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studentized
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Posts posted by studentized
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1 hour ago, ColeMrtz said:
Off Szn Press Stuff
1. A lot of moves were made this offseason, some bigger than others, but overall who do you feel had the best offseason?
2. One of the aforementioned moves brought @McWolf back home to the Americans, how do you feel about his addition to the squad?
3. Young guns Ristenen (@Maasa) and the Gutzwiler brothers (@Gwdjohnson & @DaftRaincloud) join the squad as well via the VHL Draft. How do we feel about the rookie additions?
4. Although you never really know with our lord Simon, we look poised to make a run at the cup this season. How far do you think we'll go?
5. With training camps now open, who pushes you to work the hardest off the ice?
6. Does Flowers set a career high in hits and/or PIMs this season?
1) we've got to be up there for one of the best. I also liked D.C's
2) love it. One of the best of this era and someone we can all learn from
3) go tear up the VHLM guys. We'll all be waiting for them to join us in S71
4) scared to be favourites. Much better to be underdog. 2nd round exit is my pessimistic answer
5) the mirror cause if I don't work hard I just look fat and ugly
6) yes to hits. No to pims. Got to share the pim load across the team
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28 minutes ago, CowboyinAmerica said:
However, Season 69 saw him take a major step back - his points, hits and plus/minus were all down,
Underrated dman for sure. Will have to wait for when I'm home to post, but a lot of your underlying numbers were really, really good last year. Turnovers, zone entries, etc. Will make sure to tag you when I get that posted.
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The sophomore season has ended for New York right winger Owen Nolan as he now looks for ways to improve this off-season. S69 saw him elevate his game into the makings of a solid forward. His 11 points in just 7 playoff games put him atop of the entire league (after the first round) and his 44 points in 72 regular season games made him a top 5 forward for NY. We caught up with Nolan yesterday to find out a bit more of what New York fans can look forward to seeing out of him next season.
#1) Skating
Nolan already took a big jump this past season in skating. Coming into the league, there was a concern that his lack of speed and acceleration would prevent him from being an effective player on the ice. While still not the fastest guy out there, Nolan looks like he’s starting to have the makings of a strong skater. His M.O has always been to shoot first, skate second, pass third, but this year, look for Nolan to try to create more space for himself and others by skating harder and protecting the puck. Having clean zone entries is an underrated aspect of any player’s game and there are really only two good ways to do it: either make crisp, clean, smart passes (which Nolan will probably never do) or just skate the puck in and weather any body/stick checks along the way. Nolan’s combination of size, strength and puck handling prowess makes the latter option a much better strategy, so New York should look forward to seeing more of that out of him.
#2) Net front presence
Nolan’s shot is fine; it’s not the best the VHL is going to see but it’s not the worst either. Where Nolan can really stand out is in front of the net. His hand-eye coordination is improving (he was just two deflections shy of the team lead) and he continues to get stronger every year making it harder for defences to push him around. All this being said: strong player + good hand eye + willingness to go to the front of the net = good things for NY. Look for Nolan to improve on his season last year in this regard, maybe even as far as establishing himself as one of the top deflection guys in the game.
#3) Leadership
Last season Nolan really wanted to be that player to stand up for his teammates. His 5 fights (and 0 losses) placed him atop his team in S69. This year, look for him to play a similar enforcer type role, but also to add some leadership on the ice that doesn’t require him to drop the mitts. The locker room is young in NY so he's got a good opportunity to have a voice.
Now that we know roughly what Nolan wants to work on, here on some goals we think he may be able to hit.
Now that we know roughly what Nolan wants to work on, here on some goals we think he should be able to hit.
30 goals and 60 pts: this is the type of player Nolan needs to be. He won’t ever lead the league in scoring, but he does have a chance to establish himself as one of the better depth players in the VHL. Let’s see if he can build on a strong post season and make a big jump in his 3rd regular season.
10 fights and 0 losses: 10 fights is rare in the VHL and never being on the losing end of one is even rarer. As a team NY should be involved in competitive games the whole year, and with higher stakes can come more emotion and fighting. Nolan is still really the only player to fill this void on the roster and his strength makes him a scary guy to go up against, so this is a possibility.
Make it out of the first round of the playoffs: The off-season is still young but New York is shaping up to be one of the better teams of the NA conference. Anything less than a second round appearance will be a disappointment. They have the potential to go even further so don't be surprised to see them compete for it all.
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S70 donation (Jan 11th, 2020)
Trans Id: 4VV06843KY588421V
Doubles Week (claiming week of 1/12/2020)
Doubles Week (claimed 1/19)
5 Uncapped TPE (claiming week of 1/12/2020)
Free Week (claiming 1/26)
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I feel like it would be hard to rebuild a team through draft with 2 year max rookie contracts. I like the RFA idea though. Gives players a little more power
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2 hours ago, ColeMrtz said:
Real sad hours PC
1. After a hard-fought series, the Bears come out ahead in Game 7. How do we feel about the series?
2. With the season officially over, it's golf season. Who's the best golfer on the team?
3. Is it better to lose to the cup champs or watch the team that beat you also lose it all?
4. What do you want to improve in the offseason?
5. What are you most excited about for S70?
6. How was everyone's New Year's?
1. I'm still bitter. It was a fun season overall though
2. Foreskin seems like a great golf name. Lets go with him.
3. When it's Seattle, it's better to watch them lose (did I mention I'm still bitter).
4. Lots. Get stronger, faster, smarter. Expecting a big year
5. The chance to win it all. Can't wait to get started
6. Quiet, which was awesome. Our families can be a bit much sometimes.
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Another season over, another VHL.com post looking at team TPA growth. The chart compares end of regular season TPAs from S68 to S69.
Risers:
1) D.C Dragons (+3157)
D.C edges out Prague as the expansion team with the most growth. Not unexpected at all that they sit at #1 and #2 considering where they came from.
2) Prague Phantoms (+2127)
Both expansion teams grew to a point where next year's playoffs are possible. At the end of S69 they sit at 6719 and 6574 respectively.
3) Seattle Bears (+1639)
Easily the most impressive growth number. Seattle becomes the first team ever to eclipse 10,000 total team TPA by regular seasons end.
4) New York Americans (+1527)
Not far behind, and almost as impressive considering their trades, is NY. Solid drafting starting to pay off with a bunch of S68 guys all sticking together.
5) Calgary Wranglers (+1065)
This was the biggest surprise to me personally, just based on my perceptions of the teams. Calgary probably should have made the playoffs this year...
6) Malmo Nighthawks (+442)
Another surprise to me. Losing Matt Thompson means a lot of TPA needed to overcome, but they did it.
7) Vancouver Wolves (+313)
Second best team in the league and still getting better. Vancouver did a good job.Fallers:
8 ) Riga Reign (-191)
practically no change. When you are already a top team, small change is a good thing.9) Helsinki Titans (-308)
A smaller loss than I expected, but once you rank around 9th, relative loss compared to the rest of the league is more worrying than the absolute loss itself.10) Toronto Legion (-308)
Same number as Helsinki, and same comment applies. Beginning of a decline for these two very good S60's franchises?11) Moscow Menace (-580)
Lot's of change for Moscow. They were the #1 S68 team TPA team, so this loss doesn't hurt as much as it might look.12) HC Davos Dynamo (-4576)
lolVHL as a whole (+4307 => +358 per team)
Is this due to having more members or more TPE handouts? Not sure, but this number doesn't seem too worrying on the inflation front either way, so that's good. -
Part I - Pick em' (Pick the correct winners of all three games for 2 TPE)
Game 3 - Seattle Bears @ Riga Reign
Game 4 - Seattle Bears @ Riga Reign
Game 5 - Riga Reign @ Seattle Bears
Part II - Predict the Score (Predict the correct score and winner of this game for 3 TPE)
Game 5 - Riga Reign @ Seattle Bears: Reign 5-4
Part III - Player Predictions (Predict the correct player for each category, 1 TPE for each correct answer)
Series leader in points: Palo
Series leader in goals: PaloSeries leader in assists: Kastelic
Who has the series PIM lead: Hogan
Who scores the series winning goal: Dahlberg
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1 minute and 21 seconds left in the third period of game 7. New York rookie Aamon Grim is called for a slashing penalty with his team up 3-2. "Just kill a penalty. We knew there was going to be a big challenge left before finishing the game. We just had to kill it". And NY almost did. For the next 27 seconds they held the Seattle Power Play without a shot, forced an icing, and forced then pulled goalie Rayz Funk back into the net. Then another penalty. A hook by Konstatin Mulligan. "That one irks me", Nolan said. "But that's home ice I guess. Crowd was loud and the refs aren't looking to cause a riot in Seattle. I think it was a weak call but that's why you fight for home ice. It probably doesn't get called in NY, no".
New York was now looking at a 6 on 3 situation. And it proved as hard as it sounds. The score didn't hold up and Scott Greene tied it up with 31 seconds left. Just 31 seconds. 31 seconds that left New York still short handed. "I'm pretty sure I blacked out at that point. Just felt defeated even though the game was still tied". New York would survive into overtime, and even successfully kill off the rest of that penalty to start OT. But they couldn't get it done in OT all series. "As much as you try to stay positive, losing the past 2 overtimes and the one in triple OT, it just adds that whole feeling of 'here we go again'". And again it went for Seattle. The big free agent signing Dan Wilinsky seals it for Seattle, the crowd goes wild and the once wild run for New York ends with a whimper.
"Careers are so short in the VHL, so you really need to make the most out of every opportunity you get. That's why this stings me so much. People will probably say that NY should just be grateful for getting here, forcing a game 7 against some of the best players, but it's all bull to me. It was an even series the whole way. Just needed to pull it together for 31 more seconds."
So what are the positives? "We now know what we are capable of. We aren't a rebuilder, we are a contender. At the beginning of the year, you probably say this is as close to a best case scenario as imaginable. I don't see it that way now obviously, but maybe I just need some time to escape this off season." As a team, New York is now entering their prime. Six S68 players are entering the final year of their rookie deal: Lance Flowers, A Red Guy, Owen Nolan, Keven Foreskin, Frederik Elmebeck and Ryo Yamazuki II. Those are cap savings they will probably never get again anytime soon so it should be interesting to see what they do.
For now, New York can only just sit back and watch Seattle vs Vancouver in round 2. "Go Vancouver, I guess", Nolan mumbles as he exits the locker room.
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9 hours ago, ColeMrtz said:
What’s up fellas
1. Tomorrow we play an elimination game against Seattle, with Seattle being on the ropes. What’s the game plan?
2. Any predictions for tomorrow?
3. What’s everyone’s pregame rituals during the playoffs?
4. Who’s been the more dangerous Esso, Keven Foreskin or Joel Ylonen?
5. @Banackock has been seen rioting in the streets of Seattle after the latest loss to the Americans. Does this affect your psyche at all?
6. Looking to next season, is there anyone in the current draft class you’d like to see in the red white and blue?
7. Who has grown the best playoff beard so far?
8. Has anyone in particular been a standout these playoffs, either for us or for another team?
9. How do you think as a team we can improve for next season?
10. How do you feel about the current playoff format?
1) Use home ice to our advantage. Come out strong early and be a little physical out there. Want to control the game as much as possible
2) The gut feeling has this going 7, but we have our two chances starting now. I would love to wrap it up right away.
4) Ylonen delivered the 3OT heartbreaker but Foreskin has been a lot more consistent for us. I choose Foreskin
5) I'm sure his nerves bleed into the locker room a little bit. That's an advantage we can use.
8 ) Loving the 2nd line play. Ryo, Foreskin and I have a lot of chemistry and playing great
9) Keep as much of the core together as we can and keep the growth up. Add one stud free agent (probably at D or winger) and keep on rolling
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Seattle vs New York. Defending champs vs playoff rookies. Most skilled team vs hottest team of late. This matchup has a bit of everything so however you want to look at it, it should be a good one.
Let's talk about Seattle. To my knowledge this is the highest TPA team ever assembled in VHL history, eclipsing the 10,000 TPA mark even before reaching the end of the regular season. But high skill isn't always favoured in STHS. They finished 3rd in the regular season standings and struggled against New York this year (the new New York, that is. Not the lousy team that started the year).
For New York, you just don't have the same skill. On paper they have one great forward surrounded by a lot of depth pieces. Good, but not great defence. A good, but not great goalie. But put them all together and they are playing like something special. Is it special enough to grind it out against Seattle in 7 games? Probably not. That said, something is there. If not this year, then next year or the year after. The window just cracked open for NY and it will be interesting to see how they fare.
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Claiming
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1) Probably that first game after the trade for Low facing Seattle. Was nice to win that won and really started a string of good games to get us ahead of Toronto
2) Better, but not completely unexpected either. Knew it would be fairly tight between us, Toronto, and Calgary so just glad not to be the odd team out
3) I think the fall at the start was more surprising. Just. Couldn't. Win. A. Game
4) Feeling good to have made it. Playoffs are a whole other animal and they are the reigning champs, so need to play even better.
5) May the best team win. Would be awesome if it were us, but would also be cool if Guy gets on a deep run too.
6) No idea. I'm expecting big things of our team as a whole though with 6 S68 guys entering the last year of their rookie deal.
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thanks for the kind words
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Claiming
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8 minutes ago, Nykonax said:
he shouldn't've been allowed to play S66 onward. He should've been released after his 3 seasons of VHLM eligibility, since you can't sign VHLM inactives as an FA
Did not even realize this was a rule, but now makes more sense why there weren't a bunch of other guys with similar longevity.
I guess this means no S70 for Edvin after all lol.
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If there were a VHLM hall of fame, Anton Edvin @caltroit_red_flames would deserve to be in. S69 is now his 7th season in the VHLM and 6th consecutive with the Halifax 21sts. He holds the record for games played, goals, assists, and game winners for the team. Moreover, he might even hold these same records for the VHLM league as a whole (he does in my data set, but that only goes back to S60). While never quite getting a founders cup with Halifax (although there is still time), Edvin did get one his rookie season with Saskatoon in S63. His resume in the VHLM is as impressive as it gets even though he's never taken home a piece of personal hardware. His stat output has remained fairly consistent over the years playing 3rd line minutes for Halifax and I would personally love him to get another season or two there to keep growing his records; regression might not make this feasible however. It just goes to show that some guys don't need to make the jump to the VHL to have an impactful career. Anton Edvin is the definition of that guy and a definite unsung hero for Halifax and hockey players everywhere.204 words
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A look at some different stats of S69
in Archived Media Spots
Posted
Parsing the full play-by-play of games is slowly getting easier for me and so with it means that some more stats can be tracked (that the VHL index doesn’t do). I was interested in seeing how my player was performing in a few of these aspects and decided to just extend the results to every team last year for a small write up.
The stats I looked at are: net takeaways, shot deflections, posts hit, defensive zone exits, and offensive zone entries.
I’ve talked about how I calculate takeaways and giveaways in an earlier media spot (see here if interested), so I won't rehash that discussion. Deflections and posts hit are pretty self-explanatory as well so that only really leaves zone entries and exits. I will briefly explain how I calculated zone changes in this article.
There are only a couple of play-by-play sentences where zones are mentioned in the sim that I could find:
Sentences like “Pass to Player A in neutral/home team/away team zone”
Sentences like “Player B carries the puck into the neutral/home team/away team zone”
Sentences like “Player C dumps the puck in the home team/away team zone”
Sentences involving things like Icings, face-offs, etc.
For my calculations I’ve excluded cases 3 & 4. This is more or less consistent with some of the definitions of zone entries in hockey analytics from what I can gather. In particular, when the sim mentions dumping the puck, I do not constitute that as a zone entry in my calculations since these are almost always recovered by the opposing team. I suppose I could have tracked these as a separate metric if anyone is really curious but I didn't care enough about it for my player.
Ok, to the definition. A zone exit occurs when the puck moves from defensive zone to neutral zone and a zone entry occurs when puck moves from the neutral zone into the offensive zone. As far as who gets credited with the zone entries, I’ve probably made some assumptions that are not standard in hockey analytics (not actually sure about this but zone entries seem like a stat typically looked at a team or line level vs how i’m doing it i.e down to a specific player). I opted to go the route of allowing “half” entries in cases where two players are involved in the play. For example, in case 2 above, Player B would get attributed one (whole) zone entry because they carry the puck in themselves. But for case 1, because it’s a pass involving two players, I will have attributed a 0.5 (half) zone entry to each player involved; the player passing (parsed from the previous by play sentence) and the player receiving (Player A in my example).
Ok so let’s look at the numbers. First and foremost is New York.
New York
Best turnover differential: Lance Flowers (+247)
Worst turnover differential: Soren Jensen (-241)
Most deflections: Keven Foreskin (55)
Most posts hit: Boris the Forest (13)
Most offensive zone entries: Lance Flowers (876.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Lance Flowers (772)
A theme you’ll notice in this is that defensemen will often lead the team in zone entries and often times forwards do better with zone exits. This might seem a bit counter intuitive at first and I’m not sure if it bares a ton of realism to the NHL, but the numbers don’t seem too outrageous to me (I’m no expert on these types of stats, however).
For New York, the numbers paint a nice little picture for sophomore defenseman Lance Flowers @CowboyinAmerica. His point totals dropped a ton this year from his rookie season, but it was in no way a down year for the guy. He lead the team in the turnover battle and zone entries/exits. That’s a huge part of the team that might go unnoticed to anyone not reading the full play-by-play. Similarly for Boris, who had a better year on paper, the 13 posts he hit suggest he just needed a little more luck to get even better results. Reminder to aim for the net next year @chillzone
Ok, now for the rest of teams (sans analysis because I only cared enough about New York). Only tagging league leaders here since otherwise too many people would be mentioned, and I'm already not huge on tagging folks normally.
Vancouver
Best turnover differential: Brock Louth (+224)
Worst turnover differential: Denver Wolfe (-386)
Most deflections: Julius Freeman (93) *league leader* @rjfryman
Most posts hit: Julius Freeman/Denver Wolfe (13)
Most offensive zone entries: Diljodh Starload (977.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Diljodh Starload (831)
Seattle
Best turnover differential: Leph Twinger (+332)
Worst turnover differential: Acyd Burn (-233)
Most deflections: Dan Wilinsky (53)
Most posts hit: Scott Greene (11)
Most offensive zone entries: Hulk Hogan (1007)
Most defensive zone exits: Hulk Hogan (834.5)
Toronto
Best turnover differential: Rusty Shackleford (+338)
Worst turnover differential: Orion Slade (-343)
Most deflections: Rylan Peace (72)
Most posts hit: Orion Slade (11)
Most offensive zone entries: Elasmobranch Fish (1112.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Tzuyu (928.5)
Calgary
Best turnover differential: Brady Stropko Jr (+233)
Worst turnover differential: Chico Smeb (-405)
Most deflections: Roll Fizzlebeef (59)
Most posts hit: Chico Smeb (11)
Most offensive zone entries: Charlie Paddywagon (1234.5) *league leader* @DMaximus
Most defensive zone exits: Charlie Paddywagon (1017)
D.C
Best turnover differential: Piotr Jerwa (+463) *league leader* @majesiu
Worst turnover differential: Mikko Aaltonen (-548) *league leader* @GRZ
Most deflections: Mikko Aaltonen (41)
Most posts hit: Benny Graves (10)
Most offensive zone entries: Luciano Valentino (987.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Mikko Aaltonen (975)
Riga
Best turnover differential: Guy Sasakamoose (+407)
Worst turnover differential: Ryan Kastelic (-310)
Most deflections: Elias Dahlberg (70)
Most posts hit: Elias Dahlberg (17) *league leader* @Nykonax
Most offensive zone entries: Apollo Hackett (1091.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Ryan Kastelic (907.5)
Moscow
Best turnover differential: Edward Vigneault (+320)
Worst turnover differential: Dan Baillie (-244)
Most deflections: Jet Jaguar (81)
Most posts hit: Dan Baillie (15)
Most offensive zone entries: Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen (1178.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen (937.5)
Helsinki
Best turnover differential: Sidney Crosby (+368)
Worst turnover differential: Julian Borwinn (-358)
Most deflections: Kronos Bailey (81)
Most posts hit: Julian Borwinn (14)
Most offensive zone entries: Julian Borwinn (941.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Guillaume Fontenette (904.5)
Malmo
Best turnover differential: Condor Adrienne (+365)
Worst turnover differential: Jake Davis (-287)
Most deflections: Phil Marleau (72)
Most posts hit: Ryan Sullivan Jr (11)
Most offensive zone entries: Jerry Garcia (1043.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Jerry Garcia (893)
Prague
Best turnover differential: Cinnamon Block (+327)
Worst turnover differential: Willie Dredge (-261)
Most deflections: Erik Draven (69)
Most posts hit: Alex Pearson (12)
Most offensive zone entries: Wolf Stansson Jr (948.5)
Most defensive zone exits: Wolf Stansson Jr (857.5)
Davos
Best turnover differential: Basaraba Moose (+169)
Worst turnover differential: John Madden (-335)
Most deflections: Jerry Wang (59)
Most posts hit: Brendan Plunkett/John Madden (7)
Most offensive zone entries: John Madden (1066.5)
Most defensive zone exits: John Madden (1165.5) *league leader* @Thranduil
Let me know if anyone wants full data for their team/player or if there are different metrics you want to see in a future post. For now just gonna keep adding stuff as it interests me.
Gonna make a double claim out of this too if I can.