scoop

New York vs Davos finals please

The Malmo Nighthawks improved upon their Season 88 performance to finish just eight points shy of a playoff berth this season. While they did not come into the season with expectations of making the playoffs, toward the end of the season that it looked like a possibility. They had a relatively easy schedule down the stretch, but they were unable to take advantage of the several games they had against the Helsinki Titans and London United, leaving them on the outside once again. There is not an immense amount of disappointment, given the expectations, and it is now time to start looking toward next season. The Nighthawk franchise has now missed the playoffs in five of the last seven seasons; this is after having made the playoffs in 12 of their first 17 seasons. They have never missed the playoffs in three consecutive seasons, a fate that they will look to avoid next season. Given that the team has neither their first nor their second round pick in the Season 91 VHL Draft, there will be no consolation for missing the playoffs next year. If their pick were to be a lottery selection in what is shaping up to be a very good draft, it would make their trading of the pick look worse. That adds some extra pressure for the team to do well, especially since it is the rival Moscow Menace that hold their first round pick. So, can Malmo at least make the playoffs next season? Most of their roster from this season will be returning, with the biggest potential loss being Malum Maellard, a trade deadline acquisition who has a player option for next season. They do have two forward slots on the roster that they will be looking to fill, and I would expect the team's top priority in the off-season to be targeting the best free agent forwards available. If the best they can do is replace Ivan Retoslav and Hasbullah Magomedov with similarly skilled players, could we expect a Malmo squad that is essentially last season's team to do any better? They will be a little bit older, and with little depreciation facing the team overall, but what will the rest of the conference look like? For Malmo to make the playoffs, obviously they will need to be better than three other teams. The most obvious one is the Warsaw Predators. While the Nighthawks barely finished above them in the standings this season, the Predators only have one player signed for next season. Even if they were to re-sign the others on their roster, they are losing five players to retirement, and several others are depreciating heavily. While that is the only team that I can identify as definitely finishing outside of the playoffs, I do think Malmo can compete with several others. The HC Davos Dynamo are losing their two best forwards to retirement, and their next best two are being hit by heavy depreciation. The Moscow Menace, who wound up winning the Victory Cup, have a lot of players who are upcoming free agents, so it's hard to tell what will happen with them. London looks like they will mostly be the same team next year, so a similar race could ensue between the two teams. Helsinki finished as the worst team in the league last season, but with four total first round picks in the next two drafts, they have the assets to bolster their roster if they want to, so we can't say Malmo will for sure finish ahead of them. Warsaw, Davos, Helsinki, London, and Moscow. That's five teams that I could realistically see finishing below Malmo. At this point in time, if I had to guess, I would say that the three teams missing the playoffs in Europe next season are Warsaw, Davos, and Helsinki. Helsinki is the biggest question mark for me, and the fourth and fifth seeds could come down to a tight race between the Nighthawks, United, and Titans.

give

After being the biggest buyers at the trade deadline, the New York Americans are currently sitting outside of a playoff position. To be fair, they are tied with Los Angeles and D.C. at 62 points; the three of them are vying for the fourth and fifth seeds. New York's trade partners at the deadline? Los Angeles and D.C. The Americans have not made the playoffs since Season 78. In an effort to end this record ten-season playoff drought, the Americans dealt three second round picks in two trades in order to acquire some more firepower for their roster. They added left wing Nezuko and defenseman Max Torq, both of whom are retiring at the end of this season. Nezuko came from Los Angeles, while Torq came from D.C. Yes, the two teams they traded with are the very same teams with which they are competing for the playoffs. To make things slightly more interesting, D.C. and Los Angeles had also made a trade with each other at the deadline. If they don't make the playoffs this season, New York may struggle to end the drought any time soon. In addition to Nezuko and Torq retiring, Biggie Cheese and Augustus Kennedy will also be done after this season. New York is not a particularly young team even looking beyond the retiring players. This team is not in good shape, and even if they do manage to make the playoffs, they likely won't make it far; but still, just making the playoffs would be an accomplishment for them, all things considered.

NO

This would have been better written a few days ago, but the Malmo Nighthawks have climbed up to 6th in the European Conference Standings. In our last 18 games, we have a 12-4-2 record. This stretch of our schedule has not been especially easy, either, as it includes a 5-1-2 combined record against the top four overall teams in the standings. One key to Malmo's recent success as compared to their record prior is that we played very poorly with our backup goalie. As a team who doesn't have a second goalie on the payroll, we were stuck with B-MAL G2 starting eight games. We do have those games all out of the way now, in which we had a 1-6-1 record. Unfortunately for us, the teams ahead of us in the standings who we may have a shot at catching for a playoff spot are also pretty much finished with their required backup games (Prague needs to start their backup one more time). At seven points behind fifth-place London with 1/3 of the season left to go, it certainly isn't outside the realm of possibility that we make the playoffs. We have definitely proven to be better than the VSN pre-season ranking of worst team in Europe, but we might go beyond even being better than just Helsinki and Warsaw. One thing that the VSN got right was the listing of Ivan Retoslav and Ash Sparks as key additions. Sparks has been one of the best goalies in the league, and Retoslav has been crucial in our recent strong play. Retoslav had gotten off to a worse-than-expected start, but in our last 18 games, he has 12 goals and 16 assists. Compare that to his 8 goals and 16 assists in the first 29 games and you can see why the team has had a bit of a turnaround. In terms of skill, Retoslav is the best player on the team, so when he was struggling early on, we found it hard to consistently win. I think if he can continue to score at the pace he has in the last 18 games, then we will make the playoffs. Admittedly, I don't think he will maintain that pace, and it is a better rate that I was expecting coming into the season, but it's not impossible.

Q1) What is your least favourite number? I don't particularly like the number 1. Q2) When do you think the world will end? I have no clue. A long time from now. Q3) What is your favourite part of the day? The time between work and sleep. 1. How are you doing this season relative to your expectations? 2. Will New York actually make the playoffs this season and end their record ten-season playoff drought? 3. Thoughts on how the deadline went down/is going down?

When the VHLE was introduced, the league opened up the possibility for nine-season careers in the VHL. Given that this was implemented along with the VHLE, I am certain that the decision had little to do with extending career lengths. This is, however, something that I have been in favor of for a while, so in my day as commissioner, I would give players more time before forced retirement. This would of course come with heavier depreciation over the last several seasons, allowing for a more natural career trajectory for those who opt to player more seasons. Rather than retiring when at their peak skill, they can experience a downswing in their career. While I don't have a perfect framework for what a career will look like, my initial thoughts are a new maximum of 12 seasons, with the season count beginning in their draft year. The first ten seasons would function similar to what we have now, with depreciation beginning following the fifth season in the VHL. I haven't done any number-crunching to determine exactly what depreciation rates we would be working with, but because I would want careers in the first eight seasons to look roughly the same, let's continue to start it at 5%. Every subsequent season, the depreciation will be +3% from the previous season, working it's way up to a 23% depreciation rate following a player's 11th VHL season. I do not intend on having a 12-season career be the norm. This will be something that is hard to maintain, and to that end, there would be restrictions on banking TPE to save it from depreciation. The restriction on banking TPE is as follows: during a player's final two depreciation updates, all banked TPE will be lost. Importantly, this restriction falls in line with the final two seasons of a player's career clock rather than their depreciation clock. If someone spends two seasons in the VHLE after their draft year, this would mean that following their 8th and 9th VHL seasons, they are not allowed to bank TPE. This guarantees that in the final two seasons of a players career, should they choose to continue playing, they will be worse than they were before. This would be a huge incentive for players to not play out a full-length career, especially given how harsh the depreciation rates get, but it does give them the option. As far as the depreciation fighters in the store go, I haven't thought too much on the specifics, but the options would look very similar. There would be an item in the store for a 1 or 2% reduction in your depreciation; this item would increase in cost based on which depreciation level you are at. The other item would be a reduction in the depreciation of one attribute of your choosing; this would be a 100% reduction at the first few stages of depreciation, and would only be 50% effective in the last few. Again, I don't have specific ideas here, but I think this would be a better direction to go than disallowing purchasing these items altogether. This idea isn't without downsides, and I recognize that. One prominent argument in the past against extending careers has been the affect it would have on career records and statistics, but in reality, that has no bearing on what is good for the league so I'm not going to acknowledge it any further. The real case against extending careers is the effect that it would have on draft classes. Longer careers means fewer players in drafts. If an idea such as this were to be seriously considered, there would need to be a lot of focus on analyzing the effects it would have in this regard. There you have it; that's my big idea. It does not come with much analysis of how viable it is, but that's for someone else to potentially look into. I don't know the last time anyone in power has put any thought into extending careers, but I do think it is something that would appeal to some. Harsh depreciation rates would make it undesirable for others. The important thing is it would give members a little more control over their career while having potentially very little downside.

After playing in 18 games as the backup goalie for the Seattle Bears in S87 and S88, Ash Sparks was close to retiring from the VHL this past off-season when the Malmo Nighthawks made a trade to acquire the former 6th overall pick. Sparks has had a great start to his Nighthawk career, currently ranking tied for fourth among qualifying goalies with a 0.931 save percentage. While his 11-12-3 record is not the best, the Nighthawks have done much better in Sparks' starts as compared to their backup games. In Malmo's most recent game, Sparks got a bit of revenge on his former team, shutting out the Bears for a 2-0 Nighthawk victory. This came off the heels of a game in which the Bears put six goals past Sparks, including the game winner in overtime less than a minute into the extra period. The Bears had also has a four-goal game against the Nighthawks early in the season. The two teams will meet twice more before the season is over. For Sparks, this shutout was his third in 26 starts this season. He has been one of Malmo's best and most consistent players this season, and they are hoping they can count on him for several seasons to come.

Last season, I won my VHFL group rather comfortably, scoring 1477.3 points compared to 1393.8 from the second-place JCarson. Not even realizing it until just now, I ended up with a similar roster for this season. I have three of the same players, and some of those players who I didn't bring back were in my mind again as possible selections. The players who I won with last season who I wound up taking again were Sirdsvaldis Miglaskems, Brian Payne, and Nico Pearce. The newcomers to the team are Perry Laperriere (replacing Henry Eagles as my third forward), Biggie Cheese (replacing Mo Probert as my second defensemen), and Cole Pearce (replacing Clueless Wallob as my goalie). Just as he was a season ago, Sirdsvaldis Miglaskems was the first forward selected to my S89 team, though I picked him in the first round this time as opposed to the second. While not the best possible selection at this point, Miglaskems has been doing even better than he did a season ago. He offensive capabilities (18 goals, 43 points) and his physical game (125 hits) have him currently as the sixth-highest scoring forward. Although most of the forwards who are ahead of him were still available for me at this time, I'm not disappointed in this pick. Last season, Brian Payne was my first selection, but I waited until the second round to pick him up this season. Payne is a very reliable fantasy player because he is someone you can count on to at least rack up hits and shots blocked. Even if he has a relatively down year offensive, he can still easily be in the top ten among defensemen. With 44 points in 33 games, offense has not been an issue for Payne, and his all-around great play has him as the highest scoring VHFL player at the moment. This was a home run of a pick, and I consider myself lucky that even with three defensemen being taken between my first and second picks, I was able to get Payne on my roster. After I selected Payne, six straight defensemen were taken, meaning it was a great time for me to take a forward. There were still several good ones on the board, and a couple of my opponents were already full on defensemen, so I knew I could finalize that spot later. I settled on Nico Pearce, who has actually been a bit of a disappointment for my roster despite having 21 goals on the season. That speaks more to how well my team is doing, but Pearce's assist numbers are down this season, and he has a negative plus-minus rating. In the fourth round, while I did have the option to take Henry Eagles available to me, I went with Perry Laperriere, and this is right up there with Payne as my best pick. Laperriere currently leads the league in points with 50 (25 goals, 25 assists) to go along with 136 hits. While I knew I could count on him for a lot of hits, I wasn't expecting him to be on top of the league in offensive production. He is the highest scoring forward in fantasy points, so to get him on my roster as my third forward selected is wonderful. Although I almost always leave my goalie for my last pick, given that no one between my fifth and sixth picks would be taking a defensemen, I selected Cole Pearce here for my goalie slot. I had my choice of all goalies except Lachlan Summers, who had just been selected, and I was most confident in Pearce. Playing for the Bears, I thought there was a chance for a decent number of shutouts and a good number of wins. Pearce has bee the third best goalie so far, so I haven't lost out on too much with this pick. For my final selection, I ended up taking Biggie Cheese of the New York Americans. Particularly when considering the look of New York's roster, I felt Cheese had a good chance to contribute at least a point per game and be somewhere in the 180 to 200 range in both shots blocked and hits at the end of the season. This was the last defensemen selected the group, and Cheese is currently the 10th highest scoring defensemen, though three of those defensemen above him were also available. This was still a good pick nonetheless. About halfway through the season, I am very pleased with how my fantasy team is doing. In terms of where my individual players rank among their position, I have the following: forwards (1st, 6th, 15th); defensemen (1st, 10th) and goalie (3rd). Normally that assortment of players would probably have me sitting in first place, but currently I am actually in second to @cLoWn who has no players who rank below 5th in their position.

Oh, yeah I made that up.

44:33

The S89 Malmo Nighthawks don't feature nearly as many rookies as last season's squad, but those that they do have all figure into the team's long-term plan. The three rookies on the team are Logan Foley, Reese McFleury, and Viktor Jensen. Logan Foley has been with the organization the longest, having been drafted 14th overall in Season 87. He spent the last two seasons in the VHLE before making his VHL debut. Through the first eight games of the season, he had zero points. At this time, he was the only Nighthawk yet to score a goal. He scored his first goal in the ninth game, and he is now up to four goals and three assists on the season. He is second on the team with 63 hits, which ranks first among rookies. Reese McFleury was another first round pick in Season 87, selected eighth overall by Vancouver. The Nighthawks traded for McFleury during that season. He continued to develop in the VHLE until getting the call this season. He has two goals and eight assists through 20 games while playing solid defense for the second unit. He leads the team with 44 shots blocked. This year's first overall pick Viktor Jensen rounds out the trio of rookies. While he could have spent this season in the VHLE, the decision was made to have him join the Nighthawks straight away. He has proven himself capable, as he is among the rookie scoring leaders. His five goals is tied for the rookie lead, and his 12 points has him ranked second.

D - Biggie Cheese @eagle_3450

G - Cole Pearce @ctots

F - Perry Laperriere @eagle_3450

@cLoWn Jake Thunder had already been selected. Please make a different selection and ping me for my next pick when you do.

F - Nico Pearce @ctots

D - Brian Payne @eagle_3450

I'm pretty sure Prague is one of the bad teams are they not?

Hybrid attributes and the new depreciation rates make it harder to build a skater. Goalies have been completely unaffected by all that. Okay, and what about 16 games? Is that still a rookie? 24? Whatever it is, it should be in the rule book, and not just discussed and decided in a thread so that it doesn't have to be brought up again 3 years later.