Devise

You haven't really had as consistent of a season as any of those listed. Zamora stats were certainly boosted from playing with top players, but I was basing it on a combination of sim results and quality players for their teams. It's been tough to judge your player at this point based on how often he has moved around and how he has been somewhat of a streaky player. Your easily one of the top player who hasn't won a Cup yet though, I just didn't feature you in this top five. Not really a competition either way.

Trades be poppin off now. Vasteras picking up the fringe depth players to make a run. Any chance they nab a superstar as well? Free agency awaits for that most likely.

S35 marked the end of the "Kyle curse." This "curse" came about after both members Kyle and Jericho had struggled to win a Continental Cup their entire time in the VHL. Despite the fact that both members had players who were eligible or made the Hall of Fame and both made trips to the finals with teams on several occasions. While it is their newest players, Tomas Valiq and Wesley Kellinger that breaks this curse, who are the current best players in the league that have yet to win a Continental Cup? 1. G - Remy LeBeau Remy is a quality candidate for the top of this list. While there is another player who has worked just as hard to get to the top, Remy is arguably the best player at his position in the league. He is the most consistent goalie in the VHL, he plays on a team that has made the playoffs on more than one occasion or just narrowly missed the playoffs in the face of a strong conference. Despite all this Remy has yet to sniff out a single game in the Continental Cup finals. Some question the star power of the team around, others view it as simply dumb luck. Whatever the case, Remy is easily one of the most consistent and dominating players in the league, and he will likely break this funk at some point before his career comes to an end. 2. C - Kameron Taylor Taylor is in a very similar situation to LeBeau in that he is often relied on to be the best player on his team. This past season Cologne made the playoffs for the second time, and despite taking a trip to the Conference finals where they give Helsinki a good run, Taylor was once again left empty handed. Taylor is nominated for several individual awards this season and was on his way to having a near MVP like run in the playoffs. But one has to think that not being able to get to the finals stings Taylor. With recent retirements Taylor becomes arguably the second greatest forward and center in the VHL currently. Only Ethan Osborne boasts more work ethic and star power than Taylor from a forward position. But Taylor has always been the victim of being a good team, but not a great one. This has always made Cologne a solid competitor, but just out of the picture of contender. Look for Taylor to get surrounded by some up and coming all star talent and Cologne to finally make a trip to the finals in the next several seasons. 3. James Leferve Leferve is the best pure defensive defensemen currently in the VHL. As we approach S36, Leferves 5th season in the VHL one has to believe the player is looking for either a change of scenery or a change of direction. Currently the Seattle Bears look to be a team that finally has a chance to make the playoffs after being the odd man out on multiple occasions. After rebuilding in the post Seattle Six era, the Bears were forced to take a longer approach after teams like New York and Calgary pushed their dynasties several seasons, and then Quebec and Toronto would leap frog ahead of the Bears from a combination of key trades, free agent signings and emerging stars. Leferve currently sits as one of the best players on the Seattle Bears, and has yet to play a single playoff game in the VHL. It could be make or break time for the Bears with Leferve, as he is on the last year of his contract and if Seattle fails to show signs of life, they could be in danger of losing one of their top players. 4. Nicklas Lindberg While LeBeau is easily the best player on the Legions roster, Lindberg is arguably their best offensive player. Leading the Legion in points last season, as well as developing into a solid young superstar for the Legion, Lindberg has got to be feeling the same frustration as his star goalie. But there will be little to ease that frustration, as star forward Smooth Jive retired on the Legion this past season. S36 could be a make or break season for Lindberg. While a few of his teammates have put in a bit more practice hours, Lindberg is slowly but surely surpassing them all despite being younger. With the changing of the guard in the league look for Lindberg to surprise several on board to a finals appearance for the Legion sometime in the near future. 5. Felix Zamora Bad place, bad time. Of all the players on this list Zamora is the closest to winning a Continental Cup. Only a season ago, in the S34 finals Helsinki would finally take home a Championship at the expense of Zamora and his Calgary Wranglers. While Calgary gave it one last kick of the can this past season, Zamora and his Wranglers weren't able to get past the eventual Champion Quebec City. Now Zamora finds himself a free agent, and just like before he could easily become the first of these top five players to win the elusive Cup. Zamora controls his destiny, and can freely sign with the team he feels best has a chance to take home the Championship in S36. However Zamora will also have a lot more pressure on him. His stats and his growth has been shadowed and carried by the late great players of the once Calgary Wrangler dynasty. Names like Ryback, Chershenko, Wozniak all helped to bring out the best of Felix Zamora. Regardless of the team he choose, he will be relied on to be more of a star power player now that several of those names have retired. Look for Zamora to sign with a team on the cusp, with an already elite center to continue to bring out his game and pull that team ahead into the rank of Cup contender.

Hmmm....interesting deal. Mike trades up to stock up on the more likely player to pan out and only loses a couple seconds plus an inactive for it. All going to depend if Corco can draft some steals late in the second and what the 4th overall ends up being to see who won this deal. On paper though Mike has the better odds given the depth the upcoming draft. Still a pretty solid trade for both sides.

Ha! I thought about bolding the text so he'd get the joke...but I kinda figured nobody would be that..... Also not the Panthers either Noah. Best comparison I have for Vasteras is Carolina. Won a Cup roughly 10 seasons ago, and has had pieces to make runs ever since but for various reasons nothing has quite come together. Even this season they remind me of Vasteras. Has some solid young players as well as players but always finds themselves looking out at the playoffs even when they have a weaker conference.

These are super sick! Fantastic job sir.

I think I was the Bitchin Ballers. Know nothing about football so, I'm rather happy with the 3 TPE!

On a more personal note I always thought the old board paled in comparison to SMF in terms of looking and feeling more professional. Not to "call out" anyone on SHL but I always found that about SHL as well. It came off low rent, just the structure of the board everything to me screamed "free hosting site because this is just for the lols". Where as SMF and what we have done here with the new skin look and feel far more legitimate to me. We put our own logo designs over everything and try to make things feel like it isn't just a photoshop edit to make us feel legit but actually legit. Just my thoughts. But the actual logistic reasons were as stated, post limit.

Not to mention a gigantic young core that has potential. Vasty has pieces to a core but when they finally get out of rebuild we'll see what they can do. I picked Cologne, because this is about "curses" not quality teams. If anything Vasty hasn't come close to winning a Cup since S26, while I believe Cologne could come close, so if they don't manage to win a Cup before they rebuild they will be the next team to have a "curse".

Interesting... Good tenure Sandro, won a Cup and brought the Legion out of a rebuild to be one of the top teams in the NA conference. Still a bit to go to get another Cup but I'm eager to see if Edgar can pull it off.

Do you have any idea win this is going to happen?

Yeah Higgins, my old job. Gave it over to someone else.

http://www15.zippyshare.com/v/58345153/file.html Jericho was busy and I have plans tonight so only Chris joined me. We talked the last bit of the playoffs, Quebec winning the cup, go into playoff MVP debate to finalize awards discussion. We take a look at the VHLM, give it some well deserved love including regular season standings as well as stand out performers from the season, look at VHLM playoff winners and then Chris gives VHLM overall awards. We also look a bit more at Super Cup as Chris adds his predictions to teams while I break down the strengths and weaknesses of each team. We touch a little on the current MVP debate and then throw a wrinkle onto the usual shout out segment that ends up being a bit more challenging and funny that anticipated. I also give some final thoughts to close out with a bit of a challenge to those who listen. Enjoy!

I agree with you there. I thought 20 was the perfect number, but knew that if it was 25 or 15 I'd still be alright with it. If it was as low as 10 though I'd likely have a problem. Interesting to note that if it got higher I likely wouldn't of cared...like 50 games even...

They aren't really good looking to be honest although I don't mind the bottom left. But they all look better than the lame ass Petro Canada style jersey/logo the players are going to be wearing in the Olympics this year....

Thought he was going to get 20. 15 is still reasonable and does still set an impression. That is a big portion of the paycheck as well.

If you've been belittled it hasn't been by me. I'm not that type of person. I may make the occasionally joking off hand remark but when it comes time to talk about something seriously I generally take it seriously. In regards to your accusations, tons of members around here received tons of recognition regardless of how active they are. You talk about people winning awards and getting recognition only being some select group of people when that simply isn't true. Look at the past award winners. Find me the popularity contest in them. Look at the ballots people have this year, look at peoples thoughts on them. Find me the bias. How many people have claimed Davey Jones as rookie of the year? Tons, I'm one of them. and on record. Why? Because of the stats. It's like you want us to spend our time doing a Podcast, never talk about our own players ever...even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with that and then just bring up other people just for the sake of it. Ultimately there was a time when I was doing Pajodcasts that I'd always have to throw in "don't mean to bring up my own player" yada yada. You forget Kendrick, I have only won a limited amount of awards here too and while I generally am a pretty humble guy....engaging in the league to have some fun with your player is a completely fine thing to do. Your concession about me saying Rift this or Rift that implies I sit there and talk about how I"m some god of a player who has descended upon this league. If that is the perspective you get from how I speak then you are misreading the situation. I've talked about Rift maybe winning a few things legitimately, this year the Shaw and his playoff performance with Labatte on the last episode but I also put the hell over Labatte because I enjoyed playing him in the playoffs. Why is that a bad thing to talk about? Why is that forsaken? I shouldn't have to feel bad or guilty about talking about my player on occasion...the podcast is what over an hour? So I spend 5 minutes or 10 minutes total in periods talking about my player when it comes up naturally, it isn't like I force it. The fact is Kendrick you see and hear what you want to see and hear. We tell you every time we have these discussion so and so is not apart of our "group" and every single time you have new names. Kyle Dowd NEVER Skypes with us. He doesn't share some group opinion with us. Why do you keep projecting members into this as if it is bigger than it is? It isn't. It literally is barely even a group. It's three friends who Skype and happen to be friends with a few other people on the league and also sometimes Skype. It isn't like guys like STZ who has won awards had to come into our group for us to consider them for awards. Because I think I've talked to STZ on Skype like once. So I talk highly of him on my Pajodcast? Of course, he's a great fucking member in this league. As is Green, Flyersfan, and I could list TONS of members that I will look over or pay attention to who quietly go on and I find to be great members. Tons of times they get recognition from on me on Podcast and throughout the board. The reason you hear more about us? Simply because we post more....that is kind of a consequences of being more active is you see us more often. Our usernames, our signatures, topics relating to us or conversations about us in conjunction with the league. It's like your saying you want us to be inactive because you don't like us. Or less active. As for the group mentality and always agreeing. Again you see what you choose to see in this Kendrick. Facts are all over this board where Noah, Jericho, Chris and myself disagree. Hell go look at the recent Pajodcast thread where I basically inform Kesler that I do not agree with Jericho targeting him all the time. Notice how I never participate in those threads when Jericho does them? Because I find it childish. Jericho knows this. Debates have happened countless times between Jericho and me or Chris and me on VHL topics and non VHL topics both on Pajodcasts and off. I just don't see why we should need to defend ourselves when all we are doing is participating in this forum. We aren't alienating anyone. Nobody who comes over here doesn't get a fair chance. On the old site before we switched I also messaged tons of new members and the biggest thing I was always told about in terms of people going inactive was a lack of overall league interest in the VHLM. Either way though you seem to be one of the only ones with these criticisms. I can't speak for the SHL people because I haven't said nor done anything to the people you referenced. Other than send some Welcome Messages and Intro a few of them to the VHL on the old site. I don't vote on awards, I am on the BoG and have been nothing but unbiased and tried to present fresh and interesting ideas there. If you have issues with me ever, don't hesitate to PM me. I don't get offended. My only issue comes from the fact that I feel like you are reaching at facts because you simply don't like the way we operate business. You don't like how we talk like we know this league, how we want to make changes this league and suggest ideas to this league, and how we constantly discuss things in crazy detail. I mean look at this Media Spot. You talk about how Sterling used to write his article about awards and that was that. No talking, no "pushing people to vote certain ways" which on my end doesn't happen. I speak my mind on awards and so does everyone else. Again you want people to be invested and interested in the league but they can't voice their opinions? Sounds a bit..odd. Anyway I"ve responded enough here. It sucks that members who have joined haven't felt like they could get engaged or do any damage in this league. Because they can, and there is nothing standing in their way. At least I'm not. If they were to join the league and earn TPE and show up in the sim in relevant ways...they would get attention. Simple as that.

I don't see why you think your going to start some shit storm. At least with me Kendrick. There is no bias on my "groups" end. Which is very narrow definition since really the only people on my end who Skype regularly is myself Chris and Jericho. Noah sometimes as well. We aren't elitist we don't favor our own players and friends. Proof? Green, STZ two first gens who are doing tons in terms of winning awards etc.... I'm not saying they may not have a point, but again when you refuse to cite specific examples. Regardless of the shit storm, if this is an issue it's an issue...but I feel like your not bringing up examples because you don't have any. Because all you are doing is assuming based on the fact that you believe there is some secret society of members trying to run the forum the way they see fit. I can't speak for any other groups, because I don't really know much others, but the small little group I am in I can easily attest that nothing of the sort is even happening regarding that. Tons of facts support this.

Good point. This years MVP race is so tight and complicated that nobody should be offended when it all gets said and done.

I completely agree with you on MVP. I was pretty much anti Wozniak before due to the reasons you suggest, however after digging more into the details I became less and less. You were an option to be honest and I can vouch that in that Fan590 Chris wrote about he and I did look up your stats against good teams and against bad teams. That was the basis of that analysis completely. To your point, MVP is the player that team counted on to win games. But this isn't the NHL. There are no teams with no rosters in the NHL. Meaning that it doesn't matter how a team performs against Riga or NY, the top teams in the league are going to beat them. Ergo all stats gained in those games are irrelevant. You need to look at how the team played against the teams they had a chance to lose against, and how the individual player in question helped or hindered that teams ability to win and or lose. Which is exactly what Chris and I did. Wozniak was consistent all season as mentioned and only had 10 games without points. But it is a still a hesitant candidate because despite all his points Calgary was 17-15 against the other four top teams in the league. While Wozniaks point totals are glowing in those games, having those glowing point totals really only led Calgary to just better than .500 win percentage. Which is where my initial argument for Tukio was born in an old Fan590 thread. But as we dug into each and every game to write down more stats we saw more and more that Tukio was facing low shot totals most of the time, even against quality teams. In the case of Taylor he had a similar situation to Wozniak in that a ton of his points came against NY/Riga. Cologne also got dominated by Helsinki this season which greatly influenced the stats of Cologne against the other top teams. We also considered the fact that Europe was so weak this season, the chance of you guys not making the playoffs was very slim. While the 91 points is certainly nothing to sneeze at, still the worst of the top teams mostly because Cologne struggled against those teams. Ultimately all this digging really did was at least for me I can't speak for Chris here but lead us to think that the way the NHL determines MVP and how we translate that doesn't really work here. You can't justify it. There is always other factors. Rift finished the season with the highest goalie stats, but his overall stats against top teams is hardly glowing. He stole games just as his offense carried him to games. Hardly "MVP." In the case of Grigs the 5 GWG stat isn't from the playoffs. He had 14 on the season, the 5 he had were against Helsinki/Calgary, teams that are not easy wins. Chris probably could of made that clearer in the article. To summarize for people who won't read all this, the stats we have deliver very little context to actually make a proper MVP vote. Who was most valuable to their team? Tons of players, but the structure of the VHL makes it so that we can't just look at end all stats and say "bang that player is the answer." Stat inflation is HUGE in this league, and while it became more apparent this season it has always been a problem. It makes it very hard to actually see things for the face value they are, where as in the NHL it's so much easier. In the NHL you can see a team struggling to get into the playoff picture then have a player go on a tear and score 20 goals in the last 25 games and their team make the playoffs. Much easier of a translation there.

See it is tough for me to see your argument when you don't like using examples. At the end of the day most of the conversations about who should win this or that are usually all very well thought out back and forth discussion with facts and logic as to why people think or argue for a certain person. Hell, lately it rarely has any connection to any click or something like that. An example, when Sterling had replied to me regarding my argument for Tukio as MVP he accused me of being biased towards my friend. I rarely ever talk to Higgins....I can't remember the last time I Skyped with him. Rift and Tukio have a friendly rivalry and the last I chatted with Higgins was related to GM business. A lot of times I think there is this assumption that it is about who you know not what you do based more on the fact that people see themselves or others getting opinions thrown at them and they assume it's a gang up. It isn't, or I should say it rarely is. Most of all the arguments are stats based. I can only speak for myself and my little "group" and say that we constantly differ on thoughts when it comes to awards, Chris and I are obsessive about actually finding numbers and stats when we make predictions or thoughts. Regular listens to the Pajodcast can easily attest to this. If you had some actual examples, where you knew for sure people were just playing favorites, then sure. But do you think conversations go on behind the scenes where people are like "hey nominate this guy vote that guy?" It rarely is ever like that. Do you honestly think guys like Chris, Noah, myself, Jason, all don't have enough of an ego to just stop and agree with each other? Hell at times the Skype chat can even be a larger debate than the formulated opinions you see posted on the boards after the fact. Now I'm just speculating but maybe the issue is that when people go crazy into intensive debate like this it changes the perspective of the league, specifically when it comes to not just who wins awards and how people vote but the entire process of what each award means. When you stay silent, when you rely on one perspective and say it is the "way it is" that perspective rarely ever adapts or evolves. There is nothing wrong with saying the award is defined by this, but at the end of the day the people who vote on awards all have very different criteria for different things. Some value defensive stats as more important, some consider MVP to mean different things, some look deeper into stats, some look at overall stats. Some don't give a shit and quickly pick so they can move on with their lives. The fact is it isn't a cut and dry process with the intent to get people hijacked into an award situation. Is it the best process going? No. But that is part of the purpose at least on my groups end of why we get so passionate and debate awards and winners to such a high degree. Because it should be a big deal. It should get as much attention and criticism for all candidates, and the very nature of what the award means. Maybe if we as a league worked more on doing that we could actually properly come up with a standardized definition of these awards, which for the most part we actually don't have now. It wasn't until Victor restructured the Slobo when that award finally actually made sense to most people. Even now we have several awards where it is loosely defined and you have to be in the know of this league to have any idea of what is really going on. Ultimately I think you are looking to much into the group situation. They exist but they aren't the end all be all. They aren't trying to run or control the league. Most of the people I know who "group up" at any point also enjoy tons of other members in this league outside of their group and generally have a very grounded opinion on the league as a whole. But I'd be interested to hear some actual examples, if this is an actual issue then actual facts to support your argument would go a long way to identifying and fixing it.

I'll add that I was very anti Wozniak before we started doing research just on the surface. As I was aware of his 54 points in the games against New York/Riga. But once I started calculating how consistent Wozniak was throughout the year, specifically only being held without a point on 10 occasions throughout the season it became pretty apparent that regardless of how important a lot of his overall goal totals were, the player himself was getting points on a consistent basis. Sure some of those came in 8-1 wins or 6-2 beatings. But he wasn't stat padding nearly as much as a player like Taylor did, who when Chris was calculating had nearly 27 points in 5 or 6 games alone. Wozniak rarely had more than 3 or 4 points a single game, and his performance was stretched out game after game, with 1-4 point games here and there. With Calgary being as consistent as they were, it became obvious that doing more fact checking had to change my research. As for Tukio, who I was arguing for in a previous thread...my basis completely on goals against. But at the end of the day Tukio's save percentage against the top teams wasn't nearly as impressive as his goals against those teams. While he did get little offensive support against some of the top teams during the season, the wins were often a result of Tukio dealing with very low shot totals. Recalling moments against some of the top teams where Tukio faced 25 and less shots, sometimes even 14. Meanwhile Helsinki would throw 40 on net. Then it became clear that the low goal totals had to do more with Helsinki being a puck possession team for a large part of the season. Even against top teams. So we decided on Osbourne as Helsinki MVP due to the fact that the only real reason he didn't get nearly as much point totals as others is because his stats weren't as padded against weaker teams and his whole team struggled offensively when players like Labatte, Rift, and Remy were playing solid to great against Helsinki. It is a very interesting debate to be honest. I'll talk about this more when I Pajodcast this week but I often wonder if we should get rid of MVP and Playoff MVP for something that can be a bit more tied to actual understanding/using the stats we have. In the NHL they have the advantage of actually watching the games to go along with stats to determine MVP. Thus MVP isn't always leading goal scorers, or leading point producers. It is much easier to determine the impact a player has on the flow of a game. A goalie could win a game 4-0 in the NHL but if his team gets out shot and out played in the first two periods by a large margin but the game enters tied 0-0 heading into the third most would understand that the goalie is the reason said team is in the game. Even if they pot 4, it isn't as if the goal scoring support negated said goalies performance. That is the type of leverage you are given when you can see and analyze the play of a game. Not so much with the VHL. While we can try to translate what stats mean, the amount of digging it can take and this is a perfect example of it is almost absurd. When we see point totals at the end we automatically assume that they mean something they might not always mean. An example, and not to dig on Kendrick since I think Taylor had a great year, but 8 points in one game easily makes you change your perspective on what 112 points actually means. Because take away that game or make that game less stat padded and your looking at a 100 point season. It isn't just his player either, tons receive that goalies and rebuilding teams struggle. If another player in the league doesn't get that boost they appear to be having a worse season when that isn't always the case. Maybe something like a most consistent award to go with most outstanding, or something along those lines. Something more "defined" and fitting to how we view stats/translate them on the VHL. Anyway, interesting turning of this into an article Chris!

If Zamora signs...if he doesn't? But Seattle gave up next to nothing. Streetlight is inactive and doesn't do anything for them in the bigger picture. Hilarious how Toriyama gets traded...again. For like the 5th time. Jason, you must trade him again so he will have played on every single team.

It literally took me like...half a minute to figure this one out. Higgins made it very clear you were headed in the right direction once you go down the path. Also this is super neat and cool and fun and awesome. Even though I have to hate holidays since they are consumerist and force people into family time when people should make time for family regardless of celebrating some stupid dumb holiday.

What the hell, since we did we do this?