Week 7 Top Prospects: Pettersson, Juolevi and Dahlen
No. 3 – LW Jonathan Dahlen (Timra IK, Allsvenskan)
Timra IK only played one game this week, but Jonathan Dahlen absolutely dominated. In a 3-2 victory over Oskarshamn, Dahlen picked up a pair of assists and scored a goal, capitalizing on miscues from the opposition. As usual, Ryan Biech was there to give us the video of his goal. If you are not following him to track Canucks prospects, I highly recommend that you do.
Per Elite Prospects, Dahlen is currently eighth in scoring with 18 points in 13 games. Nearly every player ahead of him has played 21 games. League leader and former Canucks prospect Alex Friesen leads the league with 23 points in the aforementioned number of games. Dahlen has the second highest points-per-game rate in Allsvenskan at 1.38.
I have watched a few streams of his games and Dahlen looks like the league is too easy for him. This makes sense, considering the Allsvenskan has a lower level of competition than the SHL. For Canucks fans, we can get excited when Dahlen makes the transition to an SHL team later this year.
No. 2 – D Olli Juolevi (TPS Turku, Liiga)
On Thursday, I was pondering which prospects really stood out this week. I was a little stumped because Dahlen and Pettersson were the only standout performances at this point. Utica had not played Laval yet and it was starting to look like a quieter week for Canucks prospects.
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TPS Turku played two games this week, winning both contests against Ilves and Tappara. Olli Juolevi did not get any points in the first game, but what he did in the second game alleviated any concerns I had for this week’s prospect performances.
Juolevi collected three assists, one on the power play and two at even strength. TPS defeated Tappara 3-2 in the effort. Juolevi touched every single goal for his team and helped push his team to second overall in the Liiga standings. TPS were sitting behind Tappara and this win allowed them to pass.
That important game took place yesterday morning. Juolevi now has 12 points in 14 games this season, good for 11th among all defencemen in Liiga, according to Elite Prospects. For those also following 2017 3rd overall selection, Miro Heiskanen, Juolevi has pulled ahead of him by one point.
Why am I talking about Heiskanen?
Everyone above these defencemen have played up to 12 more games than them. It is also interesting to see where they stand among defencemen under 20 years of age. I’ll let Ryan Biech explain this one:
The reason I bring up Heiskanen is the fact that these young defencemen will make up the top pairing for Finland at the 2018 World Junior Championships. Juolevi and Heiskanen will be on a path of redemption. Last year’s World Junior Championships were a disaster that nearly relegated Finland from this year’s main tournament. I think Finland will look very different from last year, becoming a force to be reckoned with.
No. 1 – RW Elias Pettersson (Vaxjo, SHL)
Surprise, surprise. Elias Pettersson has the best performance of the week. Everyone is all aboard the hype train for Pettersson and he is consistently giving us a reason to hop on.
Vaxjo played two games this week. The first was a 4-2 loss against Farjestad BK. Pettersson was part of a nice, giving Vaxjo a 2-1 lead.
The second game was against Malmo. If Pettersson seemed quiet to you in the first game, he exploded in this one. It was a tremendous performance with two goals and an assist, giving Vaxjo a 3-1 lead during the second period. The team was able to hold on for the win. Here are clips of his points:
https://twitter.com/ryanbiech/status/933761892002050048
Elite Prospects is a handy tool for comparing prospects to other seasons at the same age. Pettersson currently has 27 points, which ranks 28th on the all time SHL seasons for players under 20 years old. The craziest thing is that Pettersson has only played 20 games. He has over half of his season left.
The top ten all time U20 seasons in the SHL are only 10 points away. Nicklas Backstrom is Pettersson’s closest statistical comparable for projecting. If he can match Backstrom’s 40 points in fewer than 45 games, he will obliterate expectations.
However, there is one critical thing to stress here. Elias Pettersson did not play centre in his draft year and he has yet to play centre this season. If this continues for the remainder of the season and beyond, he will start in the NHL as a winger, just like William Nylander. There is the chance that he will project as a franchise winger in the long run. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I wouldn’t pencil him in as our number one centre until we see him playing in the middle.
The World Junior Championships
December is less than a week away, meaning we are getting ever closer to the 2018 World Junior Championships. Canucks fans may want to pay close attention to this one. Will Lockwood could be our representative on Team USA while Team Canada could have up to three Canucks prospects in Michael DiPietro, Jonah Gadjovich and Kole LInd.
I already mentioned Finland will have Olli Juolevi. Last, but not least will be Team Sweden. Elias Pettersson will play an important role for the team this year. This World Juniors are referred to as a 19-year-old’s tournament because the players that carry their teams are in their draft+1 year.
Next: Roundtable: Team grades, bold predictions, more
This may be the most exciting time for Vancouver Canucks prospects at this tournament since the days of Cody Hodgson and Jordan Schroeder. It will also give everyone a look at the 2018 draft-eligible players. There are a lot of offensive defencemen this year and the Canucks will need to stock up on them to add to the prospect pool.