Tagger

Transaction ID - 1PK468103J159124T
 

Transaction ID - 1PK468103J159124T
 

Transaction ID - 1PK468103J159124T
 

Intro Notes:
-  This is the first of four parts. I will also be doing the worst picks of the S60’s for the EU Conference and the best picks for both the NA and EU conference. I've got a WIP spreadsheet here where I shortlisted some of the other potential options for this article and also potential options for best NA picks. 
- These are not necessarily bad picks on the part of the General Manager, in fact most of these players were selected in the rounds that pretty much everyone expected them to be picked in.
- Some of the criteria that go into my selections are as follows
           o   Pick the player was taken with
           o   How well the player did for the team
           o   If the player was relatively quickly moved to another team, what value they got for them
           o   Strength of the Draft Class
           o   Any miscellaneous issues I feel are relevant to the selection
- As mentioned in the D.C bit, it's obviously a bit early to be analyzing the prospects of Season 68 and Season 69 players. However, I feel I have good candidates (at least for now) for all teams and, if there are any significant changes, I will probably do a follow-up article to address those.
 
 
Calgary

Donat Szita
Season 65 – 20th Overall (3rd Round)
 
When I was writing this article, I did not think that I was going to writing that a third rounder was going to be a team’s worst draft pick of the S60’s, but here we are. Donat Szita (who had the username Famished Blanket) had a very promising start to his career, earning ten capped TPE in each of his first three weeks in the league and passing the 100 TPE plateau in his fourth week. However, that fourth week would also be his final week as an active member of the VHL as he was permanently banned for inappropriate language and behaviour in the league’s discord channel. Despite the fact that the Season 65 Draft took place over two months after this ban was put into effect, the Wranglers decided to select him in the third round of the Season 65 Draft even though there were still active members on the board (in fact six of the eight picks immediately following Calgary’s selection of Szita would go on to make the VHL). While I think some in the Calgary organization felt that his ban should be overturned, that was never going to be the case and Calgary essentially wasted their pick on someone who would never play a single minute for them. The bit that makes this Calgary’s worst pick of the S60’s though is because of what they did with Brian Strong, a player who was selected two picks later than Szita by the Vancouver Wolves. Just a couple of weeks after the draft, the Wranglers acquired Strong in a trade. However, the piece they had to send was a Season 66 2nd round selection, despite the Season 66 draft being widely regarded as a much more promising draft class than the Season 65 one and Strong having only been selected a round later a few weeks previous in a supposed weaker draft class. If Calgary valued Strong that much, why did they not just draft him instead of Szita and save the Season 66 2nd rounder to strengthen their roster elsewhere?
 
D.C.

Kaspars Claude
Season 68 – 14th Overall (2nd Round)
 
It’s obviously very early to be talking about the success (or I guess in this case, lack of) of the players selected by the D.C. Dragons and the Prague Phantoms given that they’ve only been in two VHL Drafts and there’s a chance I will come back at a later date should things change, but I think both teams already have solid candidates for best and worst selections so I’ll at least share them for now and maybe make some amendments if things change.
 
I remember back in mid-October when I talked with Enorama on our podcast that we did together that every player who he had taken in the Season 68 Draft had updated within the last week and how that was an impressive feat for a team, especially an expansion team in its first season that will obviously not be set to compete with the other VHL teams for a few seasons. Unfortunately however, some of those players have now fallen off and probably the highest profile of these players is Kaspars Claude. Claude’s earning started off real strong and he was frequently earning 10-12 capped TPE per week and his first season on the Dragons was a fairly productive one, finishing fourth on the Dragons in points. However, real life issues have prevented Claude from progressing his player further since the start of Season 69 and he now only sees minutes on the fourth line of the Dragons offense.  On the positive side however, if he is able to come back, he’s still got a potential six seasons to go, which is more than enough time to make up any deficit.
 
New York

Carles Puigdemont
Season 65 – 1st Overall
 
When Ryan Kastelic was taken first overall in the Season 63 Draft, it had ended an over-thirty season wait for a first gen to be taken with the first pick in the VHL Draft. However, we didn’t have to wait nearly as long for the next instance as, just two seasons later, the New York Americans followed suit and selected the Spanish center Carles Puigdemont with the first overall pick in the Season 65 Draft. The pick was not considered to be a surprise as Puigdemont was the highest TPE player entering the draft and had a considerable 100 TPE lead over his nearest forward rival Gritty, who went fourth overall. While Puigdemont certainly didn’t have a terrible first season on the ice (putting up 28 goals and 28 assists), the work rate that saw him get selected first overall was no longer there.  Prior to the draft, Puigdemont had recorded 13 weeks where he had earned the maximum possible 12 capped TPE, but after being drafted to the Americans, his first week on the team would be the only week he would record 12 capped TPE as a player on a VHL roster. After a couple of months of weekly earnings that varied between 2 and 8 TPE per week, he looked like he was finally getting back on track with a 10 TPE week at the start of May entering Season 66, but those were actually some of the last posts we would see from Eudaldkp, as he has not posted on the site at all since then. After another season of similar production, New York elected to cut their losses and traded Puigdemont to the Seattle Bears for Chace Trepanier, who was a third-round selection in Season 63. The Bears would move Puigdemont to defenseman and he even wound up playing a part in their S68 Continental Cup winning season, albeit a very limited part (he played 5 mins per game over the course of the playoffs). Now in his fifth season, he’s currently playing as a second-line defenseman for the Toronto Legion although with free agency and regression both on the horizon, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was his last season in the VHL. 
 
Quebec City/Vancouver

Samuel Gate
Season 61 - 2nd Overall
 
In terms of actual production based on the pick they were taken with, this definitely isn’t Quebec City/Vancouver’s worst pick. Back in Season 63, they selected Jose Gonzalez with the eighth overall pick (the last pick of the first round), but he clearly didn’t want to play for Quebec City and only gave them seven points in his rookie season before being sent off to Davos. At least they got some VHL minutes out of him though, Season 66 second rounder Kyle Sabertooth retired from the VHL before the Wolves even got chance to put his name on a jersey. It’s also not like Gate was a terrible player for them either; while he never broke a point per game for the Meute/Wolves (although he did when he got traded to Seattle in Season 66, his final VHL season), he was hitting just short of that more seasons than he wasn’t. Finally, while Gate’s 610 TPE isn’t exactly what you want out of your second overall pick, it’s certainly serviceable enough to make a decent player. So why is Gate their worst pick of the S60’s? Well, quite simply, he wasn’t Podrick Cast, who was the player selected with the pick immediately after Gate's. A future (potentially first-ballot) HOFer, Cast was a free-scoring center who recorded over the double the points that Gate did in his career and finished his career with over 1000 more TPE. Looking at the Meute consistently ranking around the middle of the standings in goals in the four/five seasons following the draft, you could see how a player like Cast could have really given them a proper shot at the Continental Cup in those earlier seasons, especially while Rauno Palo was developing (Palo, while possessing a high TPE count, had a lot of early struggles given his unique initial build that had him start with very little offensive capabilities).
 
Seattle

Shane Mars
Season 66 – 3rd Overall
 
This was a close call between two players Seattle picked with the third overall selection, Season 66’s Shane Mars and Season 68’s Thorny Underyew. While both went inactive very early on in their careers, their careers with the Bears went in different ways. Mars had an exceptional rookie season that saw him win the Rookie of the Year Award in a period where Seattle was starting a proper rebuild but saw extremely limited minutes once the Bears were ready to compete and they wound up letting him walk in Free Agency once his rookie deal expired. Underyew on the other hand didn’t even register a full season with the Bears before being sent off to the Wranglers as part of a package that allowed the Bears to bring in Joel Ylonen. The one thing that they do have in common though is that, despite both being on rosters, neither of them feature on any of their current team’s lines. Ultimately I decided to go with Mars as the worst pick for the Bears in the S60’s for a couple of reasons. One is that while they did trade Underyew for value, they didn’t really get any value out of keeping Mars. The second reason was that while Underyew was undoubtedly a disappointing pick for the Bears, if we say that they were definitely after a forward, there weren’t really any other good options taken in the first round (you’d have to go down to Owen Nolan in the second round for the best forward in the class as both Frans Eller and Teemu Lehtinen Jr. have gone inactive) whereas in the Season 66 Draft’s first round, Jet Jaguar and Mikko Aaltonen were also taken in the first round and they both feature prominently in the VHL at this minute (as of writing, both are in the top 10 in goals).
 
Toronto

Mikhail Vega
Season 61 – 9th Overall (2nd Round)
 
As has been well-memed previously, Devise does not do drafts, so there really isn’t that much to play with when it comes to picking out specific draft picks, as most of them were selected in the three seasons of the S60’s when DollarAndADream was the Legion’s general manager. While you could maybe make an argument that Johnny Havenk Carison’s career as a whole didn’t justify being selected as high as third overall (especially given the next pick wound up being one of the best forwards of the last few seasons), he justified his selection with his Playoff MVP performance in Season 65, one of only two seasons he played as a starter in his four seasons with the team. So instead, I will go with the player who went with the first pick in the second round of the Season 61 VHL Draft Mikhail Vega. Vega very nearly joined some of the other players in this article on the list of players retiring before they made it to the VHL, as he declared his intent to retire prior to the start of Season 62 having spent Season 61 down in the VHLM. His reasons at the time for retiring stood out as bizarre; citing his dislike of the portal update system which he had yet to even try and in fact hadn’t even earned any TPE through PT’s to use it for anyway along with insisting, despite his retirement, that he’d stick around as VHLM GM (which was never going to happen as, obviously with the role, you’re required to have at least some knowledge of the basic league systems). Vega did end up unretiring, but still never used the portal update system in his VHL career, although he has gone on to do much better things with Denver Wolfe (a contender for one of Vancouver’s best picks). Curiously enough, Vega wound up winning the Continental Cup with the Legion in Season 65 despite the fact that Wolfe had already been drafted in the VHL, which technically isn’t allowed, so I will be demanding that the Toronto Legion be stripped of their Continental Cup and it be given to Riga and EdwinCast. Thank you and goodnight.
 
2000+ Words. Using for weeks ending 12/29, 1/5, 1/12 and 1/19 (barring other circumstances)

Intro Notes:
-  This is the first of four parts. I will also be doing the worst picks of the S60’s for the EU Conference and the best picks for both the NA and EU conference. I've got a WIP spreadsheet here where I shortlisted some of the other potential options for this article and also potential options for best NA picks. 
- These are not necessarily bad picks on the part of the General Manager, in fact most of these players were selected in the rounds that pretty much everyone expected them to be picked in.
- Some of the criteria that go into my selections are as follows
           o   Pick the player was taken with
           o   How well the player did for the team
           o   If the player was relatively quickly moved to another team, what value they got for them
           o   Strength of the Draft Class
           o   Any miscellaneous issues I feel are relevant to the selection
- As mentioned in the D.C bit, it's obviously a bit early to be analyzing the prospects of Season 68 and Season 69 players. However, I feel I have good candidates (at least for now) for all teams and, if there are any significant changes, I will probably do a follow-up article to address those.
 
 
Calgary

Donat Szita
Season 65 – 20th Overall (3rd Round)
 
When I was writing this article, I did not think that I was going to writing that a third rounder was going to be a team’s worst draft pick of the S60’s, but here we are. Donat Szita (who had the username Famished Blanket) had a very promising start to his career, earning ten capped TPE in each of his first three weeks in the league and passing the 100 TPE plateau in his fourth week. However, that fourth week would also be his final week as an active member of the VHL as he was permanently banned for inappropriate language and behaviour in the league’s discord channel. Despite the fact that the Season 65 Draft took place over two months after this ban was put into effect, the Wranglers decided to select him in the third round of the Season 65 Draft even though there were still active members on the board (in fact six of the eight picks immediately following Calgary’s selection of Szita would go on to make the VHL). While I think some in the Calgary organization felt that his ban should be overturned, that was never going to be the case and Calgary essentially wasted their pick on someone who would never play a single minute for them. The bit that makes this Calgary’s worst pick of the S60’s though is because of what they did with Brian Strong, a player who was selected two picks later than Szita by the Vancouver Wolves. Just a couple of weeks after the draft, the Wranglers acquired Strong in a trade. However, the piece they had to send was a Season 66 2nd round selection, despite the Season 66 draft being widely regarded as a much more promising draft class than the Season 65 one and Strong having only been selected a round later a few weeks previous in a supposed weaker draft class. If Calgary valued Strong that much, why did they not just draft him instead of Szita and save the Season 66 2nd rounder to strengthen their roster elsewhere?
 
D.C.

Kaspars Claude
Season 68 – 14th Overall (2nd Round)
 
It’s obviously very early to be talking about the success (or I guess in this case, lack of) of the players selected by the D.C. Dragons and the Prague Phantoms given that they’ve only been in two VHL Drafts and there’s a chance I will come back at a later date should things change, but I think both teams already have solid candidates for best and worst selections so I’ll at least share them for now and maybe make some amendments if things change.
 
I remember back in mid-October when I talked with Enorama on our podcast that we did together that every player who he had taken in the Season 68 Draft had updated within the last week and how that was an impressive feat for a team, especially an expansion team in its first season that will obviously not be set to compete with the other VHL teams for a few seasons. Unfortunately however, some of those players have now fallen off and probably the highest profile of these players is Kaspars Claude. Claude’s earning started off real strong and he was frequently earning 10-12 capped TPE per week and his first season on the Dragons was a fairly productive one, finishing fourth on the Dragons in points. However, real life issues have prevented Claude from progressing his player further since the start of Season 69 and he now only sees minutes on the fourth line of the Dragons offense.  On the positive side however, if he is able to come back, he’s still got a potential six seasons to go, which is more than enough time to make up any deficit.
 
New York

Carles Puigdemont
Season 65 – 1st Overall
 
When Ryan Kastelic was taken first overall in the Season 63 Draft, it had ended an over-thirty season wait for a first gen to be taken with the first pick in the VHL Draft. However, we didn’t have to wait nearly as long for the next instance as, just two seasons later, the New York Americans followed suit and selected the Spanish center Carles Puigdemont with the first overall pick in the Season 65 Draft. The pick was not considered to be a surprise as Puigdemont was the highest TPE player entering the draft and had a considerable 100 TPE lead over his nearest forward rival Gritty, who went fourth overall. While Puigdemont certainly didn’t have a terrible first season on the ice (putting up 28 goals and 28 assists), the work rate that saw him get selected first overall was no longer there.  Prior to the draft, Puigdemont had recorded 13 weeks where he had earned the maximum possible 12 capped TPE, but after being drafted to the Americans, his first week on the team would be the only week he would record 12 capped TPE as a player on a VHL roster. After a couple of months of weekly earnings that varied between 2 and 8 TPE per week, he looked like he was finally getting back on track with a 10 TPE week at the start of May entering Season 66, but those were actually some of the last posts we would see from Eudaldkp, as he has not posted on the site at all since then. After another season of similar production, New York elected to cut their losses and traded Puigdemont to the Seattle Bears for Chace Trepanier, who was a third-round selection in Season 63. The Bears would move Puigdemont to defenseman and he even wound up playing a part in their S68 Continental Cup winning season, albeit a very limited part (he played 5 mins per game over the course of the playoffs). Now in his fifth season, he’s currently playing as a second-line defenseman for the Toronto Legion although with free agency and regression both on the horizon, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was his last season in the VHL. 
 
Quebec City/Vancouver

Samuel Gate
Season 61 - 2nd Overall
 
In terms of actual production based on the pick they were taken with, this definitely isn’t Quebec City/Vancouver’s worst pick. Back in Season 63, they selected Jose Gonzalez with the eighth overall pick (the last pick of the first round), but he clearly didn’t want to play for Quebec City and only gave them seven points in his rookie season before being sent off to Davos. At least they got some VHL minutes out of him though, Season 66 second rounder Kyle Sabertooth retired from the VHL before the Wolves even got chance to put his name on a jersey. It’s also not like Gate was a terrible player for them either; while he never broke a point per game for the Meute/Wolves (although he did when he got traded to Seattle in Season 66, his final VHL season), he was hitting just short of that more seasons than he wasn’t. Finally, while Gate’s 610 TPE isn’t exactly what you want out of your second overall pick, it’s certainly serviceable enough to make a decent player. So why is Gate their worst pick of the S60’s? Well, quite simply, he wasn’t Podrick Cast, who was the player selected with the pick immediately after Gate's. A future (potentially first-ballot) HOFer, Cast was a free-scoring center who recorded over the double the points that Gate did in his career and finished his career with over 1000 more TPE. Looking at the Meute consistently ranking around the middle of the standings in goals in the four/five seasons following the draft, you could see how a player like Cast could have really given them a proper shot at the Continental Cup in those earlier seasons, especially while Rauno Palo was developing (Palo, while possessing a high TPE count, had a lot of early struggles given his unique initial build that had him start with very little offensive capabilities).
 
Seattle

Shane Mars
Season 66 – 3rd Overall
 
This was a close call between two players Seattle picked with the third overall selection, Season 66’s Shane Mars and Season 68’s Thorny Underyew. While both went inactive very early on in their careers, their careers with the Bears went in different ways. Mars had an exceptional rookie season that saw him win the Rookie of the Year Award in a period where Seattle was starting a proper rebuild but saw extremely limited minutes once the Bears were ready to compete and they wound up letting him walk in Free Agency once his rookie deal expired. Underyew on the other hand didn’t even register a full season with the Bears before being sent off to the Wranglers as part of a package that allowed the Bears to bring in Joel Ylonen. The one thing that they do have in common though is that, despite both being on rosters, neither of them feature on any of their current team’s lines. Ultimately I decided to go with Mars as the worst pick for the Bears in the S60’s for a couple of reasons. One is that while they did trade Underyew for value, they didn’t really get any value out of keeping Mars. The second reason was that while Underyew was undoubtedly a disappointing pick for the Bears, if we say that they were definitely after a forward, there weren’t really any other good options taken in the first round (you’d have to go down to Owen Nolan in the second round for the best forward in the class as both Frans Eller and Teemu Lehtinen Jr. have gone inactive) whereas in the Season 66 Draft’s first round, Jet Jaguar and Mikko Aaltonen were also taken in the first round and they both feature prominently in the VHL at this minute (as of writing, both are in the top 10 in goals).
 
Toronto

Mikhail Vega
Season 61 – 9th Overall (2nd Round)
 
As has been well-memed previously, Devise does not do drafts, so there really isn’t that much to play with when it comes to picking out specific draft picks, as most of them were selected in the three seasons of the S60’s when DollarAndADream was the Legion’s general manager. While you could maybe make an argument that Johnny Havenk Carison’s career as a whole didn’t justify being selected as high as third overall (especially given the next pick wound up being one of the best forwards of the last few seasons), he justified his selection with his Playoff MVP performance in Season 65, one of only two seasons he played as a starter in his four seasons with the team. So instead, I will go with the player who went with the first pick in the second round of the Season 61 VHL Draft Mikhail Vega. Vega very nearly joined some of the other players in this article on the list of players retiring before they made it to the VHL, as he declared his intent to retire prior to the start of Season 62 having spent Season 61 down in the VHLM. His reasons at the time for retiring stood out as bizarre; citing his dislike of the portal update system which he had yet to even try and in fact hadn’t even earned any TPE through PT’s to use it for anyway along with insisting, despite his retirement, that he’d stick around as VHLM GM (which was never going to happen as, obviously with the role, you’re required to have at least some knowledge of the basic league systems). Vega did end up unretiring, but still never used the portal update system in his VHL career, although he has gone on to do much better things with Denver Wolfe (a contender for one of Vancouver’s best picks). Curiously enough, Vega wound up winning the Continental Cup with the Legion in Season 65 despite the fact that Wolfe had already been drafted in the VHL, which technically isn’t allowed, so I will be demanding that the Toronto Legion be stripped of their Continental Cup and it be given to Riga and EdwinCast. Thank you and goodnight.
 
2000+ Words. Using for weeks ending 12/29, 1/5, 1/12 and 1/19 (barring other circumstances)

hell yeah i didnt make that pick (dont talk about Eller pls)

I mean, I've never heard of him, but I'm sure there were worse picks that they've made...
 
Ah, OK. Never mind, carry on.

DA BEARZ. 
 
I like what I see. Will do more than skim later ?

Intro Notes:
-  This is the first of four parts. I will also be doing the worst picks of the S60’s for the EU Conference and the best picks for both the NA and EU conference. I've got a WIP spreadsheet here where I shortlisted some of the other potential options for this article and also potential options for best NA picks. 
- These are not necessarily bad picks on the part of the General Manager, in fact most of these players were selected in the rounds that pretty much everyone expected them to be picked in.
- Some of the criteria that go into my selections are as follows
           o   Pick the player was taken with
           o   How well the player did for the team
           o   If the player was relatively quickly moved to another team, what value they got for them
           o   Strength of the Draft Class
           o   Any miscellaneous issues I feel are relevant to the selection
- As mentioned in the D.C bit, it's obviously a bit early to be analyzing the prospects of Season 68 and Season 69 players. However, I feel I have good candidates (at least for now) for all teams and, if there are any significant changes, I will probably do a follow-up article to address those.
 
 
Calgary

Donat Szita
Season 65 – 20th Overall (3rd Round)
 
When I was writing this article, I did not think that I was going to writing that a third rounder was going to be a team’s worst draft pick of the S60’s, but here we are. Donat Szita (who had the username Famished Blanket) had a very promising start to his career, earning ten capped TPE in each of his first three weeks in the league and passing the 100 TPE plateau in his fourth week. However, that fourth week would also be his final week as an active member of the VHL as he was permanently banned for inappropriate language and behaviour in the league’s discord channel. Despite the fact that the Season 65 Draft took place over two months after this ban was put into effect, the Wranglers decided to select him in the third round of the Season 65 Draft even though there were still active members on the board (in fact six of the eight picks immediately following Calgary’s selection of Szita would go on to make the VHL). While I think some in the Calgary organization felt that his ban should be overturned, that was never going to be the case and Calgary essentially wasted their pick on someone who would never play a single minute for them. The bit that makes this Calgary’s worst pick of the S60’s though is because of what they did with Brian Strong, a player who was selected two picks later than Szita by the Vancouver Wolves. Just a couple of weeks after the draft, the Wranglers acquired Strong in a trade. However, the piece they had to send was a Season 66 2nd round selection, despite the Season 66 draft being widely regarded as a much more promising draft class than the Season 65 one and Strong having only been selected a round later a few weeks previous in a supposed weaker draft class. If Calgary valued Strong that much, why did they not just draft him instead of Szita and save the Season 66 2nd rounder to strengthen their roster elsewhere?
 
D.C.

Kaspars Claude
Season 68 – 14th Overall (2nd Round)
 
It’s obviously very early to be talking about the success (or I guess in this case, lack of) of the players selected by the D.C. Dragons and the Prague Phantoms given that they’ve only been in two VHL Drafts and there’s a chance I will come back at a later date should things change, but I think both teams already have solid candidates for best and worst selections so I’ll at least share them for now and maybe make some amendments if things change.
 
I remember back in mid-October when I talked with Enorama on our podcast that we did together that every player who he had taken in the Season 68 Draft had updated within the last week and how that was an impressive feat for a team, especially an expansion team in its first season that will obviously not be set to compete with the other VHL teams for a few seasons. Unfortunately however, some of those players have now fallen off and probably the highest profile of these players is Kaspars Claude. Claude’s earning started off real strong and he was frequently earning 10-12 capped TPE per week and his first season on the Dragons was a fairly productive one, finishing fourth on the Dragons in points. However, real life issues have prevented Claude from progressing his player further since the start of Season 69 and he now only sees minutes on the fourth line of the Dragons offense.  On the positive side however, if he is able to come back, he’s still got a potential six seasons to go, which is more than enough time to make up any deficit.
 
New York

Carles Puigdemont
Season 65 – 1st Overall
 
When Ryan Kastelic was taken first overall in the Season 63 Draft, it had ended an over-thirty season wait for a first gen to be taken with the first pick in the VHL Draft. However, we didn’t have to wait nearly as long for the next instance as, just two seasons later, the New York Americans followed suit and selected the Spanish center Carles Puigdemont with the first overall pick in the Season 65 Draft. The pick was not considered to be a surprise as Puigdemont was the highest TPE player entering the draft and had a considerable 100 TPE lead over his nearest forward rival Gritty, who went fourth overall. While Puigdemont certainly didn’t have a terrible first season on the ice (putting up 28 goals and 28 assists), the work rate that saw him get selected first overall was no longer there.  Prior to the draft, Puigdemont had recorded 13 weeks where he had earned the maximum possible 12 capped TPE, but after being drafted to the Americans, his first week on the team would be the only week he would record 12 capped TPE as a player on a VHL roster. After a couple of months of weekly earnings that varied between 2 and 8 TPE per week, he looked like he was finally getting back on track with a 10 TPE week at the start of May entering Season 66, but those were actually some of the last posts we would see from Eudaldkp, as he has not posted on the site at all since then. After another season of similar production, New York elected to cut their losses and traded Puigdemont to the Seattle Bears for Chace Trepanier, who was a third-round selection in Season 63. The Bears would move Puigdemont to defenseman and he even wound up playing a part in their S68 Continental Cup winning season, albeit a very limited part (he played 5 mins per game over the course of the playoffs). Now in his fifth season, he’s currently playing as a second-line defenseman for the Toronto Legion although with free agency and regression both on the horizon, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was his last season in the VHL. 
 
Quebec City/Vancouver

Samuel Gate
Season 61 - 2nd Overall
 
In terms of actual production based on the pick they were taken with, this definitely isn’t Quebec City/Vancouver’s worst pick. Back in Season 63, they selected Jose Gonzalez with the eighth overall pick (the last pick of the first round), but he clearly didn’t want to play for Quebec City and only gave them seven points in his rookie season before being sent off to Davos. At least they got some VHL minutes out of him though, Season 66 second rounder Kyle Sabertooth retired from the VHL before the Wolves even got chance to put his name on a jersey. It’s also not like Gate was a terrible player for them either; while he never broke a point per game for the Meute/Wolves (although he did when he got traded to Seattle in Season 66, his final VHL season), he was hitting just short of that more seasons than he wasn’t. Finally, while Gate’s 610 TPE isn’t exactly what you want out of your second overall pick, it’s certainly serviceable enough to make a decent player. So why is Gate their worst pick of the S60’s? Well, quite simply, he wasn’t Podrick Cast, who was the player selected with the pick immediately after Gate's. A future (potentially first-ballot) HOFer, Cast was a free-scoring center who recorded over the double the points that Gate did in his career and finished his career with over 1000 more TPE. Looking at the Meute consistently ranking around the middle of the standings in goals in the four/five seasons following the draft, you could see how a player like Cast could have really given them a proper shot at the Continental Cup in those earlier seasons, especially while Rauno Palo was developing (Palo, while possessing a high TPE count, had a lot of early struggles given his unique initial build that had him start with very little offensive capabilities).
 
Seattle

Shane Mars
Season 66 – 3rd Overall
 
This was a close call between two players Seattle picked with the third overall selection, Season 66’s Shane Mars and Season 68’s Thorny Underyew. While both went inactive very early on in their careers, their careers with the Bears went in different ways. Mars had an exceptional rookie season that saw him win the Rookie of the Year Award in a period where Seattle was starting a proper rebuild but saw extremely limited minutes once the Bears were ready to compete and they wound up letting him walk in Free Agency once his rookie deal expired. Underyew on the other hand didn’t even register a full season with the Bears before being sent off to the Wranglers as part of a package that allowed the Bears to bring in Joel Ylonen. The one thing that they do have in common though is that, despite both being on rosters, neither of them feature on any of their current team’s lines. Ultimately I decided to go with Mars as the worst pick for the Bears in the S60’s for a couple of reasons. One is that while they did trade Underyew for value, they didn’t really get any value out of keeping Mars. The second reason was that while Underyew was undoubtedly a disappointing pick for the Bears, if we say that they were definitely after a forward, there weren’t really any other good options taken in the first round (you’d have to go down to Owen Nolan in the second round for the best forward in the class as both Frans Eller and Teemu Lehtinen Jr. have gone inactive) whereas in the Season 66 Draft’s first round, Jet Jaguar and Mikko Aaltonen were also taken in the first round and they both feature prominently in the VHL at this minute (as of writing, both are in the top 10 in goals).
 
Toronto

Mikhail Vega
Season 61 – 9th Overall (2nd Round)
 
As has been well-memed previously, Devise does not do drafts, so there really isn’t that much to play with when it comes to picking out specific draft picks, as most of them were selected in the three seasons of the S60’s when DollarAndADream was the Legion’s general manager. While you could maybe make an argument that Johnny Havenk Carison’s career as a whole didn’t justify being selected as high as third overall (especially given the next pick wound up being one of the best forwards of the last few seasons), he justified his selection with his Playoff MVP performance in Season 65, one of only two seasons he played as a starter in his four seasons with the team. So instead, I will go with the player who went with the first pick in the second round of the Season 61 VHL Draft Mikhail Vega. Vega very nearly joined some of the other players in this article on the list of players retiring before they made it to the VHL, as he declared his intent to retire prior to the start of Season 62 having spent Season 61 down in the VHLM. His reasons at the time for retiring stood out as bizarre; citing his dislike of the portal update system which he had yet to even try and in fact hadn’t even earned any TPE through PT’s to use it for anyway along with insisting, despite his retirement, that he’d stick around as VHLM GM (which was never going to happen as, obviously with the role, you’re required to have at least some knowledge of the basic league systems). Vega did end up unretiring, but still never used the portal update system in his VHL career, although he has gone on to do much better things with Denver Wolfe (a contender for one of Vancouver’s best picks). Curiously enough, Vega wound up winning the Continental Cup with the Legion in Season 65 despite the fact that Wolfe had already been drafted in the VHL, which technically isn’t allowed, so I will be demanding that the Toronto Legion be stripped of their Continental Cup and it be given to Riga and EdwinCast. Thank you and goodnight.
 
2000+ Words. Using for weeks ending 12/29, 1/5, 1/12 and 1/19 (barring other circumstances)

While Will deservedly gets a lot of credit for his work in creating and maintaining the portal (the league's greatest ever addition in my eyes), I feel like an unsung hero when it comes to the portal would be @Devise as he was the person who first put forward the idea of transitioning the VHL to a more website-based outfit from the then, at the time, completely forum-based (outside of the indexes) VHL. Back in Season 55 (a really dire time for the VHL and roughly a year before we got anything close to the current portal integration), Devise sent out a message to a few high profiling members talking about his idea and while the change that Devise suggested was a bit more radical than the actual outcome (his idea leaned to taking a lot more away from the forums and onto the website), there's definitely some points he made in that PM he sent that were very true and have been realised following the greater portal integration. Quotes from the PM such as:
 
 
Outside of the amount of it's use, this is essentially what we have today with our practice facility and, maybe there will come a time when Welfare and the like also transition onto the portal. Also:
 
 
When I did my podcast with Enorama, he mentioned about how the Portal's ability to create a player (as opposed to the old forum system where you had to fill out a forum template) was a huge factor in his decision to create a player in this league, and I'm sure this is the case for several other of our newer high-profile members as well. So Devise's desire to make the league much more user-friendly definitely was justified given those results (Bear in mind, between S44 draft class and S61's draft class, outside of Beaviss and Spade, first-gens who actively wanted to engage in higher-up roles just were not there at all or burnt themselves out way too early, so first-gen development was a huge struggle at this time).
 
 
So hats off to you Devise!

While Will deservedly gets a lot of credit for his work in creating and maintaining the portal (the league's greatest ever addition in my eyes), I feel like an unsung hero when it comes to the portal would be @Devise as he was the person who first put forward the idea of transitioning the VHL to a more website-based outfit from the then, at the time, completely forum-based (outside of the indexes) VHL. Back in Season 55 (a really dire time for the VHL and roughly a year before we got anything close to the current portal integration), Devise sent out a message to a few high profiling members talking about his idea and while the change that Devise suggested was a bit more radical than the actual outcome (his idea leaned to taking a lot more away from the forums and onto the website), there's definitely some points he made in that PM he sent that were very true and have been realised following the greater portal integration. Quotes from the PM such as:
 
 
Outside of the amount of it's use, this is essentially what we have today with our practice facility and, maybe there will come a time when Welfare and the like also transition onto the portal. Also:
 
 
When I did my podcast with Enorama, he mentioned about how the Portal's ability to create a player (as opposed to the old forum system where you had to fill out a forum template) was a huge factor in his decision to create a player in this league, and I'm sure this is the case for several other of our newer high-profile members as well. So Devise's desire to make the league much more user-friendly definitely was justified given those results (Bear in mind, between S44 draft class and S61's draft class, outside of Beaviss and Spade, first-gens who actively wanted to engage in higher-up roles just were not there at all or burnt themselves out way too early, so first-gen development was a huge struggle at this time).
 
 
So hats off to you Devise!

1. It’s insanely generous. I can’t believe they’re doing it. I love it though!
2. I haven’t really had the time to follow it this year.
3. Edwin THE Encarnacion is the perfect player in my opinion
4. He’ll score a goal in the last game of the season to tie it up with 2 seconds to go ?
5. Besides rest, I’ve got hockey and soccer
6. I haven’t watched Star Wars in a long time and I’ve retained no information on it but I’ll probably watch anyway 

With the amount of awards that Rauno Palo ( @jRuutu) has won, I think people will rightly raise a red flag as to his potential status as an “unsung hero”. However, while his success in the sim over the recent seasons have rightly seen his player receive a lot of adulation, there’s one magnificent feat that he achieved that I don’t believe has received nearly enough attention and therefore more than warrants his status as an unsung hero. What did he do?
 
He broke the 100 mark in an attribute
 
“How is that even possible though?” I hear you ask. The portal has always actively stopped players from going over 99 in an attribute when they allocate their TPE, so surely this is a lie? Well yes, it would be if every attribute was upped using TPE but that isn’t the case, for Experience is an attribute that can only be gained through end of season performance and player store purchases and well, let’s just say Palo was a fellow who was committed to the cause of being the most experienced player in the VHL, to the point of being too committed in fact.
 
This was brought to my attention in the updater’s forum by Beketov, the simmer of the VHL at the time, who put out a call for the updaters to go through Palo’s update log and find out how much Experience Palo should have had for the portal had “bugged out” and that had put Palo at a whopping 103 experience! 103! Of course it was a bug! What else could it be? And at first that looked like the case as the initial calculations that Will made only put Palo at 95 experience citing that it “must have been a double claim”. Thus, Palo’s Experience was immediately edited to this after Will’s testimony, taken as a fact and done with such pace that they would only hope that no-one would ever notice should anyone actually find a weakness in the machine’s armour.
 
However, as a seeker of the truth and someone who believes that the power of man is capable of overcoming any machine, I simply would not accept that Palo’s experience got to this figure by mere chance, there had to be another reason! Thus I sat down, warm beverage at hand, and decided to peruse through the updating scrolls to see if my suspicions were indeed correct. Now, through experience gained through the end-of-season allocation alone, Palo had no reason to be anywhere close to 99, let alone 103, as this occurred following his sixth VHL Season, so even if his team had won the cup every single season, he could only be at the very most, an 88. However, my research revealed that on December 28th 2018, the man bought a late Christmas present for himself, 10 experience points. An experience feast fit for a king certainly, but still not nearly enough to break into the hollowed ground of the third digit number. But as it turned out, our hero wasn’t done, as on May 11th, he put down another $3 Million and commanded the store owner Josh to give him all the experience he had on him. Josh stared into the windows of Palo’s soul, admitted defeat and yielded, granting him a further 10 experience points.  Combined with his end-of-season experience haul, Palo had, in just six seasons achieved ground that no other being had ever even dreamed of reaching, breaking the 100 attribute point plateau with 103 Experience. This was no “bug”, this was through no “double claim”, this was a demonstration of the true power of the human spirit.
 
--------------------------------------------------------
 
So I told Will he actually was right to have 103 and he said “Right, fuck that, we’re putting a cap on that” and he was promptly edited to 99 Experience.
 
So the lesson for today? If you can reach for the stars, hold back a little, because someone or something will fuck you up when you grab one.

With the amount of awards that Rauno Palo ( @jRuutu) has won, I think people will rightly raise a red flag as to his potential status as an “unsung hero”. However, while his success in the sim over the recent seasons have rightly seen his player receive a lot of adulation, there’s one magnificent feat that he achieved that I don’t believe has received nearly enough attention and therefore more than warrants his status as an unsung hero. What did he do?
 
He broke the 100 mark in an attribute
 
“How is that even possible though?” I hear you ask. The portal has always actively stopped players from going over 99 in an attribute when they allocate their TPE, so surely this is a lie? Well yes, it would be if every attribute was upped using TPE but that isn’t the case, for Experience is an attribute that can only be gained through end of season performance and player store purchases and well, let’s just say Palo was a fellow who was committed to the cause of being the most experienced player in the VHL, to the point of being too committed in fact.
 
This was brought to my attention in the updater’s forum by Beketov, the simmer of the VHL at the time, who put out a call for the updaters to go through Palo’s update log and find out how much Experience Palo should have had for the portal had “bugged out” and that had put Palo at a whopping 103 experience! 103! Of course it was a bug! What else could it be? And at first that looked like the case as the initial calculations that Will made only put Palo at 95 experience citing that it “must have been a double claim”. Thus, Palo’s Experience was immediately edited to this after Will’s testimony, taken as a fact and done with such pace that they would only hope that no-one would ever notice should anyone actually find a weakness in the machine’s armour.
 
However, as a seeker of the truth and someone who believes that the power of man is capable of overcoming any machine, I simply would not accept that Palo’s experience got to this figure by mere chance, there had to be another reason! Thus I sat down, warm beverage at hand, and decided to peruse through the updating scrolls to see if my suspicions were indeed correct. Now, through experience gained through the end-of-season allocation alone, Palo had no reason to be anywhere close to 99, let alone 103, as this occurred following his sixth VHL Season, so even if his team had won the cup every single season, he could only be at the very most, an 88. However, my research revealed that on December 28th 2018, the man bought a late Christmas present for himself, 10 experience points. An experience feast fit for a king certainly, but still not nearly enough to break into the hollowed ground of the third digit number. But as it turned out, our hero wasn’t done, as on May 11th, he put down another $3 Million and commanded the store owner Josh to give him all the experience he had on him. Josh stared into the windows of Palo’s soul, admitted defeat and yielded, granting him a further 10 experience points.  Combined with his end-of-season experience haul, Palo had, in just six seasons achieved ground that no other being had ever even dreamed of reaching, breaking the 100 attribute point plateau with 103 Experience. This was no “bug”, this was through no “double claim”, this was a demonstration of the true power of the human spirit.
 
--------------------------------------------------------
 
So I told Will he actually was right to have 103 and he said “Right, fuck that, we’re putting a cap on that” and he was promptly edited to 99 Experience.
 
So the lesson for today? If you can reach for the stars, hold back a little, because someone or something will fuck you up when you grab one.

With the amount of awards that Rauno Palo ( @jRuutu) has won, I think people will rightly raise a red flag as to his potential status as an “unsung hero”. However, while his success in the sim over the recent seasons have rightly seen his player receive a lot of adulation, there’s one magnificent feat that he achieved that I don’t believe has received nearly enough attention and therefore more than warrants his status as an unsung hero. What did he do?
 
He broke the 100 mark in an attribute
 
“How is that even possible though?” I hear you ask. The portal has always actively stopped players from going over 99 in an attribute when they allocate their TPE, so surely this is a lie? Well yes, it would be if every attribute was upped using TPE but that isn’t the case, for Experience is an attribute that can only be gained through end of season performance and player store purchases and well, let’s just say Palo was a fellow who was committed to the cause of being the most experienced player in the VHL, to the point of being too committed in fact.
 
This was brought to my attention in the updater’s forum by Beketov, the simmer of the VHL at the time, who put out a call for the updaters to go through Palo’s update log and find out how much Experience Palo should have had for the portal had “bugged out” and that had put Palo at a whopping 103 experience! 103! Of course it was a bug! What else could it be? And at first that looked like the case as the initial calculations that Will made only put Palo at 95 experience citing that it “must have been a double claim”. Thus, Palo’s Experience was immediately edited to this after Will’s testimony, taken as a fact and done with such pace that they would only hope that no-one would ever notice should anyone actually find a weakness in the machine’s armour.
 
However, as a seeker of the truth and someone who believes that the power of man is capable of overcoming any machine, I simply would not accept that Palo’s experience got to this figure by mere chance, there had to be another reason! Thus I sat down, warm beverage at hand, and decided to peruse through the updating scrolls to see if my suspicions were indeed correct. Now, through experience gained through the end-of-season allocation alone, Palo had no reason to be anywhere close to 99, let alone 103, as this occurred following his sixth VHL Season, so even if his team had won the cup every single season, he could only be at the very most, an 88. However, my research revealed that on December 28th 2018, the man bought a late Christmas present for himself, 10 experience points. An experience feast fit for a king certainly, but still not nearly enough to break into the hollowed ground of the third digit number. But as it turned out, our hero wasn’t done, as on May 11th, he put down another $3 Million and commanded the store owner Josh to give him all the experience he had on him. Josh stared into the windows of Palo’s soul, admitted defeat and yielded, granting him a further 10 experience points.  Combined with his end-of-season experience haul, Palo had, in just six seasons achieved ground that no other being had ever even dreamed of reaching, breaking the 100 attribute point plateau with 103 Experience. This was no “bug”, this was through no “double claim”, this was a demonstration of the true power of the human spirit.
 
--------------------------------------------------------
 
So I told Will he actually was right to have 103 and he said “Right, fuck that, we’re putting a cap on that” and he was promptly edited to 99 Experience.
 
So the lesson for today? If you can reach for the stars, hold back a little, because someone or something will fuck you up when you grab one.

Thank you for the kind words!
 
My motto has always been: ´Try everything at least once´, so that is the main reason why my experience levels as a old man are through the roof.
 
I've been everywhere, man - I've been everywhere

With the amount of awards that Rauno Palo ( @jRuutu) has won, I think people will rightly raise a red flag as to his potential status as an “unsung hero”. However, while his success in the sim over the recent seasons have rightly seen his player receive a lot of adulation, there’s one magnificent feat that he achieved that I don’t believe has received nearly enough attention and therefore more than warrants his status as an unsung hero. What did he do?
 
He broke the 100 mark in an attribute
 
“How is that even possible though?” I hear you ask. The portal has always actively stopped players from going over 99 in an attribute when they allocate their TPE, so surely this is a lie? Well yes, it would be if every attribute was upped using TPE but that isn’t the case, for Experience is an attribute that can only be gained through end of season performance and player store purchases and well, let’s just say Palo was a fellow who was committed to the cause of being the most experienced player in the VHL, to the point of being too committed in fact.
 
This was brought to my attention in the updater’s forum by Beketov, the simmer of the VHL at the time, who put out a call for the updaters to go through Palo’s update log and find out how much Experience Palo should have had for the portal had “bugged out” and that had put Palo at a whopping 103 experience! 103! Of course it was a bug! What else could it be? And at first that looked like the case as the initial calculations that Will made only put Palo at 95 experience citing that it “must have been a double claim”. Thus, Palo’s Experience was immediately edited to this after Will’s testimony, taken as a fact and done with such pace that they would only hope that no-one would ever notice should anyone actually find a weakness in the machine’s armour.
 
However, as a seeker of the truth and someone who believes that the power of man is capable of overcoming any machine, I simply would not accept that Palo’s experience got to this figure by mere chance, there had to be another reason! Thus I sat down, warm beverage at hand, and decided to peruse through the updating scrolls to see if my suspicions were indeed correct. Now, through experience gained through the end-of-season allocation alone, Palo had no reason to be anywhere close to 99, let alone 103, as this occurred following his sixth VHL Season, so even if his team had won the cup every single season, he could only be at the very most, an 88. However, my research revealed that on December 28th 2018, the man bought a late Christmas present for himself, 10 experience points. An experience feast fit for a king certainly, but still not nearly enough to break into the hollowed ground of the third digit number. But as it turned out, our hero wasn’t done, as on May 11th, he put down another $3 Million and commanded the store owner Josh to give him all the experience he had on him. Josh stared into the windows of Palo’s soul, admitted defeat and yielded, granting him a further 10 experience points.  Combined with his end-of-season experience haul, Palo had, in just six seasons achieved ground that no other being had ever even dreamed of reaching, breaking the 100 attribute point plateau with 103 Experience. This was no “bug”, this was through no “double claim”, this was a demonstration of the true power of the human spirit.
 
--------------------------------------------------------
 
So I told Will he actually was right to have 103 and he said “Right, fuck that, we’re putting a cap on that” and he was promptly edited to 99 Experience.
 
So the lesson for today? If you can reach for the stars, hold back a little, because someone or something will fuck you up when you grab one.

With the amount of awards that Rauno Palo ( @jRuutu) has won, I think people will rightly raise a red flag as to his potential status as an “unsung hero”. However, while his success in the sim over the recent seasons have rightly seen his player receive a lot of adulation, there’s one magnificent feat that he achieved that I don’t believe has received nearly enough attention and therefore more than warrants his status as an unsung hero. What did he do?
 
He broke the 100 mark in an attribute
 
“How is that even possible though?” I hear you ask. The portal has always actively stopped players from going over 99 in an attribute when they allocate their TPE, so surely this is a lie? Well yes, it would be if every attribute was upped using TPE but that isn’t the case, for Experience is an attribute that can only be gained through end of season performance and player store purchases and well, let’s just say Palo was a fellow who was committed to the cause of being the most experienced player in the VHL, to the point of being too committed in fact.
 
This was brought to my attention in the updater’s forum by Beketov, the simmer of the VHL at the time, who put out a call for the updaters to go through Palo’s update log and find out how much Experience Palo should have had for the portal had “bugged out” and that had put Palo at a whopping 103 experience! 103! Of course it was a bug! What else could it be? And at first that looked like the case as the initial calculations that Will made only put Palo at 95 experience citing that it “must have been a double claim”. Thus, Palo’s Experience was immediately edited to this after Will’s testimony, taken as a fact and done with such pace that they would only hope that no-one would ever notice should anyone actually find a weakness in the machine’s armour.
 
However, as a seeker of the truth and someone who believes that the power of man is capable of overcoming any machine, I simply would not accept that Palo’s experience got to this figure by mere chance, there had to be another reason! Thus I sat down, warm beverage at hand, and decided to peruse through the updating scrolls to see if my suspicions were indeed correct. Now, through experience gained through the end-of-season allocation alone, Palo had no reason to be anywhere close to 99, let alone 103, as this occurred following his sixth VHL Season, so even if his team had won the cup every single season, he could only be at the very most, an 88. However, my research revealed that on December 28th 2018, the man bought a late Christmas present for himself, 10 experience points. An experience feast fit for a king certainly, but still not nearly enough to break into the hollowed ground of the third digit number. But as it turned out, our hero wasn’t done, as on May 11th, he put down another $3 Million and commanded the store owner Josh to give him all the experience he had on him. Josh stared into the windows of Palo’s soul, admitted defeat and yielded, granting him a further 10 experience points.  Combined with his end-of-season experience haul, Palo had, in just six seasons achieved ground that no other being had ever even dreamed of reaching, breaking the 100 attribute point plateau with 103 Experience. This was no “bug”, this was through no “double claim”, this was a demonstration of the true power of the human spirit.
 
--------------------------------------------------------
 
So I told Will he actually was right to have 103 and he said “Right, fuck that, we’re putting a cap on that” and he was promptly edited to 99 Experience.
 
So the lesson for today? If you can reach for the stars, hold back a little, because someone or something will fuck you up when you grab one.

Are The Lottery Teams Set?
 
The EU side seems pretty wrapped up with Davos already mathematically ruled out of the playoffs and Prague required to make up a 15 point deficit over a 14 game period. The NA side still has a bit of intrigue to it however. While it is likely that the Legion will be able to see out the challenge from the Wranglers for the final playoff place given that the Wranglers still have several games to play their backup goalie and the Legion have a couple of games against the Dynamo that the Wranglers do not, the Legion have been on a very bad run of form as of late (7-16-2 over the last 25 games). Given the Wranglers are only 7 points behind the Legion, the race is certainly not over yet and the Dynamo (who hold Toronto's first) will certainly be hoping the Wranglers can overcome the deficit and sneak into the playoffs.
 
The Most Intriguing Team In The Lottery Places
 
The Prague Phantoms. Having spent their first three picks in the Season 68 Draft (12th, 15th and 17th) and their only two picks in the Season 69 Draft (1st and 14th) on defensemen and goalies, the last thing they probably wanted heading into the Season 70 Draft was to have three of the top four prospects in TPE be defensemen, especially given that it is likely the one forward in that group (Mikko Lahtinen) goes 1st overall. If they don't get first overall though, I think Prague are more likely to just use their current pick on a forward rather than risk trading down too far and missing out on their top choice of the remaining forwards. 

Excellent. How can I complain about being in first place?
 
 
It has me ready for a deep playoff run.
 
 
I really do feel that this team has what it takes to get it done. Bring on the playoffs!
 
 
I'd love to see Encarnacion lace it up on our blue line next year.
 
 
That has gotta be Eagles. People say goalies have a screw loose up top and it is definitely true with him.
 
 
That is hard to say. Both are deserving of the award.

Results
 
Game 2: World vs Canada
3-4 SOL
Despite a blazing hot start from World with three goals in the first twenty-five minutes of the game, Canada managed to score twice in the second and creep their way into overtime by scoring a short handed goal within the final two minutes of regulation. Overtime was quiet, with only five total shots between the two teams. Heading into the shootout, the first two shots hit the back of the net. Then a pair of saves were followed up by two missed shots shortly before another couple attempts were successfully converted. World failed to score in the sixth round and Canada D1 capitalized on the opportunity to win Canada the game.
 
Game 3: World vs Asia
2-4 L
It was Asia this time that started the game on fire by scoring three goals in the first period. World responded with a goal late in the first, but halfway into the second Asia regained their three goal lead. World was never able to comeback from the three goal deficit despite a goal five minutes into the third period two decrease Asia's lead to two. The overall dominant performance by the top lines of Asia and eight penalties by World ultimately lost them the game.
 
Game 5: Canada vs World
4-1 W
Following the back-to-back losses World was still confident in their chances against Team Canada who they had lost to in the sixth round of a shootout. It was clear that World simply outclassed Canada. World began the rout in the first period by out-shooting the Canadians sixteen to five. While both teams managed to score in the first, Canada couldn't find the offensive consistency of World who notched two goals in the second. World added one more goal with five minutes left to seal the deal.
 
Top Performers
 
Edwin the Encarnacion (D)
2G - 3A - 5P
Through the first three games, Encarnacion has more than lived up to the hype. He plays most of his minutes with current Saskatoon Wild teammate Danny DeYeeto, but is utilized in every aspect of the game and is likely the biggest reason why Team World is doing as well as they are right now. 
 
Killy Foilen (F)
3G - 1A - 4P
As predicted, Foilen is the top forward on Team World. His consistent play for the Wild and chemistry with teammates DeYeeto and Encarnacion has helped World stay competitive so far in the tournament. Even though all of his goals have been on the power play, he has still been a force in both zones. 
 
Block Buster (G)
1W - 1L - 1SOL, 0.914 SV%, 2.60 GAA
Don't let the two losses fool you. Buster has been one of the most consistent performers for World this tournament. What World lacks in offensive depth, it is made up for in net by their star goaltender Block Buster.
 
Remaining Thoughts
 
It is evident that World can compete with the tops teams in the tournament. Despite a disappointing loss to Asia, a dominant performance from World is certainly in the cards. They've generally been very consistent offensively and plan to keep the same plan heading into their next game against the star studded Europeans. Considering World rosters four European players, they are looking to get revenge on their home team for passing up on them. Expect a big game from McGirr, Ritchie, and Slavik tomorrow. Fomba will continue to remain on the bench in his baseball cap as long as Block Buster continues to be dominant in net. 
 
 
Players mentioned: @Tagger @Aye my name jeff @Banana2311 @cartoes @DangerGolding @Frank @efiug

Hello VHL!
 
It's been a long time, several years in fact. Some of you may remember me, but many more probably don't, so I felt a reintroduction of sorts would be a good way to re-enter this awesome community. 
 
I've made several players here, but my most successful by far was Thomas Landry, a RW that captained the HC Davos Dynamo to several cup appearances and victories in... oh God... Season 30s? 40s? He would be a rather old man by now in the league's timeline. I wrote for the VHL Magazine for several seasons and I also held an Assistant GM position in the VHLM as well. 
 
Since those days, a lot has changed. I moved from my hometown of Allentown, Pennsylvania to just outside of Reading (where I became a season ticket holder of the Reading Royals, the ECHL affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers). I've been married for over three years and I'm now the father of an absolutely ridiculous 18 month old son. I work for the Reading School District as an assistant in a classroom for children with multiple disabilities. I also work part time at a daycare, so needless to say, I work very long days. I can be found most nights on the World of CHEL on NHL 20 (Xbox One), where I'll be playing pretty much whatever position while hopelessly trying to teach myself how to play goalie. 
 
I absolutely will be creating a new player for the S71 draft class, and I have several ideas for what I want to do. However, I'm going to take some time to evaluate which positions would be the best to create at, along with beginning to reintegrate into this community. I've really missed writing, so really excited to get to do so again.
 
Hoping to reacquaint with some old friends and hopefully make some new friends soon!

Only forty-five games played and the behemoth of VHLM season 69 has already mathematically secured their playoff spot. After losing game three they have had a solid win streak ever since then, taking two points in every game.

When asked whether he would start saving players a bit for the playoffs, GM Peace replied, "We're not taking our foot off the pedal now!"

The team is lead in points by DeYeeto, who also leads the league with a pretty decent 91 points at 2 points per game; partnered up with the league's 2nd best defender in Encarnacion.
 
Lafontaine has played a key role in the team's succes in goal too with .905 SV% and three shutouts.

The numbers speak for themselves.

The first line of Nyman, Lahtinen and Foilen
          92G, 121A, 213P

Second line with McDagg, Stava and Ohradka
          62G, 87A, 149P

Third line consisting of Wolfe, Havlova and Tarantino
          37G, 68A, 105P

Fourth line, Wolfe, Cuddy and Blackthorn have 
          10G, 29A, 39P

First defence pair of DeYeeto and Encarnacion
          53G, 120A, 173P

And the second defence pair consisting of O'Quinn and Porter
          20G, 72A, 92P

Several team records have already been beaten, and some more are surely possible to break by the end of the season; perhaps even placing well or beating some of the longstanding league records that exist.



@Peace @Cran @Tagger @Jesse Nyman @animal74 @Aye my name jeff @diamond_ace @JohnOQuinn @Beketov @Edustava @Ren @Laflamme @Viperxhawks19 @Garrett @cjc_24 @LattimoreIsland @Samuel Kuchar @BigHARDCORE32 @Andrew Essen @ducks @Sade @Kevin Lafleur @SlapshotDragon @Jubo07
 

S69: The VHLM 100-Goal Club
 

 
Playing hockey is hard. Playing in the VHLM is very hard. It takes grueling work and dogged determination to fill the net on a consistent basis. Many dreamers on skates have envisioned themselves flying on the ice with a VHL team logo on their chest only to start in the VHLM and realize they are not cut out for one of the best minor leagues in the world.  Many begin the journey, most get drafted by a VHLM team, quite a few hang on for a season or two, fewer yet fulfil the rigorous training and practice necessary to reach their dream of playing in the VHL.
 
The VHLM is not for the faint of heart. This is why certain milestones must be praised and savored, as many players do not reach these heights. Today we will look at those who have reached 100 goals in the VHLM this season or should score their 100th goal by season’s end.
 
Achievement Unlocked:
 
Roadkill Steve @stevo, RW, San Diego Marlins
Goals: 123
The “German Tank” is a straight shooter, plain and simple. He followed a promising rookie season with a monster year in S68 where he was third in league scoring with 63 goals and 128 points. Coming into S69, he only needed 16 goals to reach 100 which he did early on. He is currently in second place in the league with 39 goals in 40 games and is looking to hit 70 and capture the Alexander Chershenko Trophy but there is stiff competition. As the season progresses, Roadkill Steve will also add to his franchise all-time leading totals in goals, assists, points, shots, and game-winning goals.
 
 
Chett Bandy @mmarcoux98, LW, Minnesota Storm
Goals: 117
The hulking American winger is in his fourth VHLM season and while it took him a while to adjust to the league, he has steadily improved each year and is only 6 goals away from reaching his career-high of 42 goals from last season. He only needed 19 goals to crack 100 and now stands at 117 for his career. He is currently sitting in 7th place in league scoring, is the hits leader, and leads by example for a rebuilding Minnesota team in which he is the all-time leader in games played, goals, assists, points, penalty minutes, hits, and shots.
 
 
Justin Rushmore @street, LW, Yukon Rush
Goals: 112
Justin Rushmore has been an unstoppable force this season as he is barely hanging on to the league lead in goals by produce a goal-a-game for 40 goals in 40 games after finishing 7th with 46 last season. His 100th goal is a thing of the past now as he easily surpassed the 28 goals he needed to reach the milestone. His recipe for success has been to shoot the puck more than anyone else as his 274 shots pace the league by 40! And he’s producing this much while on a troubled Yukon team. At his current pace, he will pass Apollo Aho for the most goals in franchise history.
 
 
On The Last Level:
 
Ondrej Ohradka @animal74, LW, Saskatoon Wild
Goals: 97
After a monster 50-goal season last season, Slovakian sniper, Ondrej Ohradka, is knocking on 100’s door. While his goal production has dipped due to playing on a stacked Saskatoon juggernaut, he should reach the milestone easily in the next few games. And while his goal is the Founder’s Cup, there is a chance he may become the Wild’s all-time goal scorer – especially if he continues his recent hot streak.
 
 
Case Martell @Shaka, RW, Philadelphia Reapers
Goals: 87
Already the Reapers’ all-time goal scorer, the slick American is leading the Reaper in goals with 23 and game-winning goals with 8 which is second in the VHLM. He on a slight decline from his 42-goals last season but should hit 100 near the end of S69.
 
 
Jesse Nyman @Jesse Nyman, LW Saskatoon Wild
Goals: 85
Jesse Nyman has been an impact player for the Saskatoon Wild since coming over from Houston in the off-season with Dagmar Havlova and championship experience. While being more of a playmaker, the fantastic Finn has used his longevity in the league to get close to 100 goals while leading all forwards with a +56. He is on pace to smash his career highs in most statistical categories and with 26 goals already this year, 15 more should be very attainable.
 
 
Dark Horse:
 
Raleigh Ritchie @DangerGolding, RW, San Diego Marlins
Goals: 75
The slight Brit is on pace for 52 goals after a wonderful 45-goal campaign last season. Watching Roadkill Steve for two seasons has definitely helped Ritchie develop into a fine sniper in his own rite. At this rate, he should eclipse the century mark near season’s end especially if continues as the league second-leading shot taker.
 
 
Jaxon Walker @hewasajazzman, RW, Mexico City Kings
Goals: 74
Part of the Minnesota firesale, Jaxon Walker has come into his own with the dominant Mexico City Kings. Currently leading all VHLM forwards in points with 81, Walker is the sparkplug that stirs Mexico City’s bebida. He needs to light the lamp a little more often as with 34 goals so far (7th in the league), he is on pace to finish the year with 99 career goals.
 
 
Patrik Tallinder @Patrik Tallinder, LW, Mississauga Hounds
Goals: 73
Patrik Tallinder is having a stellar season. Together with Kris Rice and Nate Wright, they form one of the most potent lines in the VHLM this year. The talented Swede and linemate Rice are 3rd and 4th in the goal scoring race with 39 and 36 goals respectively. Filling the net at nearly a goal-a-game pace, Tallinder has already set career highs in goals, assists, and points and shows no sign of slowing down. He leads the league in game-winning goals with 11 and hat tricks with 4 and is on pace for an astounding 68 goals which would just push him over 100. Already the Hounds’ all-time leader in goals, shots, and game-winners, he needs only one point to become the franchise’s all-time points leader as well.
 
 
One of these gifted goal-scorers will be presented with the Alexander Chershenko Trophy at the end of the season. Hopefully they all will join the VHLM 100-goal club, a worthy achievement to be sure.