LW/RW Kaapo Kakko (2019, 2nd, NYR) Part 8

[Kiekura]

Based on what? Better domestic player production perhaps compensates somewhat, but salaries are higher in the DEL and thus acquisitions are generally better.

So what if salaries are higher? What acquisitions are better? DEL is better because so many Canadians/USA players go play there?

People seriously underestimate Liiga.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Team AHL wouldn't beat team Liiga. Team SHL probably wouldn't either.

 

[tuozzi]

Team AHL wouldn't beat team Liiga. Team SHL probably wouldn't either.

Wow! What's the strength on those homer glasses? They look real thick.

 

[Snowsii]

Wow! What's the strength on those homer glasses? They look real thick.

Well.. Team Liiga just won WHC in May

 

[Snowsii]

Holloway was in his prime, so age curves don’t apply.

Everything is different in Europe because the NHL takes all the best players and try to bring them over to NA ASAP, whether to the CHL or the A.

Holloway was a 3rd rounder(the kind if player who you don’t expect to make the NHL, but was a top 6 player in the A. The kind of player that is comparable to the talent that stays in Europe. Went from .78ppg in the A to .89 & 1.29ppg in the SHL before dropping to .6ppg(bumped to the 2nd line.) Went to NLA and rebounded to .89ppg, then went back to the A and was a .87ppg confirming him as a AAAA player.

If you want a Liiga comparison look at Patrik Virta solid 2nd liner in Liiga, was a scrub on the worst team in the K, caught on as a 3rd liner in Sweden and is back to being a solid 2nd liner in Liiga. Also not offered by the NHL team that drafted him.

Or Ville Meskanen, went from a 1st liner in Liiga to a 3rd liner to a 4th liner in the A. When he gets back to Finland, he’ll go back to being a 1st liner.

I can literally do this all day.

Go on.. That's only three players, and yet you dont seem to understand the differences between the leagues.. Dont bother to answer, if you just stat watch.

Edit: I'll go there aswell.. Patrik Augusta went from 1.09 in AHL to 0.82 in DEL

 

[TheWhiskeyThief]

Go on.. That's only three players, and yet you dont seem to understand the differences between the leagues.. Dont bother to answer, if you just stat watch.

,
I saw Bud play in Junior, the A, Skelleftea(got lucky on that, they were playing Brynas)

I saw Virta play for TPS, saw Kovacs play for AIK & Hartford(that was hard to do, his best look was him & Stromwall was when they were centered by Lias for 1 game at Traverse City) so please go on and tell me about stat watching.

The fact is that the number of players who jump around leagues like that are a rather small dataset, so you work with what you got and I worked with the guys who easily came to mind.

I could’ve brought up Stromwall, who was as an undrafted scrub out of the Dub, bounced around doing nothing, went to AIK and did rather well, went to Hartford to babysit Kovacs and couldn’t do that or score, then gets to Liiga and within a year becomes a top 5 scorer in the league, now a nice player on a lousy team in the K.

So to bring this back to Kakko, he wasn’t doing much his draft year until coming back from WJC and realized his linemates were holding him back. All of a sudden he turned into a one man gang and was pretty much unstoppable. I’d love to dig into those game reports and figure out that scoring rate. Someone want to tell me how good Liiga is again?

He started off deferring to elders(especially on PP), then started the one man gang play(that doesn’t work against the best in the world at his weight.) Then they moved him down the lineup where he doesn’t see the best in the world and things start clicking.

He’s now filthy when he has time and space at 18, 5 years ahead of Buchnevich. By next year he’ll be good at 5v5 and the final year of his ELC they’re going to want to lock in his extension early before he goes off

 

[kelsier]

,
I saw Bud play in Junior, the A, Skelleftea(got lucky on that, they were playing Brynas)

I saw Virta play for TPS, saw Kovacs play for AIK & Hartford(that was hard to do, his best look was him & Stromwall was when they were centered by Lias for 1 game at Traverse City) so please go on and tell me about stat watching.

The fact is that the number of players who jump around leagues like that are a rather small dataset, so you work with what you got and I worked with the guys who easily came to mind.

I could’ve brought up Stromwall, who was as an undrafted scrub out of the Dub, bounced around doing nothing, went to AIK and did rather well, went to Hartford to babysit Kovacs and couldn’t do that or score, then gets to Liiga and within a year becomes a top 5 scorer in the league, now a nice player on a lousy team in the K.

So to bring this back to Kakko, he wasn’t doing much his draft year until coming back from WJC and realized his linemates were holding him back. All of a sudden he turned into a one man gang and was pretty much unstoppable. I’d love to dig into those game reports and figure out that scoring rate. Someone want to tell me how good Liiga is again?

He started off deferring to elders(especially on PP), then started the one man gang play(that doesn’t work against the best in the world at his weight.) Then they moved him down the lineup where he doesn’t see the best in the world and things start clicking.

He’s now filthy when he has time and space at 18, 5 years ahead of Buchnevich. By next year he’ll be good at 5v5 and the final year of his ELC they’re going to want to lock in his ectension early before he goes off

This I couldn't agree more with. I mean shortly before the year his breakout and in the very beginning of it in the FEL (D - 18-19) he was a pass-first type of a player and a lot, and i mean a lot of fans expressed concerns about his ability to score goals and some thought he even had above average finishing arsenal nevermind a decent shot at his disposal. It took just a couple of months with Filppula who would not score goals no matter if his life dependent of it. When Kakko realised this he had to rely in himself even more than he had in the past and that's when he really started scoring goals and the fans noticed he had quite versatile arsenal in that what came down to getting the puck in the back of the net.

He actually turned out to be pretty versatile shooter once he finally begun to use it. Of course today - whenever possible - he still rather goes around the keeper than shoots from the close range if possible. As far as his is concerned I believe he'll turn into a hybrid where he can feed on his line mates opportunities to score and then finish by himself (once he's playing with other top guys). To me all of this is just a sign of hockey hockey IQ, cause when the youngsters are placed in situations where thew have less ideal line mates (especially likes of Howden who probably shouldn't even be on this level yet) they're even more in a place where they need to adapt and rely on those individual strengths.

 

[Albatros]

So what if salaries are higher? What acquisitions are better? DEL is better because so many Canadians/USA players go play there?

People seriously underestimate Liiga.

Relatively low salaries in Liiga mean that even many Finnish players prefer other destinations, the best Finnish team is in Russia and Liiga itself having too many teams doesn't help either. But losing a hundred or so top players hurts any league.

 

[EdJovanovski]

I don’t get why people keep insisting he is more of a playmaker than a goal scorer. Statistically speaking that hasn’t been even remotely accurate for quite some time, and when he’s lacking confidence he’s passing too much which has arguably been his biggest fault thus far. When he’s being more selfish, holding onto the puck himself & shooting is when he’s at his best.

 

[Kiekura]

Relatively low salaries in Liiga mean that even many Finnish players prefer other destinations, the best Finnish team is in Russia and Liiga itself having too many teams doesn't help either. But losing a hundred or so top players hurts any league.

Sure liiga has come down from what it once was, but it still great league and i rate it above DEL

 

[karhukissa]

Based on what? Better domestic player production perhaps compensates somewhat, but salaries are higher in the DEL and thus acquisitions are generally better.

Well first of all level of average Finnish player compared to German is miles ahead. DEL has a lot of NA players, but it's more for old guys coming to get a decent bank and live in Europe. Also level of coaching and playstyle is miles ahead, like you saw in the last WC. Most Finnish teams play with similar style of hockey invented by Finnish hockey people/coaches, and it has bring couple gold medals in WC level and even more at junior level.

Playing in Liiga gives way better tools to become NHL player than DEL.

 

[Zub]

Relatively low salaries in Liiga mean that even many Finnish players prefer other destinations, the best Finnish team is in Russia and Liiga itself having too many teams doesn't help either. But losing a hundred or so top players hurts any league.

Fair points.

 

[Zub]

I don’t get why people keep insisting he is more of a playmaker than a goal scorer. Statistically speaking that hasn’t been even remotely accurate for quite some time, and when he’s lacking confidence he’s passing too much which has arguably been his biggest fault thus far. When he’s being more selfish, holding onto the puck himself & shooting is when he’s at his best.

Yeah, i myself concider him more of a goal scorer, like Matthews.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

This stat is incorrect. McDavid also had 6 goals in his first 16 games. Rather sloppy by this "official stats and info" account. I see where they went wrong though. They looked at the team's first 16 games of the season, but they talk about "his first 16 games"

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Based on what? Better domestic player production perhaps compensates somewhat, but salaries are higher in the DEL and thus acquisitions are generally better.

Economics don't make a league better per se

 

[mattihp]

This stat is incorrect. McDavid also had 6 goals in his first 16 games. Rather sloppy by this "official stats and info" account. I see where they went wrong though. They looked at the team's first 16 games of the season, but they talk about "his first 16 games"

Makes the company even nicer!

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Makes the company even nicer!

Yeah, but they're so sloppy with their tweets.

 

[Kiekura]

Well first of all level of average Finnish player compared to German is miles ahead. DEL has a lot of NA players, but it's more for old guys coming to get a decent bank and live in Europe. Also level of coaching and playstyle is miles ahead, like you saw in the last WC. Most Finnish teams play with similar style of hockey invented by Finnish hockey people/coaches, and it has bring couple gold medals in WC level and even more at junior level.

Playing in Liiga gives way better tools to become NHL player than DEL.

Pretty much this

 

[Albatros]

Well first of all level of average Finnish player compared to German is miles ahead.

Might be. The DEL also has the best German players save for Draisaitl and a few others though so it doesn't rely that much on average German players.

DEL has a lot of NA players, but it's more for old guys coming to get a decent bank and live in Europe. Also level of coaching and playstyle is miles ahead, like you saw in the last WC. Most Finnish teams play with similar style of hockey invented by Finnish hockey people/coaches, and it has bring couple gold medals in WC level and even more at junior level.

It's true that there aren't many North American prospects coming to Germany, the imports are established guys that figured out they're not going to make the NHL and don't want life in the bus leagues. It means that the average age is around 27 while in Liiga it's something like 24, but this is well within prime anyway (no older than the NHL) and actually the really old guys are more common in Liiga even if these are mostly domestic players. Last season Éric Perrin was one of the better Liiga players age 43 though.

Regarding national team play, the German players without imports were good enough for Olympic silver so it's not like they're all plugs either.

 

[Kaako Kappo]

His line still has a lot of trouble 5v5 but that can't be attributed to Kakko alone. It starts from the defense being unable to give the first pass.

 

[BB88]

His line still has a lot of trouble 5v5 but that can't be attributed to Kakko alone. It starts from the defense being unable to give the first pass.

I'd take a good look at Howden there.

 

[Lambo]

Might be. The DEL also has the best German players save for Draisaitl and a few others though so it doesn't rely that much on average German players.



It's true that there aren't many North American prospects coming to Germany, the imports are established guys that figured out they're not going to make the NHL and don't want life in the bus leagues. It means that the average age is around 27 while in Liiga it's something like 24, but this is well within prime anyway (no older than the NHL) and actually the really old guys are more common in Liiga even if these are mostly domestic players. Last season Éric Perrin was one of the better Liiga players age 43 though.

Regarding national team play, the German players without imports were good enough for Olympic silver so it's not like they're all plugs either.

But the finnish model is a mixture of top prospects + experienced players. The Liiga have plenty talents. As german you become dizzy.

 

[haveandare]

His goal scoring is coming along nicely. I think his passing is pretty slick also but he's not really with the right players to put up assists. Howden is a black hole and Lemieux is pretty solid in general for a third liner but he's not a particularly talented finisher. He'll be with more gifted offensive players soon enough I'd bet.

 

[Patagonia]

His line still has a lot of trouble 5v5 but that can't be attributed to Kakko alone. It starts from the defense being unable to give the first pass.

I think his struggles might be adjusting to the smaller ice surface and new teammates. KK didn't seem to have problems playing overseas and short tourney's ie. WJC. He should be more dominant by mid-season and still a very young player.

 

[Levitate]

His line still has a lot of trouble 5v5 but that can't be attributed to Kakko alone. It starts from the defense being unable to give the first pass.

Nah not really the defense. The Rangers D is actually probably the strongest it's been when it comes to being able to make a first pass in a very long time, though you also have to realize the D's ability to make a first pass also relies on the forwards ability to get themselves in a position to be an option for the D.

The problem is that you have an 18 year old rookie who's still adjusting to NA style hockey on a line with 2 second year players who also are not good defensively (and Howden in general is just invisible in a bad way). It'd be a miracle if that line didn't struggle defensively.

I really really would like to see that line with a veteran center because Howden isn't cutting it out there in any shape or form and having someone who could bring stability to the line and help them better establish a forecheck and puck possession would help them out a lot.