Thoughts on Malmo's season

[animal74 1,616]

Well, as I’m trying to finalize another Game 7 Stories VSN article, I thought I’d put some thoughts out on the season so far.

 

It’s my first season as a recreate rookie and while I had the drive to build up towards the draft, it’s been more difficult to keep that momentum IRL for the season. Malmo has been doing about as well as the pundits expected as we are tied for the final playoff spot (5^th) in the European Conference with Davos after 29 games with six points separating us from 4^th place and four point separating us from last. Every game is important.

 

I think the Nighthawks are slowly gelling on and off the ice. Chris Hylands, of course, is playing out of his mind but Arthur Dayne has been quietly fantastic as well. The rest of our forwards need to pick it up on both ends of the ice if we want to compete for the playoffs. We are one goal out of being the worst-scoring team in the league – not helpful for playoff chances. One area of specific concern is our production in the third period. We are far and away the worst-scoring team in the last frame having only lit the lamp 18 times. Comebacks are not our thing, I guess. We are also one of the worst face-off teams.

 

Our defense has really become a solid unit especially offensively. It hurts to have lost a leader such as Frostbeard but the leagues leader in fights, Randy Marsh, has fit in well and added a different element to our backend. Kamenov is having a fine season as he’s third on the team in points and is among the league leaders in shots blocked. Conversely, Wakaro is among the leaders for power play goals.

 

Our goalies have come back to earth a bit after a scorching start but both Artem Tretiak and Woody McPine have kept us in games and given us a chance to win especially in shootouts where we are 2^nd in the VHL with 4 shootout wins. It’s nice to see McPine putting up career-high stats albeit in a backup role.

 

Special teams have not been great for us. We need to work a lot on our power play as it’s the 3^rd worst in the VHL clicking at only 16.9%. We also have 6^th worst PK despite having the second fewest penalty minutes. Maybe we need to take more penalties so we can practice our system more?

 

While we may not score, we’re tough to play against. Malmo has the 4^th most hits in the league. We have three players with over 90 hits so far and Marsh has come in crushing opponents at a rate of almost 5 a game.

 

What I guess I’m trying to say is that the Nighthawks, for all their flaws, still play hard and work together as a team to get wins. We aren’t the flashiest or have a team full of stars, but you can bet on a tough game and we have lots of positives and those are growing and we’re going to scrape and claw for that playoff spot. With a lot of prospects and a lot of high picks in the next few years, Malmo is a young team to keep in your sights because if you don’t, we’ll pass you and leave you in our dust.  

 

Players Mentioned: @Hylands @Infernal @FrostBeard @oilmandan @BigTittySmitty @Snussu @Molholt @HearnNation67

 

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by animal74

[oilmandan 686]

6 hours ago, animal74 said:

but the leagues leader in fights, Randy Marsh, has fit in well and added a different element to our backend

Gotta love that old time hockey