Baptism by Fire

[ConnorMcdavid 180]

This article is a retrospective look in Trevor Van Lagen’s utilization in his rookie season which has recently concluded.

 

A recent media spot by @dmaximus highlighting S67 unofficial awards gave the 1 vs 100 Award away with the winner holding 374 penalty kill minutes. When comparing this to his own stats, Van Lagen realized he was just 5 minutes shy of that record, in his rookie season!

 

Coming into his first season in the VHL, Van Lagen was known as a scoring center. He didn’t hit, he wasn’t strong, and he definitely didn’t kill penalties. Yet, @Advantage, wanting to give everyone as much ice time as he could, placed Van Lagen at the heart of the teams penalty kill.  Van definitely struggled there and by as with anything else, he tried to give 110% at this task as well. Unfortunately, the end result would be he was tired often when he would finally get some offensive ice time (by far lower in ES + PP ice time then most of his teammates).  Besides this, Van Lagen was learning the ropes on the wing rather than in his natural position in the middle.  This transition though wouldn’t be as big of a change as it did take some of the responsibilities of being a center away from him so he could focus on developing the other aspects of his game.

 

Despite his struggles and frustrations, Van did learn a valuable lesson - he needed to gain strength to compete with the best in this league. That is exactly what he did as he dedicated his energy to the gym gaining that necessary muscle to fill his big 6’-5” frame.  He began dumping some hard earned TPE into his strength stat as well as putting emphasis on his skating and puck handling stats in an effort to remain a shifty player who is hard to hit. With his scoring and puck handling developed to 90 and his skating at 85 Van Lagen hopes to spend this offseason learning how to hit as well as improving on his face off abilities. His dream heading into his sophomore season is to become a shifty, strong center who’s stride is at least average and shot is near lethal. He will be able to knock opponents off the puck while being a keep away artist and then when he finds an opening he will be able to bury the puck in the net. The only missing aspect in his repertoire will be his passing. This is however, by design. Van Lagen believes in player types and being a predominant scorer will allow him to be a star earlier in his career. Whether he develops his passing later in his career to when his other attributes are maxed out in an effort to become more of an all around player will be determined when he gets there and by how much depreciation is affecting him in those years.

 

Next season, Van will definitely be more prepared than ever to handle the grind of a 72 game VHL schedule. With the hope and expectation that his ES and PP ice time will improve significantly, expect Van Lagen to be a breakout star in just his sophomore season for Malmo.

 

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