hedgehog337

Having a 3-0 sim vs Helsinki and then lose to Davos in that style? Go home STHS you're drunk just like me.

@Paramorise

Lol @ forwards. Also, Tomas Synderaard doesn't trusts the process.

165 HC Dynamo 4:1 Bears

161 HC Dynamo 162 Titans 163 Americans 164 Vikings

4 TPE goes to Krīgars

Astrid Moon (HSK), 4 saves from 6 shots - (0.667), W, 15-1-0, 60:00 minutes

Davos isn't just ready for either Helsinki and Stockholm yet, but they're a playoff team anyway. They should be a thing starting from S56. cause this team is full of depth, no superstar player there.

@Strtlght already shared his VHL power rankings, so it's my turn to make my own PR. *default picture* 10. Seattle Bears Like I said, earlier in this week, goalie>player for rebuilding teams. Colonge has Axelberry, Seattle has only Akerfeldt and that gives @Banackock a chance to ''win'' the last place and get the first overall pick. Aleksei Fedorov is the only relevant player there, but that doesn't changes things a lot. 9. Cologne Express Seattle players = Cologne players, but Axelberry is far better than Joanna so Cologne takes the ninth place. But it's not like @punkhippie should be upset by that fact - he still will have a good chance for the first pick. 8. Riga Reign I also don't have a lot of relevant players. Only Markus King and Fredinamijs Krīgars, the rest of them are scrubs. With these two, it would be enough to take the 8th place and having a lottery pick as the rest 7 teams are stronger. 7. Calgary Wranglers It's going to be an interesting battle between Toronto and Calgary for the playoffs, but I think Toronto has more depth to outplay the Wranglers and I think Gowecny still could be traded somewhere before the trade deadline. 6. Toronto Legion I already named reasons why Toronto will take the third spot in NA. 5. Davos Dynamo They can do some damage, but lack of superstar player is going to hurt them. They already proved that Davos isn't an easy opponent though so maybe they will pull an upset in playoffs. And their future is bright also. 4. New York Americans They brought a def to the Big Apple, but they weren't able to find a replacement for Tom Lincoln. And they still lack of depth players and it's hard to imagine they will be able to get past Quebec. But it's still possible though. Especially if Holik shows his best performance. 3. Quebec City Meute Quebec is a better version of Davos. No real superstar player, but not too depth either. Right now seems like they will have a hard time to outplay Helsinki or Stockholm, but they are definitely the most danagerous team from NA conference. Also, I need to see them win because Guntis Petenis didn't win a single playoff series during his career, so it would be nice to see him win the cup. 2. Stockholm Vikings Losing Swen Wolf isn't the most nice thing to have, but the real reason why Stockholm has less chances than the Titans is some of their players are not active, like Thrower and Kopralkov. And some of STO players are already passed their peak, so I put the Vikings behind Helsinki. 1. Helsinki Titans @Higgins made a smart move with moving Black Velvet to center after losing SWC III due to forced retirement. Yes, the defence took a small hit, but they have the fast rising player in Abbott anyway. Also, they have no inactive players which is going to give them a nice playoff push. That's it and I'm out. 6 TPE goes to Petenis.

*Well, no Cup here* The start of S55 was delayed a little bit due to @punkhippie's tanking problems. He tried to have a worse team possible to secure a first pick and even though he wasn't able to do that, his team is still looking bad enough so I think he's going to be alright. Meanwhile, I'm going to write an article about Cologne, but this is not about the start of Punk's era. Right now I will go back to his predecessor, also known as @gregreg. His Cologne had interesting times between S48-51, but their biggest success was only S49 finals; I think they could've done more than that, but something went wrong. I will try to find a reason why this team never was a consistent threat even during their peak. 1. Fuck draft picks? *something something draft picks* First of all, let's go even more back to last year of @Devise's tenure. His team managed to win the only cup in S42 and then made it to finals two seasons after, but all good things have to come to an end. So the VHL league saw this trade, when Klose and O'Malley were traded to Helsinki. Everybody thought this is over for the Express...well, except for Devise himself. Instead of laying low he decided to give up his S46 2nd and S47 picks to bring some decent players, like Gifford Shock, Nicklas Karlsson, Jacson Miller and Joshua Rubin. These moves were heavily criticized by some members and Ryan Power even needed to make a long ass explanation about his move. What was the final result of this? *Cologne wasn't able to survive the EU massacre in S45, finishing only 4th on their conference; *S45 DAV first and S47 HSK first for Klose and O'Malley turned into Evgeny Nezhmetdinov (drafted by COL) and Mikhail Gribov (drafted by DAV) and both of them were inactive scrubs; *The S47 HSK first was traded for Rubin. Slight win for Cologne for sure; *S47 COL first turned into SWC III. Looks like the Express took an L, because Shock was a decent depth player at most, but you gotta know @BobertZ and his nature...and his fuckery lists where he was expressing his refusal to play there. The S47 draft had a decent player in Virtanen at 6th OV though, so Cologne still takes a slight loss in this one. Conclusion: Yes, Devise could've done better with rebuilding without trading his picks for depth players, but it wasn't a big loss either. And it's definitely not a reason why Cologne never won the cup under Greg's tenure. 2. Artom bombs Cologne? *welp, screw the Express* Devise stepped down after a S45 fail and gave GM powers to Greg Harbinson. Fast forward to S49: the GM managed to add valuable pieces from drafts: S47: G - Artom Zhumbayev (2nd OV) S48: RW - Tyson Kohler (4th OV) and from trades, like Phil Hamilton, Niels Skovsgaard and Souryuu Kaminogi. The team was ready to take on the world and even though they lost to Toronto in finals, the things were looking up...unfortunately, not for a long time. First of all, Artom Zhumbayev went inactive even before finals happened and never came back. I still remember when Cologne players used #ArtomBomb as their main hashtag. Seems like @fever95 bombed Cologne's chances for a long-term competing. Conclusion: That was a huge blow to the Express. You can say that the team can win the Continental Cup with a 400 TPE goalie, like M.T. Power in S53 and Astrid Moon in S54. But let's go back to S49 and look at goalies who were playing back then - both Clegane brothers, Hans Wingate and Ariel Weinstein. It was clear that Artom just wasn't good enough for them and I think the team would have had more chances against Toronto with more quality goalie. Definitely one of the reasons why Cologne was underperforming after their biggest success since Devise's tenure. 3. KO'd by Tyson? *bye, bitch!* I don't know exactly what happened between @Kendrick and Greg, but the S50 was the last season when we saw Kohler as an Express. The team was looking to continue their playoff run, but Tyson decided to join the Wranglers and the team lost their big offesnive piece. Some seasons later, they revealed the reason of it - Kendrick wasn't fond of team's direction and even though they respect each other, it wasn't enough for him to stay in Germany. Did this screw up the Express' chances? Not really - Greg managed to bring Tom Lincoln via trade and that saved this team for one more season. But it was clear that something is going on there... 4. Robbery by Toronto? *yup, that's what happened* The final blow happened in S51 off-season: Greg still was looking for making another playoff run and he tried to bring both Hamilton brothers and Greg Clegane to his team. And honestly, I thought that @Victor is about to join the Express, taking both Hamilton's with them. But that's not what happened. @Molholt decided to make things in NA more spicy after four straight finals appearance. And that's exactly what happened - all of them signed with the Legion, leaving Cologne with nothing. After that, the team was done. We saw ~130-point season from Skovsgaard in S52 and the big scoring trio in S53, when they almost put out Moon and Helsinki out of their misery. But they never were classified as the contender team anymore and it remains to be seen when they will be great again. So I think Cologne had chances for being more dangerous threat, but it is what it is. I'm not going to judge anybody as I don't know all the details and I never had Cologne LR permissions after I left them with Zeptenbergs. That's it and I'm out. 6 TPE goes to Krīgars.

Calgary should be 7th imo. The thing is Gowecny should be on their roster and with him, this team is much stronger.

V2A can't be sent down to VHLM. And I'm curious if CPU goalie counts as a legit starter with something 200 TPE.

You have no options anymore cause Robbie used all his banked TPE. V2A is a starter, unless you'll find a legit backup.

Old news, you're not the first who does that,

Awards > Fedorov

The recent award ceremony saw Guntis Petenis claiming three awards: Sterling Labatte - best defenseman Scott Campbell - most valuable player Brett Slobodzian - most outstanding player You can say what you want about that third award, like he didn't even deserve that as there were more outstanding performances (DeGrath or Maxwell), but at end of the day Gunča won it. But that's not what I was trying to say...I checked all Slobodzian award winners yesterday and obviously I saw the players who were truly great during their era and then one question popped into my head: Is Guntis Petenis a Slobodzian award winner with the lowest TPE count? Like I know you gotta work hard to achieve that feat - something 700 TPE is a must nowadays. But there came a 520-530 TPE guy who suddenly started to tear shit up only because I finally added some points into scoring. Probably there were even ''worse'' players at TPE wise who did that also (probably S11-20 times, idk) and I guess the league veterans knows better. But it's still funny - I never worked hard and then my player won three very big awards when I didn't even expect it. I just could say that I gave up my S54 RIG 1st for these awards lol. 1 TPE goes to Krīgars

Goalie > player in this case.

MVP, Labatte and Slobodzian award winner. Also, I don't think Seattle will finish higher than 9th, they have no goalie for that.

13-season award drought is over! Can rest for another 13 seasons.

Kitras isn't Latvian and I already PM'ed him. By the way, were these two recruited by yourself?

*Ready, set, go!!!* This off-season is slowly coming to and end. FA's already chose their future, the GM's also were making their future by drafting players to their respective teams and right now we only need to find out for the award winners. And then the S55 can start. This season promises to be another 4-team race, although there's one darkhorse that can provide an upset. Also, there are more questions that will be answered during the season. IS CALGARY COMPETING? I think even @eaglesfan036 realizes there's no chance for a long playoff run, if this even will happen. I never thought that Calgary will try to compete in this season, but the GM made us known he is sick of rebuilding after getting Leblanc from my team. Also, he gave up two first round picks to get a highly touted prospect in Felix Savard. That was the last positive thing for the Wranglers - FA didn't think this teams is attractive enough as only Jim Lahey came back to home. And then another promising prospect, Verner Reinholdt decided to get himself out from Eagles. At end of the day, there's always next season for Calgary. QUEBEC vs NEW YORK So this is still a two-team race in the NA conference. Last time, Quebec's depth gained a 4-1 victory in the conference finals and looks like the Meute is the main force in North America. But the Americans aren't done yet - @Devise managed to re-sign Diana Maxwell and they added a nice defensive depth in Robert Jelen. An inactive scrub, you say? But playing with one non-CPU D isn't the best option too, so this move makes sense. @Frank also wasn't sleeping. He re-signed an inactive depth player AK-47 and brought Guntis Petenis to solidify their defense. It's going to be another interesting series, that's for sure. HELSINKI vs STOCKHOLM (?) We have another clash of the titans, now in Europe. Stockholm was looking beastly in last season and nobody besides Helsinki wasn't expecting less than finals from the Vikings. Helsinki managed to shock the world by winning 4 straight games after being two games down. It's obvious that @Higgins will try to repeat this success while @Advantage is looking for a revenge. Helsinki lost SWC III due to retirement, but they added a depth defenceman, Diego Jokinen. Also, Velvet decided to replace Covington by changing his position to C. Stockholm also had a loss - Swen Wolf decided to hang up the skates. In overall, this series should be exciting. Or... DARKHO...PURPLE HORSE? Probably @Smarch wanted more from the FA market, but he managed to sign a nice D addition (Dotran) and bring the best backup goalie in Threencarnac[ion] to the Davos Dynamo team. Yes, the biggest fish, Diana Maxwell decided to stay in NY, but it's not a very huge loss for an upcoming team. This team has no superstar, but perhaps they will be able to make a big upset with their depth and mist4ke. We probably will have even more questions during the season, but the previously mentioned ones can be more important for now. That's it and I'm out. 6 TPE goes to Krīgars.

It's going to be interesting how it pans out. Aceept and welcome to Riga, @Kendrick!

You should wait 12 or so hours to accept an offer. Unless the rules were changed, idk. @Corco

Welcome to the league!

@Smarch did.