Shindigs

Claim 2/4 Week Ending 1/22

Well deserved, you've probably been one of the most hands on VHLM AGMs so really the change from AGM to GM shouldn't be too big in your case. @Pifferfish

Yeah dmen is the other tab. Since that list is primarily for getting z-scores for dmen and forwards.

I mean you have it formatted slightly differently.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AKBco1DM0H-cYldRgnBnh5FblqGMVDSGU3rf-JccYPE/edit?usp=sharing Has all of it.

Should add single season records for goals/assists too.

Sometimes it be like that, but with @Spartan it always be like that.

1. Getting rid of that bum Nico Pearce, literally impossible for you to win the finals if you still had him. It is known. 2. Dogwood Maple, probably. He didn't quite have the Funk season I was hoping for. But he did work against us in Chicago in the playoffs. 3. Brandt Fuhr. He was absolutely massive for you all season, especially in the playoffs. You didn't get that cup without him. 4. Same as above, Cheese had an insane playoffs. But the consistency from Fuhr is what got you that W. 5. Probably Dogwood Maple again, didn't improve as much as I hoped he would, as a Vegas alumni. But he took a really good step forward. 6. Vancouver Wolves are Continental Cup Champions if Frank beats himself.

Bo hit peak build at 1337 TPA in S86 and will now be partaking in the oh-so-interesting art of banking TPE for the rest of his career. Bo is going with a very stupid depreciation plan. Which is to say he won't be doing shit other than banking to fight it. That's the luxury being a 8 season player vs. a 9 season player gives you. Since we don't get that final 12% hit, and I've optimized Bo's build for minimal depreciation possible (more or less). It means I can actually just chill at 1337 TPA for the rest of his career(ish). Bo will actually start his final season with quite a bit less than 1337 TPA, but he will earn it all back by the end of the season, which I'm perfectly fine with. The reason Bo won't buy any %fighters isn't because it's ideal. It's actually really damn stupid, and I fought for that to be the case in the BOG. % fighters were way too bad for their cost post hybrid, so a big point I made in the discussion leading up to the depreciation change was that we had to make the fighters good again, and they are. Especially "Old But Not Forgotten" and "Jagr's" are super good. "Still Kicking" isn't as good, though it's still 100% worth it over a 4x5 if your build has at least one attribute hitting 95 or 99. But since Discipline and Leadership are exempt from depreciation, Bo actually only has about 1230 TPA that is affected by depreciation, not 1337, and since Bo doesn't have any attributes over 90. He takes baby deprecation despite that high TPA. It's only when you get into the 90+ TPE brackets that you really start getting hammered by the depreciation, unless you go the Ronan Lavelle @Arce route and get 99 OV and just Jagr it every depreciation, because that's super cost efficient. So why am I doing something I know is "stupid" for Bo's depreciation? Simple, I'm going for the TPE record, so I will just use all my money on 4x5s instead of depreciation fighters, and because of how hard I've been earning and having spent the one season in the VHLE. I can get away with doing so. But it's very much a "don't try this at home" kind of deal.

As always with lists like these, they will be subjective. You won't agree with some of them, and that's fine. We all have bias towards if we value goals over assists, or if we acknowledge that forwards naturally score more than dmen etc. That's just how it is. I'll primarily base this list off of z-scores that are pretty much anything but subjective and give a very solid empirical score on how far away from average a player's season is. Compared to other players who play the same role (forward/dman). But that still leaves room for the goals vs. assists argument, unless you just have a god season in there where both are so elite it's not even a trade-off. As well as other circumstances that may push one season above another in my eyes. 1. Aurelien Moreau @Frank S83 - G: 20 (1.15) / A: 92 (3.10) / P: 112 (2.77) The number in parenthesis is the Z-score compared to all non-bot dmen in the hybrid era for that attribute, with 1+ being good, 2+ being elite and 3+ meaning you're basically a god. S83 for Moreau was simply an insane season, putting up an actual honest to god competitive dman point record in the very first hybrid era season. The one thing you can point out about this first season, however, is that a lot of players had very bad builds, and we were in a goalie drought. So naturally offensive numbers among the elite players in this season *should* be slightly inflated. But that doesn't change the fact that a 112 point season from a dman blows anything any forward has achieved offensively in the hybrid era out of the water. Until S86 Moreau also held the Assist record for the hybrid era with those 92, being beaten by Bo Johansson (94). The one knock on this season is the goals, it's the one thing that makes this record beatable. As the top dmen of this era have put up 30+ goals, so realistically it's only a matter of time before all the stars align and we get 30+ goal 90+ assist season from a dman to eclipse the 120 point plateau. The question is how long will it take? Because for every season Frank keeps this record, it becomes more impressive. No one cares about a record that gets beaten the very next season. But a record that stands for 5, 10 or 20+ seasons. Now that's where it starts getting the recognition of a "true" record. 2. Paul Atreides @Mr_Hatter S83 - G: 61 (2.79) / A: 59 (1.75) / P: 120 (2.38) The fact that the top two players on this list are both on S83 Toronto tells you a lot about how insane their partnership was. There are really 5 forward seasons that are nearly identical offensively, all 5 being at 120 or 122 points. But Hatter's season is the only one with 60+ goals, meaning it's holding onto the goal record for the Hybrid era, giving it that tiny extra bit of prestige to push it above the others. Atreides and Moreau both had played together on the stacked meta era Moscow team, but due to sharing the ice with monster's like Idaho and Markinson. They never had free reign to score as much as they perhaps could have. Well the S83 season in Toronto told us there was no "perhaps" involved. When made the unmistakable star players they put that Toronto team on their shoulders and went on to form the most iconic hybrid era partnership thus far. The same arguments from Moreau also apply here, obviously, since it was the same team and same season. Namely that due to the weaker goaltending and slightly weaker overall compete level in the VHL due to potato hybrid builds, their stats were probably a bit inflated compared to what they should have been. But so was Scotty Campbell's records from playing against 200 TPE players most of his career, and we still acknowledge those records. So sometimes we just have to tip the hat to the players who end up fortunate enough to have their best season in the best possible season to have it. If your best offensive season is in a season that has some of the best goaltending of all time. Well, that's just very unfortunate. But if you have that same season in the meta era, you're probably having a Justin Lose S81 type deal on your hands. I won't hold the fortunate timing against either of them. 3. Saku Kotkakoivu @DollarAndADream S83 - G: 59 (2.64) / A: 63 (2.03) / P: (2.46) Another S83 entry, how unexpected! I mean at this point it's probably hard to argue against S83 having kinda bloated stats for the players who actually went straight into good builds at high TPA. But whatever, this is one of only two 122 point seasons in the era. The other came from Duncan Idaho on a very strong DC team, where he had all the support he could possibly ask for to help make his season the best one possible. Playing with arguably the best offensive playmaking defenseman in the league that season (Sova) and the Funk winner (Lavelle) there was no lack of supporting pieces to push him up there. Whereas in Calgary, Kotkakoivu was primarily supported by the sound of crickets and carried so hard he pulled Lazar, a clicker, up to a 99 point season alongside him. That's actually insane, there was no reason for Kotka to have a 122 point season with that supporting cast. He just had to will it to be in one of the hardest carries of a team I've ever seen outside of the Edmonton Oilers and their perennial attempts to make McJesus go into a rage induced coma at the vast incompetence of just about everyone else in the org apart from Draisaitl. He was only a single goal off being the other player to hit that 60 goal plateau as well and had he done that, odds are he would have been at least 2nd, possibly 1st on this list. Not because of the raw numbers of what he did, but because of the circumstances under which he did it. I doubt we'll see another season like this anytime soon. The closest one is probably Jerome's hardcarry of London in S85. But since that fell short of the 100 point plateau and the 30 goal plateau both, it diminishes it's value by a fair bit. Just for completion I should note that on goal tie-breaker this season is the Hybrid era point total record, as Idaho had 52 and 122 points. 4. Bo Johansson @Shindigs S86 - G: 11 (-0.19) / A: 94 (3.22) / P: 105 (2.45) Now I am biased towards assists, that's why I made a pass first dman to begin with. So I understand that this season probably doesn't make top 5 for most people. But the fact of the matter is that it is the highest assist season in the Hybrid era, and were it not for an absolutely abysmal 4.38% Shot conversion which is the lowest S% of any dman who hit PPG, let alone over 100 point in the entire hybrid era, this would have set the point record too. The only other player to hit PPG with 4.xx% shot conversion was Hari Singh Nalwa in S84 with a 4.63% conversion and exactly 72 points. The lowest S% of another top 5 hybrid era dman is 7.81% for Jerome Reinhart in S83 (Yes, the dman goal record for the hybrid era came off a 7.81% S% season, that's how bloated his shot totals were on that gutted NYA team). So really, Bo had the unluckiest seasons by a top dman in the hybrid era offensively. And still ended the season with 105 points, which is good for 4th among hybrid era dmen. That adds a bit of that "against all odds" touch that Kotka's season had, though for other reasons. Had Bo matched the worst other top 5 S% he would have ended up with 20 goals and 114 points and had he matched Moreau's 10.10% from S83 he would have ended up with 25 goals for 119 points, just one away from that 120 point plateau. So assuming Bo puts up another season like this, but without the cursed S% Moreau's record might very well fall in the next 4 seasons. Though now that I've mentioned it in a MS, Simon will stop it from happening for sure. 5. Jerome Reinhart @MexicanCow123 S85 - G: 24 (1.74) / A: 69 (2.09) / P: 99 (2.17) This one is quite the hot take as well, because the raw stats aren't even the best Jerome himself has put up in the hybrid era. Those came in S83 due to some insane stat bloat on NYA, like I touched on before. Which is why I don't rate that season. Also if this was the most impressive season period, not just the most offensively impressive season, then this would go miles below Hard Markinson's S84 campaign. But seeing as we're strictly looking at offensively impressive seasons. I can't in good faith make a hybrid era top 5 and leave this season out. Since it's the dman version of what Kotka did in Calgary S83, on a team that isn't just a shell, setup to make Jerome score as much as possible to bloat his trade value (see S83 NYA). This was actually a real London team, sure it was a pretty mediocre London team. But not bad enough that it's stat bloat central, just the kind of team you expect to putter along and not do a lot of anything all season. But Jerome had other plans, putting the team on his back and willing them into some level of relevance. His consistency this season was scary, and the stat about how many of the game London won Jerome had points in was actually nuts. He *was* London in S85, everyone else was just along for the ride. Had he been able to elevate his teammates to the heights that Kotka elevated Lazar in S83 Calgary, this season would have been contending for 2nd/3rd, as if he had done that it would have automatically resulted in at least 10+ more assists putting this up there as a ~110 point season and making it a mark for excellence to anyone that came across it. But as it stands, if someone just stumbled across this season and didn't know about all the circumstances, it wouldn't even make the top 5 list of dman offensive seasons in the hybrid era. That's what lowers its ranking for me, even though I do find the achievement impressive as hell. The other thing that would likely exclude this pick from just about everyone's top 5 is that most of the league still just hates Jerome for his part in the Metawolves, and that kind of bias is hard to beat. This list would have a lot of honorable mentions, but likely I will just make a part 2 of this with 6-10 at a later date. I know a lot of people won't like how dman heavy this list is. But I can tell you that currently, we have 6 dmen over 2.4 Point production Z-score and only 2 forwards. Simply put, the best dmen in the hybrid era have been better than the best forwards in this era. Which is why the common theme in VHFL winners has been an insane d pairing. The gap between the best dmen and average dmen is simply bigger than the gap between the best forwards and average forwards. And I like to highlight that in this top 5, since usually the casual observer just goes "Forward has bigger number! Forward more better! Ooga boga!" which I just find a bit silly and as a result I want to showcase that it's a questionable way of looking at stats. But don't get me wrong, I'm not calling out the VHL userbase in particular, this is just a human thing. We see the same thing in NHL award voting and the like. We just like big numbers, and we rarely want to take the time to find proof that we're wrong in liking those big numbers. Since that goes against confirmation bias. 2040+ words, claiming for almost half a season.

Does this mean we lose in the finals? Yes? No?

Yup, if Bo had ~average S% he would have essentially matched DJ point for point, but obviously with less goals more assists. If anything getting a 100+ point season with that S% makes me hopeful that Bo has even more potential than what he showed this season.

And you to yours, any insider info on it your player is going for the threepeat? Asking for a friend who needs to do predictions soon.

Just for reference for the stat nerds. I compiled the hybrid era stats for all players and calculated the Z-scores for forward production and dman production. I filtered out all bots as they would skew the data and not really be relevant data points to what we're looking at. Janser @Daniel Janser G: 2.24 / A: 2.23 / P: 2.38 Johansson G: -0.19 / A: 3.22 (hybrid era record) / P: 2.45 Now a lot more goes into what does/doesn't make an MVP than just raw offensive production. I'd just like to point out that forwards naturally score more than dmen in STHS, this isn't exactly news. So technically Bo's season offensively was more of an outlier than Janser's. But Bo also sucked absolute ass at scoring goals this season, literally having less goals than average for non-BOT dmen in the Hybrid era. So with people generally favoring goals over assists, there is that. The actual snub was Markinson not getting the Slobo in S84 tbh, he had a 3.07 Goal Z-score to Idaho's 2.08. But he's a dman so smaller numbers = less votes, cause who cares about forwards naturally farming more stats? Some other notable standouts from this season: Torq @Steve G: 2.62 (tied 3rd best in hybrid era) Kisslinger @Kisslinger A: 2.44 (3rd best in hybrid era) For those that don't know/remember what a Z-score is. It's simply how many standard deviations away from average a performance is. Assuming a normalized distribution, which we can assume for VHL scoring. The empirical rule states that 68% of all players end up +/- 1 or less Z-score, 95% are within +/- 2 and 99.7% are within +/- 3 So essentially anything above 2.0 is elite AF anything above 3.0 is pretty much inhuman. The players closest to completely average this season were: F - Henry Eagles at -0.03 Z-score and D - Logain Ablar at -0.01 Z-score The fact neither was on DC upsets me greatly, would have made for good MID jokes tbh. Interestingly enough 2 of the 3 worst forward seasons belong to Toronto, while Malmö has the questionable honor of holding 2 of the 3 worst dman seasons offensively.

I didn't check at the end, but for most of the season we had the fewest shots against in the entire league.

Time to update this again soon™

You need to channel you inner Spartan and be cross at them. Could have easily been a 15m podcast if you did.

Very underwhelming road rage at the end. I am disappoint. But this is turning into a nice inception of a rule break within the penalty of another rule break.

1. I make sure all my #blamecole are ready and warmed up. Just in case. 2. Pretty much all comes down to how many times I've chanted #blamecole in front of the statue of the Burger King outside the LR. 3. I did not, because all I want for Christmas is #blamecole. 4. Very hyped about the possibility of outcomes that allow for me to #blamecole. And I'm in banking mode for the rest of the career now. 5. I'm not, and I wholly #blamecole for this. Not that I've ever played for Mexico, but still. It seems only fair. 6. All I want for Christmas is #blamecole by the one and only Mariah Coley.

Well, since we had to twiddle our thumbs for the WC rounds, this week hasn't been all that interesting VHL-wise. Finally got our sims going the other day and we went off to a 2-0 lead against DC despite running our backup goalie. Sadly early sims the day after meant we hadn't had time to get our new lines in, so we ended up with that for games 3 and 4 leading to a 2-2 tie in the series. To be fair fair in game 3 it barely mattered, cause we got outshot and Bubbles put up a .96x so that game was pretty doomed no matter what. But game 4 was certainly winnable, so we'll see if this comes back to bite us. Or if we can take out the MID Dragons. So far we've been very closely matched in the playoffs. And we've faced just about every season in the current VHL era. Bo is off to a slightly better start than he normally is in the playoffs, with a 2PPG first sim followed by a PPG 2nd sim, putting him on a solid 1.5PPG pace, not insane by playoff standards by any means. But certainly an alright showing. Hopefully he can pop off for the rest of the series and help push for the first finals appearance (at any level) in his career.

Bonus points if you cant find the hidden #blamecole

$5 Arce Podcast @Acydburn ID: 924869333K359140D

Moscow losing in the finals is a bit of a cop out prediction seeing as it has 100% success rate.

#blamecole

#blamecole