Virtanen finally fulfilling potential, rewarding Canucks' patience

The dream was tugging at him. So many of those in his draft class -- the Florida Panthers' Aaron Ekblad, the Boston Bruins' David Pastrnak, the Edmonton Oilers' Leon Draisaitl -- were stars in the making in the NHL by 2016-17, starting to fulfill their promise. And here he was, the No. 6 pick of the 2014 NHL Draft, sitting in then-Utica Comets coach Travis Green's office.

Again.
Jake Virtanen, fleet-of-foot power forward, was property of his hometown Vancouver Canucks, a team that had fallen since its 2011 appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. The players that had led them there were at the end of the line, making way for the stars of the future. Virtanen was supposed to be among them.
Instead, after 55 games in the NHL as a rookie in 2015-16 and 10 more in Vancouver in 2016-17 season, Virtanen was sent to Utica of the American Hockey League in November 2016. He wouldn't return to the NHL until the following season.
And he wouldn't start to fulfill his own promise until recently, two years after that return to Utica, four years after he was drafted, more years than he had intended or planned.
"I think I've obviously taken a bit longer, but I'm definitely finding my stride right now, feeling really confident," Virtanen said Thursday, ahead of a game against the Bruins when he would score his sixth goal of the season, followed on Saturday by his seventh against the Buffalo Sabres.
"I don't try to look at [the others in my class] too much. I just try to worry about myself and see myself, where I'm going to be going in the future."
That has taken patience.
From Virtanen. From the Canucks. From their fan base.

"He gives us a different look," Canucks general manager Jim Benning said. "So even though maybe he hasn't scored like we think he can score, he still is fast and physical and gets to the net hard and can shoot the puck. When he's not scoring, he still brings other things to the team that we need.
"We've been patient with him and he's worked hard and he's gotten better every year. We're going to continue to keep working with him until we can get him to where we think he should be and he thinks he should be."
To get there has not been easy. It has taken study and work and many, many conversations with Green, who coached Virtanen in Utica and who now coaches him in Vancouver. It has taken maturity.
It has taken marrying the physical gifts, the ones that allowed him to dominate in juniors, with the mental strength needed to succeed in the NHL. It has taken the little details that he didn't need back then, but which are indispensable now.
"Being sent back to Utica a couple of years ago, [Green would] be meeting with me every day, telling me things I could do better and doing video with me," Virtanen said. "So many meetings with him. It was every other day."
That much contact has built a relationship that few young players -- Virtanen is 22 -- have with their coaches. Green has seen Virtanen at some of his most frustrating moments, when he was returned to the AHL, when he was watching his draft classmates succeed in the NHL, when the future he dreamed about seemed much further away than the 2,816 miles from Utica to Vancouver.
"That's part of coaching, understanding the player, getting to know the player, when he's on, how you teach him, the video you show him, when to be hard on him, when to maybe take it easy on him," Green said. "Jake's obviously a guy that knows me well now and I know him well and the teaching part of it is probably easier now than … that first time we were together in Utica."

Green now knows when Virtanen is on, and when he's not. He acts accordingly, shaving down his minutes in a third period here, inserting him for multiple shifts in an overtime there. Sometimes in the same game.
"He's come a long way from when I had him in Utica and, still, I think we haven't seen his best yet, which for me is a good sign," Green said. "It's exciting. The nights that he's on, you get excited about it. And hopefully he becomes that player that we can build with and part of the puzzle that puts us to a spot that we all want to be."
That's why the Canucks continue to devote resources to Virtanen, who had a modest year in 2017-18 with the Canucks, with 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in 75 games.
"When we drafted him, I thought he was a unique player in his draft class," Benning said. "Obviously there's other players that went after him that are more skilled players and they've produced more offensively. But we're going to be patient with him because he's a power forward and he's a big, strong guy (6-foot-1, 226 pounds), but he's fast, [able] to play in the up-tempo game of today. He can get to the puck first and he gets in the corners and is physical."
The hope is that Virtanen will turn out to be a consistent 20-goal scorer in the NHL. That's what Benning targets for him, a level that he seems likely to attain this season with nine points (seven goals, two assists) in 18 games.
"He's playing with more conviction when he has the puck," Benning said. "He has a real good shot and now he's figuring out if he uses his speed he can go wide, he can take the puck to the net. … He's an important part to our team."
And he's having fun. He's feeling more established in a League he always knew had space for him and his skills, even if he had to wait longer than he hoped, longer than some of the others.
"I think [the organization] sees the potential that I could have," Virtanen said. "The Canucks always had faith in me, so obviously I want to do the best I can to make them proud but make myself proud at the same time."
But, as Virtanen said, "It's been a long road to where I am now."