Renomitsu

Review Nice job! There are always a lot of moving parts for expansion teams. I think it's easy to dig yourself into a hole of just rattling off the team a player came from + stats without any of your own interpretation, but I'm glad to see that you elected to include where you thought players would fall in the depth chart and a bit about how they where acquired/if the trade made was worth it. Looking forward to reading more of your stuff!

Review I'm in complete agreement with Danger here - it's nice to get snippets of GM insight on individual trades, picks, and strategy changes; it's even better to get a wholesale overview of an offseason or draft, as is the case here. I know we've talked briefly about Wilcox/Elmebeck, but it's important to see here how much rational thought went into the decision(s) to trade players away, when externally it might look like a transaction that isn't perfectly even. My only concern is that it's a bit of a wall of text - some might find it a little tough to get through completely without an intervening picture or two.

Review I wish there were more articles discussing off-the-ice, non hockey-related topics like this. I think it's a quaint, funny little article that still has relevance to the VHL but isn't all about it. not me_irl. For pacing purposes, I might rephrase this: "Mental [fatigue] is trickier. Everybody has their ways to handle it - but for me, nothing works as well as taking a look at my stats in VHLportal," but this is more a personal stylistic preference on my part than a hard requirement. 55 in dog years. @Beaviss knows Beau is the best boy.

Review Whoa, whoa, saying good things about @Nykonax? That's illegal! (kidding, kidding) Love the addition of chance meetings between VHLM players and following where acquaintances/friends went in the draft. Entry & Dispersal Draft Night are quintessential experiences of all VHL players, and humanizing it a little bit helps us connect all that much better - and I say this as someone who relies on numbers and basic stats more than I ought to. Good work, and welcome to the league!

Review I love insight into Free Agency decisions, especially since most of the threads now are pretty bare-bones even for the most controversial/widely-anticipated FA seasons. The only comments I have on this are with regard to pacing and punctuation, e.g. "He literally turned down for the last ever “Robbie 1 2” just to stay in Helsinki. Which helps the argument for the loyalty angle." => "He literally turned down for the last ever “Robbie 1-2” just to stay in Helsinki, which helps the argument for the loyalty angle." These are ultimately minor things that can make an article a little easier to read.

Review Nice little stream-of-consciousness from a GM; as I've commented on your own and Advantage's articles previously, these are usually pretty valuable insights. You had a couple of plural/singular disagreements, e.g. "maybe this has to do something with a mid-tier centers who," but I have very few complaints overall. Good work!

Review I mean, this draft has you and me going in consecutive spots. A+. In reality, I'm pleased you took the time to re-examine draft picks based on positional need & TPE - I feel like many of these entries written with the same intention end up being a read-off of the TPE list from top to bottom, and oftentimes are only ten picks long - this goes through three rounds and gives pertinent reasons for each.

This result makes me sad. Matt Thompson didn't even score

Prague, Czech Republic - After just a few weeks in existence, from logo to staff to stadium to players, the Prague Phantoms earned their first win in their very first game. They faced long odds against the Riga Reign, who took the European Conference representative Helsinki Titans to seven games just last season and possessed the Offensive Defenseman of the Year. The presumption for nearly everyone with a mind for hockey was that it'd be a simple, clear-cut win for the Latvian team. But this same unpredictability is what makes the game of hockey so beautiful. The Phantoms started lesser-known S65 and S66 names like Bert Meyers, Blake Laughton, and Don Draper against some of the league's best - including Arnor Sigurdsson, who made his debut on the first line - but every shot they took mattered, and three triggered the goal buzzer on Friday. "They put up a hell of a fight and got the result they wanted out of it," said Apollo Hackett, one of Riga's third-year defenders, and one of their most recent recipients of an extension, "I can't think of a better result for a new franchise's first game, really. Hats off to them." The Phantoms had six players with points in their game against Riga, and were the first of the two new expansion franchises to add to the win column.

1. Do you think I should've done everything to not lose Aaltonen to an expansion team? I think we struggled finding a role for the number of forwards we had last season. It hurts to lose Aaltonen, definitely, but may provide some of our other players a way to carve out exactly the team strategy we want this season. I'm not sure there was a 'right' decision to make as far as which player to expose to the draft, and our forwards were all close enough in skill that losing any of them would be a great loss. 2. We already managed to lose against Prague in season's first game. what the frick? It's a nice housewarming present to diamond_ace, nothing to worry about. If we lose game 60-something to him, then yeah I'd start worrying. 3. do you buy into the ''Mature Hulk Hogan'' shtick? HAH 4. were you surprised I didn't sleep during the recent VHL draft? I mean now Nyko's Discord nickname doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I was pretty surprised honestly - but now our picks know that they're supposed to be here from a full-organization decision, not just half of management. 5. Dogbird or hedgehogs? Dogbirds sound terrifying and birds are harbingers of terrible pulmonary disease. Hedgehogs. 6. can you tell Matt_O to finally put me into the D tier clown list? What? S+ tier clown? OK. 7. isn't that a sus that I'm asking questions instead of Reno? I am you, and you are me, so I don't think anyone's asking questions instead of me per se. 8. was a ''Renomitsu is a hedge alt'' your first thought when you read the last question? I cannot comment affirmatively or otherwise. 9. who will be our scoring leader this season? Probably Kastelic in terms of points, but I'd give HHH, Dahlberg, or Svoboda equal shots at goal leader. 10. Do you hope Matt Thompson will score 33 goals (which will make it 399 in his whole career) in the rest of the season? He can have all the goals he wants if it means Riga does well enough to win a cup, I don't particularly care.

oh poo. can I still sign up?

Oof, 8 PIMs but a nice win over Moscow! Hopefully we can do it against them later in the season - they're still looking pretty comparable to last season.

Still closer than we want to be, but I'll take the W. Well played Prague.

Because of how bad we dumpst-- Oops nvm

Vancouver 4-2

43 Toronto Legion @ Vancouver Wolves 44 Calgary Wranglers @ D.C. Dragons 45 Riga Reign @ Helsinki Titans 46 New York Americans @ Seattle Bears

Riga, Latvia - For most players, Entry Draft night is pretty unforgettable, and the Reign's four promising draftees in Jeff Tates @PotatoKing, Alyksander Hunter @Jaku, Chad Gilbert @Fire_In_Babylon, and Benson Kramer @Benson are no exceptions. The team's first selection - a promising Canadian winger in Tates - will continue to spend time with Saskatoon until he joins fellow Wild alumnus Apollo Hackett on the main Riga squad. He hand Kramer have the potential to develop quickly - and they'll need to in order to fill the gap left by forward Mikko Aaltonen, a Season 66 Riga selection who found himself a hot commodity during the Expansion Draft as a max-earning, 500+ TPE forward finishing just his second season. Hunter on the other hand will likely move to Riga next season with a more immediate chance for minutes after another season in the minors. The retirement of Edwin Preencarnacion this offseason leaves Riga with exactly four active major-league defensemen - and with Aron Nielsen failing to pan out the way he was projected, it's possible Hunter could see second line minutes in Season 69, especially with Nielsen's contract expiring after this upcoming season. Chad Gilbert becomes the latest in a line of strong centers headlined by Ryan Kastelic, who made a position switch mid-season and finished 8th in points; Hunter Hearst Helmsley, the 'golden boy' of the Season 66 class; and Anthony Matthews, known for his sophisticated face-off technique and 100+ point season with the Yukon Rush. There's no hurry for Gilbert to join the majors - which leaves him to develop at his own pace in his second minor league season. But with all three current centers' contracts expiring before Season 70 at present, the amount of ice time available for Gilbert in the future varies from 'third-to-fourth line in S69' to 'hey, you're up against the league best in your rookie season.' Drafted to a team that's ready to compete for a spot in the finals, these four young men have a lot to look forward to when they eventually make their major league debut -- but GM Benjamin Zeptenbergs will be waiting.

I also prefer Yahoo, but I'll do either.

Offseason questions, yay! 1. Blockbuster trade! Shawn Glade just got traded back to Davos after winning a cup in Vancouver. How legit are Davos next season? 2. Podrick Cast is still kicking, but next season has to be his last. What odds do you give Moscow of winning the championship next season? 3. Matt Thompson faces free agency after a couple of very successful seasons with Helsinki. In your opinion, does he jump ship or stay the course? 4. Not too many players tend to switch teams during free agency, but the S66 class was huge. Will the FA market be any different with so many S66ers finally getting their first taste of freedom? 5. What's your favorite fan experience in the VHL so far? 6. What's your plan for the off-season? Any fancy beach vacations or hiking in the Alps planned? 7. Whose retirement are you saddest about? 8. Dogs or cats? This one is important. 9. Let's go back to your VHLM days. If you weren't allowed to play for your old VHLM team, who would you have liked to play for? 10. What three cities would you like to see included in the VHL? If the expansion team locations have already been announced, you can't use those!

So does this mean we'll get Beau dog pics @Beaviss? What a game for the hockey dog to retire on.

I was raised to always remember where you came from. It's still a great group of players!

Last week, we took a look at how some of the Wild in the North American Conference were faring -- but that's really only half of the story. We have three (still active) players in the EU Conference - excluded from this set is goalie Juan Jaundice. RW Brian Strong, Malmö Nighthawks - A multi-season Saskatoon player like Nethi, Brian Strong continues to be a mainstay among the several Wild players drafted to the Nighthawks. The Swedish team tends to run lines by committee, as they have so many young, talented players. They've experienced limited success so far, but Strong's not going anywhere anytime soon: with four seasons left on his contract, the Nighthawks have shown they're invested in this young forward's success. D Apollo Hackett, Riga Reign - I think it's a little tacky to evaluate myself, so I won't. D Rusty Shackleford, Malmö Nighthawks - The second player on this list to go to the Nighthawks, Shackleford has shown up in a big way. The checking-heavy defenseman put up forty-six points as one of Malmö's featured defenders -- and not only that, he's also blocked 144 shots and laid out 191 hits; statistically (and in terms of TPE), he's been one of the many excellent picks Nighthawks GM Chris Miller has made thus far. He's coming into a contract year come S68, and Miller already knows the value of this staunch defender.

We could point to Pepper... but he still had a ~91% save rate, so I'd argue it's pretty tough to place the loss on him alone. He'll have to play at a pretty high level throughout the series to make Helsinki comfortable though.

Pepper eyeing the Playoff MVP ?

Helsinki Vancouver Vancouver 4-2 Vancouver Points: Beau Louth Goals: Rauno Palo Assists: Dan Wilinsky PIMs: Sidney Crosby Series winner: Matt Thompson