Victor

Also I saw this sim already done in the schedule yesterday morning, what's up with that @Will

Aamo to start maybe...

I use it you weirdo.

The concept of the Jake Wylde Trophy, the league's best “defensive” defenceman is one I argued against for many years – the reasoning being that hits and shot blocks were already taken into account in the Sterling Labatte Trophy discussion, so all an additional trophy would do is 1) muddy the waters and 2) reward mediocre players lucky enough to be on crap teams. Sadly, I wasn't here to apply this logic in S58 when the trophy was actually forced into its hopefully short existence. Based on its 3-season history, hits and shot blocks are used as the defining metric for the Wylde, with the Labatte being watered down to effectively the highest-scoring defenceman (this was often the case before but with consideration for hits and SBs). The results, as I suspected, leave a lot to be desired. The first winner of the Wylde in S59 was Fabio Jokinen, who shockingly had won the last proper Labatte in S58. What's more, the winner of the “new” Labatte was Ay Ay Ron...... who had better defensive stats than Jokinen too. S59 stats: Ay Ay Ron Fabio Jokinen 100 points, 255 hits, 114 shot blocks 90 points, 217 hits, 156 shot blocks How one of these can be called 'best offensive' or 'best defensive' defenceman is beyond me. In the past, the Labatte would have deservedly gone to Ron without a glorified runner-up trophy for Jokinen. Peculiarly, in S61, the roles were reversed. Ay Ay Ron led all defencemen in points, and even won the Beketov Trophy with 91 assists..... but was dubbed the best defensive defenceman? S61 stats: Ay Ay Ron Mats Johnsson 102 points, 238 hits, 140 shot blocks 95 points, 137 hits, 127 shot blocks It's fair enough to say Ron was better defensively than Johnsson but surely also offensively? Meanwhile in S60, the Wylde went to Dexter Lane, a 42-point player with marginally better hits and shot blocks than Ay Ay Ron. It appears that indeed the Wylde was created for the Dexter Lanes of the world and to make inexplicable decisions between defencemen who would have previously been competing for the same trophy. This was meant to be the introductory rant before the main course which is the actual name of the Jake Wylde Trophy. Jake Wylde is a Hall of Fame defenceman who played between S38 and S45. He won two Labatte Trophies, so there is no indication he was overlooked for higher-scoring defencemen which appears to be the point of the trophy named after him. In fact, he too won the Beketov in one of his Labatte-winning seasons, therefore was very much a member of the elite. But perhaps by digging deeper, I can see that Wylde would have won many more trophies had an equivalent of the Wylde existed in his time. Disclaimer: I will make an attempt to do so but its accuracy can not be guaranteed, considering I can't figure out the logic of 2 of the 3 winners of the award to date. Nonetheless, let's have a look. Season 38 Conner Low 92 points 243 hits 134 shot blocks Godavari Yumalatopinto 94 points 385 hits 215 shot blocks Matt Bentley 100 points 208 hits 115 shot blocks Jake Wylde 60 points 278 hits 170 shot blocks Rookie seasons and all, so it would be unreasonable to expect Wylde to win anything off the bat. It is interesting however to look at the 3 top defencemen of the time. Low and Yumalatopinto ended up splitting the Labatte between them, but presumably Yumalatopinto would have won the Wylde instead and the Labatte would go to...... Bentley I would guess but based on S61 I am not so sure. In which case, the most decorated defenceman of all time in Conner Low would have not won anything this season. To be fair, that maybe should have happened anyway but either way the Wylde/Labatte split probably wouldn't have helped matters much. Season 39 Conner Low 92 points 179 hits 86 shot blocks Edwin Encarnacion 67 points 345 hits 120 shot blocks Jake Wylde 54 points 275 hits 125 shot blocks That's a second season of Jake Wylde not winning the Jake Wylde Trophy which would surely go to Encarnacion – the all-time leading defenceman in hits and second in career blocked shots. Considering unlike Wylde, Encarnacion never won a trophy, but would have benefited from a 'Wylde Trophy', perhaps he would have been a more appropriate name for the award.... Season 40 Conner Low 101 points 206 hits 119 shot blocks Matt Bentley 88 points 236 hits 144 shot blocks Jerrick Poole 60 points 261 hits 215 shot blocks Jake Wylde 72 points 263 hits 102 shot blocks I reckon in a head-to-head between Wylde and Poole, the Wylde would go to.... Poole. However, I'd also argue for Bentley (obviously) given the recent actual Wylde wins by Ron and Jokinen. Either way, the clusterfuck persists. Season 41 Matt Bentley 102 points 223 hits 105 shot blocks Jerrick Poole 84 points 254 hits 187 shot blocks Jake Wylde 51 points 257 hits 96 shot blocks Poole is actually doing bits in a way I hadn't even conceived of when I started writing this article. Apparently this is the man the Hall of Fame has been missing the whole time! We're living in a brave new world, so arise Sir James Lefevre, Sir Till Lindemann, and Sir Pablo Escabar. (I'm not rattling off random names, check out the highest-hitting defencemen of all-time). I've also forgotten about Mr. Encarnacion since by this point I think he had more fights than points, but I wouldn't be surprised if he would also be in the 'Wylde' conversation here. Season 42 Matt Bentley 108 points 214 hits 106 shot blocks Jack Kowalski 77 points 244 hits 167 shot blocks Jake Wylde 64 points 240 hits 106 shot blocks I can't.... I can't believe it. I'm not even trying, one scroll through the season index and I find a more worthy winner of the 'most defensive' award. For those keeping count, this is now FIVE seasons into Jake Wylde's career that Jake Wylde has not won the Jake Wylde Trophy. I knew this award was deeply flawed but my expectations have been completely exceeded. Season 43 This was Wylde's first Labatte Trophy season as he got 103 points, 255 hits, and 90 blocked shots. Perhaps he would have even won the Wylde this season, but then the whole Ron/Jokinen, Ron/Johnsson dilemma above suggests this is somehow taboo and the awards committee would have found someone else to award one of the trophies to. Season 44 Similar to above, except I think Escobar's 330 hits and 271 shot blocks would have given him the Wylde win. So Wylde would have to make do with the Labatte.... which he won anyway. Season 45 Jake Wylde 64 points 206 hits 100 shot blocks Jerrick Poole 62 points 248 hits 149 shot blocks Jack Kowalski 79 points 281 hits 126 shot blocks The Labatte this season went to Lloyd Light by the way, but I wanted to focus on these fine gentlemen. Whether you prefer Poole or Kowalski, there is no way Wylde is named better defensively than them. That means that the maximum amount of Wyldes that Wylde could have won if Wyldes existed when Wylde played hockey is..... 1. Even that is debatable because it was in the same year as his actual Labatte. Meanwhile, the completely unheralded Poole and Kowalski probably have won 2 each. That is actually farcical and exactly why this trophy should have always remained locked away, far from the public eye. I appreciate the intentions behind the Jake Wylde Trophy and understand that there is little recognition for defencemen other than one trophy winner per year (plus potentially playoff MVP and most assists, and in Guntis Petenis' case, a miraculous Campbell/Slobo double). However, the Wylde Trophy doesn't resolve anything, but simply rewards players who either 1) are fine without it , i.e. have their Labattes and Hall of Fame tickets stamped anyway or 2) aren't that good in the first place. If we want more opportunities for defencemen recognition (and indeed all positions), I propose a proper VHL All-Star Team made up of 3F, 2D, 1G (+ a second one if you want), voted on by the awards committee, with TPE attached to it. After all, 2 TPE for awards isn't that much these days so we can definitely spare some more. The Jake Wylde Trophy though..... needs to go. We kept around silly awards like the Virkkunen and Jonsson for way too long and shouldn't make the same mistake again.

yeah Tyler nailed it. You either support a Premier League team, which especially if it's top six inevitably comes down to success on the pitch, or a team actually outside of the money. Tottenham have to be compared against Chelsea and Arsenal, not QPR or Brentford. West Ham are in the same boat tbh and they're actually wasting money year after year. So it could be worse.

huge if true

>put the pressure on >finish 3rd in a 2-horse race >bottling FA cup semi-finals since time began >etc.

Yeah - usually they look like the articles in here: https://vhlportal.com/hof/inductees/builders More tributes than facts, but that would be extremely difficult for a new member to write so personally I don't think they should even be up for grabs. That said though, like I said, I don't actually dislike your approach.

My initial reaction was ewww what is this, it's different and I don't like it. But, if we had written every builder article like this (or set up every builder page like this) it would probably be more obvious what everyone's achievements are/were. That said, I or another older member probably still need to do a few paragraphs showing our love and affection for Frank as is the tradition, but I am now quite tempted to set something like this up for all builders.

It's coming home.

Ozil and Mkhitaryan are infectious lmao. Although, defending Hazard, good luck with that tbh. Belgian Messi is pumped.

Sarriball is live.

Sergei Komarov and Samuel Gate @CowboyinAmerica

It took so long we've lost his player page in the process haha

@Jubo07 - good write-up, could you please add his season by season playoff stats as well? Also STO is Stockholm Vikings, now a defunct team, not Oslo.

41 HC Dynamo VS Wranglers 42 Americans VS Meute 43 Legion VS Reign 44 Titans VS Bears

4-2 Calgary

Cool idea Your sig is insanely massive, I've been meaning to point this out for a few days now. ?

I assume he means North American bias.

Not sure if this is aimed at me or Jason but the most time consuming part of my spreadsheet was the trade count which is entirely unique - albeit not hugely useful, but it came from the trade tracker thread which needed an update anyway. I did mention your work on the actual stats on my podcast on Tuesday, hence didn't do anything over those. Mine I think makes more sense visually and also shows the situation by franchise quite well. I do think GM records as a whole now are finally, 60 seasons later, up to speed as I don't think enough recognition was ever given to them.

Imagine DeGrath chilling in the VHLM for a season. Yukon would surely roll over the league just based on that alone? Test sim needed imo.

No problem it was a fun treasure hunt.

Preencarnacion just shoots on sight.

Gordie Howe hat trick and take out one of their best players unreal leadership.

Isn't that CAL G1 though.