Malmo cruise to post season with 1st place EU finish

[Telkster 550]

Intro

       Its been another great year for the Nighthawks who have clinched the post season for the 5th straight year, which is an achievement that @Dom should be very happy with. However this was no easy grabbing of the reigns. Malmo needed a core shakeup in the offseason for a number of reasons, whether is was the cap, players retiring, players leaving, or just an upgrade that was needed. The Nighthawks had a small rough start to the year going 0-5-0. The rest of the year for them after was a bit of history in the making, as they finished the year off with a 52-18-2 record. The only team to finish higher was the Vancouver Wolves with a borderline insane record of 58-12-2. Now personally I am no stats and records expert, but Malmo was very close to getting every single skater a point per game or more. Just how close exactly? Give Kevin Wu 3 more points, and the Nighthawks would have achieved this. Despite Vancouver having a better record, and scoring 60 more times then the Hawks this year. Even they couldn't come quite as close to doing it then the Nighthawks did. It really is a thing of awe and beauty if you look at the player stats of this years Nighthawks, and I think it shows just how much of a team effort it was this year. 

 

Stellar Production

     It starts with Telker, who was 3 points shy of having a personal best season with 121 points. Mourning came into this year like a man on a mission with 107 points for this 3rd year winger. That smashes his previous season of just 34 points. Welch was acquired in the offseason, and I'm sure dom is already getting a tattoo for that trade titled "no ragrets". Welch lead the blueline in scoring with 106 points. Eso also came in with a trade during the offseason, and probably played a 1st line role for most of the year. things clicked nicely and he ended up with a career high 98 points. I remember in a previous article saying that Deathwalker could see a points increase this year, due to the shake up in offense and more core players needing to step up. Druss did this to a T, getting a season best 88 points, all well beating his personal best for hits at the same time. Minion came in as a more seasoned rookie then most. Despite this, expectations were nowhere near what he did this year with 87 points in his rookie year.
 

      Sosa has been probably the most consistent player for Malmo in the past few years, and despite playing a more secondary type role this year, He put up 86 points which is very close to a career best. Kaberle had his second best year points wise, with 77 for Scotty's retirement year. Wu has been a faithful Malmo player for years. and despite no longer upgrading since way back in september, his "ghost" still represented him well with a career high 69 points. Thunder was the newest addition to the team just before the halfway point to the season. He had 58 points in just 46 games, but if you add up the first few games with Riga that he had, it's a career high points season for Matt Thunder. Tretiak had a solid year of 43-18-2, while holding a .917 SV%. Carson was one of the stories of the year for Malmo as a backup. He went 9-0-0 with a .915 SV%. and a 2.36 GAA which is nuts considering how high the scoring was this season. 

 

    Thats it for this week hawks! sorry for the big pause inbetween media spots, but the free tpe was too tempting to take the past few weeks. Can't wait to battle alongside you all this playoffs!!

 

players mentioned: @animal74 @TMGSosa @Minion @Eso @scoop @fromtheinside @Juice @kevinscix @Matt thunder @jacobcarson877 @Molholt

About 600 ish words

Edited January 2, 2022 by Telkster
Cleaning up paragraph length

[fromtheinside 1,290]

Let's get one last 'ship!