tcookie

1) It's not who I would have expected, but they are a pretty good team nevertheless. Bana's teams always seem to find a way. 2) I'll leave that to the bosses. Obviously we'll be a bit of a weaker team on paper, maybe more able to make a run in my final season. Maybe a bit of a retooling will happen to stock up for Malmo's future. We'll have to wait and see, but I have faith that you and Lucy will do what's best for the team. 4) Selfishly hoping for a career year after playing what I feel is quite a bit below my ratings this season -- maybe we'll make up for it next one. But at the end of the day the goal is always the same, winning that Continental Cup. 5) Obviously would depend where that pick falls, but I think either Cardinal Copia or Agustin Martinez would be both great players & good to be in the locker room with. 6) Sure doesn't feel like it's coming to an end here, been like a week+ straight of -30, -40 temperatures. But definitely excited for warmer weather lol 9) I'll just take the regression hit and then build back up to a similar build to what I have now. I always want to be near 90 SC 90 DF in STHS ratings, so hopefully I can get back there, should be very close at least.

Congrats man, Malmo legend! Best of luck with the next player.

Phillip Rave stood in front of the media in S94, after the Malmo Nighthawks were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for a third straight season, and said that it was no longer time for “saying the right things” after a playoff loss. “We have a great group here. I believe in this team.” “We just have to learn from it, work harder, and be better next season.” What does it even mean? When you have a certain reputation, that just starts to sound like spewing cliches. Professional sports is a results-based business. You can learn all you want from three straight first-round exits, but if it leads to a fourth, nobody cares. So in his first season as Malmo captain in S97, what was he supposed to tell the media following a sixth straight first-round exit? The questioning around Rave this off-season will be harsh. He is, on paper, one of the most talented players in the VHL. Most expected him to build on a breakout 108-point season in S96, but after signing a big contract extension and being named team captain, Rave regressed in S97 to finish 18th in the league in goals, 33rd in points. It wasn’t a bad season, no, but it was not what Rave, Malmo, nor the Malmo fanbase expected. A three-time 40-goal scorer with 136 goals over the past three seasons, he’s scored just 10 times in 33 playoff games. By contrast, Axle Gunner and Severus Targaryen had already reached that mark this year alone by the time Riga had finished sending the Nighthawks home early. What feels like an eternity ago, a 20-year-old Rave was one of the most talented up-and-comers in the skiing world. On the cusp of stardom, Rave fell apart. A string of poor performances as he struggled to deal with the attention caused an internal battle with his own expectations that eventually sapped his love for the sport, and Rave quit skiing completely. So, he became a hockey player - against all odds, a very good one at that. Except… doesn’t all that sound kind of familiar? There’s a narrative out there that when the chips are down, Phillip Rave just doesn’t have it. On the day of Malmo’s year-end press conferences, the media spared him of directly addressing it, but it will undoubtedly linger throughout the off-season. Instead, Rave talked about what it meant to play with Malmo’s outgoing stars. Good friends in the locker room who have spent their entire careers in Malmo navy and lime green, enduring the same cycle of success and disappointment with each new season. “It doesn’t do any of us any good to sit here and listen to me say the same things over and over every year. You don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to say it. Let’s just appreciate what some of these guys have done for Malmo. Viktor (Jensen), Savaisk (Tzesar), RJ (MacWallace III)... these are my guys, man, it’s been so awesome playing with them since I came into the league. I’ll always regret that we couldn’t find more success for them. For (Jacob) Stone last year too. It hurts that those guys didn’t get to see a long playoff run.” In that off-season leading up to S95, Rave didn’t talk to the media at all - he simply retired to Lichtenstein and hit the ice every day, working on his game - a change from his usual off-season strategy of taking some time to refresh. He has always shown an outward understanding of what it will take to turn things around, and a willingness to change his routines, his playstyle, or whatever it may be if it’s for the good of the team. But the results haven’t changed. And without the results, what does it matter? What good is knowing how to right the ship if it just keeps sinking anyway? Malmo’s competitive window will probably never in Rave’s career be as open as it was in S97, though the team figures to remain relevant. It’s possible he finds himself traded at some point in a retooling or rebuilding effort. It’s possible he plays out his career in Malmo; even possible that they find it in them to finally go on a playoff run despite a weaker on-paper roster. Whatever the case, Rave will find his legacy on the line over these last two seasons. After all, a captain always goes down with his ship.

I was actually curious about what the real numbers said about the "wildcard boost" ... it's thrown around a lot and certainly playing for Malmo I understand the feeling, but it's still just feeling. Never got around to digging into it myself but it's cool to see the actual numbers. I think STHS gets a bad rap for what is actually realism sometimes. When a simulator gives us something like the Columbus over Tampa sweep in the NHL back in Tampa's 62-win season it's ripped on mercilessly, but that happened. I've got my issues with STHS with stuff like the implementation of PA and DI, but I think the actual game results it gives are ultimately pretty good.

3) I think Riga, wildcard team playoff runs happen so often and they're up 2-0 already 4) Probably lean towards Toronto for this one 5) Riga 6) We'll see right? Might be a bit of a retooling year in Malmo where we're a lower end playoff team and then a bit better for my final season. I hope to be here and see what we can do and hopefully produce a little better than I did last season. 8 ) My old answer to this was always Lucy Leitner lol. I'd like to play with lemorse or Ricer, but we have a franchise goalie, so the fit isn't there. OD / Pan Daffleck would be cool! 10) I drink iced tea alllllll the time lol

you kinda cooked here

It's over. Again. The S97 Malmo Nighthawks turned in a vintage performance, really. A team that has done nothing but excel in the regular season and nosedive in the post-season followed up the highest of highs yet with perhaps the most painful of playoff crash-outs. They were the best team in the VHL during the regular season - by a comfortable margin - and the best Malmo team, statistically, ever assembled. And here they are, seven games, one playoff series later - eliminated from Continental Cup contention. This time, there were signs that things could be different. The Nighthawks held a 3-2 series lead. It felt generous that Riga was still alive, having somehow squeaked out a game one OT win despite being outshot 49-13 over the first two periods and 58-31 overall. The Nighthawks seemed to outplay Riga for most of the night in game seven, too. But on the scoreboard, they were stymied by Red Panda and defeated in overtime by Tim Robinson's first career playoff goal. In the end, it wasn't different at all. And with that, the Nighthawks said goodbye to franchise cornerstones Viktor Jensen, Savaisk Tzesar, and Ronald Johnson MacWallace III. Jensen, Tzesar, and MacWallace all finished their careers above a point-per-game; they are the #1, #6, and #7 scorers in Malmo franchise history. All three were truly great players, Malmo icons... players who deserved a better fate. It's hard to really say why, but this Malmo core simply wasn't able to get it done. "Just feel terrible for those guys," said Malmo captain Phillip Rave after the series-ending overtime loss. "Just like Stone last year. Like Sparks a few seasons ago. Those guys did so much for our team. They don't deserve this. That's all I really have to say right now. Just sucks."

It's been a few seasons since I was able to use that title for an article, I had to do it. The Nighthawks wrapped up another Victory Cup title, their 3rd in 6 seasons, with a 12-game winning streak to close out the season. For a while, it was a close race, but in the second half of the season, the Nighthawks left no doubt. They finished the season with a 57-13-2 record, good for 116 points -- 6 wins and 9 points clear of any other team in the league. They set franchise records in wins and points and ended up just barely on the outside looking in of top-10 seasons in the entire history of the VHL in those two categories. Despite it all though, it's just regular season success. Malmo players have become pretty accustomed to regular season success - and pretty numb to it as well, given what has followed in recent years. "Maybe one day you look back on being a part of one of the greatest seven-year runs in VHL history with some pride, maybe one day you look back on winning three Victory Cups and thinking man, that's an accomplishment," mused Phillip Rave. "But you don't play the game to win regular season games and Victory Cups. We want to win the Continental Cup, nothing else matters." A playoff series against the Riga Reign awaits this iteration of the Malmo Nighthawks, and what happens next could well be franchise-defining. This may be the best Malmo team we've ever seen, but can they break through?

1) I think Vancouver has the strongest team there but I feel like Toronto had a good run going for a while there too, could be them 4) I watch the NFL most during the regular season probably, but NHL playoff time. 5) It's a consolation prize really, the only one that really counts is the Continental Cup. But I guess when you look back on it, it's pretty hard to win 3 in 6 seasons and be consistently competitive the whole time like we have. So it's an accomplishment, but it's not why you play the game. 6) A Continental Cup of course... but if you mean individual awards, honestly, I would love to lead the league in goals 7) It's probably the coldest it's been all year right now honestly. The weather is so strange these days, though. We've gone through a lot of cycles of warm and cold weather. 10) I want the Eagles to win, but honestly, I have a lot of respect for Mahomes and the Chiefs too. I just hope there's nothing controversial with the refs. I practically never blame refs but there just feels like a large number of coincidences with questionable calls this season. If the Chiefs get a three-peat I hope there's no controversy hanging over it. But I would love to see Saquon win a Super Bowl with how things went with the Giants and the general devaluation of the RB position around the league. Decent RBs might be interchangeable, but great RBs matter.

1) Yeah, I think we can pull it off. 3) Honestly don't really care. You have to beat the best to be the best. 4) Definitely just to win the Cup especially with how my time here in Malmo has gone so far. 5) It definitely hasn't quite been the season I wanted to have as far as Rave's production go, but I can't complain with how the team's doing. 6) Lovstrom should be the MVP of the entire league, so him for sure. 10) I think you and Lucy have done an awesome job. I think the results of the season to date speak to that, too.

As S97 reaches its conclusion, the Malmo Nighthawks find themselves challenging for another Victory Cup. If they can close the deal, they will earn their third Victory Cup in centre Phillip Rave's six-year Malmo tenure. In the previous two instances, they did not win a single playoff game. "I don't really believe in curses," says Rave, "but hey. They say our team is cursed, they say the Victory Cup is cursed too. If we're breaking curses, we may as well break two of 'em." For his part, Rave seems to have begun to recover his form lately. In what is a bit of a reversal of fortunes from last season, Rave started S97 performing well below his own standards, as he had 4 goals and 14 points in his first 17 games and was merely hovering around the point-per-game mark for about half the season. Rave currently has 38 goals and 76 points in 64 games - a far cry from his production last season, but he has been playing at roughly a 50-goal, 100-point pace over the last 40 games or so. "Glad we have so many great players here to cover up all the mistakes I made early on," said Rave. "Viktor (Jensen), Lucy (Leitner), Jorgen (Lovstrom) have been incredible all year. Obviously you have guys like Tzesar, RJ, and Conference doing their thing too. The hard part is when you're struggling and you just wonder how much better the team could be if you were playing like you're capable. Fortunately we've been winning pretty much all season so my play wasn't holding us back, but it's nice to be playing better, for sure."

The VHL trade deadline came and passed with a whisper this week, with the entire deadline week only yielding two minor trades. Contenders looking to find an upgrade were left pretty much out of luck especially with a competitive North American Conference featuring six teams above 70 points. As a result, there were a relatively limited number of sellers at the trade deadline and most would-be sellers had already taken care of their business long in advance, mostly in the off-season leading up to S97. So, come the trade deadline, we saw just a couple of minor deals. In the first one, the DC Dragons shipped defenseman Joe Block to the New York Americans in exchange for 2nd and 3rd round picks in the S98 draft. Block is more or less a depth defenseman for a VHL contender. In his final season in the league, Block was picked up by DC in Free Agency and compiled 23 points in 43 games prior to being dealt. With the Dragons taking a slight step forward but still clearly not ready to contend, he found himself on the move again. The Americans are a little better positioned than DC to make a run, with a 37-18-3 record good for 77 points and third in the NA at time of writing. The addition of Block gives them four VHL-calibre defenders, which may help solidify their spot as four teams seem to be in a battle for the last three NA playoff berths. In the second deal, the HC Davos Dynamo acquired forward UghSike from the Helsinki Titans in exchange for an S98 3rd round pick. The Dynamo already had six forwards on their roster, so a move to add another one wasn't necessarily expected. However, UghSike was once a very highly-touted prospect, drafted 5th overall in S93. His development has completely stagnated as of late, and Davos will be his sixth VHL team in four seasons in the league. He did have 44 points in 52 games with Helsinki prior to the trade, but has been held off the scoresheet in 6 games with Davos since. For Davos, the acquisition cost is nearly inconsequential - the S98 draft may not even have three full rounds of players selected - and there may still be a belief that they can draw out a little bit more of the potential UghSike once showed. He actually fits in quite well with the general age group of the Davos core and could be a cap-friendly depth forward option in the future. The Titans, sitting at 13-44-1, had no real reason not to liquidate their roster further, however. There has been some discussion about how quiet the VHL trade deadlines have been recently, with this most recent one being the most notable example, and how to fix that. But I don't think it's a problem worth solving (or a problem at all, really). At the end of the day, even though trades can inject some interest into the league, it's hard to envision a scenario where it makes much sense for teams not to take care of their business without waiting for almost four-fifths of the season to pass to do so - and from a player's point of view, when a player finds themselves in a position they don't want to be in, that's typically an off-season thing that is quickly resolved. Trade activity organically occurs at the time that makes the most sense for team and player. Get used to quiet trade deadlines, but it's not a bad thing.