Photo Credit: Bob Frid/USA TODAY Sports

The Canucks are going all-in on youth this season, so for the time being anyways, Jared McCann, Jake Virtanen and Ben Hutton are all active members of the 23-man roster.

For the select few who followed Hutton’s collegiate career, this isn’t an overly surprising development where he’s concerned. Frankly, Virtanen’s sticking wasn’t overly shocking either – management admitted pencilling him in earlier this summer. The McCann development certainly surprised though, despite there being a strong argument that he’s considerably further along in his development than Virtanen. 

Given that Hutton is 22-years old, it’s not extraordinary by any means that he’s starting his season in the NHL. With two young 19-year olds with a low-end first round pedigree, there’s considerably more intrigue.

Let’s see what history tells us about their chances to be successful, on the other side of the jump.

Firstly – for contexts sake – it should be pointed out that playing games in the NHL as a 19-year old forward isn’t all that rare a feat. According to HockeyReference, there have been 386 players to do it in the modern era. Of this group, only 286 made it past nine games – of course, there’s several different CBA’s worth of difference between what that tenth game means now and what it might have 20+ years ago, but it’s a valuable reference point all the same.

The inspiration for gleaning this information came from a piece I remember Dimitri Filipovic writing on the possibility of Bo Horvat making the Canucks as an 18-year old center – a role which was found to be historically rare and difficult. For the sake of that article, Dimitri used the best tell-all (ish) stat available at the time, Point Shares, to define the impact made by the pioneers of Horvat’s position and age group.

I’ve replicated this process, with my own unique spin on it, using some of the newly developed in-tool prospect evaluation tools to get a more focused picture. For the sake of this exercise, I looked at every comparable player for the members of Virtanen and McCann’s 19-year old cohort and whittled it down to the select few who played in games during their 19-year old seasons. To provide a comparative analysis of their development curves, I also took into account the 18 and 19-year old PCS% and PCS PPG of these players in the table provided below.

Now, if I were to start on the case for McCann as the more refined NHL prospect than Virtanen, this table would go a long way in helping my cause. It’s hard not to notice Murray Craven sitting there all by his lonesome, as the sole member of Virtanen’s cohort to see any action as a 19-year old. McCann, on the other hand, has a slightly higher rate of historically comparable successful cohorts. 

All this is to say that the odds aren’t stacked in Virtanen or even McCann’s favour. Generally speaking, players who’ve completed a statistically similar draft+1 season to Virtanen or McCann, at similar statures, have rarely made any sort of lasting impact at the NHL level as a 19-year old. Now, by this same token, the PCS Draft Model isn’t perfect by any means and it bears mentioning that the boys are hard at work making improvements on it, on an almost daily basis. It’s another bullet in the chamber though and certainly bears observing. 

Similarly, though, one might point out that they have several readily apparent NHL qualities, which perhaps get glanced over when looking solely at statistical models based entirely on comparisons. In the case of Virtanen, there’s absolutely no arguing that both his skating and physicality are NHL ready – this much was evident during the Utica Comets run for the Calder Cup. For McCann I would list the inarguably NHL ready qualities as his wrist shot, defensive acumen and overall ability to think the game. By no stretch am I short of optimism on these two.

Of course, a lot of their success will depend on their roles and expectations. Based on current lineup projections, one can expect McCann to center a defensively slanted third line, while Virtanen is pencilled in to start somewhere on the fourth. Frankly, I think the Canucks have done a splendid job of finding roles that will smooth the NHL transition. McCann as a checking center might be able to acquit himself well enough to last the entire 82-game season. Virtanen, in a low leverage role, will be able to avoid the lofty offensive expectations that would be expected of him higher in the lineup.

The Canucks young guns have been put in a position to succeed and clearly have the faith of management. What history tells us though is that, in all likelihood, maybe McCann has a chance to stick and have a lasting impact on this season; Virtanen, considerably less so – it would be a rare and remarkable feat, to be sure. Food for thought, should their offensive contributions stagnate at any point.