Banackock

Roman Sokolov has been an absolute force this season. In our previous article, we noted on one of the most important positions in the game of hockey. It could be said that without a good goalie, any team is doomed. Though, with a good goalie your team could still be in a similar position. These two things go hand in hand and if you have a good pairing mixed with a top notch goalie, you surely will have quite the defensive set up going on for your organization. Defenders in this league are huge - even if many teams specialize in going all out with their forwards. Like any game, you gotta score to win, but you also have to keep the puck out of the net and your end. While a huge portion of keeping it out of the net is the goalies job, you'd be surprised how much the defenders actually do (or not). Let us open that sweet URL link, track the top 3 defensemen down and see who could be crowned the #1 D-man of the season. 3. Fabio Jokinen (QUE) Jokinen lights the lamp courtesy of a bomb of a slap shot. I'd say the only reason Fabio is in 3rd and not 2nd is because Digital's SB are similar and he edges him out in points. A very unattractive feature to the #2 ranked player on this list is his inability to stay out of the box. However, despite this, Fabio still finds himself sitting in 3rd place. Quebec is on the rise and so is this young defender. Likely an anchor that'll hold down the Meute's blue line for many seasons to come, it's also pretty safe to say that this guy is going to be a candidate, or at least a nominee, for top defender of the year every single season he plays from now on. He's established, on his way up and sits at 566 TPE. Though not a crazy amount for someone of his age, he shows that he can still play with the big boys and in fact, is becoming one of them. 50 points through 40 so far, will be interesting to see if he can crack 100. 2. Bobby Digital (NYA) Digital has been a human wrecking ball. MR. Digital. There's not much to say about this guy other than he's an American loyalist through and through and has turned himself into a true, quality player. For the last couple of seasons, his name has been at the top of the list for the Sterling Labatte trophy and this year could be the year he takes it home due to some excellent play on his behalf. A fighting point for him would be that he's on the better team - thus, faces less shots. With Sokolov being on the weaker team, his team gives him more defensive opportunity like shot blocking and hitting. I'd say Digital will make the race interesting and with 45 points through 40, 122 hits and 72 shots blocked on the season, it's hard to look the other way for nominating him to say the least. 1. Roman Sokolov (TOR) Sokolov's skill is incredible - even while laying on the ice. Ah, yes. the young phenom who is turning heads in Toronto and making the panties of every female Legion fan drop to the floor. Kidding, but actually, who knows. With how crazy this kid has been playing, we've definitely seen stranger shit happen (like Petenis win the Labatte last season). Sokolov has truly turned his game up this season and breaker free of the lower level style of play which he displayed the last few seasons. Maybe lower isn't the right word, but he has stepped it up to a whole new level this year and it could be a sign of a great career ahead of him. He edges Jokinen out by 1 point (though much lower skill level and team skill), leads the league in shots blocked with 133 and also adds 121 hits to his argument for the Labatte this season. If everything remains constant, this guy will be taking home the trophy this year. 6 for FORSBERG

Davos 4-2

Vikings Legion Meute Americans

Rhett DeGrath is zoned into the play infant of him. It seems like every season you have a bunch of players who are doing really good (like, a lot of people sometimes). You then have a bunch of players who seem to have break out seasons or seasons where they dominate heavily (in some cases they're shit players with the luck of the sim on their side - reference, Cologne whenever that crazy stuff was happening). Whether it's forwards, defence or your goalies, in each group there's always a couple who stand out from the rest and easily could claim to be the top players of the season. During the season, goaltending arguably is the most important position when it comes to overall team success (reference how shitty Astrid Moon used to be). For Season 55, I think there's a pretty clear cut 3 finalists for the Aidan Shaw, though a couple more could creep into it and make it a real battle for the trophy. Let's take a look at number 3 on the list. 3. Rhett DeGrath - Stockholm @STZ They're on the decline, or down hill slope if you will, and there's rumours that a rebuild/tool is on the way. In fact, continuing with the rumours, DeGrath was being shopped in the previous off-season and one of the buyers offered to about the idea may have been Seattle. Though due to Seattle's current state, they had to decline (and you don't willing decline a player of such high caliber). Even though on the decline (maybe), they still have one hell of a roster and will be the team to square off with Helsinki once again to see who heads to the finals. Question will be, is DeGrath's GAA of 1.52, Save % of 0.931 and a current second place for wins at 31 gonna be good enough? Will he be able to carry over the performance into players and trump is opponent on the other end of the ice.. Astrid Moon. 2. Apollo Skye - Quebec @Velevra He currently sits at 712 TPE via the player page and is easily showing that his incredible amount of skill is actually one of the big reasons Quebec is doing as well as they are. No knocks to Quebec as I love the current franchise make up and a lot of the players, but I wouldn't say it's fully ready to contend yet. You still have depth style players leading the way as they develop into their elite selves. Quebec leads the way in the North American conference and in every single game so far there's been a common factor - Apollo Skye has played in all of them. Posting a 30-8-2 record, he fires up the 2nd most shut outs with 11 and pretty damn good SV% and GAA with them sitting at 0.927 and 1.52 respectively. Apollo Skye and the Meute have the ammunition to lead the pack - so it'll be interesting to see where he ends up. 1. Astrid Moon - Helsinki @The Trollfecta It shouldn't come to much surprise that Astrid Moon reigns king this season. With an extremely shitty start to his career, he turned all those horrible things into amazing balls of furry success last season. With medals, cups and Titan sponsored butt plugs (he didn't use them clearly, he was fucking the asses last season), it would be hard to continue to keep the trend going without insane consistency. NEWS FLASH! Astrid Moon may be playing at a slightly better level (is it possible?). Statements have been taken from league GM's and it's noted that 3 of the however many GM's have wanted @Will to drug test the phenom goalie. He's first in shut outs, GAA (1.22), save percentage (0.931 tied with Skye), penalty shot percentage (7 for 7 stopped) and wins (33). Ass kissing aside, Moon has rose to be one of my favourite goalies (if not favourite) in the league. If consistency continues into playoffs, might as well engrave his name on the cup once again. (YO, 6 for Federov alight?)

how u like me now? @Laflamme

I musta got more than 1, 2 or 3 stars becuz I don't c me anywhere

Mattias Forsberg has become a household name in Oslo, along with his fellow Oslo and Seattle teammate, Xavier Laflamme. Both players are currently tied for the league lead for points and have displayed large amounts of minor league talent by notching 71 points through the VHLM's first 41 games into the regular season. Laflamme aside, Mattias Forsberg seems to have found his natural touch this season. During his first season with the Oslo Storm, he only managed to get 30 goals and 64 points through the 72 game regular season. As noted before, he topped his point total already by 7 and his goal total so far this season by 3. It feels good to be playing as strong and dominant as I've been. To do it alongside a future teammate and both be able to do so well, it makes you excited for the future. It gets you thinking in all directions of what we could have in Seattle - something hopefully similar to what we have in Oslo. It's hard to hear it, but my eyes are starting to look towards the VHL. Lately and the for the entirety of the season so far, all eyes have been on the VHL. The closer we get, the more excited I become. Give Federov 1 TPE

@Daniel Time to come back.. again.. and restart.. again? Please. This time will hopefully be different - famous words of so many, so often.

Pretty sure just Riga's been dead the last while.

Just bought a PS4 off Kijiji for $180. Pretty damn good deal!

Pretty crazy. I'be been around the SHL since Season 4 in and out. VHL I think I popped in and out, dunno how early but for sure in the 30's. Maybe earlier. Tried once before, didn't like it and then quite sometime later came on and made Blake Campbell! Hopefully we see a rise in activity. With the big decade coming up, we should look at new rewards for recruiting and have a drive. Everyone come together and look! Seems a couple people find all the recruits but once they reach a certain TPE level to earn new rewards, they go inactive. Fishy to me but that's another day's topic.

@Laflamme u suk

Aleksei Federov --> Erik Karlsson Thanks

@754 hope you stick around this time, man.

I hate how my girlfriend has autocorrect on her mac. MARTINOV

Martinis will turn it around!

MCALLISTER @CowboyinAmerica Poor vegas.

Ottawa got Rushed.

WOO

You ever ride one of those rollercoaster that go up and down and up and down and then up again? Yep, only to come back down. Welcome to the Seattle Bears franchise currently. When taking over the reigns from an amazingly inactive and slow moving Mike 7 or so years back, Bears GM Blake Campbell knew tough stakes were at hand. He had the talent and the commitment of the guys, so he ran for it. Unfortunately, due to the overly high competition in the North American conference (and potentially some inexperience in the role as each league differs - especially VHL), the Bears couldn't find the success to make playoffs. Thus, players started falling off the roster like 10 cent cans of Tuna at Wal-Mart. Enter rebuild #1. After a season of shit, then mediocrity, the team was ready to go for a second round at the holy grail. During their first season of real competition, the won the regular season but fell short in the second round to New York due to a bunch of reasons (maybe the Holik curse??). The following year, they found strength but were hit hard by a lot of bull shit when one of their players had a mental break down and decided to fuck over the team and retired from the league. That season, the Bears shit the bed in playoffs once again to the Americans (fucking curse, @Beketov ) and it was pretty much inevitable that what they had going for the team was coming to a halt much faster than what any of them had expected. It was really, really unfortunate. Losing Odinsson was hard enough, but when Podarok decided to do that to the team, it left a real sour taste in my mouth. Despite my anger, I kept it behind the Bears doors as we know how certain people like to make ant hills into Mount Everest. What sucked more was not winning a cup with these guys. Especially Holik, Petenis, Kyanon and Hamilton. Even Parechkin and Maximoff. These guys were an amazing group of guys. The Locker room was the place to be and they definitely made Seattle the bets it could be in its final season of being relevant to winning and coming close to being something more than what we are now. I owe a lot of thanks to those who came in, changed the direction, or allowed us to live a little longer. From the free agents to the trades, we were grateful that they gave Seattle a chance. It was a fun ride - one I won't forget and one I hope to have again with another good group of guys. BAM! Seattle is in a new rebuild and they're looking to do things differently this time around. Before, they had a lot of pieces to work with and this time, it's a different story. With no depth on the team or talent other than Aleksei Federov, it seems as though this rebuild isn't going to be as fast paced as the last one (that's likely a good thing, maybe). The team had it's first draft a short while ago and managed to pick up a couple good prospects and even managed a steal in @Wikiplaysgames. In the up coming draft, the Bears hold a potentially valuable pick in a lotto winner. Question remains, what's next for the Bears? I love the group of guys were starting out with. @NUCK and myself have a lot of history going back a couple years in the SHL. He's an amazing guy and despite never fully being into the VHL, I know he's going to be a kick ass goalie whose going to teach VVA a lesson. @Laflamme and I have a strange bromance going on and when he came back into the league, I knew he was going to turn lights on. He's a great guy in chat and the locker room and I really think he's going to be a guy that pushes Seattle forward and I really hope he is. He'll thrive well under that kind of thing. Then, of course, we got myself with Mattias Forsberg (centre) and Aleksei Federov (D). Forsberg is going to be a strong piece - Centers can be tough to come by at times and they're a huge part to a organization. Federov, he's flexible. I don't want to waste another career so we'll see what happens for him. He's pretty much a 400 the defender with his entire career ahead of him. On top of that, he's willing to extend with specific teams if they trade for him (some likely longer than others). Lastly, @Wikiplaysgames seems to be a cool dude. Busy life - just got a new job, but I hope he sticks around. He's sweet to have in the locker room and has the potential to be a good player and the biggest steal EASILY of the draft. Time will tell where the Bears go. Right now, we gotta focus on just ahead and take it season by season. DOUBLE FOR FORSBERG +12

This seasons shaping up to be a pretty good one when it comes to races to watch. Like most seasons, we got our usual front running teams from the season prior, the same teams slumping and some pretty damn good performances from teams and a bunch of players. Buzz around the league is going as we are slowly approaching the halfway mark of the season and we'd like to turn the focus on these races. Which teams are the ones we should all be looking at? Who wins top team of the year? Which players scores the most goals? Gets the most points? Which goalie will defy all odds - stop the most pucks and we crowned victor of the best goalie of the year? All of these are what's making this year special as it's currently a tight sprint for a lot of hardware come award time. Without further delay, let's turn the light on some of them. Which teams takes 1st place in the regular season? Right now we got the Titans in first with 50 points, Quebec following behind with 45, Stockholm in Quebec's tail with 41 and the Wranglers and Americans both with 39 points. Essentially, you can count every other team out and take them off the list right now for teams who could win this title. Another one we can go ahead and scratch off right now is Calgary. No hate on them, but they're doing way better than expected and honestly, I see mediocre and a fall in their future. Both the Americans and Vikings are a little lower than I expected and Quebec took a nice little jump up to first in the North American conference. In the Euro section, the Titans are rolling away with things slowly but surely and are being led by a dominant performance from many players including Franchise Cornerstone @boubabi and Astrid Moon. In the end, we feel this is who is going to take the top spot at the end of the regular season. Who scores the most goals? This race is a thousand times tighter than the team side of things. The top 10 all have above 17 goals through the 28 games and from 1st to 10th, they're only separated by 6 goals so realistically, anything can happen. The top 5 rounds includes Cornerstone, Gowency, Boeser, Maxwell and Gaudette who range from 21 to 23 goals on the year so far. Though the race is a close one, we're unfortunately going to have to declare a winner and though it can go so many different ways, we're going to have to give this award in Helsinki's direction once again. With 23 through 27 games, Cornerstone takes the cake now and we feel as though he'll still be eating it once the season is up. Let's make a bold prediction and say he finished with 66 on the season. @boubabi Best goalie in the regular season? We're going to keep it short and sweet. Astrid Moon's number currently are stellar. 1.10 goals against, 0.938 save percentage, 10 shut outs and 25 wins. We don't really need to go on and on with this one. If he keeps the performance up, and based off our regular season winner predictions he's going to, than Astrid Moon will easily finish the season off with one of those Aidan Shaw things or whatever. @The Trollfecta Who collects the most points? Similar to the goal scoring race, it's pretty damn tight (though, not as tight). Again, like that one race, anything can happen though we're going to make a bold prediction here and say Maxwell is going to edge this one out. Cornerstone and him are the frontrunners for this I believe, however, I personally think that the Americans are going to turn the flame on under their asses in the final half whenever they can figure out what the fucks going on. Of course, they're going to be led by Unassisted and Maxwell who will take the race in this category with a point total of 129. @Strtlght (hey look, 600 and some words. +6 Federov)

Gonna glue his hand to his dick tonight so he can't play in the next sim

fk

With how good we are this year, you're lucky to win this one!