Prospect Info: Jonathan Lekkerimaki, #15 Overall, 2022 NHL Draft

[nucksflailtogether]

Lekkerimaki is on the 1st line today, and has looked really good so far. Nice setup on the Bystedt goal, sets up Ohgren on a breakaway the next shift with an excellent read at the defensive blueline. He continues to look dangerous and has been one of the best Swedish forwards all tournament.

Just lacking opportunity maybe...

 

[Nucker101]

Just lekking opportunity maybe...

Fixed

 

[Diamonddog01]

What a disappointment this pick has been. Still early days but the fact that this management had this player ranked much higher is concerning.

 

[Diogenes92]

Lekk has looked really good today. Has a bit of feistiness to his game.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

2nd period vs US was easily Lekkerimäkis best of the tournament. Maybe all season?

Lekk has looked really good today. Has a bit of feistiness to his game.

Have not noticed anything I would call feistiness.

 

[Diogenes92]

2nd period vs US was easily Lekkerimäkis best of the tournament. Maybe all season?



Have not noticed anything I would call feistiness.

He had a dirty little slash against Cooley as they were skating to the bench during play in the 2nd.

Have seen a few other chops as well. Using his body a bit more this game as well in puck battles.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

Top NHL players in Hughes/Pettersson having growing pains isn't the same thing as being highly concerned about a guy who has 1 goal in a bad league in his draft+1.

It's probably more accurate to say that the people turning on Lekkerimaki right now are the same people who turned on Patrick White when he stunk in the NCAA in his draft+1 or turned on Juolevi when he was extremely underwhelming in London in his draft+1.

Holden's development was already going off the rails before the wrist injury. Small, weird skater, attitude issues.

First off, the Allsvenskan isn't a 'bad league', it's just a worse league than the SHL where he was last year, but he's there through no fault of his own (team demoted). If he had one goal in major junior, then we'd be talking about Alek Stojanov bust level. Further, you're completely ignoring the fact that he's playing through/through the remnants of mono and concussions. Two 'invisible disability' type limiting factors. If he just wasn't playing, we wouldn't be ringing alarms, we would be lamenting his rotten luck at getting ill and injured. He's playing through them and struggling. I refuse to make global assessments about one of the youngest players in the draft 6 months after the draft when he's been playing through such difficult adversity for 30 games. Bad organizations do that and get absolutely fleeced.

Further, saying it's more accurate to compare him to two known busts is just loading the dice. Many many prospects have had bad stretches, in fact all of them. I have seen you rightly point out when people freak out about a star or prospect gets 2 goals and one assist in their first 15 games that everyone freaks out, but that when someone has a stretch like that in January, people barely notice, and it's an astute observation. I refer you to your own advice on this one.

And Patrick White was basically a mystifying choice at the time, it was more or less Nonis throwing his hands up and saying 'let's take a risk because I don't like what else is out there'. Akin to the Jankowski pick by Calgary or Adrian Foster by the Devils in 00 or 01.
Juolevi happened to be playing with two almost generational lines that happened to fit like a glove with the one skill he was elite at (breakout and regroup passing). If he had been on any of 120 other junior teams or any other years on the Finnish National team he would have been picked 40th overall and nobody would have cared. It was a bad pick by a GM who failed to consider context and became myopic. It's not remotely comparable to a 17 year old putting up really impressive SHL numbers.

I think everyone is, rightly, so disappointed by the Canucks, their lack of soul, and lack of coherent direction that the venom is spitting in every direction. Remember, Lekkerimaki has nothing to do with Aquillini or Benning, he's on another continent. His D+1 year has been incredibly frustrating, I'm sure for him most of all, but in other posts I see you talking about Lafrenierre and Tage Thompson and all the guys who struggled out of the gate and then did (or may) become effective players. Now, I realize they had already shown something in the NHL, but they also weren't 18 years old still, and I'm sure that when they were, similarly myopic and reactionary fan groups were calling for their teams to cut bait. Let's have patience here.

 

[lawrence]

these clowns shoulda played him on the 1st line since the start ! If they did it be Sweden in gold medal game right now.

 

[RobertKron]

Top NHL players in Hughes/Pettersson having growing pains isn't the same thing as being highly concerned about a guy who has 1 goal in a bad league in his draft+1.

It's probably more accurate to say that the people turning on Lekkerimaki right now are the same people who turned on Patrick White when he stunk in the NCAA in his draft+1 or turned on Juolevi when he was extremely underwhelming in London in his draft+1.

Holden's development was already going off the rails before the wrist injury. Small, weird skater, attitude issues.

~1999-00 was such an interesting era, when you look at all the young players on the team and in the system. It's somewhat interesting looking at who did and didn't make it, and you can't help but wonder how over the moon people would be to have that many potential young players today.

 

[RobertKron]

First off, the Allsvenskan isn't a 'bad league', it's just a worse league than the SHL where he was last year, but he's there through no fault of his own (team demoted). If he had one goal in major junior, then we'd be talking about Alek Stojanov bust level. Further, you're completely ignoring the fact that he's playing through/through the remnants of mono and concussions. Two 'invisible disability' type limiting factors. If he just wasn't playing, we wouldn't be ringing alarms, we would be lamenting his rotten luck at getting ill and injured. He's playing through them and struggling. I refuse to make global assessments about one of the youngest players in the draft 6 months after the draft when he's been playing through such difficult adversity for 30 games. Bad organizations do that and get absolutely fleeced.

Further, saying it's more accurate to compare him to two known busts is just loading the dice. Many many prospects have had bad stretches, in fact all of them. I have seen you rightly point out when people freak out about a star or prospect gets 2 goals and one assist in their first 15 games that everyone freaks out, but that when someone has a stretch like that in January, people barely notice, and it's an astute observation. I refer you to your own advice on this one.

And Patrick White was basically a mystifying choice at the time, it was more or less Nonis throwing his hands up and saying 'let's take a risk because I don't like what else is out there'. Akin to the Jankowski pick by Calgary or Adrian Foster by the Devils in 00 or 01.
Juolevi happened to be playing with two almost generational lines that happened to fit like a glove with the one skill he was elite at (breakout and regroup passing). If he had been on any of 120 other junior teams or any other years on the Finnish National team he would have been picked 40th overall and nobody would have cared. It was a bad pick by a GM who failed to consider context and became myopic. It's not remotely comparable to a 17 year old putting up really impressive SHL numbers.

I think everyone is, rightly, so disappointed by the Canucks, their lack of soul, and lack of coherent direction that the venom is spitting in every direction. Remember, Lekkerimaki has nothing to do with Aquillini or Benning, he's on another continent. His D+1 year has been incredibly frustrating, I'm sure for him most of all, but in other posts I see you talking about Lafrenierre and Tage Thompson and all the guys who struggled out of the gate and then did (or may) become effective players. Now, I realize they had already shown something in the NHL, but they also weren't 18 years old still, and I'm sure that when they were, similarly myopic and reactionary fan groups were calling for their teams to cut bait. Let's have patience here.

White was ranked as a ~late 1st/early 2nd, and was taken in the late 1st. Not really all that mystifying. Comparing him to a guy a team drafted basically because they would rather have the compensatory 2nd than anyone on the board at the time is bad faith, at best. If Nonis was rolling the dice like you say, he'd have picked Perron.

 

[CanucksSayEh]

This was an odd pick.. Thought for sure they would move up to take a specific Dman or C that could make the team next season.. or package the pick for a roster Dman.

 

[God]

What a disappointment this pick has been. Still early days but the fact that this management had this player ranked much higher is concerning.

The ranking probably falls more on the scouting department, though it does feel bad that the best player available they selected is busting and did not fit an organizational need.

I don't know how long Todd Harvey's been director of amateur scouting but it doesn't look great...and as GM, Allvin probably should've stepped in and said something, but having seen the other side of the coin where the GM questions the scouts and pushes for his guy, maybe this is ultimately the right approach.

 

[Hodgy]

First off, the Allsvenskan isn't a 'bad league', it's just a worse league than the SHL where he was last year, but he's there through no fault of his own (team demoted). If he had one goal in major junior, then we'd be talking about Alek Stojanov bust level. Further, you're completely ignoring the fact that he's playing through/through the remnants of mono and concussions. Two 'invisible disability' type limiting factors. If he just wasn't playing, we wouldn't be ringing alarms, we would be lamenting his rotten luck at getting ill and injured. He's playing through them and struggling. I refuse to make global assessments about one of the youngest players in the draft 6 months after the draft when he's been playing through such difficult adversity for 30 games. Bad organizations do that and get absolutely fleeced.

Further, saying it's more accurate to compare him to two known busts is just loading the dice. Many many prospects have had bad stretches, in fact all of them. I have seen you rightly point out when people freak out about a star or prospect gets 2 goals and one assist in their first 15 games that everyone freaks out, but that when someone has a stretch like that in January, people barely notice, and it's an astute observation. I refer you to your own advice on this one.

And Patrick White was basically a mystifying choice at the time, it was more or less Nonis throwing his hands up and saying 'let's take a risk because I don't like what else is out there'. Akin to the Jankowski pick by Calgary or Adrian Foster by the Devils in 00 or 01.
Juolevi happened to be playing with two almost generational lines that happened to fit like a glove with the one skill he was elite at (breakout and regroup passing). If he had been on any of 120 other junior teams or any other years on the Finnish National team he would have been picked 40th overall and nobody would have cared. It was a bad pick by a GM who failed to consider context and became myopic. It's not remotely comparable to a 17 year old putting up really impressive SHL numbers.

I think everyone is, rightly, so disappointed by the Canucks, their lack of soul, and lack of coherent direction that the venom is spitting in every direction. Remember, Lekkerimaki has nothing to do with Aquillini or Benning, he's on another continent. His D+1 year has been incredibly frustrating, I'm sure for him most of all, but in other posts I see you talking about Lafrenierre and Tage Thompson and all the guys who struggled out of the gate and then did (or may) become effective players. Now, I realize they had already shown something in the NHL, but they also weren't 18 years old still, and I'm sure that when they were, similarly myopic and reactionary fan groups were calling for their teams to cut bait. Let's have patience here.

Couple things.

First, his concussion was quite recent and hasn’t affected the vast majority of his bad play. So that’s a red Herron and should be ignored. And he was diagnosed with mono 8 months ago. I know in extreme cases mono can last more than a month or so but is there any evidence that this is the case here? If there isn’t any evidence then we should assume he has recovered since it would be quite unusual for him to still have symptoms 8 months out.

Second, and this point has been made several times, why shouldn’t people continually judge Lekkerimaki as more information becomes available? He was drafted based on a relatively small sample size and his post draft body of work probably makes up like what, 40% of the meaningful sample size? And these games are more recent so should be weighed more. So I am not really sure why we should hold off on updating our expectations for him by essentially ignoring the most recent 40% of data.

 

[sting101]

IDK about throwing hands in the air.....David Perron looked pretty unreal here in the Memorial cup you moron

This org has a history of overthinking picks. Juolevi White Virtanen are good examples of needing a defenseman wanting a hometown power forward that reminds of Cam Neely and going after a 3rd line guy.

If Tkachuk was off the board it would have been easier to digest the Juolevi pick. Same with Ehlers and Nylander is 2014. Pat White was rated 49th when the Canucks went off the board taking a guy that had limited upside and had played against high school competition.

It's never an exact science......but if they hired me it would be. We'd be celebrating Jiri Kulich's great junior performance that may have been MVP if not for some N.Van kid...can't remember his name lol

In all seriousness we've forever had too many guys that are part time retiree scouts that probably dont give 2 shits about being comprehensive in their process and we've paid the price for missing guys in our back yard like Benn Severson Gallagher etc as well as some flawed choices like above

As far as Lekkerimaki. Guy does possess some elite talents. My issue is i rate compete/intensity/work rate as a skill requirement for a player to be a line driver or to have success in the NHL as there is no time and space. At 15 we should be looking for line drivers if we're taking a forward. I understand the 22 draft was a weaker one where most projected as smallish top6 upside not first line talents so even though Lekk has some warts i feel like we were not that far off. The 7th projection does throw up some alarm bells though.

Allvin thinks they can inject the compete levels and that skill wins out and that's fine maybe he's right but over my years of following the draft the players with higher compete levels typically win out given they are still top6 or first line talents.

@MarkusNaslund19 has some good points in that JL is a very young guy almost a 23 draft he seems cognizant of his shortcomings. Were just gonna have to be patient. Given the season we've been having thats not easy to do

 

[1440]

As far as Lekkerimaki. Guy does possess some elite talents. My issue is i rate compete/intensity/work rate as a skill requirement for a player to be a line driver or to have success in the NHL as there is no time and space. At 15 we should be looking for line drivers if we're taking a forward. I understand the 22 draft was a weaker one where most projected as smallish top6 upside not first line talents so even though Lekk has some warts i feel like we were not that far off. The 7th projection does throw up some alarm bells though.

Allvin thinks they can inject the compete levels and that skill wins out and that's fine maybe he's right but over my years of following the draft the players with higher compete levels typically win out given they are still top6 or first line talents.

@MarkusNaslund19 has some good points in that JL is a very young guy almost a 23 draft he seems cognizant of his shortcomings. Were just gonna have to be patient. Given the season we've been having thats not easy to do

Strongly disagree about drafting "compete" over skill. Of course you don't want to draft someone who doesn't want to play hockey for a living, but competitiveness is manifest in many ways and much easier to teach than skill. What I saw is not a player that was lacking in competitiveness (check out the images of him on the bench during the game), but one who a. plays a patient style of game and b. knows his physical limitations (and perhaps recent injury history). Do not mistake a languid style for lack of compete, or (as the SWE coaching staff did) deficiency on the defensive side of the puck. Despite him being second on the team in expected primary point generation per minute (behind Carlsson), the most impressive facet of his game at this tournament was his defensive play and it was all centered around his patience and timing with and without the puck.

I liked the pick and the player because it ticks a lot of the boxes for getting value at a given selection. A young (as you point out he was almost 2023 eligible), physically underdeveloped but with a projectable frame (170lbs and just under 6') player having success in a men's league means that he is doing so without the benefits of size, strength, and experience. With modern weight training regimens he will obviously fill out by age 22-23 and will then have the added benefit of having to adapt to everyone being bigger faster and stronger than him without that now actually being the case. Elias Pettersson (the forward) is a textbook example of this. This sort of evaluation explains the Canucks ranking him at 7th IMO.

 

[sting101]

Strongly disagree about drafting "compete" over skill. Of course you don't want to draft someone who doesn't want to play hockey for a living, but competitiveness is manifest in many ways and much easier to teach than skill. What I saw is not a player that was lacking in competitiveness (check out the images of him on the bench during the game), but one who a. plays a patient style of game and b. knows his physical limitations (and perhaps recent injury history). Do not mistake a languid style for lack of compete, or (as the SWE coaching staff did) deficiency on the defensive side of the puck. Despite him being second on the team in expected primary point generation per minute (behind Carlsson), the most impressive facet of his game at this tournament was his defensive play and it was all centered around his patience and timing with and without the puck.

I liked the pick and the player because it ticks a lot of the boxes for getting value at a given selection. A young (as you point out he was almost 2023 eligible), physically underdeveloped but with a projectable frame (170lbs and just under 6') player having success in a men's league means that he is doing so without the benefits of size, strength, and experience. With modern weight training regimens he will obviously fill out by age 22-23 and will then have the added benefit of having to adapt to everyone being bigger faster and stronger than him without that now actually being the case. Elias Pettersson (the forward) is a textbook example of this. This sort of evaluation explains the Canucks ranking him at 7th IMO.

Completely fair and i concede that i conflict with Allvins thesis on this.

But to be clear where i differ is only when it comes to how a player competes and the rate at which he does it. I put more value into this as a skill or trait than he does or perhaps the scouting staff.

I would never accept a lower potential outcome "compete OVER skill" on what tier a player would be perceived for it though.

Just wasn't a fan of how JL dealt with being engaged. Seems to stop skating or defer. At the NHL level to have value he will have to be able to not only win puck battles and be defensively responsible but be able to get the puck endure some contact and fight through it.

He's aware of it and can improve i get that i just have some trepidation when it's not innate

 

[Raistlin]

compete is also something that changes for a physically slight guy, take QH for example. QH does not have a projectable frame, but certainly elite sense and mobility, the way he competes will be different than the way standard defensemen defends, or what we are to expect. Lekkerimaki requires time to bulk up and play games, his engagement level will change along with it as his body allows him to do more. His development years is paramount to what the org gets at D+3, unlike say a Cole Sillinger's compete level @D+1, wusiwyg there.

Cementing your expectation based on this year where he is playing catchup from the get go is risky imo. I don't believe valuing an elite shot is wrong per se, I worry more about the wisdom of drafting a player that requires good development, while the org lacks a decent track record for said development of its picks over the years.

 

[iceburg]

I really don’t understand why it’s necessary to trash prospects that are just past their 18th birthday. Everybody who wants to make an argument claiming stats in their draft+ and draft++ years are relavent are standing on shaky ground. There are just way too many variables to make statistical judgments until the prospect reaches a league and an age that is comparable to the NHL.
If Lekkerimaki is struggling in the AHL in his draft plus 3 year, then it’s worth having a conversation. Until then he’s a prospect in development.

 

[Pip]

I really don’t understand why it’s necessary to trash prospects that are just past their 17th birthday. Everybody who wants to make an argument claiming stats in their draft+ and draft++ years are relavent are standing on shaky ground. There are just way too many variables to make statistical judgments until the prospect reaches a league and an age that is comparable to the NHL.
If Lekkerimaki is struggling in the AHL in his draft plus 3 year, then it’s worth having a conversation. Until then he’s a prospect in development.

If you are struggling in your draft +3 year in the minors as a first round pick the discussion has passed. You are a bust and something significant needs to happen to put you back on track.

 

[iceburg]

If you are struggling in your draft +3 year in the minors as a first round pick the discussion has passed. You are a bust and something significant needs to happen to put you back on track.

As I said…in the draft plus 3 there’s a discussion. Prior to that it’s pure speculation.

 

[Pip]

As I said…in the draft plus 3 there’s a discussion. Prior to that it’s pure speculation.

I don’t understand. This is a message board to discuss hockey with a prospect heavy focus. Nobody finds it ridiculous to re-rank draft eligible players every few months. I don’t think players are locked in just because they’ve been drafted.

 

[arttk]

Well Petey as an elite prospect broke into the league at 20. So i guess the expectation for Lekkerimaki should be in the A by age 20 and getting some callups and should be challenging for a roster spot by 21.

If things are on track that is.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

a partial history of canucks prospects with extreme performances at the world juniors

was awesome at the WJC, turned out awesome in the NHL: bure, ohlund, kesler

was terrible at the WJC, turned out terrible in the NHL: virtanen

was awesome at the WJC, disappointed in the NHL: sandlak, brent tully, rick girard (technically tully and girard never made it), schroeder, mikey dipietro, OJ (but he was only awesome in the one tournament before he was our prospect... ugh)

was terrible at the WJC, turned out awesome in the NHL: cory didn't have a great tournament, iirc?

was awesome at the WJC, tbd: hoglander

was terrible at the WJC, tbd: lekkerimaki

was awesome at the WJC, but gillis: cody

was awesome at the WJC, but benning: forsling

was awesome at the WJC, but burke: chubarov, arguably also umberger and koltsov


but also this is reminding me that around 1993, we had cullimore, tully, slegr, and aucoin in our prospect pool. all were big boys and all showed well at the WJC. this was our big huge D of the future, sigh.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

As I said…in the draft plus 3 there’s a discussion. Prior to that it’s pure speculation.

Okidoki.

Time to close ... *checks name of these boards" hockeys FUTURE forums I guess.

 

[mriswith]

Legitimate analysis aside, there are few worse signs for a 1st round pick in their D+1 than people in the thread claiming they can't be evaluated until D+3 at the earliest.