S78 Riga - New Year, Same Results

[tcookie 934]

Halfway through another VHL season, the Riga Reign are still waiting for everything to come together.

 

"It sucks," says winger Addison McLaren of the team's struggles for a second consecutive season. "You know, the first year we were all up here we knew it was going to be a challenge, we knew we were a younger team just learning the ropes. Now we have so much talent here and back-to-back seasons we're struggling to even be as good as that first year. It's tough on all of us. We want to be better. We should be better."

 

Yet the Reign sit here again, sixth in the European Conference, three points behind Malmo for the final playoff spot when, at least on paper, they are a top-3 or 4 team in the conference.

 

A couple of seasons ago, Calvin Harvey was the team's saving grace in net. This year, in addition to constant reports that this might be his final VHL season, he's struggled to an 0.903 SV% and has been pulled several times. The Reign have allowed the fourth-most goals in the league. While the play of Cabe McJake (25 goals, 52 points), Linus Zetterstrom (12 goals, 51 points), and Justin Lose (20 goals, 47 points) has provided some glimmer of light for an offense that strugled mightily last year, the Reign are simply not getting enough throughout the lineup. For all of the talent in their lineup, they are a middle-of-the-pack offensive team.

 

Yes, it's been better as of late. But it's the same story as last season for the team's frustrated players and fans, where the Reign never recovered from a slow start, playing slightly better as the season went on but never gaining enough momentum to make a charge up the standings, and ultimately missing the playoffs by a point.

 

McLaren's on pace for a career year of his own, but more by default. He's finally getting top minutes and as a result his production has increased, though at a still fairly disappointing 33 points in 38 games (14 goals). McLaren's third in the VHL in hits with 175, just behind last season's Boulet award winner, Groovy Dood and then a bit further behind Malmo sophomore Druss Deathwalker. Ultimately, though, while the Reign know what they are getting from McLaren and that physicality is part of the deal, it's a third straight season where the offense isn't there and criticisms of McLaren's lofty draft position due to that sometimes-questioned offensive upside are being realized.

 

Are changes coming in Riga? Most of the Reign's top S75 players signed three-year extensions in the off-season, signalling some sort of commitment to continuing to build around them. McJake is the lone exception, having only signed on for one year. But with that group once again struggling, its possible that faith in the core is starting to be shaken.

 

"When I got drafted here, it was somewhere I wanted to spend my entire career and that hasn't changed. But, you have to understand the business side as a player. When you don't perform, at some point, things change. It's up to this group really, we have to either get things going or go through what we went through last season once again," says McLaren. "At some point you can't fault the GM for making moves when something's not working, right? I hate that we're in this position again. We lost some guys from the room that we didn't want to lose at the trade deadline last year and here we are again. We just need to start winning games."

Edited June 7, 2021 by tcookie

[SlapshotWrangler 864]

Review: One of the things that stood out to me was the use of Riga Reign orange (probably not the name of the colour) in order to make player quotes stand out and I thought it was a really nice touch. I typically tend to write a crap ton of words and not include many visuals but that few bits of colour are still very eye-catching. I like how you progressed the "story" and your paragraphs are broken up at a good rate. The paragraph sizes are not too little that it's sorta confusing but also not to large that it's tedious and hard to read. You show some great choice of words here and I really enjoyed this article. 10/10.