A Tale of Two Draft Classes

[CowboyinAmerica 2,917]

 

Two Number One Picks, But Much Different Eras

 

In the S80 Draft, Xavier Booberry went first overall to the Helsinki Titans. This is a great honor, and one I certainly don’t take lightly. I also know the pressure that comes with that high draft position, though, because it’s the second time one of my players was taken first overall—the first was with the Seattle Bears, who selected Gabriel McAllister first in the S56 Draft.

 

My run-up to the two drafts was fairly similar: Booberry had 357 TPE at draft time, McAllister had 313 due to a slightly shorter season. And while McAllister certainly had more team success in the VHLM, winning a Founder’s Cup with Saskatoon as part of two straight McAllister Playoff MVP runs, Booberry’s regular season VHLM MVP speaks to the success he had in his one full season as well.

 

That’s why I thought it’d be fun to compare those two drafts, placing them side-by-side. But I think I forgot… well, just how much the VHL has changed in just 24 seasons. Take a quick look at this chart, then let’s break it down:

 

Draft Spot	S80 Player	TPE at Draft		S56 Player	TPE at Draft	Ending TPE
1	Xavier Booberry	357		Gabriel McAllister	313	1613
2	Matty Fire	350		Ay Ay Ron	236	771
3	Saku Kotkakoivu	352		Sergei Komarov	126	862
4	Oskar Lindbergh	287		Aackckqz Ky	216	270
5	Kyle Peace	324		Matthieu Bourdon	116	340
6	Corey Kitson	355		Ho Lee Fook	113	120
7	David Davis	286		Igor Mjers	54	70
8	Alessandro Nano	293		Kristjan Härmä	56	???
9	Vinny Detroit	366		Aeschylus Jigglejawns CXXXVIII	108	108
10	Hari Singh Nalwa	313		Mr. Shakedown	30	???
11	Nils Godlander	185		Emil Martinov	78	82
12	Logain Ablar	249		Augustus Gloop	58	201
13	Florida Man	222		Spicey	61	???
14	Zach Kisslinger II	246		VHLM Forever	72	72
15	Sven Eightnine	264		Brienne O'Tarth	67	128
16	Ryan Vidot	233		Jabby McFullO'Schmidt	59	71

 

The Good: That’s two Hall of Fame players leading the S56 Draft there! In addition to McAllister, Ay Ay Ron was Boubabi’s second player, at a time when multiple players were still a thing in the VHL. Ay Ay Ron was designed to be the defenseman counterpart to his already dominating Franchise Cornerstone at center, and both would go on to win a number of awards throughout their careers. And although not a Hall of Fame player, Gooningitup’s Komarov would have a solid career as an enforcer in Davos, still sitting in the franchise’s top ten all-time in both hits and shots blocked.

 

The Bad: Let’s start with the fourth selection in the draft and explain who he was. Tagger’s secondary player, Aackckqz Ky, was an attempt to make a randomly-generated player. Literally every TPE that he received, he would go to Random.org to decide what attribute he would assign it to. At retirement, the defenseman had 56 in face-offs, 67 in penalty shot and 64 in leadership. This was the fourth overall pick in the draft. And he’s not considered an out-and-out, total bust in this class!

 

Given that, Bourdon certainly provides at least some value—he played seven VHL seasons in total, bouncing between Seattle, Quebec City, Riga and New York in journeyman career. He even managed 69 points in his next-to-last season with the Americans. The undisputed steal of this draft, 12th pick Augustus Gloop (a second rounder in the 10 team league), only managed three VHL seasons, but somehow managed to win two titles with S58 Riga and S60 Helsinki.

 

The Ugly: So let’s start here: Will’s secondary player, Ho Lee Fook was drafted sixth overall at 113 TPE. That would have placed him 39th among the Season 80 Draft class. Fook, by the way, would earn exactly 7 more TPE and would retire without playing a VHL game. You can say the same for secondary players from currently active members, such as IR’s Mjers or Muffins’ Jigglejawns, who straight up fell off the map despite nominally being first round picks. Indeed, it’s not hard to see why the two player experiment in the VHL failed overall. Trying to get TPE for two players caused most members to fall off the map (or in Boubabi’s case, banned).

 

But even the first generation players didn’t offer much. A few had very brief spells in the VHL, such as 15th pick Brienne O’Tarth who had a few cups of coffee as a backup goalie. But even the depth pieces of this draft didn’t provide any depth at all, making any draft picks after roughly fifth overall effectively meaningless. Considering four of the next five picks after that point were acquired via trade, that’s not great.

 

And then there’s three players that for their final totals, I have question marks. That’s because, when I tried to find their player pages via the S56 Draft, I was told that I don’t have permission to view them. I’ll assume this is because they made absolutely zero impact in the VHL and were eaten by the system immediately, or perhaps they were taken to a VHL Black Site and forced into labor to build the eventual Moscow stadium.

 

My Takeaways: It’s clear how much the VHL has changed in the past 24 seasons, clearly for the better. The S56 Draft was a down season by any measure, but by standards of the time, it wasn’t absolutely unreasonable. The second overall pick of the S55 Draft had 109 TPE at draft time; the S57 Draft had more depth but only two players above 200 TPE at the draft. Those numbers were somewhat expected. And while the S80 Draft is a stronger than draft than normal, I don’t think it’s seen as outrageous on the other end of the spectrum. The expectations have changed.

 

That’s why for me, I might say that my first overall with Booberry is even more fulfilling than my one with McAllister. There is clearly more competition in today’s VHL than there was 24 seasons ago, which excites me. It may end meaning that Booberry’s career isn’t as prolific, given the talent he’s now competing against. But that’s just fine by me, because I’ll take a healthy and competitive VHL over three-player draft classes any day.

Edited September 28, 2021 by CowboyinAmerica

[CowboyinAmerica 2,917]

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review: Hey-o Booberry, your future teammate Ori here! This was a really cool media spot to read through and it's fun to hear from some who's been around the league for at least 24 seasons (I don't know how far back you go). I can see you put a lot of work into this, looking up the old S56 draft not just for one of your previous players but also including others and comparing that to the S80 draft, it's really cool to see. I like that you sorted it into the good, the bad and the ugly along with takeaways, makes it easy to read and follow. Very effective use of bold and underlining as well, and the picture is a complete bonus. 10/10