...an established 3rd line forward (2nd PP unit) gets bumped for a bad scrimmage? ...
Is there any reason to believe it was just one bad scrimmage?
I'd understood he'd crapped the bed for most of the training camp.
When Sean Warren of Canucks Army wrote about Jake's benching in the exhibition game he wrote, at
Why Travis Green’s decision to scratch Jake Virtanen was the right move:
"After floundering through his second training camp this season, Jake Virtanen finds himself back in the doghouse with Vancouver Canucks head coach Travis Green."
The words "through his second training camp this season" certainly suggests more than just one bad scrimmage.
Further:
"First, Virtanen really didn’t earn his way into the lineup. Especially for a camp where his job was considered to be on the line despite his 18 goal campaign. It’s a remarkable feat to arrive at camp out of shape twice in a season but to do so when Zack MacEwen and Micheal Ferland are looking to punch tickets into the opening night lineup is a bold kind of negligent."
This, too, speaks of much more than one bad scrimmage.
It wasn't just Sean Warren. Still sticking to CA, Faber wrote (
The Last Dance: Hughes shines, Ferland rips twine and Virtanen just falls behind in Canucks final scrimmage) after the final scrimmage:
"Jake Virtanen was not very good
Tonight was a great night for a lot of Canucks. Jake Virtanen was not one of them.
Virtanen looked out of place in the scrimmage, was slashing around with teammates like MacEwen and Alex Edler and looked like a player who had packed it in and decided to let the cards fall where they may and accept his fate." ... "He didn’t bring any extra intensity like MacEwen, Beagle or Ferland and he just looked disinterested at times."
Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't see the workouts nor the scrimmages at training camp. I'm going entirely by what I've read in various places. Warren, Faber and others may be overstating the situation. Otoh, I haven't seen any credible report that Virtanen had only one bad scrimmage and was otherwise better than Ferland, Eriksson or MacEwen.
Though I was outside the mainstream feeling on this forum about accepting Virtanen's benching for the exhibition game, the actual Game 1 lineup was a real surprise. I'm not around the team enough to know all the factors that go into lineup decisions but it appears to this outsider that it is time (or perhaps past time) to get Virtanen back in the lineup.