Blob Mckenzie wrote: ↑Fri Mar 16, 2018 7:44 pm
I have no skin in this game. Just drawing a parallel to The Fake. He went through a bulking phase and a phase where he looked like a marathon runner. He is in his draft + 4 season and he had an even more disappointing draft + 1 season and has proceeded to serve up three pretty disappointing seasons as a pro. He has yet to crack 20 points in a season as a pro. He isn’t very physical anymore and he is soon to be 22. I have been scolded by posters that I need to be patient and “power forwards take longer to develop”. “Is the book written on Virtanen yet”, they shriek. Keep in mind he has to clear waivers next year.
Ah gotcha. With Jake, there's two questions: was he worth a 6th overall pick, and is he continuing to improve.
I think it's fair to say after 4 seasons and the better players that have emerged from later in the 2014 draft that no, he wasn't worth the 6th overall.
But on the positive side, I think he is improving still. Even over the course of the season, I think he's gotten better - even as he remains in an offensively-limited role. His fancy stats seem to be decent, while he's getting under 12 min/game and no pp time.
Either way I’m not a huge fan of the Canucks training staff in the past few years. Too many injuries and players showing up overweight and out of shape.
Yeah you gotta wonder about that. My favourite aspect of the Gillis regime was his empirical, unconventional approach to the game. The fact that he turned the sleep doctors' data into an improved travel schedule for the canucks was tremendous imo.
Prior to 2014/15, we were middle-of-the-pack for CHIP/ man-made games lost. In the past 3 seasons, we've been in the top-3 each year.