Taking Juolevi makes sense for Canucks

Earlier tonight the Canucks selected Finnish born defenceman Olli Juolevi, which will go a long way towards helping their long term defensive outlook.

Many fans wanted the Canucks to take Pierre-Luc Dubois, and if he wasn’t there, to take Juolevi’s teammate Matthew Tkachuk.  Which was fair as the Canucks also need to add offensive prospects in the pipeline, but taking Juolevi makes sense because quite simply these players don’t grow on trees.

This afternoon it became clear as the draft was approaching that the Canucks were targeting Dubois or Juolevi, and the signs were actually available sooner.

During the majority of the interviews until June, GM Jim Benning was making it fairly clear that they were targeting a forward with the 5th overall pick. To the point where Jeff Paterson wrote a piece about it:

Although not included in the piece, part of the reasoning why was if you are getting a top 6 forward or a top 4 defenceman at that spot – then taking the forward is the best course of action. But if a potential top pairing defenceman was available, then you would take the defenceman. So given that, Dubois looked like the logical conclusion.

However over the past few weeks, Benning had changed his wording and had mentioned that they liked 6 players and had suggested that in their ‘Top 6’, they had a top pairing defenceman there. The ‘light bulb’ went off. Why the change?

Well – it’s clear they felt that Juolevi has top pairing potential, and you can see why they may feel that way as he is a smooth skating puck moving defenceman who can help in the offensive zone without being a liability in his own zone. Add the fact that Juolevi just seems to be a winner wherever he goes, it’s clear why the Canucks passed on Tkachuk and took Juolevi. 

During the season he posted 9 goals and 33 assists in 57 games, he then followed that up 14 points in 18 playoffs games, where London won the OHL championship. To close out the season he posted 7 assists in 4 Memorial Cup games, where they won. Mixed in there was the World Juniors in December and January where he had 9 assists in seven games for Finland, where you guessed it, they won.

President of Hockey Operations Trevor Linden confirmed after the pick in a media scrum, that they feel that Juolevi has top pairing potential thus he was their pick. So the reasoning behind leaving Tkachuk on the board makes sense. If you can get a potential top pairing defenceman, you do it. As we saw with the acquisition of the Erik Gudbranson a few weeks ago, the cost can be high. Thus if you can draft and develop one yourself, you do it. They now have a player that they have lacked in their prospect pool for years.

There has been suggestions that taking Juolevi was a reach for the Canucks, when that is likely the farthest from the truth. TSN’s Bob Mckenzie had Juolevi ranked as the 6th best prospect available in this year’s class, so deciding to take the defenceman one spot before then and leaving a forward on the board is not a reach.

The Canucks now have the remainder of their picks to target some forward depth. Although all those players won’t be at the same level as Dubois or Tkachuk, the gap in talent will be much smaller than Juolevi and whoever with be available at 64th overall, and if you think of it that way, the selection makes even more sense.