Why did Juolevi bust?

[Stephen]

They are teammates now.

Weird how the universe works sometimes.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

Honestly, Vancouver always drafts most players on the do not draft list.

 

[VanillaCoke]

He can’t pivot or skate

 

[Xanlet]

• Bad skater overall: slow footspeed, doesn't have a powerful stride, can't corroborate Vancouver fans' screeching about his inability to pivot--that wasn't noticeable to me.
• Conditioning was bad. He always looked winded.

I think there were 2 goals against where he had a dreadfully slow pivot and got absolutely burned and because they were so bad, some fans latched on to those two incidents to label him forever. Pic related was him at training camp.

 

[I am toxic]

I’m probably the most hesitant person on this site to put the bust label on someone, but with Juolevi now having been traded away from his drafting team for scraps, and then being waived by the Panthers this morning I don’t think it can be denied any longer.

I know people thought the pick was a bit of a reach, but I never thought there was any issue with it. Seemed like he was tracking as the best D prospect in the draft once Chychrun started to slide so I thought it was a fine pick for Vancouver.

Why did his game fail to pan out in the NHL?

That's what I thought a half decade ago.

And yet, for the only time ever, I was wrong.

HFBoards will never cease to open my eyes.

 

[bandwagonesque]

I believe HFBoards posters are directly responsible. We were also one of the main reasons Benning held onto his job for so long, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.

 

[Dr Black]

It seems so crazy now, but in April of 2016, NHL Central Scouting had Juolevi ranked 5th among North American Skaters. How did these experts get it so wrong about this guy?

2016 NHL Entry Draft - Wikipedia

 

[AvsGuy]

My question is, how do you not choose more of a sure thing at 5th overall? Canucks have so little to show for some of their highest picks

 

[thenextone]

One thing is clear from this thread - there is no fanbase that has more of a personal vindictive attitude towards players that don’t play well than Canuck fans. They make Philly look like a pleasant easygoing sports town.

Players better bring it or get the F out.

As soon as OJs name was called on draft day, most of us couldn’t believe we actually made that pick and left Tkachuk on the board. Casual NHL fans had it right over a veteran scout turned GM…

 

[biturbo19]

I think it's a confluence of a few factors. The injuries really didn't help, never really letting him get on a roll with conditioning and development. Especially for a guy who has struggled with conditioning and explosiveness in the first place.

But i think it's also compounded by his style of play. The thing that was his sort of hallmark in Juniors, has ended up being a real problem as a Pro. Specifically, that calm ultra-poised, easy, efficient game that really stood out as an effortless puck-mover in Juniors has translated at the Pro level as...a different kind of "effort-less". Turns out, that relaxed, casual game that made things look so easy for him in Juniors...was actually just his only speed. He was making the game easy for himself, but it appears now, that he was playing at that speed not just because he could, but because that was sort of his "maximum pace". He just has absolutely zero intensity, and no real dynamic explosiveness to his skating at all.

So combine that lack of intensity and pace, with conditioning issues, and that lack of dynamic/explosive skating, and you've got yourself a guy who just can't ratchet up the pace to NHL standards as players get bigger, stronger, faster and the speed of the game overall increases and leaves you less time to make things happen, especially defensively and just getting back to retrieve pucks.

It's too bad, because the vision and ability as a puck-mover are still clearly there. He's not one of those busts who just doesn't think the game well enough. He just doesn't have the physical tools or mindset to consistently make use of his hockey brain and passing skills at the NHL level. He ends up on the back foot all the time, instead of playing moving forward like thrived on back at the Junior level with both London and the Finnish U20 team.

 

[strattonius]

He has no work ethic. An underrated skill that is difficult to equate - I saw the same Juolevi every spring training; no new goals, no improvements. His conditioning got worse through injuries too.

He'll never make it. Has the skill, doesn't have the desire to better himself through hard work and determination.

 

[Goatlender]

His main attribute was having a good breakout pass which is useful when you play on an OHL team that had Marner, Tkachuk, and Dvorak and a WJC team that had Laine, Aho, Puljujarvi, Hintz, Rantanen, etc. His point production was always inflated from playing on stacked rosters and his defensive coverage was not on par with NHL quality.