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Written by Ryan
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Friday, 05 March 2010 09:31 |
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 We occasionally give him the business for his wicked wristers from the blue line and sometimes hesitant physical play, but there's no denying that at only 20 years old James van Riemsdyk is turning into one of the Flyers most prized possessions. JVR currently sits at 7th in scoring behind Claude Giroux and a gaggle of guys that make over $4M a year. By the time his contract renegotiation comes up who knows what we're going to have to give him. But only thinking as far as the end of the season, the kid who can't even legally buy beer stands to score over 40 points, and if he gets hot could be the first Flyers rookie to score 20 goals since Simon Gagne in 1999-2000.
While his progression has been slow he's come a long way from high school. After surprising his friends by simply making the varsity squad his Freshman year Riemer notched 36 goals and 24 assists as a 15 year old sophomore. Not so coincidently he helped his club team make their way to the USA Hockey National Championships that season and earned himself and invite to the National Development Program tryouts the following summer. Needless to say he made the Under 17 team. After leading the U-17 club with 42 points in 55 games Riemer was called up to play with the big boys on the U-18 team towards the end of the year. The next season he spent the entire year with the U-18 team, leading them in scoring with 63 points in 42 games and surprising some by making the US World Junior roster as a face-mask-wearing 17 year old.
As you know we drafted him after getting shafted by the NHL's lottery system (which they subsequently changed so that in the last two drafts the worst team has gotten the first overall pick) and picked up JVR with the second overall pick. Where things turned sour between us and him was when he honored his commitment to UNH in the summer of 2007 - patience is a virtue. When we started to hate on him was when he went back for a second year. (In retrospect how can syllabi and drunken fingering not help someone's development.)
But it appears that slow and steady has been his mantra so far in his career - and it's worked. He got settled in high school and then exploded all over everyone. He got settled at the US program and then exploded all over everyone. He got settled at UNH and then exploded all over everyone with 40 points in 36 games. And right now he's settling into the NHL and the Flyers organization. If he continues to develop chemistry (not a college class joke) with Claude Giroux and the Flyers find a nice compliment to that pair (Asham's doing fine but I'm talking about a real stud), who knows what these guys could get up to over the next 5 seasons.
While we lack talented prospects in the pipeline we have a 20 & 21 year old that would give any young pair in a league a run for their money.
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