Season 40 Draft: End of an Era
Season 47 has come to a close and with it the end of the Season 40 VHL Entry Draft class, as those who stuck around for eight seasons must now retire. In fact, most S40 players had already played their final games in the VHL after the end of the conference finals, as the Continental Cup finals featured only three representatives of that much-hyped class: Thomas O'Malley and Lloyd Light on New York and Jody 3 Moons on Stockholm. It was billed as possibly the greatest draft in VHL history, but as the dust settles on a generation, will Season 40 stand the test of time?
The runaway top two picks on draft day, both Cologne draftees Thomas O'Malley and Mason Richardson, have more or less remained the top two S40 players and appear to have the best hopes for a Hall of Fame induction. That O'Malley is a lock in the Hall is actually beyond question, as he has comfortably placed himself in the top five of the greatest VHL forwards ever, and it is now a question of which exact place in that top five he holds (more on that and the legendary center in a future mag). Based on historic Hall of Fame voting in regards to defencemen, Richardson is unlikely to make it in the same class as O'Malley, but would appear to have credentials to get inducted sooner rather than later. The aforementioned Light and 3 Moons, as well as O'Malley's long-time teammate Christoph Klose are probably the only other players from the draft who will make an appearance on the ballot, however, which would suggest a weaker class than expected.
Mandatory image for a Media Spot as I am too used to writing mag articles or nothing at all. This is also however a metaphor for the opportunity which has opened up for new top players to step up into the S40s' absence.
Certainly when compared to the great Season 18 draft class, which was seen as Season 40's main competition eight seasons ago, it's a slightly disappointing result in terms of Hall of Fame talent. In particular, Season 40 was notable by its lack of star names in goal, unlike Season 18 which was arguably defined by them. This goes some way to explaining the fall in goaltending quality profiled here a few weeks ago and why S40 players might have enjoyed spending most of their careers playing against younger netminders. Season 33 might be a better comparison to Season 40 as with Wesley Kellinger still in limbo, we have only seen Odin Tordahl and Niklas Lindberg inducted thus far, despite S33 also being deep and seen as potentially generation-defining.
Of course, depth is what remains the Season 40 class' main advantage. At the time of the draft, it looked like we were getting two whole solid rounds of prospects with the potential for further steals, which was realised in the third round through King Czar III and Niklas Kurri (both of whom slowed down later on), as well as Marcus Hurley, who slowly but surely developed into a key piece for the best Calgary team in a decade, and was the team's long-term captain to boot. These lower-ranked prospects make up for some inevitable busts earlier on, although even then Season 40 was quite solid in that probably the first real bust was Ryan Cattrall at 15th overall and to be honest, his career was not much worse than the rest of the late second round. If there is a disappointment about this draft it's that the three top five picks by Toronto (Tyler Cote, Sachimo Zoidberg, and Jerrick Poole) all failed to realise their full potential (no surprise then that so did Toronto), but they nevertheless enjoyed solid, if generally unspectacular careers.
The S40 draft class in hindsight wasn't quite the greatest of all-time as was hoped, but it nonetheless defined a VHL era. Assuming S1 is still the best by default and is still followed by S18 (although S40 gave it a good run for its money on depth and lack of high-profile busts), then this was third best draft ever, which is a notable accomplishment and it will be interesting to see how the void is filled in Season 48, both in terms of departing players and the next great draft.
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This just goes to show how unbiased the Gow family is
