Jonathan Lekkerimaki - Arrived in Abbotsford

[MarkusNaslund19]

You're aware that someone arguing dogmatically isn't going to get the benefit of nuance, right?





Ironically, I think MS hates WAR charts lol.

Oh I'm aware of that fact and I agree with him on that and many other points. Just not this one.

 

[God]

A bad season next year tracks him with guys like Goldobin and Alex Nylander. Like, they eventually hit PPGish in the AHL, but it's probably better to give him the Brzustewicz treatment and deal him when his value is at its peak.

 

[sting101]

I don't know who is arguing that if he cant meet a .7-.8 ish or better scoring threshold he's gonna be fine?? Who are these people hands please......uhhh no one

Basically it's been a few posters myself included who are just saying that he may need an adjustment period and may not just blow the doors off and start producing at a PPG. And that can be just fine too. Hardly worth picking sides over but sure if he does PPG impact straight away odds are he's a stud more than not but it may also mean jack shit if he takes 20 games to get 7pts and then goes PPG for the remainder.

Bleach has a good point in arguing that his season of injury and mono may have stunted his growth a little. Given he just won MVP with his peers at the U20s and all the other hardware as a pro i'm not really prepared to give it too much credence and hadn't thought about that much but its something to consider i guess

As far as the fluctuating asset valuation it's really guesswork. I see all these kids all the time on the prospects thread claiming to have struck gold and the steal of the draft top 10 in a re draft BS to realize junior aged production and even AHL production without context leaves egg on the face often. Same with top50 picks who have to adjust their games to become something they weren't really leaned on before or just cant get the role they need due to being blocked out by vets. Again context.

For Lekk it's gonna be rather simple he's a scorer and will be judged by it....numbers are value and everyone knows who he is and has high expectations. Not a lot of excuses to not produce

And it wouldn't have really triggered anyone for MS to say he was tracking like a 2nd rounder if he had not been injured and had mono which made it arguably a little personal at that stage and i can see why MarkusNaslund (who works in that field ) got defensive and i haven't appreciated this either for the treatment of Boeser during his issues. Wouldn't hurt for some to say that may have misjudged the severity of what they were going through would it?

All in all a good fiery discussion for a dog day of summer lol. Could have used Grub and his levity.

A bad season next year tracks him with guys like Goldobin and Alex Nylander. Like, they eventually hit PPGish in the AHL, but it's probably better to give him the Brzustewicz treatment and deal him when his value is at its peak.

speaking of Goldobin what a year he had maybe someone should think about bringing him back over

 

[VanJack]

Jonathan Lekerimakki had 19 goals as a 19-year on a relatively poor team in the SHL last season. Not surprisingly was voted the league's top rookie and teen-age player.

I know the SHL isn't seen as tough a league as the AHL; but it's still a professional league and not that far below the AHL. So if he gets quality minutes on the first-unit PP in Abbotsford, 25-30 goals would seem to easily be within his reach.

 

[MS]

Lol. Love that this was it's own section.

Again, statistics are an attempt at quantifying humans, not the other way around. Context matters.

If you're merely saying, "all things being equal, his prognosis is better if he scores 1.2 points per game, than it is if he scores 0.6 per game" then agreed, but that's a point that's so banal as to be not worthy of the breath it takes to make.

But this speaking in absolutes "on the road to being a bust" just allows zero space for human context. These are not algorithms skating around, these are humans. And he's a hell of a lot different from a Virtanen or a Owen Tippett type (though he ironically broke out later) where it's all brute size and speed and low hockey IQ so if it doesn't play at a young age, it might not play at all.

I also forgot to rebut your point that his draft year was all based on the U18s. It wasn't, it was also based on him scoring at a historical (not record breaking, but historically very noteworthy) rate for his extremely young age in the SHL.

Nothing I've said is some sort of absolute.

If he rips up the AHL next year, he puts himself into a pool of players where making the NHL is likely.

If he underwhelms to 0.6 points/game or whatever, he puts himself into a pool of players where it's probable he isn't an NHL player.

If he crashes to sub-0.5 PPG he puts himself in a pool of players where it's extremely unlikely he ever amounts to anything.

None of this is specific to the player, but's it's a general framework to get a grasp on expectations. It's about likelihoods and most likely results given the information we have.

And *again*, I've had this discussion so many times over the last 20 years including with you. And it always turns out the same way.

I think this "I was merely answering a general question" stuff would be easier to take if there was less apparent reticence to cop to bad takes. You're a very insightful poster and I look forward to reading your posts as much as anyone on these boards, but I also find that you sometimes try to debate lord yourself out of just saying, "yup, wrong on that one" from time to time.

I find this to be such a strange criticism because I talk about times I was wrong here *all the time* and explain why those instances happened and whether I think it was a wrong process that led me to that opinion and how it's changed my viewpoints going forward.

When it comes to this argument, I'm not wrong. I've had it over and over again, and I'm right every time.

It's true on most levels for most players. Like, if a guy is still playing B in Midget, they're probably not going to make it (and I didn't lol).

But again, there are human elements here that need to be recognized and sometimes it's acknowledging how little we know from the outside.

I'm looking for horses, not zebras.

When the vast majority of players develop in a certain way, I'll apply expectations based on that until some point where it becomes obvious that doesn't apply.

And like, sure. Lekkerimaki could suffer a high ankle sprain in camp, try to play through it, score 15 points in the first 30 games, then sit for 2 months to rest it and pop 20 points in the last 15 games to score 35 points in 45 games, and when you look at the context that might be a fine season. But I'm not going to assume outlier events. Expectations are obviously based on 'if he's healthy and getting expected usage and nothing super weird happens'.

But as an example, I have yet to hear you acknowledge that you didn't give remotely enough credence to the numerous mitigating circumstances that made his D+1 year go awry, and that made it very easy to predict that he would bounce back.

Again, if you view things through this prism then you're just excusing yourself for incredibly stupid evaluations and dumb trades.
So let's say we traded Lekkerimaki for a late 2nd the following year and he then goes on to score like Marchessault. You genuinely believe that would be fine to react so impulsively and myopically and lose such a useful asset because 'if we just look at his last 5 months without context, it didn't look good at the time'?

It feels like you're offering the sort of rationale that gets Benning to trade Forsling for Clendenning.

What in the hell are you talking about?

I never suggested trading Lekkerimaki. I was making what I felt was a fairly neutral statement on his value at a point where he was playing very poorly and his stock had dropped significantly.

Likewise, nothing in this thread is critical of Lekkerimaki. I haven't mentioned a single personal opinion on his play. The only thing I've done is explain what reasonable expectations for him (and the other 2022 1st round picks) should be if they're tracking to be effective NHL scoring forwards.

And again, you are singularly not understanding the extent to which prospect values fluctuate. I've given you examples but you're still trumpeting on that if a 15th overall pick has a terrible year and injuries that his status doesn't change and that just isn't how it works. If Seattle tried trading Sale right now, what do you think they'd get back?

Sometimes it's as important to lean into the art of the sport as it is the science.
I have had some really wrong takes, like thinking that I saw some Claude Giroux in Nic Petan when I saw him in junior.

This is a weird example because I wanted Petan with the Hunter Shinkaruk pick and I've talked numerous times over the years about how I thought he had Giroux potential but got it wrong.

But to me, it was easy to see that Quinn Hughes was an absolute stud of a prospect based on his elusiveness and superlative hockey sense.

The game was clearly changing after the Young Stars team in the World Cup made a lot of guys look old and slow, McDavid coming in and changing the league in a similar (though polar opposite) way to a young Lindros, and precedent couldn't tell you that, but context and appreciating the art of the sport could.

Quinn Hughes discussion is for the Quinn Hughes thread.

He was obviously a stud. To suggest I though otherwise is such a strawman. I had him in the top 10, just behind Dobson (who has also turned out brilliantly) and ahead of Boqvist. But based on the league as we understood it then and performances he'd had to that point, for him to end up as a 100-point Norris all-situations #1D is a crazy 99th percentile result.

No it doesn't. It WOULD if Boeser was actually a replacement level player. But again, mitigating circumstances like literally watching your father pass away slowly from across the continent and falling out of love with the sport.

Boeser rebounded and we got good value for his $7 million. If we traded him for 'nothing' last summer, this management group would have actually traded him for $7 million in other players and based on their excellent pro scouting history we also would have received good value. It isn't a 'catastrophic' take.

Maybe I consider the human element of the sport more than the average person because I work in the social services field, but I feel like a lot of your uncharacteristically poor takes seem to neglect the human element and forget that these are not automatons skating around, but people with complex motivations, fears, hopes, yearnings, and reward systems.


Again, it's how absolutist you are in your speech.

"It's a far better sign if he scores X than if he scores Y(lower amount)" is banal.

"He's on the path to bustville if (x ppg)" is just an unnuanced, blunt force take and is how terrible personnel decisions get made.

And again, nothing I said is absolute. Nothing I said was critical.

What I said is that if he is to maintain his status as a bluechip prospect with a better than 50/50 chance of making the NHL, the expectation should be that he rips up the AHL, and quickly. If that doesn't happen, then it's disappointing and his odds of making the NHL drop significantly.

There is literally nothing reactionary or unreasonable in that take.

Once the season is over, sure, when you're doing an autopsy on it maybe there's legitimate reasons why a poor statistical season can be excused or a great statistical season might be overrated. But these are exceptions to be discussed after the fact. The question was what reasonable expectations for the player would be, and I gave an answer that's based on years of evidence.

And again : I've been posting here about prospects for 25 years. I've been called overly negative on prospects constantly for that entire time. There has been exactly 1 player (Kevin Connauton) in that entire time that I was substantially negative on and didn't think would be an NHL player who ended up sticking in the NHL. I'm not getting this stuff wrong.

 

[biturbo19]

I'm kind of flabbergasted that it's apparently so controversial and so many take umbrage to simply stating the reality that, based on a mountain of historical data...if Lekkerimaki isn't lighting it up, scoring somewhere around 1.0PPG range this year in the AHL, his likelihood of becoming an impact Top-6 Scoring Winger will be looking very bleak. Particularly because of the "Top-6 or Bust" nature of his skillset.


That's just the way it is. It's not even a comment on whether @MS thinks that he will hit that threshold or not. It's just an observation on a broad dataset, that is true of all but a small percentage of "outliers".

Yet a lot of people seem to be pre-scrambling into excuse mode to "defend" Lekkerimaki, before we've even seen what happens. It's kind of weird. Like nobody is saying, "write Lekky off if he isn't at PPG by game 10 of the AHL season" or anything. But there are a few here already clambering for a reprieve and "adjustment period" and "well he lost a year to mono" and all this stuff. Which is fine and when there are "outlier" exceptional cases, there are often "excuses" like that at play.

The point is...you don't want to see Lekkerimaki fall into that bucket of trying to be an outlier who "beats the odds" to become a Top-6 Scoring Forward. You want to see him hit that ~1.0PPG+ threshold and demonstrate that he's right on track to still become an impact NHL scorer, in the more conventional path to that end.



To come at this from another angle...

I'd really like to see people throwing up some examples of quality Top-6 Scoring Wingers around the NHL today, who didn't post ~1PPG in their first full AHL season (or skip the AHL altogether). I think that exercise is likely to drive home the point of just how rare it is to see. Especially if you're talking about guys who didn't just work their way up as "checkers" who developed their scoring over time at the NHL level. There just really aren't that many...

And that's really all that's being said about Lekkerimaki here. If he doesn't produce at that sort of rate...it's indicative that he's going to either bust, or have to become a rare "outlier" case to make it as a Top-6 Scoring Winger. Still possible. Just unlikely, and an outlier if it happens at that point.

 

[sting101]

I'm kind of flabbergasted that it's apparently so controversial and so many take umbrage to simply stating the reality that, based on a mountain of historical data...if Lekkerimaki isn't lighting it up, scoring somewhere around 1.0PPG range this year in the AHL, his likelihood of becoming an impact Top-6 Scoring Winger will be looking very bleak. Particularly because of the "Top-6 or Bust" nature of his skillset.

Yet a lot of people seem to be pre-scrambling into excuse mode to "defend" Lekkerimaki, before we've even seen what happens. It's kind of weird.

I'd really like to see people throwing up some examples of quality Top-6 Scoring Wingers around the NHL today,

Who are the posters who took umbrage about this and then scrambled into excuse mode? What's weird is i dont really recall anyone taking a hardline stance against anything other than saying PPG and impact right away vs potentially .8 to PPG with a slow start to acclimate and get going? Bleach simply said that his lost mono year may have some impact on his physical development and that has merits even if im not a big advocate of that given his last year

Garland Kuzmenko Holloway Kempe Arvidsson Stone Marchesseault Mantha Mangiapane Zary Sharangovich Schwartz Bjorkstrand Tolvanen McCann Silfverberg all from just the Pacific were not PPG in the AHL nor reg NHLers at 20 yet have been or are on the cusp of being top6 wingers. None of them are what you would describe as grinding their way to the top types or i could have included Hyman Coleman Barbashev etc and maybe even added Cs the mix.

without picking yet another argument about this I AGREE THAT LEKKERIMAKI NEEDS TO BE AT OR NEAR PPG TO STILL BE CONSIDERED TRACKING AS A QUALITY SCORER IN THE NHL. I feel he may start slow because that seems to be a thing with him and as a slight scorer he will need time (NOT A LONG TIME) perhaps a month or less to get acclimated to find soft spots to get his elite shot off and build some chemistry with the group namely Bains Raty Sasson Karlsson Wolanin etc and PP plays

 

[MS]

I'm kind of flabbergasted that it's apparently so controversial and so many take umbrage to simply stating the reality that, based on a mountain of historical data...if Lekkerimaki isn't lighting it up, scoring somewhere around 1.0PPG range this year in the AHL, his likelihood of becoming an impact Top-6 Scoring Winger will be looking very bleak. Particularly because of the "Top-6 or Bust" nature of his skillset.


That's just the way it is. It's not even a comment on whether @MS thinks that he will hit that threshold or not. It's just an observation on a broad dataset, that is true of all but a small percentage of "outliers".

Yet a lot of people seem to be pre-scrambling into excuse mode to "defend" Lekkerimaki, before we've even seen what happens. It's kind of weird. Like nobody is saying, "write Lekky off if he isn't at PPG by game 10 of the AHL season" or anything. But there are a few here already clambering for a reprieve and "adjustment period" and "well he lost a year to mono" and all this stuff. Which is fine and when there are "outlier" exceptional cases, there are often "excuses" like that at play.

The point is...you don't want to see Lekkerimaki fall into that bucket of trying to be an outlier who "beats the odds" to become a Top-6 Scoring Forward. You want to see him hit that ~1.0PPG+ threshold and demonstrate that he's right on track to still become an impact NHL scorer, in the more conventional path to that end.



To come at this from another angle...

I'd really like to see people throwing up some examples of quality Top-6 Scoring Wingers around the NHL today, who didn't post ~1PPG in their first full AHL season (or skip the AHL altogether). I think that exercise is likely to drive home the point of just how rare it is to see. Especially if you're talking about guys who didn't just work their way up as "checkers" who developed their scoring over time at the NHL level. There just really aren't that many...

And that's really all that's being said about Lekkerimaki here. If he doesn't produce at that sort of rate...it's indicative that he's going to either bust, or have to become a rare "outlier" case to make it as a Top-6 Scoring Winger. Still possible. Just unlikely, and an outlier if it happens at that point.

I don't get it either but I've been having these arguments for over 20 years. Rinse and repeat. Some people are just 'prospect fans' who think everyone will make it, make excuses for every prospect and set expectations too low, get confused when the player doesn't make it despite meeting those expectations, and then move on to the next guy.

And yeah, it's like this weird thing where people *say* they're fans of the prospect and believe in him but are actually setting up expectations for him to fail.

If someone here says 'Willander should be expected to be playing significant minutes in Vancouver by the end of his draft+3' my response would be 'hell yeah' both because that's a correct statement and because I believe the player will meet those expectations.

High picks who make the NHL as contributors with value blow through levels quickly and get to the NHL quickly. It's a stone cold fact.

 

[biturbo19]

Who are the posters who took umbrage about this and then scrambled into excuse mode? What's weird is i dont really recall anyone taking a hardline stance against anything other than saying PPG and impact right away vs potentially .8 to PPG with a slow start to acclimate and get going? Bleach simply said that his lost mono year may have some impact on his physical development and that has merits even if im not a big advocate of that given his last year

Garland Kuzmenko Holloway Kempe Arvidsson Stone Marchesseault Mantha Mangiapane Zary Sharangovich Schwartz Bjorkstrand Tolvanen McCann Silfverberg all from just the Pacific were not PPG in the AHL nor reg NHLers at 20 yet have been or are on the cusp of being top6 wingers. None of them are what you would describe as grinding their way to the top types or i could have included Hyman Coleman Barbashev etc and maybe even added Cs the mix.

without picking yet another argument about this I AGREE THAT LEKKERIMAKI NEEDS TO BE AT OR NEAR PPG TO STILL BE CONSIDERED TRACKING AS A QUALITY SCORER IN THE NHL. I feel he may start slow because that seems to be a thing with him and as a slight scorer he will need time (NOT A LONG TIME) perhaps a month or less to get acclimated to find soft spots to get his elite shot off and build some chemistry with the group namely Bains Raty Sasson Karlsson Wolanin etc and PP plays

I mean, we're here...looking at pages of argument and umbrage and excuses being made about it. So...

As far as the listing activity kudos for actually bothering, but...

-Garland (1).

-Kuzmenko skipped the AHL altogether and scored 39 goals in the NHL in his "adjustment to North America" season.

-Holloway has scored at ~0.2PPG rate as an NHLer and is a very long ways from a sure shot Top-6 NHLer.

-Kempe was absolutely the sort of big, fast, toolsy "potential power forward" type who had the traits to carve out a bottom-6 NHL role and grind his way up from there.

-Arvidsson (2) i'll give it to you, though 0.8PPG and in the NHL the next year with a gritty high energy bottom-6 suitable game all puts him on the boundary.

-Stone (3) because yeah, the guy couldn't skate. He was a late pick and the definition of an "outlier" trajectory.

-Marchessault (?) wasn't even drafted with the advantages that opens up and still 0.84-0.91 very slowly whittling his way to the NHL. Close enough.

-Mantha (4) though he's also never topped 48pts in a season and bounced around the NHL constantly.

-Mangiapane (5).

-Zary hasn't established himself as any kind of legitimate Top-6 NHL Forward to date.

-Sharangovich (6) definition of a late round pick "late bloomer" project but definitely fits the other criteria.

-Schwartz spent more of his first Pro season in the NHL than the AHL. Whether he hit the threshold in that sample or not, he absolutely blew through that AHL level.

-Bjorkstrand (7) definitely fits the bill and would probably be one of the "best case" exceptions you'd look to if Lek doesn't get there this year.

-Tolvanen development path was a catastrophic yo yo, ending in him basically being a "bust" as far as his drafting team was concerned, just throwing him away on waivers before he'd managed to establish himself as a regular NHLer, much less Top-6 Scorer - which is still really iffy to even define him as.

-McCann skipped the AHL altogether and jumped straight to the NHL. Messed up his development, but he's more an example of a future Top-6 scorer flying through and even bypassing levels altogether.

-Silfverberg at 0.85 and spent more of his first North American Pro season in the NHL than the AHL as well.

So essentially...if we're just working with the Pacific Division sample here...roughly 48 "Top-6 Forwards". We've got 7 credible examples...heck i'll go ahead and round it up to 8 guys here, even though some of the counted aren't actually occupying a spot in the the division anymore and some of these guys really aren't Top-6F or filling one of those roles if we're being honest.

But very generously, that gives us at best between 14.5-16% of "Top-6 Forwards" in the Pacific followed that one basic criteria in their development path. Which is...a very small number. And that's with stretching things generously to accommodate more "outlier types". It's probably really down more around ~12.5% on the whole.

But that's what they are. That's a very small fraction of Top-6F who succeed via that sort of development progression. And if you look at their individual profiles...the majority of them are late round flyers who toiled away to get opportunities to move up to the NHL at all. Very flawed players, overlooked players, and bigtime "projects". None of them are with the team that drafted them as a "core piece" - many have gone through multiple teams. And i think you'll notice that the majority of them are typically described as "late bloomers" or similar. Which is another way of saying, "outlier" development. Not typically ~Top-10ish 1st Round picks with every development opportunity and priority laid out in from of them on a red carpet.



Does this help at least appreciate the gravity of what that threshold tends to mean for a player like Lekkerimaki?

It's not that if he doesn't hit that mark, he's a totally guaranteed bust. Throw him out. No good.

But it does mean that he'd be a high 1st round pick delving into a pool of players where the few who do actually make it from there as Top-6 NHL Scoring Forwards, tend to be notable outliers, and typically with a very different development track that starts with an arrow pointing upward from a much much lower base point.



But in the end, if you agree that he needs to hit that sort of threshold to continue tracking as a promising, conventionally developing Top-6 Scoring Winger in the NHL...frankly, i'm not sure what all the fuss is even about here. Or why we have so much argument about that being a pretty firm threshold of measurement in his development.

 

[F A N]

He's a pure top-6/bust guy.

Most of those guys who make it are in the NHL in their draft +3. If he isn't around a PPG in the AHL this year, he's probably tracking 80%+ to be a bust. People don't like hearing this, but it's how it works *especially* for this type of player.

If he comes out and scores 41 points in 65 games or something at this level at this age ... he's probably toast.

It's actually incredible I'm still needing to have these arguments. I've been having them back to when Nathan Smith and Jordan Schroeder flopped when they hit the AHL and I've been right pretty nearly every time ... and people still don't get how it works.

IIRC, you thought Shinkaruk had substantial trade value at the time we traded him but Shinkaruk had 16 goals 31 points in 74 games as a 20 year old which if those were Lekkerimaki's numbers you would surely declare that he was tracking 80%+ to be a bust?

 

[F A N]

I'm kind of flabbergasted that it's apparently so controversial and so many take umbrage to simply stating the reality that, based on a mountain of historical data...if Lekkerimaki isn't lighting it up, scoring somewhere around 1.0PPG range this year in the AHL, his likelihood of becoming an impact Top-6 Scoring Winger will be looking very bleak. Particularly because of the "Top-6 or Bust" nature of his skillset.

To me, odds are just odds. Outside of top picks, it doesn't take much to predict a prospect would bust. I am a draft homer so I tend to be more optimistic about prospects. I do think that declaring a prospect is a bust based on their AHL point production at 20 years old in their first AHL season is flawed. Debrusk had 19 goals 49 points in 79 games in the AHL as a 20 year old. While not quite an "impact player" in the NHL he is clearly far from a bust.

I think in Lekkerimaki's case, he's on the slim and weak side to the point his skating is predicted to improve simply with an increase in strength. Plus he's more of a goal scorer than a distributor. I won't pay attention to his point totals as much as I would pay attention to his goal totals.

Of course, the Canucks had Lekkerimaki ranked 7th overall (albeit in a relatively weak draft). And in that context, the expectations should be high.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I don't get it either but I've been having these arguments for over 20 years. Rinse and repeat. Some people are just 'prospect fans' who think everyone will make it, make excuses for every prospect and set expectations too low, get confused when the player doesn't make it despite meeting those expectations, and then move on to the next guy.

And yeah, it's like this weird thing where people *say* they're fans of the prospect and believe in him but are actually setting up expectations for him to fail.

If someone here says 'Willander should be expected to be playing significant minutes in Vancouver by the end of his draft+3' my response would be 'hell yeah' both because that's a correct statement and because I believe the player will meet those expectations.

High picks who make the NHL as contributors with value blow through levels quickly and get to the NHL quickly. It's a stone cold fact.

I think that bolded part is really well worded there and is worth repeating.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

Nothing I've said is some sort of absolute.

If he rips up the AHL next year, he puts himself into a pool of players where making the NHL is likely.

If he underwhelms to 0.6 points/game or whatever, he puts himself into a pool of players where it's probable he isn't an NHL player.

If he crashes to sub-0.5 PPG he puts himself in a pool of players where it's extremely unlikely he ever amounts to anything.

None of this is specific to the player, but's it's a general framework to get a grasp on expectations. It's about likelihoods and most likely results given the information we have.

And *again*, I've had this discussion so many times over the last 20 years including with you. And it always turns out the same way.




I find this to be such a strange criticism because I talk about times I was wrong here *all the time* and explain why those instances happened and whether I think it was a wrong process that led me to that opinion and how it's changed my viewpoints going forward.

When it comes to this argument, I'm not wrong. I've had it over and over again, and I'm right every time.



I'm looking for horses, not zebras.

When the vast majority of players develop in a certain way, I'll apply expectations based on that until some point where it becomes obvious that doesn't apply.

And like, sure. Lekkerimaki could suffer a high ankle sprain in camp, try to play through it, score 15 points in the first 30 games, then sit for 2 months to rest it and pop 20 points in the last 15 games to score 35 points in 45 games, and when you look at the context that might be a fine season. But I'm not going to assume outlier events. Expectations are obviously based on 'if he's healthy and getting expected usage and nothing super weird happens'.




What in the hell are you talking about?

I never suggested trading Lekkerimaki. I was making what I felt was a fairly neutral statement on his value at a point where he was playing very poorly and his stock had dropped significantly.

Likewise, nothing in this thread is critical of Lekkerimaki. I haven't mentioned a single personal opinion on his play. The only thing I've done is explain what reasonable expectations for him (and the other 2022 1st round picks) should be if they're tracking to be effective NHL scoring forwards.

And again, you are singularly not understanding the extent to which prospect values fluctuate. I've given you examples but you're still trumpeting on that if a 15th overall pick has a terrible year and injuries that his status doesn't change and that just isn't how it works. If Seattle tried trading Sale right now, what do you think they'd get back?



This is a weird example because I wanted Petan with the Hunter Shinkaruk pick and I've talked numerous times over the years about how I thought he had Giroux potential but got it wrong.




Quinn Hughes discussion is for the Quinn Hughes thread.

He was obviously a stud. To suggest I though otherwise is such a strawman. I had him in the top 10, just behind Dobson (who has also turned out brilliantly) and ahead of Boqvist. But based on the league as we understood it then and performances he'd had to that point, for him to end up as a 100-point Norris all-situations #1D is a crazy 99th percentile result.




Boeser rebounded and we got good value for his $7 million. If we traded him for 'nothing' last summer, this management group would have actually traded him for $7 million in other players and based on their excellent pro scouting history we also would have received good value. It isn't a 'catastrophic' take.




And again, nothing I said is absolute. Nothing I said was critical.

What I said is that if he is to maintain his status as a bluechip prospect with a better than 50/50 chance of making the NHL, the expectation should be that he rips up the AHL, and quickly. If that doesn't happen, then it's disappointing and his odds of making the NHL drop significantly.

There is literally nothing reactionary or unreasonable in that take.

Once the season is over, sure, when you're doing an autopsy on it maybe there's legitimate reasons why a poor statistical season can be excused or a great statistical season might be overrated. But these are exceptions to be discussed after the fact. The question was what reasonable expectations for the player would be, and I gave an answer that's based on years of evidence.

And again : I've been posting here about prospects for 25 years. I've been called overly negative on prospects constantly for that entire time. There has been exactly 1 player (Kevin Connauton) in that entire time that I was substantially negative on and didn't think would be an NHL player who ended up sticking in the NHL. I'm not getting this stuff wrong.

We've both made our points.

I just want to respond that it's interesting that both of us saw Giroux in Petan. We agree a lot more often than we disagree (though I don't always post my opinions if I feel they have been sufficiently covered), so perhaps that indicates that there was something there at the time that just didn't work out. Or at the very least, he had a non-translatable Giroux quality to his game.

I will say that I wanted Shinkaruk with that pick and my assessment of Petan didn't come until his Memorial Cup year and then the WJC (can't remember if mem cup was pre or post draft. I think it was post?)

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

I'm kind of flabbergasted that it's apparently so controversial and so many take umbrage to simply stating the reality that, based on a mountain of historical data...if Lekkerimaki isn't lighting it up, scoring somewhere around 1.0PPG range this year in the AHL, his likelihood of becoming an impact Top-6 Scoring Winger will be looking very bleak. Particularly because of the "Top-6 or Bust" nature of his skillset.


That's just the way it is. It's not even a comment on whether @MS thinks that he will hit that threshold or not. It's just an observation on a broad dataset, that is true of all but a small percentage of "outliers".

Yet a lot of people seem to be pre-scrambling into excuse mode to "defend" Lekkerimaki, before we've even seen what happens. It's kind of weird. Like nobody is saying, "write Lekky off if he isn't at PPG by game 10 of the AHL season" or anything. But there are a few here already clambering for a reprieve and "adjustment period" and "well he lost a year to mono" and all this stuff. Which is fine and when there are "outlier" exceptional cases, there are often "excuses" like that at play.

The point is...you don't want to see Lekkerimaki fall into that bucket of trying to be an outlier who "beats the odds" to become a Top-6 Scoring Forward. You want to see him hit that ~1.0PPG+ threshold and demonstrate that he's right on track to still become an impact NHL scorer, in the more conventional path to that end.



To come at this from another angle...

I'd really like to see people throwing up some examples of quality Top-6 Scoring Wingers around the NHL today, who didn't post ~1PPG in their first full AHL season (or skip the AHL altogether). I think that exercise is likely to drive home the point of just how rare it is to see. Especially if you're talking about guys who didn't just work their way up as "checkers" who developed their scoring over time at the NHL level. There just really aren't that many...

And that's really all that's being said about Lekkerimaki here. If he doesn't produce at that sort of rate...it's indicative that he's going to either bust, or have to become a rare "outlier" case to make it as a Top-6 Scoring Winger. Still possible. Just unlikely, and an outlier if it happens at that point.

I think part of the reason is that people have literally already discarded Lekkerimaki (22-23) due to prematurely doubting his value while ignoring mitigating circumstances and then are sort of setting up a bunch of rakes of misinterpretation in their backyard again and then announcing they feel like a nice stroll.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

I mean, we're here...looking at pages of argument and umbrage and excuses being made about it. So...

As far as the listing activity kudos for actually bothering, but...




So essentially...if we're just working with the Pacific Division sample here...roughly 48 "Top-6 Forwards". We've got 7 credible examples...heck i'll go ahead and round it up to 8 guys here, even though some of the counted aren't actually occupying a spot in the the division anymore and some of these guys really aren't Top-6F or filling one of those roles if we're being honest.

But very generously, that gives us at best between 14.5-16% of "Top-6 Forwards" in the Pacific followed that one basic criteria in their development path. Which is...a very small number. And that's with stretching things generously to accommodate more "outlier types". It's probably really down more around ~12.5% on the whole.

But that's what they are. That's a very small fraction of Top-6F who succeed via that sort of development progression. And if you look at their individual profiles...the majority of them are late round flyers who toiled away to get opportunities to move up to the NHL at all. Very flawed players, overlooked players, and bigtime "projects". None of them are with the team that drafted them as a "core piece" - many have gone through multiple teams. And i think you'll notice that the majority of them are typically described as "late bloomers" or similar. Which is another way of saying, "outlier" development. Not typically ~Top-10ish 1st Round picks with every development opportunity and priority laid out in from of them on a red carpet.



Does this help at least appreciate the gravity of what that threshold tends to mean for a player like Lekkerimaki?

It's not that if he doesn't hit that mark, he's a totally guaranteed bust. Throw him out. No good.

But it does mean that he'd be a high 1st round pick delving into a pool of players where the few who do actually make it from there as Top-6 NHL Scoring Forwards, tend to be notable outliers, and typically with a very different development track that starts with an arrow pointing upward from a much much lower base point.



But in the end, if you agree that he needs to hit that sort of threshold to continue tracking as a promising, conventionally developing Top-6 Scoring Winger in the NHL...frankly, i'm not sure what all the fuss is even about here. Or why we have so much argument about that being a pretty firm threshold of measurement in his development.

Wait, you think Kuzmenko counts as a quicker adjuster when coming to North America at 27?

Also, remembering that much of the stars of the league, and certainly many of the top superstars, were like top 5 can't miss picks. Something like 12.5% following a similar arc is actually a very significant number.

 

[biturbo19]

Wait, you think Kuzmenko counts as a quicker adjuster when coming to North America at 27?

Also, remembering that much of the stars of the league, and certainly many of the top superstars, were like top 5 can't miss picks. Something like 12.5% following a similar arc is actually a very significant number.

In the context of what was being asked there? Absolutely. But the main takeaway you seemed to have ignored there, is that Kuzmenko is an entirely irrelevant non-comp as far as talking about guys who spend extended time at the AHL level, producing below ~PPG level there. Hence discarding him entirely as an example.

He came over, be it at 27 or otherwise, and immediately adjusted to the North American game and started scoring goals. At the NHL level. Not AHL.

I wouldn't expect exactly the same of Lekkerimaki...hence completely throwing it out as an example, because it's not relevant. But i would expect that if Lekkerimaki is going to "get it" and end up tracking as a ~1PPG AHLer en route to an NHL Top-6 Scoring Winger gig...typically that player doesn't have an extended "adjustment period" at that respectively lower level (even at a much younger age).


And no, that number of Top-6 Forwards who take that longer period to ramp their way up to PPG AHL production and "graduate" that level is not that significant. It's a small fraction of the total number of Top-6 Forwards and that's while also being extremely generous, playing fast and loose with a lot of factors to be as flattering as possible, including double-counting guys, leniency on what a quality impact Top-6 Forward is, working in a division that includes multiple expansion teams that have featured a raft of those "late bloomer" outlier development trajectory type players who ultimate found their way there.

We're talking about...painting everything super generously maybe "1 in 7" Top-6 Forwards resembles that one single metric of development (not being ~PPG in their first AHL season). That's an outlier.

And that's without even delving into the other aspects of those outlier development curves, and how that differs wildly from what Lekkerimaki's would look like (as a high 1st round pick) if he were to post a noticeably sub 1.0PPG pace in the AHL this year. If you throw that "1st round pick" caveat on and cross-reference...the list and the odds shrink to...almost nothing. You can can those players in the league easily on one hand sort of range.


Still not impossible. Just highly improbable.

The more elements of Lekkerimaki's scenario you incorporate and account for, the more important that ~1.0PPG threshold becomes, in terms of maintaining an "on track" development trajectory for a quality Top-6 Scoring Winger role in the NHL.

 

[Shareefruck]

Of course Lekkerimaki is probably toast if he has a 0.6 PPG season at this level at this age as a 1st round pick. We have years of data to show this. It's not even arguable.

But 'probably toast' can range from 1% to 49%. I said that maybe he's at 20% if that's what his season looks like, and I think I'm being generous there, if anything.

To clarify, if he has a 0.7 PPG season, he's 20% toast in your estimation? That is being generous, something your initial statement didn't indicate.

But really, if MS had just said "But 'probably toast' can range from 1% to 49%. I said that maybe he's at 20% if that's what his season looks like" at the beginning, this exchange goes a lot differently imo.

I'm pretty sure how you took his initial statement is what he actually meant.

I think he was saying that "probably toast" can range from a 1-49% chance of making it (not a 1-49% chance of being toast), and his clarification was that his usage refers to a 20% chance of making it (not a 20% chance of being toast). In other words, if he has a 0.7 PPG season, he's 80% toast by his estimation, and he considers that generous, because it's probably even higher than that.

It wouldn't make sense for "probably" to be directly represented by a minority percentage range of 1-49%. Seems to just be a bit of an awkward sentence where he's jumping back and forth between talking about two directly opposite things.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

In the context of what was being asked there? Absolutely. But the main takeaway you seemed to have ignored there, is that Kuzmenko is an entirely irrelevant non-comp as far as talking about guys who spend extended time at the AHL level, producing below ~PPG level there. Hence discarding him entirely as an example.

He came over, be it at 27 or otherwise, and immediately adjusted to the North American game and started scoring goals. At the NHL level. Not AHL.

I wouldn't expect exactly the same of Lekkerimaki...hence completely throwing it out as an example, because it's not relevant. But i would expect that if Lekkerimaki is going to "get it" and end up tracking as a ~1PPG AHLer en route to an NHL Top-6 Scoring Winger gig...typically that player doesn't have an extended "adjustment period" at that respectively lower level (even at a much younger age).


And no, that number of Top-6 Forwards who take that longer period to ramp their way up to PPG AHL production and "graduate" that level is not that significant. It's a small fraction of the total number of Top-6 Forwards and that's while also being extremely generous, playing fast and loose with a lot of factors to be as flattering as possible, including double-counting guys, leniency on what a quality impact Top-6 Forward is, working in a division that includes multiple expansion teams that have featured a raft of those "late bloomer" outlier development trajectory type players who ultimate found their way there.

We're talking about...painting everything super generously maybe "1 in 7" Top-6 Forwards resembles that one single metric of development (not being ~PPG in their first AHL season). That's an outlier.

And that's without even delving into the other aspects of those outlier development curves, and how that differs wildly from what Lekkerimaki's would look like (as a high 1st round pick) if he were to post a noticeably sub 1.0PPG pace in the AHL this year. If you throw that "1st round pick" caveat on and cross-reference...the list and the odds shrink to...almost nothing. You can can those players in the league easily on one hand sort of range.


Still not impossible. Just highly improbable.

The more elements of Lekkerimaki's scenario you incorporate and account for, the more important that ~1.0PPG threshold becomes, in terms of maintaining an "on track" development trajectory for a quality Top-6 Scoring Winger role in the NHL.

Dude the Kuzmenko thing doesn't make the point you think it does. At the same age, he was like half a point a game in the KHL or in the VHL. It's not just about the AHL itself, it's about adjusting and age.

If Lekkerimaki goes on a 7 year sabbatical and comes back and puts up a point a game in the AHL is that better to you than if he puts up 0.6 now? It's asinine logic.

And speaking of asinine logic, all of this can be boiled down to an old familiar saying. Correlation does not equal causation.

If Lekkerimaki struggles, and we don't consider any context that might come up, we can point to other examples and say that it's CORRELATED with lower chances, but it doesn't mean that he himself is in trouble per se, because of course he himself will have whatever context he does.

Obviously if he comes in and spends two years in the AHL looking outmatched and posting 0.4 points per game then he's probably not a good NHL player, but nobody is arguing against that.

 

[IComeInPeace]

The funny part here is that I think we would all more or less agree…

If Lekkerimaki comes in and struggles this upcoming season: that would be disappointing and be cause for concern.

If Lekkerimaki comes in and kills it this season: we will all be excited by what we potentially have in this player.

It seems like that’s all MS is saying.

Sure their can be some nuances along the way such as a short period where he has to acclimate to the AHL, but the more Lekkerimaki simply lets his numbers do the talking for him, the more confident we will all feel that we have a bonafide top 6 NHL prospect.

Having been through it so many times now as a Canucks fan with so many prospects, what I’ve learned is the more you have to find reasons (excuses) for why a guy struggled to perform as you’d expect, the more likely you are to have a guy that disappoints.

I remember doing that with Juolevi’s D+1 season (and beyond).
I remember doing that with Virtanen’s D+1 season and beyond.
I remember having to do that with Shinkaruk’s D+2 season…

…in all of those cases (and there are way more) I think those guys had legit reasons for their struggles, but in the end (whatever the reason was) those struggles were an accurate predictor of what kind of prospects they really were.

Lekkerimaki will be given top minutes and opportunities.
We should expect him to do well.
It’s reasonable to expect a short transition period, but after that we should see a top end AHL player on a consistent basis.

 

[Shareefruck]

The human nuances that we are not privy to are accounted for by the granted outlier percentage. Our expectations are not going to be perfect predictors, but they should still be based on the limited information that we have (even if it paints a bleak picture), not the charitable assumption of human factors that could in only rare cases meaningfully alter what ends up being the case.

 

[biturbo19]

Dude the Kuzmenko thing doesn't make the point you think it does. At the same age, he was like half a point a game in the KHL or in the VHL. It's not just about the AHL itself, it's about adjusting and age.

If Lekkerimaki goes on a 7 year sabbatical and comes back and puts up a point a game in the AHL is that better to you than if he puts up 0.6 now? It's asinine logic.

And speaking of asinine logic, all of this can be boiled down to an old familiar saying. Correlation does not equal causation.

If Lekkerimaki struggles, and we don't consider any context that might come up, we can point to other examples and say that it's CORRELATED with lower chances, but it doesn't mean that he himself is in trouble per se, because of course he himself will have whatever context he does.

Obviously if he comes in and spends two years in the AHL looking outmatched and posting 0.4 points per game then he's probably not a good NHL player, but nobody is arguing against that.

That's not even remotely what i'm saying.

I'm not even the one who brought up Kuzmenko. He's not a relevant comparable. That's all i was noting about that. He came over much later, completely bypassed the AHL altogether, and didn't have any sort of appreciable "adjustment period". That's all you can say about that. I was simply dismissing him as an example proposed by another poster, of a guy who didn't immediately light it up in the AHL.

But you're posing weird bullshit hypotheticals about Lekkerimaki around it and trying to put those words in my mouth because why? You're the one creating asinine logic with bizarre convoluted hypotheticals that i didn't mentioned in the slightest.


As for the rest of that...you're basically just saying, "well that's just strongly correlated but the result could still be anything".

Like...re-read what you're saying here and think about what this actually means...if anything. It's basically empty fluff...hedging against a failure to reach a noted historically robust benchmark, before it even happens.

If Lekkerimaki struggles, and we don't consider any context that might come up, we can point to other examples and say that it's CORRELATED with lower chances, but it doesn't mean that he himself is in trouble per se, because of course he himself will have whatever context he does.

It's arguing for some exceptionalism and exemption from strongly correlated trends for Lekkerimaki, on the basis of absolutely nothing. When there's already an exception granted in there, as there are still outliers who don't hit those thresholds and still do find a way to "make it".

I also really don't think you're understanding what the expression, "correlation does not equal causation" actually means. In this instance, we're looking at the effect (Become Top-6 NHL Forward or Not)...and strictly talking about the correlation between scoring at ~1.0PPG early in AHL career and becoming an impact Top-6 Scorer in the NHL. There is no talk of causation in that. The causation is what you get into in dissecting why a guy has "busted" or failed to meet that threshold and make that transition effectively.

But this talk of hitting a ~1.0PPG threshold this year in the AHL isn't about context and excuses and "causation". It's about clear observable trends and the cold hard reality that there is an extremely strong correlation between significant and early success when moving up to the AHL level, and players going on to be quality, impact Top-6 Scoring Forwards at the NHL level. And conversely, players who fail to meet that threshold can have all the context they want, but only a small percentage of them historically go on to be NHL Top-6 Forwards. And they tend to be coming from a very different "late bloomer" profile than a Top-15 1st round pick like Lekkerimaki.


Basically...if it comes to the point where we're breaking down the "specific context" or "causation" of why Lekkerimaki hasn't been able to come close to that threshold...that's a clear sign that his development is disappointing and off track for the vast majority of Top-6 NHL Scorers. That is not good. That is not what you want.

 

[Diversification]

Jonathan Lekerimakki had 19 goals as a 19-year on a relatively poor team in the SHL last season. Not surprisingly was voted the league's top rookie and teen-age player.

I know the SHL isn't seen as tough a league as the AHL; but it's still a professional league and not that far below the AHL. So if he gets quality minutes on the first-unit PP in Abbotsford, 25-30 goals would seem to easily be within his reach.

If Lekk scores 30 next year with only 15 assists, that puts him at ~0.7 ppg. That kind of output and I would say he's still on track as a top6 Cy Young type player.

 

[sting101]

I mean, we're here...looking at pages of argument and umbrage and excuses being made about it. So...

The issue was the hardline PPG impact player right out of the gate or bust comment.
"Anything less than a point-per-game would be disappointing and would mean he probably isn't going to make it"

Some of us simply said he can have an adjustment period and roll out with a lower scoring rate and still be on track to be a quality NHL scorer and then got met with walls of text explaining that for 20yrs this has been a thing and it's always right and that were making excuses and now yourself and others have joined MS creating those pages of argument and umbrage trying to explain likelihoods and how it works when no one was really arguing any of that outside of having an issue with the hard line in the sand at "anything less than PPG" and "tracking as a late 2nd round pick" comments from the past

As far as the listing activity kudos for actually bothering, but...

Well this was your question?
"I'd really like to see people throwing up some examples of quality Top-6 Scoring Wingers around the NHL today, who didn't post ~1PPG in their first full AHL season (or skip the AHL altogether). I think that exercise is likely to drive home the point of just how rare it is to see. Especially if you're talking about guys who didn't just work their way up as "checkers" who developed their scoring over time at the NHL level. There just really aren't that many..."

So essentially...if we're just working with the Pacific Division sample here...roughly 48 "Top-6 Forwards". We've got 7 credible examples...heck i'll go ahead and round it up to 8 guys here, even though some of the counted aren't actually occupying a spot in the the division anymore and some of these guys really aren't Top-6F or filling one of those roles if we're being honest.

But very generously, that gives us at best between 14.5-16% of "Top-6 Forwards" in the Pacific followed that one basic criteria in their development path. Which is...a very small number. And that's with stretching things generously to accommodate more "outlier types". It's probably really down more around ~12.5% on the whole.

Math is wrong.....i didn't include Hyman Barbashev etc because that was your ask which removes some occupiable positions and then i also didn't include the C position.

But that's what they are. That's a very small fraction of Top-6F who succeed via that sort of development progression. And if you look at their individual profiles...the majority of them are late round flyers who toiled away to get opportunities to move up to the NHL at all. Very flawed players, overlooked players, and bigtime "projects". None of them are with the team that drafted them as a "core piece" - many have gone through multiple teams. And i think you'll notice that the majority of them are typically described as "late bloomers" or similar. Which is another way of saying, "outlier" development. Not typically ~Top-10ish 1st Round picks with every development opportunity and priority laid out in from of them on a red carpet.

Does this help at least appreciate the gravity of what that threshold tends to mean for a player like Lekkerimaki?

It's not that if he doesn't hit that mark, he's a totally guaranteed bust. Throw him out. No good.

But it does mean that he'd be a high 1st round pick delving into a pool of players where the few who do actually make it from there as Top-6 NHL Scoring Forwards, tend to be notable outliers, and typically with a very different development track that starts with an arrow pointing upward from a much much lower base point.

I agree with you MS Hodgy and others. The expectations of a 15th pick that was rated 7 by our organization are on a much more heightened and strict timeline. And that retains to all 1st round picks that were drafted to be scorers. Were on the same page i just don't subscribe to this PPG or busting right out of the gate perspective

But in the end, if you agree that he needs to hit that sort of threshold to continue tracking as a promising, conventionally developing Top-6 Scoring Winger in the NHL...frankly, i'm not sure what all the fuss is even about here. Or why we have so much argument about that being a pretty firm threshold of measurement in his development.

Exactly......"what is the fuss about" feel like some people are just shouting at clouds here saying the same things with mostly some minor semantics at play.

The fact that it came from the same person who has torched Boeser and run down Lekkerimaki's value during periods of injury mono and mental health has triggered some emotional response given how that aged is all. Perhaps the hard lines some draw in the sand need to have more room for variables that effect performance was my point, bleaches and naslunds.

Walls of text repeating yourself and framing it as fictional "posters who make excuses and dont get the statistical likelihoods" has just become a distraction from taking ownership of those claims and putting it back on the people who weren't really arguing much if any of that.


All great posters it's summer and we need some drama......44..."it is what it is"

LOL i see the poster who makes up elaborate fictional opinion based excuses for Pettersson is now highlighting that people shouldn't be making excuses for prospects love this place

 

[MS]

Re: Kuzmenko :

You can put together a list of late bloomers like this to make it seem like it's somehow 'likely' that guys like this make the NHL but it's the opposite.

If you go back 6 or 7 years in European hockey, you could find 20 Kuzmenkos of the same age/same level of play in the KHL and a bunch more in Sweden/Finland/Swiss. Out of that big pool of players, Kuzmenko is like the one guy that made it. He's the 3% outlier.

And when you list Kuzmenko, Arvidsson, etc. in a list to make it look like it isn't important to blow through levels quickly ... it isn't right. Those guys were the very few late bloomers who made it out of a pool of literally hundreds of similar prospects when they were 21-22. It's no different than saying 'LOOK AT BURROWS!' to try and argue that Ty Glover is some sort of likely NHL prospect.

____________

There's also the thing where you have high picks who go straight to the NHL and you have late bloomers who find their way, but there is basically no such thing as a high pick who is also a late bloomer.

A few of us dug into this when we traded for Pouliot and trying to find a 1st round pick who hit waiver eligibility as a non-entity and then figured it out later is virtually impossible. There's Riley Nash, and there's Daniel Cleary like 20 years ago. So listing a Kuzmenko in a discussion about Lekkerimaki is basically pointless. They're just two totally different situations.

 

[Canucker]

Re: Kuzmenko :

You can put together a list of late bloomers like this to make it seem like it's somehow 'likely' that guys like this make the NHL but it's the opposite.

If you go back 6 or 7 years in European hockey, you could find 20 Kuzmenkos of the same age/same level of play in the KHL and a bunch more in Sweden/Finland/Swiss. Out of that big pool of players, Kuzmenko is like the one guy that made it. He's the 3% outlier.

And when you list Kuzmenko, Arvidsson, etc. in a list to make it look like it isn't important to blow through levels quickly ... it isn't right. Those guys were the very few late bloomers who made it out of a pool of literally hundreds of similar prospects when they were 21-22. It's no different than saying 'LOOK AT BURROWS!' to try and argue that Ty Glover is some sort of likely NHL prospect.

____________

There's also the thing where you have high picks who go straight to the NHL and you have late bloomers who find their way, but there is basically no such thing as a high pick who is also a late bloomer.

A few of us dug into this when we traded for Pouliot and trying to find a 1st round pick who hit waiver eligibility as a non-entity and then figured it out later is virtually impossible. There's Riley Nash, and there's Daniel Cleary like 20 years ago. So listing a Kuzmenko in a discussion about Lekkerimaki is basically pointless. They're just two totally different situations.

Was going to argue that Nichushkin is one of those guys who "figured it out" late , but as much as he did on the ice...off the ice, not so much. lol