The Mexico City Enigma

[Grape 739]

For those who haven’t been paying attention to the VHLM, Mexico City went on a ludicrous 16-0 start to the season. They’ve slowed down slightly, now sitting at 20-4-0, with Mississauga a point behind them, with a record of 18-3-3. We’ve all seen superteams in the VHLM before, so what makes these two teams different from those juggernauts in the past? Well, that’s a pretty simple question to answer. Mexico City and Mississauga are not superteams, Mexico City especially.

 

The Forwards

One could make the case that, at least on the forwards side of things, Mississauga does constitute as a superteam, being statistically the highest rated in the league; but for Mexico City, they’re nowhere near the top.

As it can be seen, Mexico City is 6th in the league in terms of forward strength, below average statistically, yet they lead the league in goals for. Perhaps the answer lies with the defensive groups?

 

The Defensemen

The saying goes “The best offense is a good defense”, and the best way to have a good defense is to have good defensemen. Let’s see how Mexico City’s and Mississauga’s defense groups stack up with the rest of the league.

Look at that: Mississauga and Mexico City both have below average defense groups, being 6th and 7th respectively. Alright, so the answer for Mississauga at least is that they’re simply going all offense, no defense, and winning games like that, right? Well, not necessarily. Mississauga is actually 2nd in goals against, with 66, only behind Ottawa. And guess who’s 3rd. That’s right, it’s Mexico City, sitting with 68 goals against. So what’s the answer? Why are these two teams, Mexico City especially, doing so well compared to the other teams? Well, let’s take a bit of a deeper dive.

The Lineups

I think it would be best to visualize the lineup through the lens of TPA. Let’s observe Mexico City’s lineup in their most recent game:

66 - 200 - 200

200 - 104 - 85

200 - 200 - 84

200 - 72 - 85
 

And on defense:

140 - 0

0 - 0

140 - 0

0 - 0
 

Alright, so their forward lines are organized in a way to have a balanced approach, which keeps all lines scoring, but what about on defense? They’re running 3 bots, yet have a top 3 goals against? Well, while those defensive bots get plenty of ice time, this team is still able to play sound defense and put up a lot of goals in the process. Let’s take a look at Mississauga’s lineup now:
 

192 - 125 - 199
195 - 155 - 195
192 - 125 - 199
195 - 155 - 195

And defensively:

200 - 0
200 - 0
200 - 0
200 - 0
 

So, again, forward lines take a bit of a more balanced approach (although with most players way up there in TPA, stacking the top line and being balanced would look nearly the same). On defense though, only 1 bot is getting a good chunk of ice time, opposed to 3. We can try to find reason by looking at the strategies of both teams. Mexico City runs a 0-1-4 (0 physical, 1 defense, 4 offense), while Mississauga runs the 0-2-3. Mexico City’s strategy prioritizes offense to make up for their weakness on the blue line, whereas Mississauga goes a more balanced approach, making them lean more on their one defenseman and bot pair. So, both teams go with different strategies, yet have somewhat similar team composition, so why are these teams succeeding?

Simon

The simplest answer is, Simon does what Simon wants. The reality of the league is that practically nobody, not even the GMs that claim that they do, know how STHS works. If lines that should be working aren’t working, you throw logic out the window and put everything in a blender, and huzzah, your team is suddenly playing super well. Last season in the VHLM, I saw defensemen as highly valuable. Teams who had top tier defenses, even when paired with lackluster forward groups, were way more dominant than the inverse. This season, it seems that defensemen aren’t necessarily a significant need, and that balanced forward lines are the way to win, for now. While we may never know the perfect strategy for STHS, I can safely say that it will be different every single season.

(710 words)