My S66 Dream Team

[Gustav 6,472]

GOOD EVENING VHL! Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

 

As many of you may know from the times I've mentioned it in my articles, I joined our lovely little community back in S65, with my first player coming in the S66 draft class. I've focused a few articles on things surrounding that time of mine in the league, from my first-ever mock draft featuring my own rookie class to two of my Hall of Not Bad articles about players who were stars in my rookie season to countless amounts of media created on the current state of things over my first career as a whole. What I've never done, though, is a look back at what made S66 as great as it was. At the time, it was almost unheard of that an article such as this one featuring a full lineup would be possible to take from any single class, and though we've seen more impressive classes since, this was one of the first that ever lived up to our modern standard. I'm hoping that some members who weren't around to see these players will recognize a few names--and even if not, learn a few things. 

 

Let's take a look at my best possible 6-4-2 lineup entirely from S66, and hope that it's as fun for you as it is for me.

 

 

**denotes HoF player

 

 

FORWARDS

 

Julius Freeman**

@rjfryman | 2nd overall | Vancouver Wolves

 

Freeman shocked a few pundits by going second overall as a first-gen player, but lived up to the pick well enough to be named the best player of the class in my longest article ever. Though this could be seen as a somewhat controversial pick (as it's very close between Freeman and our next player), Freeman would lead the league in goals three times and provide an important piece of the puzzle for Vancouver in S67, when the team would break a long championship drought and finally give @Beaviss a Cup as GM. 

 

Jet Jaguar**

@gorlab | 10th overall | Moscow Menace

 

Jaguar is the other co-contender for best in show, and it is close--leading the league in points in S70 in a season that would take a groundbreaking Moscow team to the Cup, he would also make the Hall of Fame on the first ballot with a career that, like Freeman's, would add a scary two-way dimension later on. Jaguar's career is perfectly indicative of how times have changed--a new player might never see this as impressive, but his career-high 97 points in S70 was amazing for S70, and those fortunate enough to experience a full career from gorlab generally didn't regret it. Jaguar's mark on the league would be left mainly in Moscow, but also for a season and a half on my Davos teams, and with 645 points at the end, certainly amounted to one of the defining careers of the dead puck era.

 

Hunter Hearst Helmsley**

@Beaviss | 1st overall | Riga Reign

 

At the time one of the best earners ever, and at the time of the draft one of the most hyped prospects ever, it was always taken as a given that HHH would be something special. So much so, in fact, that this eventual HoFer's not-entirely-unimpressive early career with the Reign was often written off as a failure. Upon movement to Beav's own team in Vancouver, though, HHH would take off, becoming one of the league's best on both ends of the ice for the bulk of his career. He would never win a championship, but put up an especially defining S71 in which he led the league in points (88) and win the league's top two-way forward award. Also, though a shade under our other two in points, he's the only one here to break 100, with 113 put up in a final season spent in Warsaw. 

 

Mikko Aaltonen

@GRZ | 4th overall | Riga Reign

 

Aaltonen's once max-earning agent had some people worried after dropping into welfare+ territory after a while (in fact, I remembered completely falsely that Aaltonen was a post-draft inactive bust), but it turned out that this was nothing to worry about as this was where the player's earning would remain fairly consistently. One might expect a 4th-overall player to have a higher ceiling, but the floor is always entirely inactive, no matter the pick, and this wasn't the case here. Moving to DC after just two seasons, Aaltonen would be cursed with mostly bad teams and mostly negative +/- ratings throughout a full VHL career, but managed to break 500 points on the way to becoming one of the most underrated players that this class had to offer.

 

Mat Tocco

@Matmenzinger | 31st overall | Moscow Menace

 

In some old drafts, finding a player who was active enough to make it at even 10th overall could be a challenge, but Tocco at #31 would put up 435 points and earn exactly 1000 TPE in an 8-season career spent mostly with Moscow. Yet another player with a strong S73 (93 points), I'd also put Tocco in the "underrated" category as a low-1st-high-2nd-liner on a handful of decent teams and a S70 championship winner.

 

Codrick Past

@Kylrad | 13th overall | HC Davos Dynamo

 

Starting out on defense, Past did the opposite of many others on this list by being drafted to not-Riga and moving to Riga later on. Mostly a quiet welfare earner, Past would be consistent enough to contribute to two championship teams and would even put up an 88-point season in S73. In total, Past would put up 377 points and live up to the expectations of an early 2nd-rounder for a whole career.

 

 

DEFENSE

 

Apollo Hackett

@Renomitsu | 16th overall | Riga Reign

 

Riga is heavily involved in this article, and this pick is no exception--Hackett is the first Riga pick here to actually stay with Riga for a whole (in this case 7-season) career. Though never winning an individual award, I remember that he was at least nominated for something at some point, and he ended up winning a Cup in S72 as part of a scary combo with eventual HoFer Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen. Curiously, this crazy-good dead-puck-era draft class doesn't have a single HoFer on defense (reeeeeeeeee) but Hackett was instantly recognizable in his time and was the closest anyone got.

 

Charlie Paddywagon

@DMaximus  | 6th overall | HC Davos Dynamo

 

Another top first-gen earner in the S66 class, Paddywagon would go on to break 1450 TPE between two teams--first Davos, then Calgary, and then back to Davos for his last season, becoming the third player on this list to play for a team I managed. Though never anything close to a goal-scorer (his career high, 11, was achieved three different times), and never a player who showed up on leaderboards, I like to think that a player of this caliber TPE-wise was good enough to show up off the stat sheet. At least, I hope so, because our next player was also a hot first-gen and an underachieving defenseman who happened to play for Davos in S73...

 

Jerry Garcia

@Gustav  | 7th overall | Malmo Nighthawks

 

...yep, that's me. There's actually room for debate on where Garcia goes on this list, and I say as much between him and Paddywagon in this article where I establish that (at the time) he was easily the worst player to ever hit 1500 TPE. Because of that designation, though, I think he gets put down in third. It's also hard to evaluate Jerry because he had a couple good seasons at forward in Davos (!) but it feels a bit unfair to compare offensive stats in that respect. In total, Jerry would put up 420 points (coincidence?) and at least had his name brought up enough by me to be recognizable--though not much else.

 

Dean Clarke

@Kyle | 51st overall | Moscow Menace

 

It's super interesting to think that a veteran member of the league, who's gone 1st overall in the distant past, would drop to #51--and then proceed to make a mildly successful career out of it--but here we are. Clarke got off to a very slow start with a season spent in the minors and another that amounted to 8 points, but he would block at least 100 shots in all but one season and would be part of Moscow's Cup team in S70. In all, Clarke put up 7 seasons with Moscow and was a quality component to their run of success.

 

 

GOALERS

 

Owen May

@FacebookFighter | 11th overall | Moscow Menace

 

Look, another Moscow pick! Unfortunately, this draft wasn't able to produce a top-level goaltender, but May was one who showed a great deal of promise up until the draft hit. He would go inactive a season or so after, but served as Moscow's first-ever starter and helped the team tough out three seasons before moving elsewhere. For an inactive player, May would enjoy an impressive amount of action, starting for both Toronto and Prague through S70 before regression hit and he was relegated to backup roles. Somehow, he would make it a full 8 seasons on VHL rosters, gathering 124 wins and a SV% of .908.

 

Kolur Bjoernsson

@jblock3 | 49th overall | Helsinki Titans

 

Another inactive player who found a place as a journeyman, Bjoernsson was exclusively a backup and was entirely unimpressive on the stat sheet. That said, there's one interesting thing I'd like to bring up--he was a part of 6 different organizations and only ended up with one team for more than one season once. So yes, he didn't do much, but he brought "at least we don't have a bot" to many different places and likely handed a win or two to a team who needed one.

 

 

Hopefully this wasn't just interesting for me! It was special to be part of the S66 class, and if you weren't there, I wish you could have been. 

 

1,657 words | 3 weeks

[jblock3 44]

Nice to see a Bjoernsson mention haha in S66 he helped bring the Reapers their first championship and won the VHLM top goaltender award that season. I then promptly went inactive and just recently made my return!

[Gustav 6,472]

Week 2

[Gustav 6,472]

And Week 3! How convenient