18 months ago, asking whether Jake Virtanen would be on the opening night roster for 2017-18 might have seemed ridiculous. He was just finishing up a season in which he’d play 55 games in the NHL. He’d been good, even if he hadn’t neen great, and he looked like he was settling in as a full time NHL player. Something would have to go awfully wrong, you might have thought, to be wondering whether he was ready for NHL hockey after another full season.

Something did go awfully wrong, and 6 months ago, this same question might have seemed ridiculous once again, but for a much different reason. So lackluster was Virtanen’s performance and results in 2016-17, it felt like a foregone conclusion that he’d be starting 2017-18 in the AHL as well.

Once again, the tale of Jake Virtanen has had a sudden plot twist.

Look, we all know Virtanen’s story. He’s a local boy, hailing from Abbotsford, and he was taken sixth overall in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. Depending on who you ask, the reaction was either overwhelming positive (*cough* TSN 1040 Afternoon Show *cough*), or overwhelmingly divided (it was the second one). It’s not that Jake Virtanen wasn’t good; it’s just that there were better options available.

And it’s not like they weren’t warned. Former site editor Rhys Jessop published an article in which that was not only the main point, it was in the damn title: Jake Virtanen is Good – So Don’t Draft Him.

But they did draft him, passing on Rhys’ preferred choice of Nikolai Ehlers, as well as William Nylander, who Rhys didn’t recommend simply because he (and the rest of Canucks Army at the time) thought there was no way in hell that Nylander was going to remain on the board until sixth overall. But he did. And the he stayed on the board until the Toronto Maple Leafs took him at eighth. Right before the Winnipeg Jets took Nik Ehlers at ninth.

You don’t need me to tell you this. The market has hardly shut up about it for 3+ years, especially after last season, when the NHL production of each of Nylander and Ehlers tripled what Virtanen amassed in the AHL.

All of this is why I’ve made this point multiple times before: Jake Virtanen should no longer be judged as a sixth overall selection. It was the wrong pick. That debate is over. We’re moving on, and instead we now debate what Jake Virtanen, as an individual, will become.

Virtanen isn’t likely to ever put up the numbers that Nylander and Ehlers do, but at this point, that hardly matters. He’s not competing with them for a roster spot. He was competing with Reid Boucher, Nikolay Goldobin, and Anton Rodin, all of whom have been cut from the team already. He’s competing now against the likes of Derek Dorsett and Alex Burmistrov for a nightly spot in the lineup, and he’s looked substantially better than both of them.

To the surprise of many, Virtanen has been a legitimate bright spot during the 2017 preseason, and whereas we once hoped that Virtanen would be able to use 2017-18 to get his once promising career back on track, he’s come into training camp looking like he already has.

Is it too soon to declare Virtanen’s triumphant return to prominence? Certainly. It’s preseason after all, and the exhibition season has a long history of creating false hope and temporary heroes.

For that reason, as nice as Virtanen’s five points in five preseason appearances are, we’re better off just throwing them out the window. The is too much variation in quality of competition, too much experimentation, and too many veterans shaking off the cobwebs to put any real stock into counting stats at this time of the year. Instead, we should be examining how he looks.

And well, he’s looked really good. Virtanen finally looks like the kid that the Canucks drafted back in 2014. He’s moving fast, he’s hitting hard, and he’s shooting accurately. Many of these aspects had disappeared from his game at some after the end of the 2015-16 season, but they’ve reappeared – and it sure seems as if we’ve got Travis Green to thank for that.

By all accounts, it was the Canucks new head coach that finally got through to Virtanen and showed him how he needed to play. This was accomplished painstakingly over the course of last season in Utica, with the two of them poring over video, sometimes for hours on end and breaking down exactly what Virtanen needed to do in each situation.

“It’s the exact same system as Utica,” the 21-year old told the Province’s Jason Botchford. “I love that system. When we’re breaking out, he wants his wingers to go and that’s my style of game. He wants his wingers to skate. I feel like I will be successful with this style. I think I’ve always kind of played this way. It’s simple. It’s easy to play.”

These revelations are key. One of the main criticisms of Virtanen has been his ability to read the game and make decisions at a high pace. Simplifying what he needs to do and drilling the intricacies of it into him through repetition. It seems to have eventually sunk in, and combined with a play style that matches his skill set, we’re seeing Virtanen’s resurrection.

Virtanen might have gotten some help on his first preseason goal, but his second and third markers were much nicer. The most attractive aspect to the coaching staff, however, might not have been the goals, but rather what he’s done in his own end to push the offence forward. A couple of excellent backchecks on Virtanen’s part have started sequences that ended with the puck in opponents’ nets.

Not only does Anton Rodin’s goal not happen is Virtanen doesn’t make this play, but there’s a very good chance that the puck ends up in the Canucks’ net instead. This is what I imagine coaches are always talking about when they preach that good defence leads to offence.

Backchecking hasn’t really been an issue for Virtanen in the past. Going back to his days as a member of the Calgary Hitmen, he has been considered a good defensive player, not because he knows how to position himself in the defensive zone (he has his struggles in that area), but because he has both the will and ability to get back hard and break up plays.

His willingness to skate full tilt in either direction up and down the ice is probably a major factor in the strong puck possession numbers he has accrued in the small sample of this preseason (currently sporting a impressive 56.3 Corsi-for percentage). That’s no fluke though – he led the Canucks in Corsi-for percentage as a 19-year old in 2015-16 (51.0%, minimum 100 minutes), and though his NHL numbers last year were much poorer, he held dominant possession numbers in Utica, according to Hockey Data Inc. (as per Patrick Johnston of the Province).

Now, this next sequence starts because Virtanen actually is in good position to pick off a pass, but it’s what he does when he goes up the ice that I really like.

One of Virtanen’s biggest issues has been using his teammates properly. From his own mouth, he’s stated that he’s tried to do too much, to make moves around guys, instead of moving the puck to his centreman and bursting into open space. Lo and behold, that’s exactly what he does here. Virtanen makes a clean, simple pass to Gagner and hits the jets. Approaching the blue line, he swings in to make himself an option behind Gagner. Drop pass, weave, shot, goal.

What I’m seeing on these plays are two very positive things: first, he’s doing the defensive work that has made him a successful two-way player before and endears him to coaches. Second, he’s adapting to new advice taught to him by his coach. Again, being teachable is an endearing trait.

The argument that he should have returned to junior in 2015-16 is a strong one. In an alternate world, perhaps this is the year that Virtanen cracks the team for the first time, and maybe the story is a simpler one. But there is something to be said for battling and overcoming adversity: fortunate misfortune as it is referred to in the area of sports psychology. Maybe this is something that needed to happen for him to really be successful, a blessing in disguise.

Those last two points above (demonstrating two-way play and being teachable), in addition to a myriad of other positives that range from a dedication to professionalism, to physical play, to a resurgence in confidence, assure me that Jake Virtanen is ready for a return to the NHL, and he’s ready to do it at the start of this season. Between that, and the openings on the roster, my official stance on Virtanen is that he absolutely deserves to be in the lineup on opening night.