Jake Virtanen Is On Track to Become a Top-Six Power Forward (Seriously)

Jim Benning has been scrutinized heavily over the past month. The team has been underperforming for about six weeks now, and  fans are rightfully upset. The team is 7-12-2 in their last 21 and their wins are coming from two sources, scoring five more goals or winning after regulation.

While there are plenty of reasons to be upset about the current state of the Canucks, and legitimate questions about whether or not the team’s current brain trust will stick around to see them through their recent struggles, there are still reasons for optimism. The core of the team is progressing every day, making steady improvements for where they were in years past.

One player who has embodied that progression and improvement this year is from Virtanen. It’s been a long road for Virtanen, and he’s made some wrong turns along the way. He was thrown into the NHL because his WHL highlight reel made him look NHL-ready, and was arguably mismanaged worse than any Canucks over the past 5 years. And that’s coming from the guy that won’t shut up about giving Goldy another shot.

This season didn’t start off great for Jake, either due to too many summer shotguns, poor commitment to conditioning or a bad attitude for skating with the third group. Something wasn’t right at training camp. I was in attendance and caught this video. Jake was the only player who needed water the whole day when the three groups had to go through a bag skate that ended each practice of the day.

He failed to meet the goals that Travis Green had set for him, and quickly faced retribution for not doing his offseason homework. I have said my things about Travis Green in the past, (hell, I just wrote about him on Wednesday,) but in this case, I trusted him wholeheartedly. Travis knows Jake better than any coach in professional hockey, he had him in Utica and has watched him struggle to transition into the NHL for years.

Fast forward to the present day. Jake Virtanen recently found himself on a line with Elias Pettersson and JT Miller. That is a spot that every single winger in this organization would like to be in. Jake Virtanen was that guy. He was in the best spot that a winger can be in.

So what has he done since training camp to get there?

In short, he’s been a dominant offensive force at even-strength this year.

He scored 5-on-5 goals in the preseason, he scored 5 goals in 8 games this season and he scored in back-to-back games to get the opportunity to be there.

It’s still early, but it looks like the decision to play Virtanen with Pettersson and Miller might pay dividends.

To have prolonged success with Pettersson and Miller, Virtanen will have to do the things this city has been clamouring for him to do since he made the team out of camp in 2015. He needs to go to the net, he needs to move his feet and he needs to recognize open areas of the ice and be there at the right times.

One thing he doesn’t have to worry about as much, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, is being defensively responsible.

JT Miller and Elias Pettersson are both natural centres that play deeper in the defensive zone and incredibly good at blocking passing lanes with their active sticks. That just leaves Jake to cover the point shot, which illustrates why playing wing is so much easier than being a centre in the NHL.

Over the past few weeks as the Lotto Line has come back down to earth, w have seen Brock Boeser consistently leaving the zone just a split second early, which has resulted in a ton of breakaways. Jake is faster than Boeser, much faster. It’s why Jake only needs to get in line with a defender a few feet past the blue line to have enough speed to use his size to lean on a player enough to get off a great shot from the high-danger area.

Here is an example of when he recognizes the space between himself and the Knights defender is closing quickly and if he takes four strong strides and leans on his opponent that he is fast enough and strong enough to get a dangerous shot off.

Jake has enough speed to get by the defender once he gets a step only 10 feet into the offensive zone, his speed is his best asset and the Canucks could use this type of player in their top six.

This one came on the power play, where Virtanen hasn’t gotten many looks this season. He has just recently been added to the second power play unit after he took the sole possession of the team lead in even strength goals with eight.

He has been on the ice for two goals in his limited nine minutes and change of power play time. He scored one himself, and was on the ice when Adam Gaudete roofed one over Carey Price’s shoulder on Tuesday night.

While we’re on the subject, I also want to also mention that Jake Virtanen should be given a shot at 3-on-3. The Canucks have Horvat, Miller, Boeser and Pettersson for their top four forwards that play in the 3-on-3 overtime periods. If there was to be a third group it would be a lot of fun to see Adam Gaudette and Jake Virtanen go for a spin with so much open ice.

They aren’t the best defensive players on the team, but 3-on-3 isn’t as much about defence as it is about beating one other player on the opposition to create a numbers mismatch in the offensive zone. Jake shouldn’t play over the core four forwards but with that much space on the ice it would be interesting to see him turn a takeaway into a scoring chance with all that open ice.

We have all been screaming for Jake to go to the net for years. As I mentioned earlier, he only needs one step about 10 feet into the offensive zone to be by a defender. Thankfully, we are actually seeing Jake go to the net a bit more this year and he has been rewarded with his production rising throughout the past four seasons.

Thanks to my friends at IcyData you can all see a trend of where Jake’s shots are coming from.

Every year, Jake has taken more shots from in front of the net and less from the left side of the ice, which is where he scored a ton of his goals in junior. Jake has a quick release and if he uses his big body and speed to beat defenders to the net he will find even more success and continue on his pace to break 20 goals for the first time in his career.

Oh, and he’s in a contract year this season.

Here is the IcyData Heatmap on where Jake’s goals are coming from, it’s true that if you go to the net, good things will come to you.

Obviously, Jake Virtanen wasn’t the best pick when he was selected sixth overall in the 2014 draft. That’s no longer up for debate. We have all seen what players like Nikolaj Ehlers, Dylan Larkin and David Pastrnak have been able to do in the NHL, he was also not the worst pick. Michael Dal Colle was selected right before Virtanen and he has failed to be a consistent NHL player since being drafted in 2014

Still, there are only 15 players in the 2014 draft who have scored more goals than Jake Virtanen and one of those players was Jared McCann, drafted by the Canucks and traded by Jim Benning for Erik Gudbranson. Jake has continued to improve at his 5-on-5 scoring throughout the past few seasons and though the latest line combinations tweeted out by Thomas Drance has Virtanen back on the third line with Adam Gaudette and Antoine Roussel. The combination of Virtanen-Miller-Pettersson worked well and should be an option moving forward when the team is looking for a change.

Jake Virtanen is a fan favourite off the ice, and he’s a favourite of mine too. He is #ShotgunJake, he is from Abbotsford, he is always in the community and he shows some excellent skills that if harnessed in the right situation could be deadly.

Unfortunately, there are still a few things that are holding him back. He’s still been struggling with the defensive side of things. He finds himself in the wrong position a lot of the time, he floats a lot of the time and that is likely why Travis Green has not given him a long run in the top six this season.

Here is a recent example of Jake Virtanen “floating”. You can see him stop skating and start waiting, which is never a good sign with him. He needs to keep skating to make the best use of his skill set.

Jake still has work to do to become a top six forward, but it’s important to recognize that he is still trending up. Power forwards who aren’t immediate impact players like Jamie Benn or Gabriel Landeskog can often take a few years to find their scoring touch. Jake is finding his scoring touch of late and should hopefully earn more power play opportunities and better linemates as we move into the second half of the season.

There is a scene in How I Met Your Mother where Barney shows what he does at the gym, and for the 12 people that get this reference that is Jake Virtanen in a nutshell. He needs to be given positive reinforcement at certain times and should be held accountable and carefully shown what he needs to do to not be a liability in his own zone.

There’s a lot of negativity around this team right now, but Jake Virtanen has been one of the more positive stories of the season. It makes Canucks fans continue to ponder the same old question.

Is Jake getting it?