It's been a rough first two seasons for Diana Maxwell. Her career goals have been made all but impossible to accomplish, and even just making the Hall of Fame could be a difficult task at this point. Both Stockholm in S50 and now New York in S51 have had pathetic offensive performances despite expectations that they could do some damage on that end. Through the first 139 games of her career, she has just 49 goals. That's why, at this point, she'll be elated to be able to score multiple goals in a game, even if it's just a meaningless exhibition against VHLM players.
On Thursday, for some reason that I don't entirely understand, several VHL players played in an exhibition game against a team of some of the better VHLM players. Dubbed "Flashbacks vs Future," the VHL team won by a score of 11-5. Of course you would expect the more experienced players to win the game, especially when you look at the players they were bringing. Someone somewhere thought it would be a good idea to have VHLM players play against some of the top players in the VHLM. For starters, Greg and Sandro Clegane were two of the Flashbacks goalies. Zach Parechkin, who has scored 63 goals in 63 games in the VHL this season, was one of two players to score a hat trick. Based on the results of the game, I would have to say that it's likely that the VHL players were using just a fraction of their ability, otherwise you have to think this would be a much larger blowout, even when you consider that the Future were playing with an almost full roster while the Flashbacks had just two lines of players.
Diana Maxwell tried really hard in this game.
However, Diana Maxwell did not get the memo about holding back. She played her heart out, putting forth one of the best performances of her career. She played her hardest, earning those two goals. She also added an assist on Parechkin's first goal, giving her a solid three points in 22 minutes of play. This showing from Maxwell should be a confidence booster for the remainder of the VHL season, and it gives you a glimpse of what you can could expect from her if she were to be allowed to play in the VHLM again. Most notably, her game was not all offense, as she also laid a punishing hit on Xander Finn, who was too big of a pussy to do anything about it. Finn did almost nothing all game because he feared for his life, yet he had the audacity to call out M.T. Power's poor performance.
The Future did have a couple very solid performer. Austin Hickey V scored two goals for the VHLM squad. Fabio Jokinen led the game with 12 shots on net, scoring a goal of his own, and also blocked three shots. The team's top goalie, Rhett DeGrath, made 12 saves in the first period, shutting out the Flashbacks during the frame. In the end, though, this was not enough to even make the game close.
Given the disparity in this game, the future of this exhibition match is uncertain. Next season, we may be more likely to see a Future vs Fuck-Ups game in which the VHLM's brightest youngsters will face off against the biggest busts in the VHL.