[Jacob Stoller] Danila Klimovich took a big step forward in his DY+2 season with the Abbotsford Canucks. (Gamescore cards for 21-22 vs 22-23)
#Canucks prospect Danila Klimovich took a big step forward in his DY+2 season with the Abbotsford Canucks.
While Klimovich was deployed in the same role as he was last season, his production during the 2022-23 season was night and day from his 2021-22 campaign. pic.twitter.com/u9VOQvG90r
— Jacob Stoller (@JLStoller) May 23, 2023
by touchable
6 Comments
Finally, some good prospect development
Really liking the development system we have in place in Abbotsford right now and hopefully we start producing some talent down there that can help us when the main team is ready to compete for the playoffs. We haven’t had a competent farm system since the Burke/Nonis era where a good chunk of the main core that got us to the cup final were all homegrown players we developed in Manitoba.
I don’t think in this cap era it’s possible to consistently compete for the playoffs if you don’t have some push from your prospect pool. You can’t win championships unless you identify your core pieces and surround them with depth pieces on cheap contracts. We cannot be spending 3-4M on 3rd/4th liners.
He was such an incredibly raw talent at his draft day that it was always going to take time to adjust. Going from playing garbage hockey in Belarus to playing North American hockey against competent opponents was always going to be a big leap, especially at 18. He needed a ton of catch-up in the fundamentals of the game compared to an average prospect at his age.
Feels like his next big step is to be able to move up the AHL line-up into a top 6 role. By all reports his ceiling is sky-high. He has the full package, he just needs to learn the little details and put it all together. Which is easier said than done, but it appears he’s on the right track.
Honestly I wasn’t so worried about him out of the gate. He joined directly into the AHL on his D+1 year which isn’t a very common path for most folks – they usually have some level of sheltered junior-league stuff. So yeah, he was seeing sheltered minutes and less trust from the coaching staff. But it sounds like he took a good step up this year and that’s exactly what we want to see at this juncture.
Good to already see some ROI for the investment into Player Development.
If I recall correctly, when they were out in Utica they only had Higgins as a fulltime player development guy, and even Ryan Johnson (GM) was spending time doing player development.
Now it’s Hank, Danny, Higgins, Komisarek, plus you have Samuelsson oversea’s. And they report into Johnson + Granato.
Just a way more robust player development department than previous.
I didn’t realize that this data was publicly tracked for the AHL, super interesting.