StamkosFan

Pat Svoboda gave a statement to the press following the conclusion of the VHLM regular season. “Wow, it’s hard to believe this whole thing is really over. What a great ride it’s been; I’d like to thank my teammates for being amazing to be around, management in Ottawa for handing me my first contract and giving me a shot, my coaches for being patient with me and giving me ice time, and the fans for turning out to support us. Especially near the end, I saw some people wearing Svoboda jerseys, which made me feel awesome. The city of Ottawa is just such a welcoming town and a great environment to start your career in, so I’m glad I came here. “We may have had a losing record, we weren’t really even close to breaking even, but we’re in the playoffs, so whatever the standings say, it’s not over yet. I think I personally have grown a lot since I first came to North America, so I feel like I can play my best games in the playoffs. I’ve saved my energy and my strength; playing only part of the year helps with not being fatigued. I’m ready mentally and physically, and I think the rest of my team shares my sentiment. We may be underdogs, but don’t count us out. We’re ready to bring the Cup home. Go Lynx go!”

Pat Svoboda scores Ottawa's only goal in a 4-1 loss to the Las Vegas Aces. It is official now; Ottawa has clinched the fifth and final VHLM playoff spot with Oslo locked in last place in the standings. They currently are 20 points ahead of Oslo, with 53 points compared to the Storm's 33. The Lynx must be relieved to have the pressure off their backs; winger Pat Svoboda expressed a collective enthusiasm to be competing in playoffs hockey. "We were in a rough spot when I joined here, but we finished really strong and we're reaping the rewards now that the season is over. I am so glad I came here, and I have no concerns about the caliber and diligence of our crew. There's no quit in anyone on this team, not even a bit of it. It's hard to play your best hockey when your team is looking over their shoulders in the standings and fearing elimination. But now, we're in and it's all settled, so we can just look ahead and focus on winning the opening series. I know we have what it takes, and I expect us to come out of the gates strong and surprise a lot of people. Don't let our record fool you; we're a lot stronger than we were when the year began," said Pat Svoboda. "The rest of the regular season doesn't really matter, but we can't relax too much. We have to hit the ground running in our first series, because in a best of seven, every game counts." Svoboda was a much-needed addition to the Lynx roster, signing as a midseason free agent, and could be a potential number-one pick in the VHLM draft thanks to his excellent performance. Putting up 37 points in 40 games, the Swede has been drawing attention from scouts at all levels, and his draft stock has been ascending in the VHL draft as well. VHLM scouts, however, are wary that Svoboda may head to the pros straight away, as he has expressed boredom with the VHLM life. "I hope to really finish strong with training and make it into the top-10 in the VHL draft. As for the VHLM, I'm not really sure I want to burn a year off my career to sit in the minors; it doesn't feel competitive. There's only 6 teams, and 5 of them makes the playoffs; I question why we have a regular season for that. It's anti-climatic and illogical really; I am ready to be in the spotlight and to grasp my dreams, to be in the VHL, as soon as possible," said Pat Svoboda. "Ottawa has been great to me, but it's a huge decision. I have to do what's best for my career at the end of the day, and that's what my heart is telling me. I am 25, not 18 or 19 like most if these kids. The clock is ticking for me. I won't be in my prime forever, so I have to make every year count. I want to make an impact on this league, and that's not going to happen by taking my good old-fashioned time."

1. This season's Themed Point Task had you write or make a graphic about the upcoming Sponsor's Shield Tournament and the brands that will compete in it. (if you are associated with a brand) Which brand do you think has the best roster? True North all the way, we have so much depth on the wings and two excellent goaltenders to back us up. We have a lot of heart and passion because we are a young group, and that's why we have what it takes to win it all! 2. What would you like next season's theme to be? Who doesn't love superheroes nowadays, something related to that would be fun! Because on the ice, the real heroes don't have capes and powers; they're the ones that come out with 10 seconds left in the third and score, electrifiying the house with all the fans going wild! 3. Who has your vote for the VHLM's MVP so far in this season? Elias Dahlberg all the way, he's leading the league in points and goals and has been absolutely great for my squad, Ottawa! And to think he went 17th overall! What a great pick for the Lynx, considering he's almost at 200 TPE now. 4. If you had the choice between every job possible in the league, which one would you do? (you can say none if you want to only be a player, it is fine) I would be a GM, because I think it would be fun to be in charge of a team. I have GM and co-GM positions in other leagues, so I know it's something I enjoy. 5. I am going to release a mock draft early next week. Let's put you up with the same task; who will be the first 4 picks of the draft? 1st pick (DAV) Ryan Sullivan Jr. 2nd pick (NYA) Elias Dahlberg 3rd pick (HSK) Mark Gebauer 4th pick (NYA from TOR) Ryan Zabby 6. Do you read the weekly Newsletter? Is this stuff interesting for you? I think it's very helpful, I read it to learn about uncapped TPE opportunities and to find help with Trivia. Trivia is a bit confusing for sure, but it's easier than reviewing, so having pointers on where to look is great! Thanks for putting it up for us

Calgary Quebec Riga Helsinki

Reign 4-3

Saskatoon 4-2

Saskatoon Ottawa Saskatoon Yukon

I’m in 9 leagues lol this was literally the 6th one I joined xD

Pat Svoboda has progressed rapidly in his VHLM rookie season, and his coaches are pleased that he has toned back the hits in the latter half of his appearances, and with it, the penalty minutes. Svoboda has been much more disciplined on the ice, taking no penalty minutes over the last 16 games, and only throwing 13 hits over those games. He has been playing the game that he was brought over to demonstrate; a scoring game, not a physical game. He has 12 points over the last 16 games as well, including 5 goals, although his shooting percentage, very close to where it stood in our previous article, has dipped slightly. That is likely because he is taking as many shots from as many angles as possible, returning just to throwing pucks on goal. "I'm treating the game here in Ottawa the way I did back in Sweden. I'm bringing my skill set from overseas to this country, and I've realized that I don't need to change anything. I don't need to make my coaches love me; I just need to be myself and everything else with take care of itself. I need to believe in who I am as a player, and that's the mentality I'm trying to finish out the season with," said Pat Svoboda.

1. It’s sort of on a lot of different guys; the volume shooter part is totally Ovechkin. The speed and shot accuracy ideal is based on my man Nikita Kucherov. The idea of being a big guy who just pushes past opponents is sort of inspired by Byfuglien. 4. Absolutely! I want to experience a full career, and I’m a committed member of this league as well as many others. You don’t have to worry about ol’ StammerFan leaving. I’m here to stay and to win. 5. My name doesn’t give that away at all! I’m a diehard Lightning fan, as I explained when I was asked this in a previous week. To add something new, the Vegas Golden Knights are my second favorite team and the Toronto Maple Leafs are the third!

1. What are you looking forward to in the VHL? 2. What type of player do you want to develop into? 3. What’s your pre game routine like? 4. How would you describe the Las Vegas locker room atmosphere? 5. What do you think of the Las Vegas fan base?

True North squaring off against Ubuyalot Games in the S62 Sponsor Shield Tournament. Headed by brand executive @AndrewWarren13, True North has filled 14 endorsement slots. Swedish rookie right winger Pat Svoboda was the newest addition to the team, filling one of the two $500K slots that was open, but he is on the books for the shortest amount of time for any player on the time, only signing a 1 year deal. After this year, it is anyone's guess where he will wind up, but there is a good chance he might stay on board. It'll be interesting to see how the flashy, well-built rookie performs in the spotlight against more experienced players. On the pay tier beneath Svoboda, both $250K positions are off the table, taken by left wings Evan R. Lawson and Ryuu Crimson. Beneath even them, working for free, is yet another left wing, Karl Von Motke, who will be playing for a hefty price of $0 for 3 seasons, but must be just happy to hit the ice and seems like a brand-friendly guy. True North is deepest at left wing, with 5 left wingers under contract compared to only 3 right wingers; one of the lefties will likely play on their off wing. True North is ailing for defensemen, with only 3 of the typical 6 signed, so it makes sense that they handed 2 of the top three available endorsement slots to defensemen. The highest, $3 million slot goes to star defenseman Maxim Kovalchuk. Next up, at the $2 million slot, is Oyorra Arroyo, whose name is a palindrome. He is at the top of their deep left wing depth chart. Defenseman Jesse Wilson is in the third highest slot at $1.5 million. To take over the crease, True North elected to sign a tandem, inking Johnny Havenk Carison and Shawn Brodeur to occupy both of their $1.25 million slots. One ailment to the team is that Bo Axelsson, who is retired, is eating up one of the $1 million slots. True North likely will rejoice when he is off the books and they can free up a spot to sign an active user. The other $1 million belongs to Dan Wilinsky, who is their highest-paid right winger. The $750K slots have been claimed by right wing John Madden, defenseman Toby Fitzgerald, and left wing Randoms, who apparently has just a first name. Worrying, considering faceoffs need to be taken, they only have one center, named Connor McDavid, who settled for $500K for 3 seasons. Going into the Sponsor Shield tournament, while they have a bounty of options at the wings and two solid, capable goaltenders, their performance may be hindered by a lack of centers, with no top-tier options in what is arguably the most important forward position. They are also missing half of what is needed for a full defense corps, which means to keep pucks out of the net, they will have to rely heavily on their goaltending duo. It remains to be seen who will get majority of the starts, but they have a fall-back plan at least if one goalie struggles. Maxim Kovalchuk and Jesse Wilson, their de facto top pairing, will likely receive boatloads of minutes and be deployed in all crucial situations. Word Count: 534 Words (excluding titles/captions)

233 Riga Reign 233 Seattle Bears 234 Quebec City Meute 235 Toronto Legion

Seattle 3-2

189 Yukon Rush 190 Halifax 21st 191 Yukon Rush 192 Halifax 21st

Yukon 4-3

Pat Svoboda contacted the press to discuss his thoughts on being entered into the VHLM draft. “I am very upset to learn that I have to go into the VHLM draft pool. When I was joined, I was allowed to pick my team, and I found the best team for me and my career. I picked the team I wanted to go to and where I am happy. And now, I find out that I’m getting ripped away, forced to go who knows where, no say in the matter. I have absolutely no desire to do this; that’s the procedure for VHL and I’m fine with it there, but I don’t want to leave Ottawa in the minors.” “I am at home here, I have friends here, and this is the optimal franchise for me in every aspect. I was looking forward to building the squad back up from the ground up and continuing what we started this year. I am feeling a lot of emotions; anger, confusion, sadness, even despair. I don’t know what I will do if I don’t get to return to Ottawa next year, but I sure won’t be happy. I am infuriated by the mere prospect of being forced to leave. I don’t know why nobody told me this sooner. I am completely devastated, it’s heartbreaking.”

Asia seems to have a bright future ahead of them, with 3 of the top 5 scorers at the WJC belonging to them. Slots number 1 and 2 belong to forward Kisshan Shan and defenseman Dylan Nyugen, who are both rookies and currently have registered 9 points. Shan has 3 goals and 6 assists, while Nyugen has 2 goals and 7 assists. These gifted playmakers present an interesting style, and this style is complimented by sniper Nikita Flipachyev. Flipachyev is holding down 5th place for WJC scorers with 3 goals and 1 assist. Asia's netminder, Alexander Pepper, is the third best goalie in save percentage with a solid 0.905, so they are performing well in goal as well. While Europe and the Americas are thought of as the hockey continents, it looks as if Asia is looking to explode onto the scene in a few years, and they're using this juniors to make a statement. They're currently tied with the powerhouse, Team Canada, for second place in the tournament standings.

Pat Svoboda leads his linemates by their bench and collects fist bumps after scoring his second goal of the night against the Yukon Rush. In the 3-2 victory over the Yukon Rush, Pat Svoboda was the first star after he netted two goals, including the game winner. The Ottawa right winger has been on fire over the last few games, with 5 goals and 4 assists over Ottawa's last 7 matches. For comparison, he only had 1 goal and 1 assist over the previous 9 games. Svoboda is now shooting 14.63% on the season, third on the team, but the figure is not blatantly unsustainable; he simply has been generating a lot of shots, as he is known to do. And his time for when he converts on those shots is impeccable; two of his six goals were game winners. While he got off to a slow start, his offensive game has now started to translate, and he's showing up on the score sheet under every stat line. He is on pace to hit double digit goals before the end of the season. Svoboda seems relieved that he has finally started lighting the lamp. "It took a little while, but once I got the first one, I really took off. The pressure was just gone, and now I think I'm playing my best hockey. When I first got here, I was worried if I had one bad shift I was going to be stapled to the bench or scratched next game. Now, I'm confident in my role here, and I think it's showing on the ice. The last game against Yukon, that had to be my best one yet," said Pat Svoboda. "Coming out after the game and waving to the fans, hearing my own name announced as first star? It felt really good and made me very proud of myself. That was my first multi-goal game, so obviously the next thing on the list is a hat trick. I intend to get one of those in the very near future." The big bodied winger is also delivering peripherals, which he was not expected to do when he was signed. With 24 hits in 17 games, it seems that he is using his size to his advantage after all. However, maybe that is not such a good thing, since he has received 35 penalty minutes in those appearances; his discipline needs work if he is going to have a sudden flare for physicality. Sitting in the box does little to help lead his team to victory. Well-rounded defense could go a long way to improving his -4 rating, but while there are some areas to be critical of, the 25-year-old Swede has been adapting well to the VHLM and North American ice. "Svoboda isn't a scrapper, so he should really just stick to his scoring game and leave the dirty work to the enforcers and his defensemen. He's never played like this in the past, so it's really confusing why he's getting chippy and laying guys out all of a sudden. I hope he stops worrying about fitting in and puts all his energy into standing out," said the Lynx's assistant coach. "We need goals, not hits." Word Count: 514 Words (Not Counting Titles/Subtitles)

1. I intend to build a goal-scoring forward with a lot of strengths and speed. I think the traditional offensive player is just a pure Sniper, but while I want to have accuracy, I want to be a volume shooter, sort of like Ovechkin. I don't intend to do much passing at all, just throw pucks on the net and that's it. Also, I don't really want to have a physical player, hitting just takes stupid penalties. 2. I know the GM of Ottawa from another sim league actually, so it was familiarity more than anything else. Also, a friend from my PBE draft class, McWolf, was on Ottawa and helped me when I first joined VHL and was confused. The other thing, on a less personal level, was I knew I could make a difference in Ottawa and that I would get prime ice time. Ottawa was a team that needed me, and who cares about winning. Underdogs are way more fun anyways! 3. I'm in a bunch of hockey sim leagues, the ones you know probably are SHL and GOMHL, and I figured I should join the last of the trio. I love hockey and hockey sim leagues, and even after doing everything on SHL and cranking out articles, I still had too much time on my hands. When I heard about this in SBA, I thought I would see if it was fun here, and I like it so far. 4. Absolutely! Hawaiian pizza is the best; add in some barbecue sauce, black olives, and mushrooms and that's heaven. Pineapple is such a sweet flavor, and while people think it sounds weird, it's amazing. Once you try it, you'll never go back. 5. My goal is to get into the top-10 TPE earners in my class and to try to go in the first round. If I could get to 20 goals, I know that's a high aspiration but I would really like that a lot. Once I get to 100 TPE, I'll get a 10 TPE bonus, so that's extra incentive to sort of race to that number. I don't know what the max I can get before the draft is, but that's what I'm aiming for. 3. No, I have played a lot of sports, but hockey isn't played that much where I live (Florida) because of weather. I go to Lightning games all the time though, so I definitely watch a lot of it. I did soccer, baseball, and bowling in high school, so I'm not COMPLETELY unathletic haha. I've only even seen snow once, so it's not like you can play hockey during winter here.

150 Halifax 21st 151 Yukon Rush 152 Ottawa Lynx 153 Yukon Rush

Halifax 5-3

Pat Svoboda, the acclaimed Swedish goal scorer, finally got the monkey off his back by netting his first VHLM goal. The Ottawa Lynx were facing Halifax 21st, and Ottawa's Elias Dahlberg had just tied the game up less than a minute before, with exactly 12:00 remaining in the second period. Mark Gebauer won a faceoff in Ottawa's end and fed the puck up to Svoboda. With strides that seemed leisurely, Svoboda used his bulky 6'5'' frame to grind his way past the defense, and leaned forward, drawing his stick back as he wound up for a ferocious slapshot. The blazing puck rocketed under Cole Mertz's left blocker, and the right winger was able to celebrate his first goal in North America. Ottawa took a 3-2 lead, and as Halifax failed to score for the remainder of the game, Svoboda's goal ended up being the Game Winning Goal, another feature that will no longer show as a zero in the stats column. The Lynx padded their margin in the third, and would finish with a 4-2 victory. "I had a conversation with my coaches, and obviously I was nervous in my first few games, so I was a bit hesitant to shoot the puck. But the type of game I've always played is to bombard the net with a ton of shots, so they encouraged me to revert to being that volume shooter. I got 5 shots on goal that game, and I packed a lot of speed into the one that went in. The feeling as it whistled past the goaltender was incredible; the first goal is always very special, even more so to a guy like me who prides himself on being a sniper," said Pat Svoboda. "And we went on to win because we played hard for the entire 60 minutes, and we put a lot of rubber on net. We out-shot them, and that's important, because like Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Hopefully, I'll get some more goals in the upcoming game, and back up my reputation. We need some more scoring out there, and this game was a great start."

Against the Oslo Storm, an exuberant Pat Svoboda celebrates his first VHLM assist on Chance Matthews' hat trick goal. Pat Svoboda stepped off his flight from his native Sweden, and within two hours, the 25-year-old SHL star was hitting the ice for the Ottawa Lynx in his first VHLM game as they squared off against the Oslo Storm. His mettle was put to the test with boatloads of minutes, with his 23:33 ice time looking more like the numbers of a defenseman. And while few expected him to impress under the duress of nerves and jet lag, Svoboda flashed offensive potential, driving the play and registering 3 shots on goal. His massive, bulky frame was in stark contrast to the scrawny speedsters he was skating against, and he used it to his advantage, as advertised, in puck battles along the boards. In his third VHLM appearance, also against Oslo, the Swedish right wing garnered his first point. It was not a goal, although he is known for his scoring, but rather it was the primary assist on Chance Matthews' hat trick goal. By setting up Matthews for his third of the night, Svoboda helped the Ottawa Lynx to score their 4th goal of the night. With momentum flowing and Matthews on fire, the Lynx edged the Oslo Storm 5-4. "I was so happy to get a win and a point against Oslo in our third meeting. We played them four games in a row, which was weird, but we seemed to get a good read on them and we figured out how to play effectively against them. I am really enjoying the North American style of play, it's very fast and hard-nosed. And as a team, we've been playing really well lately; since I joined, we're 3-2-0, and those losses were both very close, one goal games. Hopefully, me being here will give our lineup the jolt of fresh energy and the depth that we need," said Pat Svoboda. "There's a lot to take in, but I feel like I've played well. I just haven't gotten the lucky bounce to get one behind the goalie." Svoboda, a famed sniper in his home country, has only posted 6 shots over the last 4 games, and has yet to put one past the opposing netminder. With all the minutes and the opportune power play set up, he was expected by many fans to contribute more and to generate goals for the Lynx. The coaching staff has expressed full faith in the youngster and reminded the press corps that he may need an adjustment period. "He comes from across the pond, and he's used to a lot less minutes and a lot bigger ice. You can't expect his game to translate perfectly when things are a lot tighter. Players are a lot more physical here, and positioning is very different. He will grow in discipline and he will adapt his style of play to counter opposing defensemen. He is working on conditioning now, so I believe he will build up the necessary endurance to shoulder such heavy minutes," said Ottawa Lynx Head Coach Mika Sainomaa. "He's very new, so I just hope our fans can be patient and give him time. Our scouting staff and my crew on the bench all see the star potential in this kid." Word Count: 537 Words (Not Including Titles/Subtitles)

Calgary 2-1