Monday, 26 June 2017
Jake Virtanen, the Canucks Cup hope.
Todd Bertuzzi was the best Vancouver Canuck. Period. No one even close. Ryan Kesler second.
Pavel Bure third. Stan Smyl fourth. What do they all have in common?
A Hole content.
In 1982 Stan Smyl and King Richard Brodeur willed a team to the Stanley Cup Finals, only to get slaughtered by the Canadians playing in New York.
In 1994 Pavel Bure carried a team to the Cup Finals but just didn't have enough help to overcome the $30 million salary cap between the Canucks and the New York Rangers. He almost did it. Almost.
In 2011 the Canucks lost Manny Mulholtra and Ryan Kesler single-handedly lifted a team to the Cup Finals where he ran out of gas.
The Bertuzzi story never got a chance to be completed, as we all know, because of the Steve Moore hit on Swede Markus Naslund. Bertuzzi felt the need to defend the jersey and Moore hired a lawyer.
Since then the Canucks have failed to draft or trade for a mean son of a bitch. Kesler was already in the pipeline and a Bertuzzi disciple.
The media in Vancouver is super sensitive to any player in this market with A Hole content and reacts in a superficial and exaggerated way.
Jake Virtanen could join Bertuzzi and lift the team to a Stanley Cup Finals. But he'll have to do it alone because it appears Jim Benning has been scared off of drafting, well, to be frank, dicks. And let's be clear, dicks win Stanley Cups.
Even Swedes like Peter Forsberg and Nick Lidstrom win Stanley Cups. They had A Hole content. Evegni Malkin in Pittsburgh has carried the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup - three times. It is Malkin who takes the pressure off of Sydney Crosby. And as Canuck fans will remember - it is Malkin who pasted Willy Mitchell into the boards ending his career in Vancouver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imv7owJKLic
Malkin is a son of a bitch. And the best player in hockey. He takes so much pressure off the rest of the Penguins it allows them to win. Malkin also led the NHL in playoff points. A son of a bitch and a big, big man.
But yet for some reason, with the blueprint of Smyl hanging in the rafters and playing in the arena Big Bert built - they can't draft anyone like them without massive media backlash.
Virtanen's treatment in Vancouver is the perfect example. The media coverage was insanely negative. We saw glimpses of Bert in Virt in his first year with a blinding hit on San Jose's Roman Polak. A real beauty !
But the lessons of 1982 and 1994 and 2011 tell us that one A Hole isn't enough. You need a team of A Holes. They have to be unliked from top to bottom.
And while Vancouver's Swedes have been good citizens - Thomas Gradin, the Sedins, Markus Naslund, let's face it, they weren't exactly great in the playoffs. They were Okay, but not Ryan Kesler great, not Pavel Bure great.
And Vancouver continued to walk back from Jake Virtanen's draft - hiding him in the AHL after the suspension I would argue. And then drafting tiny Swede Petterrson and diminutive D man from Finland Jolevi.
As for the rounds 2-7, it's highly unlikely any of these players will make the NHL regardless of what team. It's unusual and against the odds. Nikita Tryamkin, at 6'7" and 275 pounds made it, but then they didn't show him the money and he went back to Russia. But it's the First Rounders that you hope make the show.
Will Brock Boeser be able to help Jake Virtanen to a Stanley Cup? Maybe. If Bo Horvat can show a willingness to drop the gloves - maybe he can help too.
But as for guys in the pipeline - there isn't anyone there yet to help Virtanen.
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