Davos S79: Defeat or Defiance?

[KC15 340]

Davos Eliminated from the Playoffs – Defeat or Defiance?

 

Well, the Davos Dynamo is over having been knocked out of the playoffs by the Malmo Nighthawks. No doubt that was a difficult day in the Davos locker room. Let’s face it, every player wants to win. Every game. Every night. And hockey players live to lift that Cup. What was it that the baseball genius Billy Beane said – at least in the movie version of Moneyball? “If you lose the last game of the season, nobody gives a sh*t.” I get it. From one perspective, if the goal is to win the Cup and you don’t win the Cup, you have failed in your goal 100%.

 

So, now that we’ve had time to reflect, are the Dynamo players down in the dumps and sulking in a corner? NO! We have our heads held high and are proud of our S79 achievements and look forward to S80. Because Billy isn’t really right. It’s not all or nothing. You can fail in your ultimate goal and still feel good about your progress and your achievements. So, let’s take a look at those.

 

Massive Improvement

 

Playoff Success

 

First of all, let’s just put this most important fact out there on the table. Davos went to the playoffs. Doesn’t sound remarkable, does it? But what if I tell you that was the first time since S73? That means a drought of 5 full seasons without a sniff of the playoffs. Ending that drought matters. Alot.

 

Once there, Davos didn’t fold like a house of cards, but kept on skating well. We took down the Prague Phantoms handily in the first round 3 games to 1 earning a well-deserved first playoff win for our incredible GM @GustavMattias.

 

And then on to take on the Malmo Nighthawks, one of the biggest powerhouse teams of the VHL. Did Davos shrink from the daunting task at hand? No, my friend, they did not. Davos, a team that had not played a playoff game in 5 seasons, took the mighty Nighthawks to 6 games. Bet Malmo was sweating.

 

Regular Season Success

 

Ok, apart from playing well enough to make the playoffs, how did Davos do in S79. Orders of magnitude better than they did in S78. In S78, Davos went 26-40-6. Their 58 points was worth last place in the European Conference and only better than the poor Vancouver Wolves who only managed 53 points. In contrast, Davos posted a record of 35-30-7 in S79. Their 77 points (19 better than S78) propelled them to 4^th place out of 8 in the European Conference.

 

A big part of their success was their ability to cut their goals for vs. goals against differential by 38 points (-55 in S78 vs. -17 in S79). This was accomplished by both scoring more goals and allowing fewer from the one season to the next. In S78, the Dynamo allowed 242 goals and scored only 187. In S79, they cut their goals against down to 227 and broke the 200 goal mark netting the puck 210 times.

 

To the Future!

 

In just about every single way, the Dynamo performed remarkably better in S79. This is thanks to some really key veteran acquisitions and a developing youth contingent. The future looks bright as those veterans have already resigned and the younger players just continue to get that much better.

 

Better enjoy your time at the top, Malmo. It may be short-lived.

 

575 words

 

Edited September 6, 2021 by KC15

[Bobo 514]

This is one of the best looking articles I've seen in a good bit, no lie. The font utilization and variations in formatting is something you don't see everyday outside of official outlets such as VSN (or my old news source, VHT). It's crazy how you managed to capture such a sad point in a player's career, and make it seem optimistic. It's impressive, really. I like the punctuation too–from the long dashes, to proper sentence structure–it's masterful. You write very well, and format just as well. I do notice a few minor errors dealing with some font sizes needing to be changed/few grammatical errors. Overall, well executed article.

 

FINAL REVIEW: 9.3/10