Plate

Review Great little close to the end of the Patrik Laine draft saga. It's one of the best individual stories of the S73 draft. General managers pay attention, and especially to their first round picks, when selecting players. I imagine you were slotted in the top 3 in the VHL before certain statements came out. If you're ever unsure of what the best course of action is, getting a second opinion is always the best thing to do. Which you did with Helsinki. I also think it's great that Helsinki's colours match the Jets. I'll give a quick review over the articles as a whole from this saga. Personal preference for me would be to have the font favour the left margin. You can center it when Laine is answering the questions. I find that when it's always center it looks a little funky. Loved the pictures. They were a little too big though. Putting them off to one side lets the reader read the article and have the picture in focus. So instead of scrolling through the picture to read the article, you can look at the picture for a few seconds and read. It was a great little read and I enjoyed being with you in the Houston locker room before you left! Can't wait to see you out on the ice. Score Content: 9/10 Format: 7/10 Flow: 7/10 I loved this draft story from start to end. Just make the pictures a little smaller and put them off to the side, and make the text left leaning. Can't wait to see what other content you put out into the league!

2. I think that I'm going to be going early 2nd this draft. But honestly who knows. 4. Pick Alec Volchenkov or I will slay you 5. Homes: Black/Gold/White Aways: White/Gold/ Black Alternates: Grey/Gold/White 6. With a little bit of whiskey. 7. Cheesecake is the best food. 8. @SirRupertBarnes, he's literally my cousin and I've known him basically my whole life. His player is Alec Volchenkov, no relation to why I would want you guys to pick him.

You also failed to mention his 13 points in 18 games in the playoffs ?

Just a quick note about my boy Alec Volchenkov (@SirRupertBarnes), he's built to be a true way two-way forward. He will easily be a 1st line center in the league and anything below the 1st round for him is a steal imho. People can't get above the fact he's breaking the scoring meta. Moscow is going to take him 13th. Russian forward franchise center man, calling it right now.

This needs to go to suggestions.

The Only Expansion Draft Article You Need Expansion drafts are some of the biggest highlights we can bring to the VHL. They are a time for stress as players live with uncertainty. Will you be protected? Will you move and be part of a potential Cinderella story? I am going to break down for you everything you need to know about the expansion draft format. I teamed up with @SirRupertBarnes to tackle a huge project where we made a protection list for every single team in the VHL. Huge shoutout to him. You can find the link to the second part of this series at the end of the article. I will only be talking about the expansion draft/what teams will protect in this article. I do not touch on the Draft Lottery Tournament or the new playoff format. I will do that next season. Rules for existing teams TLDR; Your team will protect eight active players eligible to play in S73. That is anyone drafted from S66 to 72. This includes both skaters and goalies. Draft picks cannot be selected directly from existing teams. You will likely see your team protect 1 goalie, 2 or 3 defensemen, and the rest forwards. There are only a couple exceptions to the rules. If an expansion team is forced to select a player that is inactive, they also get a 2nd round pick in one of the three upcoming drafts (S73-75). It is a little wordy, so I will break it down for you guys. London selects an inactive player from Moscow. Moscow now must give up a 2nd round pick on top of that player. Moscow chooses what 2nd round pick they get rid of. The pick must be a part of the S73, S74, or S75 draft. How does the Expansion Draft Work? There are 24 total assets that the expansion teams will be drafting from. Because there are 4 expansion teams and 24 things to pick from, the draft will be 6 rounds. The three major selections the expansion teams will be picking from are players, their S73 draft positions, and compensation picks. Any unprotected player from existing teams are up for grabs. Once an existing team has lost a player to the expansion draft, they cannot lose any more players. During the S73 VHL Draft Lottery, placeholder teams will mark where the expansion teams get to draft. The range for which expansion teams get their selections is between 5-12. This process is done separately, by random. Those positions are acquirable in the expansion draft in the same way that a player would be selected. They will be used for expansion teams to determine their own place in the draft. There will be 8 compensation picks available for selection by expansion teams. They are placed 21-24 overall in each of the next two drafts, S73 and S74. Expansion teams are limited to 2 compensation picks in a single draft and 3 in total. These picks are arbitrary and only serve the purpose of filling out expansion team rosters quickly. Are You Protected? I went through the list of teams alphabetically and made up my own list of what the players I would protect. I also went through and talked about what players I think will be chosen. Mind you, take this all with a grain of salt. Since the actual lists are hidden from our eye I thought it would be fun to make up a "public list" for people to see who they would protect with this perspective. Names in black are protected, with the best player available shown underneath. TPPS stands for TP per Season. It doesn’t take into account Veteran depreciation, or rapid VHLM growth. If a player has twice the average TPPS (The average being 172), then they are considered to have "superstar" talent and have an "!" next to their number when listed. A player that has red showing on their background in TPPS has a "?", to signify an opinionated decision rather than the "best one". This is a case by case basis. The number next to the best player available was their TPA at the time of writing. Calgary Wranglers Projected Expansion List (TPPS): R. Jubis (225), K. Rice (215), E. Encarnacion (284), M. Lahtinen (263), L. Mitchell (450!), G. Zod (395!), J. Lafontaine (231) , C. Paddywagon (134?) Best Available Players (TPPS): J. Poremba (208), S. Gunnar (159?) The biggest decision that Calgary will be making is whether or not to protect Paddywagon (939 TPA) for another cup run next season, or to protect the goalie prospect Poremba. My first list had Paddywagon unprotected in favour of Poremba. After looking it over, it makes more sense to expose the goalie prospect. Calgary will be poised to take a cup next season so you want to protect most of your good players. Unfortunately in this case, Calgary also has some prospects that they want to keep. It will be possible to protect most of the core pieces. Zod, Mitchell, Lafontaine are all super important players to the future Wranglers squad. Gunnar and Poremba are both available with the list that I've proposed. Either player could easily be taken. Poremba will be a solid starter in the league, but is a bit of a project. The other option, Gunnar, had an incredible 80 point season in S72 and was +44. An expansion team is going to get a very solid player from Calgary. D.C Dragons Projected Expansion List: B. Graves (249), L. Valentino (191), B. Forest (158), G. Washington (237), G. Leslieur (189), X. Leflamant (195), S. Wolski (330), L. Flaten (292) Best Available Player: R, Johnson (145?) D.C’s core is at a great spot for now and the future. The players from Graves all the way to Leslieur are your VHL studs that will be protected for the long haul. There are also a couple great prospects looking to bolster the roster in the form of Wolski and Flaten. Their splashes into the VHL will be under the Dragon's wing. Ricky Johnson is a solid defenseman that will probably be heading out of the Dragons lair. A consistent 40 point scoring defenseman will be sought after pretty early on in the expansion draft. The Dragon's management has done a great job at building a team to look forward to in the future. Only time will tell what player will be chosen from this squad. H.C Davos Dynamo Projected Expansion List: R. Davis (377!), D. Oquinn (172), S. Hornet (539!), R. Winter (485), J. Bruden (200), J. Lefebrve (235), C. Rust (193), J. Exotic (181), T. McHugh (168) Best Available Players: H. Helmsley (159), J. Jaguar (152), J. Willis (154), B. Chungus (152) You may notice that legends Hunter Helmsley and Jet Jaguar are unprotected. They are both retiring next season. I may be too ocular on this season, in my assessment on Davos for next season. I do not think they have a realistic chance at making the cup next year. I foresee them selling everything anyway. (This is going to age like a fine wine, I already know it). The issue here is that Davos has too many prospects that they want to protect. Rust, Exotic, Lefebrve and McHugh are all important pieces for their future. On top of that, you have the cornucopia of your team in the form of S. Hunter that will be holding together the fruit of your future. You could make the case for protecting H. Helmlsey or J. Jaguar, then trading them for more value next season. There is only one situation that I can see where Davos protects everybody. Davos places their protection list, where Helmsley and Jaguar are protected in place of Exotic and McHugh. Then offers a 2nd or 3rd to whatever expansion team selects J. Willis over T. McHugh. But as of the list that I have now, there are too many players to protect. You will be seeing a great player leave this organization. It would not surprise me if a player from Davos was selected among the first round of the expansion draft. As for who will be chosen, H. Helmsley or J. Jaguar are a bit of an “all-in” selection. You have one season to make use of their skill before they retire. You can also make a case for selecting a prospect such as B. Chungus or J. Willis, but we all know that isn’t happening. It will be interesting to see Gustav Mattias get Davos through this expansion draft. Helsinki Titans Projected Expansion List: E. Summers (221), H. Okada (189), J. Bob (332), J. Spaz (174), V. Vaakaneinen (491), S. Elsby (364!), Z. Driver (328), J. Rose (225) Best Players Available: B. Helminen (152), K. Andersen (146?) Helsinki has a player pool loaded with some star talent. Vaakaneinen, Elsby and Driver are all future prospects that will tear it up. It’s important to protect those core pieces that are already established and still have quite a bit of time left in their careers. These lists do have a tendency to pick on veterans, but time is a resource that is just as valuable as TPA sometimes. In the VHL you have Summers, Okada and Bob that are too good to let go. The Titans have great players that are VHL ready, and will-be VHL ready players in a season or two. They had a pretty good record and even made the playoffs. I don't think Helsinki will go into a full push next season, which is why letting a regular go isn't the worst thing to have happen. I would say that Helsinki wouldn’t be too bothered to give up Helminen or Andersen. It sucks losing a future piece like Heminen and Andersen is already a top 4 defenseman. The other options are too valuable, which is saying something for the quality of players on the Titans roster. Hafkey has a lot of TPA (887), and for an expansion team they might want to make a push, could be a viable option. In my opinion I would be taking Helminen or Andersen over that player. That's it for part one of this article. The second part, written by @SirRupertBarnes is found with the link below. I hope you all had a good read and make sure to drop a like on his section of the series! We put a lot of work into this and it was a ton of fun. Cheers. Words: 1685 (Pre-Edit, I only added a thank you to SirRupert Barnes)

6. I already have experience in the role. I was assistant general manager for Saskatoon in S66. Also, you gotta hype up your team you know. 2. Doktor is the best dressed man in the entire hockey league. 3. Dark Spyro cheers for a team that hasn't won the cup in over 50 years. 4. Relocate Minnesota as soon as possible please. Or at least change the name. 5. I would relocate them to Quebec. They don't have a team yet in this league (For some reason) and they could go with at least a minor hockey league team. 10. Jackson Philliefan. We're both German defenders that are poised to go in the same time in the draft.

Review Please never stop doing this. The amount of times that I belly laughed reading this article is just a testament to your ability. I particularly liked the "Always a Bridesmaid" and "Can't hit the Broadside of the Barn" awards. Those are absolute classics. Another possible award could be the "Thief in the Night" award, rewarded to the player with the most takeaways (If that's recorded). You could also call it the Pavel Datsyuk award, but honestly thief in the night fits your theme a little better. I loved all of the graphics you threw in there. The only real criticism that I have is that there weren't more! Besides that, some of the summaries were a bit short. I understand how much work you do already scrounging numbers around so I wouldn't expect that. Continue these awards! Score Content: 9/10 Flow: 10/10 Format: 9/10 I love this so much. Add a couple more awards and maybe summarize a bit better. Keep up the great work!

We caught Markus Schauer in a German diner eating some schnitzel, just down the road from his practice facility. What part of your game have you been working on today? "I'm always looking to improve on my game. Just because we got eliminated does not mean I can not get better. I heard Jogr and Krishnay went golfing. They invited me even. I've never golfed before so I said no. Today I was working on my edges and snapshot." He invited us to watch some of his game. Indeed, we noted his scoring ability had improved drastically. He's almost three times the player now as he was when he first joined the VHLM. Central scouting most recently reported him placed at 12th overall, just below fellow German defense man Jackson Philliefan. We're very proud of his progress and wish the best of travels as he moves back to Germany next week. We don't know what city or team he will end up in, and he clearly doesn't have a preference either. "Many organizations have spoken with me. I would be happy to play for any of them. My biggest concern is growing as a player. You learn more from your losses than you do from your wins. I'm glad to have had the chance to fail, so that I know what I need to do to succeed in the future."

+10 Markus Schauer

Review If an AGM was given a formal job, this should be it. Trade tracking is a bit hard to do. Dedicating one person to it could make it easier. Yes, I know you can go through each team and look through their trade history. It would be interesting to see who won out on some trades from the different perspectives. Trades are some of the most direct ways that a GM can influence a team. I wish more teams did this recap style article. I really liked the summaries of what you were thinking of when you made the different trades. The quick footnote at the end saying if you think you won or lost the trade is pretty neat to see as well. I would prefer if the titles of the trades were colour coded, with the winner being in green and the loser being in red. If you didn't know who won or lost, then you can keep it neutral. As you stated multiple times in some of the summaries, you said it was too early for you to say who won or lost on some trades. And I agree. Which is why maybe you should wait a season or two before you write a reflection like this. Especially when picks are being traded. The neat little summary at the end with all the collective trade assets thrown on both sides is a good addition. Scale Content: 10/10 Flow: 10/10 Format: 7/10 Really good idea I think everyone should do. Maybe add some TPA's next to the names of the players you traded and add some colour to titles. Can't wait to see more of these.

Third claim +6

Markus Schauer came out of the locker room after the game 5 loss to Saskatoon with his head low. Some fans had said they saw him breaking sticks against the wall on his way to the team bus. We managed to ask him a question before he went back to Ottawa, and eventually home in Germany. You managed to take one game off of Saskatoon in the series, are you happy with the result? "The team played great. Ajay in net did amazing things for us and kept us in the games that were competitive. My personal performance was horrific. I didn't get any points and I felt like I was on the back foot the entire series. My job is to help the team offensively. This time around, I just wasn't that guy." And with that, Markus Schauer took a step off the mic and back on the bus with his team mates, who were more cheery than he was. Schauer posted 0 points in the five games played against Saskatoon. He was a -6 on the series. The most complete effort of his being in game 5 where his +/- was unaffected despite the 7-4 loss.

Review First of all, pineapple on pizza is a cardinal sin. It ruins the whole point of having pizza in the first place. There's a lot of great flavour in this article. Because it's a sim league, many of the players come from the same place. They lack personality. It's up to us to give our players identities. Patrick Laine has a fun and relatable story. The cool little prank stories do a great job at establishing relationships between #29 and his team mates. That personal connection is really cool between you and Minner. There's a lack of visuals on the article itself. Having a picture of Laine with his team mates would do a lot to bring life to this post. You could also segment your article into different parts. Segmented the questions into different sections would do a good job at improving the flow of the article. One section could be questions related to your teammates. Another to your personal skill, or one about questions on your career. Score: 9/10 Really enjoyed the life the article provides to your player. Could do with some visuals/formatting adjustments. Overall, a very good article. Pineapple does not belong on pizza.

Review Very entertaining story. As a history fan, this is the kind of article that I really like to sink my teeth into. It also gives some good insight about the different eras of the league at the time. Really fun to see the displacement of talent between the two conferences in the 50's. There are very few criticism of this article. They're things that I do too so don't feel bad. The post looks like one block of text at first glance. Sometimes it can be hard to read and it turns people away from reading it. Showing off pictures of the standings at the time (I know you have links, but something just a little extra to spice it up). There are a few run on sentences that could be broken down into two or three. The links are an awesome addition to the post. Rating: 8/10 Content is great. Format needs spicing up. Good job ?

Transaction ID: 0L236327T3607152U ($10) Doubles Week 5 TPE

1. I think we did a great job even making the playoffs. Signing me at the deadline provided enough back line to keep us in it. 2. I think my personal milestone was getting a point a game in the last 5 or so games in the season. Schauer started slow but picked it up later on. 3. Anything fish related sucks. 4. Seeing as though I'm a S74 prospect I have no choice but to play in the minors. If I had the choice, I would stay down there anyway. 5. Lynx win it next season. 6. Ajay is 100% our MVP. He was the core reason why we stayed competitive for the rest of the season. 7. Sweet Caroline all the way through.

Claiming for my second time. +6

@IamMOOSE I would say that, just by looking at the numbers (provided at the time that I wrote the article anyway, things change all the time) I would say that Mexico City is the one that I would put as the team influencing the sim a bit better than other teams. Minnesota just has a lot of talent that they bought before the draft. I'm assuming that Mexico also bought, but the core of their group has been around forever. I'm going to do this again at the start of the next season with the mathematical changes that I had suggested in one of the responses I made.

Congrats to all the captains!

Markus Schauer was excited to be promised the premium ice-time as a top 2 defenseman, with powerplay and penalty kill minutes. He didn't expect there to be such a talent difference between himself and the rest of his blue line squad. As far as the German see's it, it's an opportunity for growth and development. "I'm playing against other players much better than I am." Said Markus after a 7 - 0 loss to Philadelphia. "We put in a solid effort, but if we want to go deep in the playoffs we need to tighten our game. I take responsibility for the loss though. I need to keep the back end locked and loaded." Schauer was later seen hard at practice working on his defensive awareness. He was looking back at the tapes to see where he went wrong. "Sometimes the first few games take a lot to settle into. Ottawa is a great city. The people there are very friendly and they've helped the transition be as smooth as possible." We’ll be able to see if Schauer can keep up with the pressure that the playoffs bring. It looks like he would be playing against Ottawa, facing the likes of Ike Bennet, Mickey Dickson, Squirrely Dan, and many others. “I have a lot of respect for players that put time into the game. I think we can reach that level too.”

I prefer offensive defense men and teams are always looking for one or two of them to fill out in their roster. Because a lot of forwards focus on scoring goals, making a solid quarterback for a team is generally a good idea. It shouldn't be taboo to want to play an OD. You will have MUCH more fun in the league playing something you WANT, rather than something OTHER people want you to play. Review Really unique article. I thought that it was a pretty novelist alteration between what Wolf wants to be and what is expected of him. You did a great job with the imagery in this article. Only point of criticism that I have is to loosen up on the commas. Simple sentences can go a long way. There are times when writers try to introduce many different story elements into a scene and forget about the framework of the words they're using. If that's the only complaint you're getting for an article then it means you're doing a really good job. I'll keep a look out on your posts in the future ;). Grammar: 7.5/10 Flow: 9/10 Content: 9.5/10

Thanks @ahockeyguy for the kind words! Obviously there are too many factors to take into consideration. The methodology doesn't take into account TPE changes, as you stated, and instead just takes a flash point from one specific time and uses that to measure out how good a team should be. Ottawa for example, is playing the "most" out of expectation, but that's because they traded many of their good players early on in the season. You can't take away their efforts from the score that they have now. If you were to do this again with as much accuracy as you wanted, you would find a player and take their average TPE gains from each week, multiply that by how long the regular season is, and do that for every player. Then you can cap the number at 250 for each player and run a more complex equation to determine the amount of TP that a team would have. You can then follow the same methodology that I used from there to determine how many points a team should have gotten. In terms of trades, it's really hard to try and figure out what trade will team for what. The markets for players is something completely arbitrary and values are hard to establish. The only thing that I can think of is updating the list every week and running a "power rankings" media spot with it. Set it at a specific time every monday or so. But as you saw, the list of where teams should have been was pretty accurate. For example, Philly was basically spot on. The issue right now with the methodology is that the wins/losses do not equal out. However, with the way that I did it, each team was within 0.40 of the 33.02 point per tp average. Point per TP is something worth investigating further. It lets us know what teams are allocating their points better than others. It was just a fun little thought experiment that panned out pretty well considering the information that I was given. Just take the list with a grain of salt.

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Well sounds like my suggestions is dead to rights. Was it always the same??