation. But I do feel he deserves Table 5 consideration and shouldn't be swept under the rug. If you look at the adversity these kids have to overcome to get where they are only a very small portion of NHLers are born between October and December as those players growing up were always the youngest and likely the smallest on their teams and often got weeded out, didn't play as much, struggled against the older kids, and quit hockey. The ones that managed to overcome this disadvantage and make it to the show also represent an inordinate percentage of high end players when compared to players with more advantageous birthdays. Jan-March. 

https://thehockeynews.com/all-access/underdog-eat-dog-world-late-birthdays-responsible-for-top-talents

Only 6.6 percent of players in league history have been born in December, tied with November for lowest among all months, compared to 10.4 percent for those born in January, which is tops.

Yet new research may give hope to December underdogs across the hockey world.

That’s the upshot of what professors Ben Gibbs and Jonathan Jarvis of Brigham Young University found in their study, “The relative age effect reversal among the National Hockey League elite.” Gibbs and Jarvis employed 20 students to crunch data for North American-born NHLers (excluding goalies and undrafted players) from 2008-09 to 2015-16. They divided players into four quarters by birth month – January-March, April-June, July-September and October-December– and then looked at points and salary.

What they found was surprising. Although more players are born in the first quarter of the year, those born in the last quarter score more and make more money. Not only that, the gap between first-quarter players and fourth-quarter players increases as you progress up the scoring and salary charts. When you get to the top 10 percent of scorers, those born in October-December average nine more points per year and 51 percent more in salary than those born in January-March.

How is this possible? Gibbs and Jarvis call it the “underdog effect,” and they give three reasons for this seemingly bizarre anomaly: resiliency, talent and the age cutoff for the NHL draft. And it all begins back in minor hockey.

RESILIENCY
Throughout Canada and the U.S., the cutoff age for minor hockey is typically Dec. 31. This means that kids born in the fourth quarter of the year lag six to 12 months in growth behind those born in the first quarter. These runts of the litter are quickly culled out of competitive hockey because the cutoff age is artificially skewed to favor first-quarter birthdates.

In academic lingo, it’s called the “relative age effect.” Since kids born in January-March are usually bigger than those born in October-December, Gibbs and Jarvis suggest coaches mistake size for talent and discard the younger, smaller players. “The kids that are small just never get a chance to be coached long enough to be able to put in the hours, and so we lose kids who could possibly make it to the NHL because they’re just not chosen to be on their 11-year-old all-star team or 12-year-old minor hockey team,” Jarvis said. “They never get the chance to develop and are dropped from competitive hockey.”

But here’s the kicker for underdogs. For those born in October-December who manage to make it through minor hockey and then junior, they become psychologically stronger because they’ve had to deal with more adversity because of the cutoff age than those with January-March birth certificates. By the time they make the NHL, they’re more resilient. This, in turn, makes them better players. “Of course you need talent to overcome the arbitrary age cutoff in minor hockey, but you also need more resiliency,” Gibbs said. “The results show that this artificial advantage for those born in the first quarter doesn’t carry over into the NHL, because resiliency and true talent eventually take over.”

 

When you say.... Oh he has an early birthday he's a year older etc. And I just don't think it's nearly the be all end all argument that you seem to.  It's worth consideration.

 

To say that 19 year old Ostlund who put up 10 goals 31 points in 49 games in a lesser league was "clearly" better than Hamee's 18 year old 12 goals 25 points in 59 games in a much higher league  is quite an overstatement in my opinion. Especially when you consider Ostlund Leks and Ohgren played on a pretty stacked Djugardens. While Hameenaho was relied upon by Assat in the playoffs and was their 3 leading scorer. I would call that very positive progression.

 

Anyway it's just my $0.02 but I think Hameenaho absolutely deserves to be considered a 1st round talent in this draft. 

 

 

 

I just think accuracy is important.

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7 minutes ago, Pure961089 said:

Imagine if Daly flips the #11 spot and the Canucks logo doesn't show up.  Imagine hard.

And Imagining is all we will ever do... 

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9 minutes ago, Pure961089 said:

Imagine if Daly flips the #11 spot and the Canucks logo doesn't show up.  Imagine hard.

Saturday Night Live Love GIF by The Lonely Island

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Posted (edited)

Off the beaten path thought of the day.  In my mind this is kind of corrupt.  The owners should appoint someone that isn't an owner and has no ties to any hockey team.  With Jacobs having so much power as chairman it creates a conflict of interest.  It's the main reason the Canucks got hosed in 2011 and the reffing was one sided. Didn't someone in Bruins management have their son play on the team?  the refs treated him with kid gloves.  Anyway One owner with so much power is a recipe for corruption.  

 

 

Could contain: Page, Text, File

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38 minutes ago, Pure961089 said:

Imagine if Daly flips the #11 spot and the Canucks logo doesn't show up.  Imagine hard.

You see, I’m imagining that happening a lot… mainly because he’ll have already flipped our logo a turn or two ago. 

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, HighOnHockey said:

I just think accuracy is important.

Elaborate? This is a very dismissive response. 

 

You're obviously no dumb dumb.

 

I just think. You can't quantify maturity. Jake Virtanen is the poster boy. You've got a kid here who has been the youngest players on his team at every level and he's overcome with tenacity, heart, and battle + all of the intangibles to play one of the more detail oriented coaches favorite player games overall. He's not 6'4 220.

 

Sure he's Loui little things but he's also 18 I think that says a lot. 

 

As the youngest 17 yearold he went 0.88 ppg in U20 and put up 3ppg in u18

As the youngest 16 yearold he went 2ppg in u18 

 

People are sleeping on this kid. It was not an easy path to get where he is and do what he's done and it shows in the maturity with which he plays well beyond his years. Players development isn't liner.

 

I'm going to take the kid who is showing me maturity now over the one I hope does one day maybe. 

 

 

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