scoop

With this VHL.com article and the rest of my pending updates for the week, I will reach 1787 TPE with Jacob Stone. This will put him 25th on the All-Time TPE Leaderboard, passing Hard Markinson. With two seasons left in Stone's career, I expect to climb up several more ranks. How high could I go? My current projects have me finishing somewhere between 2050 and 2100 TPE, which would be good for fifth. However, Mac Atlas and Skor McFleury are still going, and I anticipate they will reach marks that I will not be able to beat. That being said, I'd guess that I'm seventh at the time of my retirement, but I wouldn't be surprised to be knocked out of the top ten by the time the S94 draft class finishes their careers. When Markinson falls off of the top 25, it will leave just two players left from before the VHLE era, which gives players an extra season of earning TPE. Although I will certain pass him in TPE, it's still more impressive that Ryan Kastelic (S63) reached 2000 TPE at the time that he did. Hunter Hearst Helmsley (S66), who had 1828 TPE, is the only other pre-80 on the list. I expect more and more players to start eclipsing 2000 TPE, but considering how long Kastelic was on top, and the fact that no one was particularly close, I'm not sure we'll see someone dominate their era like he did any time soon. I'm speaking strictly in terms of TPE here; Kastelic's playing career wasn't particularly outstanding.

1. Green grapes for sure. 2. Red apples, specifically honeycrisp. 3. Eat the whole thing. It's the easiest way. 1. What expectations do you have for your player next season? 2. Who, in your opinion, is the best player in the VHL right now? 3. What is your favorite movie?

I don't have it figured out, but I think winning awards and putting up crazy stats is going to be more about the team around you than having 200 more TPA than the next guy. There's really not much of a difference between a 1000 TPA player and a 1200 TPA player, because the update scale gets to the point where it takes like 40 TPA to improve two attributes by 1 point and what does that really matter. If you're trying to make a career of personal accolades, you just need to figure out the right environment that you need to play in.

Yeah, I've always found it strange that for the elite TPE earners, typically you'll be at your peak in your final season, because you don't need to bank anything. Even playing nine seasons, my peak TPA will be at the end of my career. While I don't necessarily think that will be the norm for nine-year players, we don't see many people going for nine-year careers because having one extra season as a sub-500 TPA player doesn't really add much to a career unless you get lucky, and it heavily punishes you on the back end compared to your draft classmates. But I have maintained an 1168 TPA build and I've never not had enough TPE banked to immediately counter my depreciation. I've been a long-time supporter of removing the season limits and instead having the forced retirement be when you are depreciated under a certain amount of TPA (400 makes sense).

The Round Robin index is now going to the medal rounds. Is it possible for that to be fixed so we can still see the stats from the round robin or is it gone forever now?

That's the best defense in action Playing the majority of the period 4v5 is not easy

Okay so the award isn't for the lowest GAA, it's for all goalies who hit the minimum games started requirement on the team with the fewest goals allowed.

This can't be real, right? Why would they share it? Basically saying this is a team award.

1. Taking some time away from hockey to clear his head after another disappointing ending. Spending time relaxing and enjoying life with his wife. 2. I was rooting for Cologne and Halifax, because they are who I predicted. Cologne won at least, so I'm happy with that. 3. Jacob Stone comes from a hockey family. Benjamin Glover (grandpa) and Diana Maxwell (aunt) are both VHL Hall of Famers. 4. Anything with mushrooms 5. I suppose I'd say Asian Kung-Fu Generation, though I don't listen to any non-English artists enough that I would really call them my favorite. They just have a few songs that have been used as anime openings that I have come to like, though I don't listen to them beyond those few songs. 6. No, I mean sure I had my career high in goals, but I took a step back everywhere else and made it really hard for me to end up with a point-per-game career.

One of the questions coming into Malmo's off-season has been answered, as they team now has six forwards on the roster after the signing of Martin Kemp. The Nighthawks traded a third round pick to Vancouver in exchange for Kemp, an upcoming free agent, with the hopes of signing him before he hit the open market. Within 24-hours of making the trade, Kemp signed a three-year extension. Just prior to the signing, Randy Bobandy also picked up his player option to return to the Nighthawks for his final season. Kemp will replace Gregger McKeggegger on the roster, with the other five forwards from Season 94 returning. Kemp had career highs of 32 goals and 79 points last season. Entering his fourth season with his third team, perhaps Kemp can find some stability with the Nighthawks as they will rely on him for the next few seasons. With Bobandy having just one season left, bringing Kemp in on a long-term deal will be particularly valuable. As for Bobandy, there was little doubt in Malmo that he would return, but it is now a certainty. Last season was his first with the Nighthawks, and he scored a career high 91 points. He has had some ups and downs in his career, but he has over a point-per-game through eight seasons. He scored at least 30 goals in four of those seasons.

happy birthday vhl

Jacob Stone OV

1. I'll go with the Turning Torso. The Öresund Bridge also looks neat. 2. 35 goals, 100 points, 200 hits, 1 Daisuke Kanou Trophy. I never mean my expectations, though, and I'll probably see something more like 25 goals, 75 points, 150 hits. 3. I love thunderstorms when I'm sleeping. Otherwise something like mid-60's and sunny. I do also enjoy sunshowers. 1. What is your favorite part about the off-season? 2. How is your current player's career going compared to your expecations or hopes at the beginning of it? 3. How do you keep from getting burnt out on the VHL?

The Malmo Nighthawks have been one of the best regular season teams over the past four seasons, and unfortunately they can already be looking toward next season, as their playoffs came to a quick end once again. In Season 95, they will be without two mainstays of the current era, as goaltender Ash Sparks and defender Reese McFleury have both retired. For the most part, the rest of the roster is set to return. Ignoring any potential trades, there are three players who may not return. Center Randy Bobandy, who just set a career high in points, has a Player Option, so he could choose to become a free agent before what will be his final season. The two players who are already pending free agents are left wing Gregger McKeggegger and goaltender Karl Herzlich, who has been Sparks' backup for the past two seasons. That is what they could lose from their roster, but many key pieces still remain. They don't, however, have much on the pipeline to replace the losses. The only prospect they have coming up is goaltender Jorgen Lovstrom, who would likely split time with Herzlich if he sticks around. There are no forwards on tap to replace McKeggegger or Bobandy if he leaves, and no defenders coming in for the loss of McFleury. The Malmo roster is one that has been built on balance, so if they end up relying on bottom-of-the-barrel inactive free agents to fill out the roster, they might struggle. The team has traded a lot of draft picks to stay competitive, and they are not in a great position to continue doing so. They have no first or second round picks in the Season 95 or Season 96 drafts. If Bobandy hits the market and the Nighthawks are not able to make a splash in free agency, they may have a tough time staying relevant in the European Conference. Another season defying the expectations, but maybe next time we can do something in the playoffs.

In the wake of yet another early exit from the playoffs for the Malmo Nighthawks, I can't help but wonder if it's just bad luck, or if there is something in particular with the composition of the team. We have been successful in the regular season, winning two Victory Cups over the last four seasons, but the playoffs have been a completely different story. Since Season 91, we have a league-leading 0.674 winning percentage in the regular season, but this drops down to 0.211 in the playoffs. To my knowledge, the simulator does not operate differently from the regular season to the post-season. This is a simulation, not the real world; there are no intangibles. There is no clutch factor or players crumbling under the pressure. The obvious difference, however, is that in the regular season, everyone also plays against the bad teams. With that in mind, what I am more interested in is how teams have performed during the regular season against only the other playoff teams, and that's what I'll be investigating here. I am writing this with Malmo in mind, so that's where I am going to start. As you would expect, our win percentage is lower against playoff teams than the league overall. With 95 wins and 75 losses against playoff teams, Malmo does actually still top the league with a 0.559 win percentage. Not farm behind are Toronto (0.552) and London (0.547). That all makes sense, considering these are the three teams that have made the playoffs in all of those seasons. It's not just that they have been competitive this whole time, but they have had the best single seasons in terms of win percentage against playoff teams. In Season 93, Malmo went 27-13-1. Toronto this year went 28-10-5. London went 29-10-6 in Season 91. There have been seven times that a team had a win percentage over 60 percent against playoff teams; Malmo and Toronto each account for two of those. I am not digging a great deal into how well these other teams performed in the playoffs. What I do have is information on how well the Continental Cup finalists have fared during the regular season. It's fairly well known that recent Victory Cup winners have not found much success in the playoffs (Toronto is looking to put an end to that this season), but you would at least think that the teams that have been winning the playoffs were doing relatively well in the regular season. Some of them have. Seattle in Season 93 and Toronto in Season 91 had winning regular season records before going on to win it all. Add in Toronto this season, and that is the list of the conference champions who had winning regular season records against playoff teams. The other champion, the D.C. Dragons in Season 92, went 18-19-5. Notably, no European Conference representative in the finals has had a winning regular season record; and whoever wins between the Reign and the Menace will have had one of the worst in these past four seasons. Riga went 16-22-5, while Moscow went 14-22-7. Only the Season 93 Chicago Phoenix, who were not legitimate contenders, had a worse record. The point of all this is to say that Malmo can definitely compete playoff teams. In each of the last four seasons, we were better in the regular season than the teams that we lost to in the playoffs. We were better in the regular season than the European Conference champions. Yet we have not won in the playoffs. I think people may point to our lack of elite forwards or an elite goalie in the recent seasons and say that these are the things you need to win in the playoffs. They may say that's why we have struggled. That just does not sit quite right with me, though, because we have clearly shown that we can beat the other playoff teams with our more balanced roster. Maybe other teams are better at changing up their strategies for the playoffs, or maybe there is something in the sim engine that I am not aware of that says goalies play better in the playoffs but only if they have over 1000 TPE. Or maybe it's just a simple case of bad luck.

The VHL playoffs are underway, and for the Malmo Nighthawks, they are looking to win their first playoff series with their current core roster. It is their fourth straight season making the playoffs, and they have just three playoff wins in the the prior three. They will be taking on a new opponent, as the Riga Reign were the third seed to Malmo's number two. Their three previous losses have all been to teams that finished the regular season lower than them, just as Riga did this season. One difference, however, is that the Nighthawks had a losing record to the Reign. When they lost to Helsinki, London, and Moscow in the prior three seasons, they had winning regular season records against each of them. The games between Malmo and Riga were close, mostly. Four of the games were won by a single goal, while Malmo had a 5-2 win. Four of the games took place in the final third of the season, and the lone early game, a Malmo win, happened before Riga's roster had become what it is today. I am taking a look at some of the best performers in the match-ups between these two teams. Malmo Nighthawks best performers @comrade cat @DarkSpyro For the Nighthawks, the best performers were Ash Sparks and Savaisk Tzesar. Tzesar, who should be in the discussion for the Boulet Trophy this season, put his two-way play on display against the Reign. In the five games, Tzesar had four goals and 27 hits. The Nighthawk netminder Ash Sparks continued to defy expectations as he was one of the best this season, and Riga made him work. Sparks allowed 12 goals in total while facing over 40 shots-per-game. He gave Malmo a chance in ever game, with a 0.941 save percentage overall against the Reign. Riga Reign best performers @Lemorse7 @Alex Sparks' Riga counterpart, Red Panda, also did well in the match-ups between these two teams. Panda had a 0.934 save percentage on the 36.2 shots-per-game. It was defender Skor McFleury, however, who really carried Riga against the Nighthawks. Playing for his fifth team in five seasons, McFleury has had another incredible year. He set a new personal best in goals scored, topping his previous best by ten. His goal-scoring ability was on display against the Nighthawks, as he scored five of Riga's goals, while also assisting on three others.

1. No, not please why my performance. All of my numbers except goals were down. I came into this season needing to average just over 92 points per season to reach a point-per-game career, and with just 76 points this season, now I need 201 points in my final two seasons to get there. It was already unlikely enough. 2. I don't game too much these days, to be honest. Most of my gaming is done on the Switch, but I do have a laptop that can run some less intense games. 3. Well, thanks for that now I've gone and checked out the Steam Summer Sale and picked up a couple games. As someone whose favorite video game of all time is Mega Man X, I do enjoy platformers so I picked up Celeste for $2. I also saw Cities: Skylines for $8. I've seem stuff about this game, and I used to enjoy Sim City games so I've decided to pick this up and give it a try. If you're a Harry Potter fan, maybe Hogwarts Legacy for 60% off is worth checking out? 1. Who are you rooting for in each league's playoffs? 2. How much do you actually care about success in the VHLM? 3. What would you think if you saw someone taking a cat for a walk?

1. I would've said this if I answered earlier in the week as well, but I didn't actually like our chances down the stretch. Other teams near the top of the standings had much easier schedules remaining. While I don't think we are mathematically eliminated, we have no shot now even if we go undefeated, but that's fine. I have enough Victory Cups for my career. I'm only concerned about playoff success right now. 2. At this point, we have five games left. Based on their current pace, they won't. We have had some big games, so it is possible. I think it would take big games against D.C. With two against them, we see something like 7 or 8 points in those two games. Then it would just take 3-5 points in the remaining three games against Riga and Moscow. Not impossible, but being realistic about it, I don't think either will make it. 3. I gotta go with Savaisk Tzesar. Just looking at the Super Coach rosters, they were only selected by four people and of course, three of those rosters are in the top five. And the other is at 13th. 4. Simple answer? Yes. In some sense of the word, I do believe in ghosts. I don't really have strong conviction in that belief, as my beliefs are more rooted in my perception, but I do believe that ghosts could exist. 5. It'll take some big games for any of them to reach it, at this point. But that's also just not the way this team has been built for a while. We haven't seen a 100-point season, even when we led the league in goals. 6. Don't really care, to be honest. I don't follow the NHL outside of the Minnesota Wild at all, really.

The future of the team USA defense is also pretty nuts. Here are our S93 and S94 defenders and their rank in TPE among defenders in their draft class Lucy Leitner (1st, S93) Gul Dukat (2nd, S93) Benjamin Abenduct (3rd, S94) Jillian Woods (1st, S94) Felicia Hardy (2nd, S94) Lazlo Holmes (4th, S94) 82/83 had an elite core of Torq, Payne and Thunder. Then we were weak from 84 to 86, but that didn't matter because we had McFleury/Stone/Calaway to come in and carry the way as the new elite core. We are relatively weak from 89 to 92 but we have the above all coming up to take over. We could legitimately see at the S100 World Cup, two defenders not make the Team USA roster even though they would be #1 on most other teams.

This is likely a preview to a future article that I intend to write (which will have more data and will include Super Coach as well), but for now, I just want to highlight which users have been the best at the VHFL over the last ten seasons. Listed here are all of the members who have participated in at least 5 of the last 10 VHFL seasons and have averaged a placement of 2.0 or better. These are undoubtedly some of the best performers in the VHL. Most of them are among the best Super Coach performers as well, which makes sense. 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th @leandrofg 4 5 1 @STZ 4 4 1 @Arce 4 3 1 @CowboyinAmerica 4 1 1 @Ahma 3 4 3 @kirbithan 3 4 1 @MetalToday 3 1 1 @cLoWn 3 1 1 The only user on this list who is on track to win their group this season is cLoWn. She is leading what might be one of the toughest groups in recent history, as it includes both leandrofg and kirbithan. There is one weaker competitor in the group and one first-timer, but @Advantage is also in the group and he does have an average placement of 2.0 in 4 seasons of play. One thing that I want to look at in particular is highlighting some of the most difficult VHFL groups in recent history, based on the members of the group. Group 9 of this season will likely be among the best, though I do wonder if there has ever been a group where all six members average 3rd place or better on several VHFL seasons. Some of the others on the above list are not participating in the VHFL this season. STZ, Arce, and MetalToday are all absent. CowboyinAmerica is currently second in his group, though he is close enough to potentially take the win. Ahma will almost certainly finish 3rd in his group.

The Season 92 World Cup saw Team USA return to the Gold Medal game for the first time since the Season 82 competition. The end result was the same, as the team had to settle for another silver medal. This brought the gold medal drought to seven tournaments, just one shy of the longest stretch for the team. Team USA will obviously look to avoid extending that streak to record levels in the upcoming World Cup. The majority of the second place roster from two years ago should be locks to return, but there will be several new faces looking to make an impact. With several weeks to go before the off-season, there is time yet for roster hopefuls to solidify their chances. Of course, this is all purely speculation about the roster for the upcoming tournament and is in no way official. Defense stays in tact @Alex @Beketov @Garsh Perhaps the biggest story line for Team USA will be the return of all four defenders. The trio of Skor McFleury, Jacob Stone, and Mark Calaway are among the best players in the league. Having them all together instantly makes the team contenders once again. For McFleury and Stone, it will be the third time playing with Team USA. Kronchy Kardashian should round out what is undoubtedly the best defense in the tournament. Although not at the same level as the others, Kardashian would easily be the second or third best defender on any other team. Needless to say, this unit will tough for teams to deal with and should make things a bit easier for the new faces that will be minding the net for the stars and stripes. The future is now in net @Spartan @BrutalBoost Team USA had the duo of Jesse Teno and Matt Murdock as their goalies last time around, but they both retired after Season 93. Luckily for the team, they have one of the best young goalies stepping in. Playing in his third season with the Moscow Menace, Olober Syko is on the fast track to being a star. His numbers have not been elite, but he has the skills to be the best. Although the backup goalie likely will not see much play, if any, the most likely candidate will be Joseph Reed. Reed is already familiar with the role of Syko's backup, as he has also been with Moscow for each of the past three seasons. Last chance for three forwards @Ricer13 @v.2 @ke1vi Not many players get the chance to represent their country in the World Cup, but Daryl Dixon and Mac Atlas will have that opportunity for Team USA. Having won a bronze in Season 88 and a silver in Season 92, they look to finally win that coveted gold in what will be their final World Cup appearance. They are two of the best offensive players in the league, having the best season of their careers. Team USA will also feature the current season leader in points and goals, as Atlas's long-time Toronto teammate Jimi Jaks will make his third appearance on the international big stage. With these three leading the way, if the team can get production from the rest of the forwards, Team USA will have a highly formidable offense. Finals spots up in the air @emidas @Scurvy @badcolethetitan @ScottyP @Smarch @Berocka The other three forwards to make the roster will likely be first-timers, and there are several potential players to fill the void. I see six potential candidates for the final three spots, though one of them is far less likely than the others. Lucas Grey is that one. He was with the team in Season 92, but the other five names are better players, which will likely make Grey the only currently active player to lose their spot on the team. I think the favorites to make the roster are Logan Ninefingers, George Richmond, and Rip Wheeler. For Wheeler, this might be his best chance to play for Team USA. Ninefingers and Richmond should be staples on the roster for years to come. Riley Martin and Gustav Mattias may be looked at for the roster this season, but even if they do not make it now, their time will come.

Strange, I'm on the 1 TPE list but I want more than that.