Listen: J.D. Burke Talks Jake Virtanen and Canucks Team Toughness on TSN1040

This Friday, TSN 1040’s Brough and Halford show had CanucksArmy’s Managing Editor J.D. Burke on to talk Jake Virtanen and what reasonable expectations are along with the topic of the week, team toughness, after the Canucks didn’t respond physically to Trevor Lewis taking a run at Brock Boeser.

Burke argues that the player Virtanen is now is essentially the player he projected as in his draft season, with the added caveat that that player is adding a lot of value to this lineup in spite of his limited offensive output.

Next up, all three of them talk about the fallout from the Trevor Lewis hit on Brock Boeser and the non-response physically from the Canucks. Firstly, Burke makes it perfectly clear that he had no issue with the Canucks response — they scored 12 seconds in on the following power play, after all.

Is it fair to want a response physically if you’ve been critical of management’s continued investment in pugilists and tough guys? That’s an unfortunate side-effect of this entire conversation. But Burke shoots down that notion and then some when the topic is broached in his radio segment.

Like what you heard? Catch more of it today between 3-5 PM on TSN 1040 AM, as Burke joins TSN’s Jon Abbott for another episode of Nation Network Radio powered by Shark Club. Today’s guests are Alan Wells of Raw Charge to talk Tampa Bay Lightning and the All-Star Game, DobberProspect’s Cam Robinson to talk the Top Prospects Game and Canucks prospects and CanucksArmy’s Darryl Keeping to talk about his piece on Ben Hutton and Michael Del Zotto.