VSN Presents: 30 Seasons of Failure, The New York Americans Story

[Alex 3,248]

@v.2

 

It’s season 60, the New York Americans are in the Continental Cup finals for the first time since their back-to-back cups in seasons 52 and 53, game 7, and the American’s come out firing on all cylinders and outshot Helsinki 34-19. However, that wasn’t enough as Helsinki would hang on for a 3-1 win with Franchise Cornerstone scoring the Cup clinching goal. Little did New York know at the time that would be their last taste of success for some time. Today we’ll be taking a look back at the 30 seasons it has been since that fateful day where the New York Americans were so close to their 8th Continental Cup. With that being said New York has had their bright spots in that stretch, but at the end of the day a combination of inconsistency and good old Simon have led to the New York Americans holding multiple records nobody wants.

 

The Early Years

Following their near victory in S60 the New York Americans were solid in S61, finishing with a 50-19-3 record, and sweeping the Quebec City Meute in the wildcard before falling short in the semi-finals in 7 games to Calgary. Following this defeat the Americans would completely rebuild, finishing 2nd last in each of the next 3 seasons, the benefit of that is that they were able to draft a very promising future core consisting of; Joseph McWolf @McWolf, Dan Wilinsky @oilmandan, Ryan Sullivan Jr @Advantage, Joel Ylonen @Esso2264, and Charles Puigdemont. Because of their very good drafting, the Nww York Americans were back in the playoffs in S65 where they were swept in the wildcard round by the Helsinki Titans. The following season the Americans were back in the playoff picture, and would again lose in the wildcard round in 6, this time to the Vancouver Wolves. But, this New York Americans’ team is young, strong and surely only getting better, right? 

 

The First Collapse

For one reason or another, the Americans decided that enough was enough and decided to sell everyone and everything they could, starting by selling McWolf to Riga, Twinger to Calgary, Ylonen to Seattle, and so on. While they did get a lot of picks and players back, with their recent momentum this seems to be a surprising move. With that being said, they did bring in Guy LeGrande @Steve to try and have a new top prospect! This didn’t save them though as they would go 20-45-7 in season 67, finishing last in the league. With this they would draft 2nd overall and took Lance Flowers @CowboyinAmerica. They would also select A Red Guy @.sniffuM, and Frederick Elmebeck @Elmebeck, in the first round among another player who we won’t talk about. Of those Flowers would make an immediate impact as they would win both top rookie and top defensive defenseman honours. In season 68 New York would miss the playoff by only 5 points while still trading away players for futures. 

 

Playoffs and Disappointment 

In the season 69 draft the Americans would take Soren Jensen @Velevra, and David O Quinn @David O'Quinn, the former of which would make the season 69 roster. Propelled by Boris the Forest @chillzone, they would make the playoffs as the 3rd seed in their conference, but would again be dispatched in the 1st round in 7 by Seattle. With this recent success in mind, New York would buy aggressively in the offseason, bringing back Joseph McWolf, and Joel Ylonen. However, New York would miss the playoffs by only 1 point, despite a solid 36-28-8 record. Following this disappointment, New York would retool, shipping out veterans and bringing in younger talent like Micheal Gary Scott @Motzaburger, and draft picks. They would also acquire John Frostbeard @FrostBeard in a trade at the midpoint of the season as the Americans made a playoff push. Ultimately, they would fall just short yet again with 80 points and a 39-31-2 record. In season 72 the New York Americans veterans in Acyd Burn @Acydburn, and Julius Freeman @rjfryman to build upon their core and with that they would get back into the playoffs as the 3rd seed, and not only that , they would manage to win a series, besting the Seattle Bears in 5, prior to another game 7 defeat at the hands of the Calgary Wranglers. In Season 73, New York would essentially run it back with the same group, and they would make the playoffs again! This time with a 43-23-6 record. Once in the playoffs, they would have a rematch against Calgary, who would again get by the American’s in game #7. Even with this success, it couldn’t continue forever, with their big names in Burn and Freeman retiring, New York would have an uphill battle to make the playoffs, and with that in mind, had a very quiet offseason. With retirements impacting their success, New York would fall well short, finishing with their first losing record in some time with a 28-37-7.

 

The Meh Seventies

Throughout the mid 70’s not a whole lot happened in New York, trades when needed, and the team’s focus shifted towards drafting and developing young players. However, their first draft pick of this new mentality would not really pan out early, despite a now infamous season 75 draft. With that being said New York hit on 3 of their 4 next draft picks with Chicken Wing @chikn, Cowboy Prout @Prout, and franchise goaltender Thadius Sales @thadthrasher! Despite a good draft, New York would be in for a long season as they finished last with a 21-42-9 record. The positive of finishing last, is you get the best odds at 1st overall, and New York would win the lottery! With the 1st overall pick in season 76, the New York American’s selected Red Lite @Tate, a franchise altering forward that would do just that as they would finish their first season with 39 goals and 80 points! Despite this infusion of offence, New York fell short with a 27-36-9 season. New York would keep the great drafting going with Zeedayno Chara @Jubis at 4th overall. In season 77, the still developing New York Americans would show signs of growth with a 28-35-9 season, but a good 241 goals for. New York did break their recent pattern of drafting and developing in season 77 though, as they traded their season 78 1st (would be 1st overall), for Kosmo Kramerev @Mongoose87. New York’s hardship would pay off in season 78 though as they would go 36-31-5 and would make the playoffs! As their drafted players began to hit their prime, and acquired a veteran presence in Latrell Mitchell @dasboot to get them over the edge. In the playoffs, New York would struggle and would not make it out of the wildcard round as the D.C. Dragons made it past them in 4. 

 

The Drought

Following their success in season 78, New York would buy again, bringing in Phoenix Dawson @Toast. Even with their core now in their prime, New York would struggle to keep things consistent and would miss the playoffs with a record that was 1 game below .500. While season 79 was disappointing, New York still had the makings of a great team and with this in mind, they bought aggressively in the season 80 offseason, bringing in all of, Luke Thornton @ThePerfectNut, Yuuto Kira Cloudera @kentakira and brought back Cowboy Prout, and at the cost of many of their future early picks. Even with all these additions to their core, the Americans would somehow miss the playoffs and only finish with a record of 32-34-6. Following this, the Americans would hit the reset button again, in large part due to many of their top players retiring, including a surprise retirement from Red Lite. Without many of their own picks, this proved difficult though as they would struggle for some time. In the season 81 offseason, New York would trade everyone, entirely for draft picks. The season 81 draft, now with a lot of picks, would go horribly wrong, as none of the players selected would play a game for the Americans, and only one would make the VHL. Their record would reflect this as they finished with a 26-40-6 record and would miss the playoffs by a wide margin. Season 82 would start off with a bit of luck for New York as they would win the draft lottery and select Vasile Lamb @dlamb 1st overall. They would also add Doug Matchett @jacobaa19 with their 3rd round pick. New York would still be in full rebuild mode in season 82, finishing with a 30-39-3 record, and 6th in their division. Following this, New York once again felt as though they were in a good position to buy and did just that, bringing in Jerome @MexicanCow123 and Tyler @Zetterberg Reinhart in a blockbuster trade! This elite talent would make an impact right away and Jerome would put up over 100 points in season 83, although in part due to being unable to keep the puck out of their own net, the Americans would finish 6th in their conference again and miss out on the playoffs. At this point New York certainly had some good pieces in place and a very solid young core even with trading Lamb away. However, New York went further towards a retool of their rebuild, bringing in Sven Eightnine @BarzalGoat, and shipping out veterans for prospects and picks at the same time. With this New York would finish 6th in their conference yet again with a 28 win season. 

 

A New Direction

In Season 85, New York would fully commit to a rebuild, and they would start that off by trading up in the draft for Daniel Weaver @ThePerfectNut, and they would hit on their 2nd first as well with Babay Shrimp @Blazzer. They would go onto finish 7th in their conference that season, and with that would get a higher draft pick. Prior to the draft, New York would acquire Napoleon Dynamite @thadthrasher in a massive trade which would see the departure of Daniel Weaver and other assets. Moving into season 86, the New York Americans would almost pull it off and make the playoffs as they would finish the season tied with Seattle for the final playoff spot in their conference, although they would lose out on ROW this did show a massive step forward. Season 87 was an interesting one for New York as they would acquire Alexandre Leduc @Lemorse7, while gathering draft stock for the future. The New York Americans would again finish in 6th, missing the playoffs by 7 points. The season 88 draft would be a big one for New York, adding Jesper Davis @Josh with their 4th overall pick, and Francesco Mancini @GioSivo, both of who would make their debut in season 89, with Davis winning the award for being the best rookie. Neither of them would miss much in season 88 as New York would finish 6th again, this time by a wider margin of 10 points. With their season 89 1st, New York would add Zyn Westwood @Sullvino 5th overall, they would then go onto add both Nezuko @Baozi, and Max Torq @Steve at the season 89 trade deadline as they would go onto MAKE THE PLAYOFFS! This would end the longest playoff drought in league history at 10 seasons. Not only would New York make the playoffs, but they would best the Los Angeles Stars in the wildcard round, and then do the unthinkable and defeat the 1st seed Seattle Bears in 6 games before being swept in the conference finals by the Vancouver Wolves. Despite this success, the Americans would stick to their plan of drafting and developing and add Xiver Zilla @jhatty8 in the season 90 draft, before missing the playoffs again in season 90 as retirements would once again derail things slightly. But, with that they won the draft lottery and selected Callum Gary Yannick Janser @Daniel Janser with the 1st overall pick, and added Rin Kagamine @Rin later in the 1st round. Currently the Americans are only 1 point out of the playoffs and have added Brandt Fuhr to hopefully get them back into the dance.

 

The New York Americans are well on the track to success with franchise pieces in place, but with some gaps left to fill, only time will tell when the 37 season long cup drought and 30 season long finals drought will come to an end. The real question here is what derailed New York all those times, one can simply chalk it up to high value draft picks not quite turning out as desired (I did not mention many of the busts), and just terrible luck with game sevens despite being the better team, Simon has definitely made things difficult for one of the VHL’s oldest franchises. It should be noted that GMs of New York have done a very good job, for the most part they made good decisions and just got dealt a very bad hand full of early retirements, what appeared to be great draft picks not panning out, and terrible sim luck.

[Esso2264 774]

this article is like 3 years of my life wtf

[Mongoose87 387]

Never realized that was the 1OA they traded for Kosmo. He was good, but not 1OA good. 

[Victor 11,021]

It's funny that New York's history from S1 to today is basically a perfect bell curve.

 

Shit - better - amazing - worse - shit

[Daniel Janser 2,217]

31 minutes ago, Mongoose87 said:

Never realized that was the 1OA they traded for Kosmo. He was good, but not 1OA good. 

Well the player ultimately drafted at first overall in S78 was Nils Tallinder, who played four seasons in CGY and another four with Riga, but going MIA after three and a half seasons with the Wranglers (if I recall correctly). If that is any consolation...

[Alex 3,248]

Was actually pretty interesting writing this, never realized just how many times New York got completely shafted 

[Baozi 1,662]

NYA should go back to the ultra dominance of XXX and Company S30s.

[thadthrasher 1,692]

Honestly, this is a great write-up. I hope to take NY to it's former days of glory, one step, season, trade at a time. We're getting there!

[Victor 11,021]

Also relevant

 

(lol this applies to Spartan's Moscow as well now)