Victor

Seattle's lines for New York ?

oui oui oui*

One more sleep

Good thing I'm the same draft year as you then.

I'd struggle to see how they wouldn't also be, or near the bottom. Think there are a lot fewer blowouts. But to get a definite answer would require a lot of digging I'm not really willing to do. ? VHLPA where you at?

Week 4 of 4.

And so it ends, the lowest scoring season ever. It's been coming, what with the number of 100-point players dwindling season after season. In Season 66, it looked like no one might hit it, before 4 players scrambled over the mark. This was down to just two in S67 and three last year. And now here we are, at the peak of parity, or goaltending prowess, or lack of CPU backups, or whatever it is that is causing this. The VHL's dead puck era is well and truly upon us. Here are some of the statistical highlights from Season 69: With 93 points, Julian Borwinn is by some distance the lowest scoring top scorer ever. 107 was the mark to beat from Jason White in S29, although Matt Thompson (S64) and Rauno Palo (S67) got close with 110 points each. Naturally, there's been a knock-on effect on the top goal-scorer, although not quite so vivid. Julius Freeman's 44 goals leads the league in S69 and would have come close in S14 when Leander Kaelin and Matt Bailey each notched 46. Only 3 other Kevin Brooks Trophy winners have fewer than 50 goals. And finally, to assists, although Starload's 67 is still higher than the 64 put up by Palo in S67, and also Jeff Hamilton's 66 in S50. Other than Biggu Kyanon who also put up 67 in S48, it has always taken more than 70 assists to get the Beketov in the past. At least this time around there has at last been a return to the elite goaltending numbers of yesteryear. And in such a low scoring season, it will be very hard to look past Kallis Kriketers for the MVP and MOP awards, especially as only two of his teammates hit a point per game, the retiring Dahlberg and Palo hitting 78 and 74 respectively.

We're back!! Fill out the form linked below. 2 correct answers = 2 capped TPE 1 correct answer = 1 capped TPE Uncapped TPE based on season leaderboard handed out at end of season. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbsQ4mFOaCcvlU7rZfcFfRiAvNxFxC1JWiBIsCabCOfubMaA/viewform?usp=sf_link I am always taking question suggestions via PM, with 1 uncapped TPE going your way for each question that ends up getting used.

What a time to be alive

F Love it when the old GM leaves a first round pick so the next GM gets the first piece of their rebuild straight away off the bat - @Higgins GOAT.

Just the type of shenanigans you want to end the regular season with.

1. I've always like Julian Borwinn @Jubo07 for some reason, back when he was a rookie he just had that future superstar vibe about him so pleased to see I got that one right. HM to Pepper @Sonnet, love a franchise goalie who sticks from start to end. 2. Could easily go down the wire, my heart won't be able to take it but Game 7 is in the future I feel. 3. I think Vancouver deserves it and I like the way they built the team. But if we're on the other side of the finals, I'd rather face Toronto, we seem to have their number. 4. Many good ones have been brainstormed in the BOG, I feel like I'd be spoiling the fun by revealing them all now. 5. The other guy is a retiring Indian scrub, Smitty, you got this. 6. I love the ol' playoff avatar although after that backfired a bit last time might just go dry this time around.

Theme Week MS: https://vhlforum.com/topic/74650-theo-matsikas-career-titan/ 8 TPE

Week 3 of 4

happy sunday

It's only Vancouver, probs gonna get slapped by Toronto in round one anyway.

Yissss.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

For me, the unsung heroes of the VHL are often the young players who go up to the big leagues knowing they will probably not make much of an impact individually but could be part of something bigger because of their role on a contending team. Now the player that comes to mind for me is a rookie on my own team, Nate Telker @Telkster. Hes had his moments this season and even that i think is a success story but as the season comes to an end he sits at 10 points, a long way behind the stars of the team like Randoms, Jaguar, and Smitty. However, this hasn't affected his morale at all, as he has been a positive presence in the locker room and we're all sure he'll play a much bigger role in the seasons to come for Moscow. So now a shoutout to the other Telkers around d the league. Riga always has a few because of hedgehog's impeccable drafting - Ryan Busser @diacope, Guy Sasakamoose @Cxsquared, Khalabib Stiopic @SweetMike666 are this season's versions. New York has Aamon Grim @aCrypticPancake and Ryo Yamazuki @Donno100. And if I missed you I'm sorry, I did this on my phone, but I'm sure your GM recognises your contributions.

Sneaking in at the buzzer.

So many things fell perfectly during that run, great trip down nostalgia lane. ?

@Kyle you magnificent bastard.

I think we've finally moved on from it but the blind following of TPE to pick players by GMs was always mind-boggling. When you know someone like Silky is gonna come in with 6 TPE a week and no more, why not take risk on a first gen? Never made sense to me but you could pretty much plan a draft by predicting which GMs would make that mistake.

It is inevitable.

Oh look, another theme week which I can just sleepwalk through. One of the Media Spots that will never happen because it's too much work (I say that, while being 4 letters into the greatest player by nationality series) that I have considered writing is about some underrated player from every cup winning team. That realistically won't be written as that's like 68 underrated players, potentially, but I will now write about the one player who was the inspiration behind the idea: Theo Matsikas. Who is Theo Matsikas? He was a defenceman who won back-to-back Continental Cups with Helsinki in S45 and S46. It was quite a good start to his career which began when he was drafted with the final pick of the S43 first round by the Titans. Matsikas was one of the first pieces of the Titans rebuild, a franchise reeling from failing to win a cup with their previous generation, pretty much the first time this had ever happened. However, new GM William Shaw @Will went about his rebuild in a way which made it one of those inevitable future cup winners, so long as no one went inactive. After spending two additional seasons in the VHLM, Matsikas would graduate to the VHL in S45 alongside three future Hall of Famers in Phil Hamilton @Phil, Greg Clegane, and Aleksi Koponen, and a future collector of cup rings, Marcel Faux. Seeing how the team was shaping up, Shaw gambled on his young team developing quickly and traded for the best forward in the league Thomas O'Malley and his sidekick Christoph Klose. The back-to-back cup wins followed. Yet while there was a fair amount of star power in this Helsinki roster, the defence flew under the radar. Yes, Hamilton's talent was clear to see as the first overall pick, but he manned the defence alongside Matsikas, Souryuu Kaminogi and Pablo Escabar. This article could have been realistically about any of those three, but the reason I chose Matsikas will reveal itself shortly. That fearsome foursome on defence stayed in tact from S45 to S48. In fact, as the forward core was slowly decimated by the salary cap, you could argue the Titans' solidity, backed up by Clegane, was what kept their contending cycle going, even making another finals appearance in S48. Then, like all good things, it had to come to an end but unlike his fellow blue-liners, Matsikas never moved on from Helsinki. The member behind him, @Individual, never made another player to my knowledge, and had already drifted away from the VHL meaning his player had little value, but this is what makes Matsikas a bit unique – he stuck through the rebuild and became a career Titan. S45: 46 points, 85 hits, 113 shots blocked S46: 33 points, 46 hits, 72 shots blocked S47: 41 points, 16 hits, 93 shots blocked S48: 45 points, 34 hits, 95 shots blocked S49: 50 points, 105 hits, 195 shots blocked S50: 48 points, 194 hits, 128 shots blocked There's his career stats – nothing flashy but very dependable. While Escabar quite amusingly played for 4 teams in S49, while Kaminogi and Hamilton also moved on to pastures new, Matsikas remained and helped guide some young players. This became a Helsinki mantra, replicated the next decade by much better players in Franchise Cornerstone and Rudolph Schmeckeldorf and still carried on today by the likes of Dan Montgomery, Jesse Wilson, Julian Borwinn, and Alexander Pepper. It was no foregone conclusion that Helsinki would become the VHL's model franchise in S45, in fact they'd never won more than one cup per generation before. Since then, they've added another six. This is in part because of the star power but also in part because of the loyalty of someone like Theo Matsikas and those who followed him.