VHL season 91. Final rankings.

[hedgehog337 3,483]

Hello there. After a week of a welfare hiatus I'm back with some more VHL related stuff. This time I will do a bit different. I'm gonna rank all 16 teams in terms of disappointment/pleasant surprise. Basically, a 16th place = the biggest disappointment. The 1st = most pleasant surprise. So...nothing much more to say. Let's get it! 

 

 

16.  Prague Phantoms

 

It would've been weird to put the 8th best VHL regular season team at the last place here. But for me, the defending champs not even making the playoffs to defend their title = automatic biggest disappointment. Sure, EU conference and all of that. And even worse, they would've been 3rd in the NA conference (so not even a wildcard at all). But then, champs are supposed to survive any situation they're being in. Even in the bloodbath which the EU conference always has been. They just never very good, especially at the scoring department. Their secondary unit never clicked properly and no one outside couple of their main guys stepped up at all. In overall, they were far from the worst team, but the circumstances makes them the biggest disappointment in my list. 

 

15.  Calgary Wranglers

 

Personally, I was expecting way more from them when I sold Catia and Sadie to them. And when Oreo and Wheeler redid their build to more traditional scoring one, the expectations from me grew even further. Sure, there would be no guarantee they are gonna be good enough for the top of the crop considering that they just crawled from the rebuild process. But I was for sure not expecting that they will end up as the 2nd worst scoring team in the league. Yes, even all the rebuilding teams outside of Warsaw outscored them. When your best scorer and player as a whole was Maellard, you know something is fishy out there. And that's not even a knock on this particular player, I was just expecting more from other top TPE players. In overall, very mid regular season. But hey, they are 1 game away from eliminating the team listed below from the playoffs. 

 

14.  DC Dragons

 

I'm very sure there were bigger expectations for the capital team than just scoring 80 points and having to play a wildcard round. The only bright period happened at the ending when their leaders finally chose violence and started to actually put up some work. The rest of the season was rather forgettable and also frustrating. They just never could find the right chemistry and players looked really lost at times. But it's their defensive play that was giving me iffy vibes. You would think the team with so many high TPE players would be solid in all area of the ice. Nope. They were just trying to grind instead of using their full potential. I guess that's what happens when you're overachieving the season prior. By the way, it reminds me some other European team's luck after huge overperforming in S87. Also, they have Frenchman on the team...did he just took all the Riga unluck and brought it to DC? 

 

13.  Seattle Bears

 

Is this exactly a disappointment team? Not sure. Prior to this season I thought they would claim the 5th place with the mid record. Well, they posted a mid record. The only difference is they never made the playoffs at all. They had some interesting players that in theory could've done just enough for Seattle to grab a wildcard spot. But it was never meant to happen. Gregor had a nice season and couple of other mid level TPE players had a decent statline. But nothing more than that. In overall, a non factor season for them. I guess, looking forward to their full blown rebuild process. 

 

12.  Helsinki Titans

 

Landon Wolanin posted 101 points while being one of the best goal scorers in the league. Their leading players did what we expected from them. Rask did improve from his other mid tier seasons. All of that for just being able to sneak past Prague by 1 point and that's because of heroics by Chicago (and by Artyomov in particular). I think their fans had any rights to expect more than yet another wildcard round placement. But their consistency was a very big issue throughout whole season. One game they would dismantle any opposition that came against them while scoring 6-7 goals. The next night they would struggle to put anything worthwhile. You guessed it, against any opposition that came against them. They ended up as the 2nd best offense in the league, just behind LA. But like I said before, their consistency was a HELl of an issue. Sucks to have that in such a conference, but luckily they are still in the hunt. 

 

11.  Malmo Nighthawks

 

The additions of Skor and Boga really elevated this team to the legit contender status. So I'd say the end result is a bit of a bummer. The ending of the season wasn't so kind for this team and they will have a grueling task to get past Helsinki in game 5. The team obviously did good. 95 points, TOP 5 in the league. It's just their final placement in the conference that makes it a bit sour for them. And also the cap space issue that is coming following this season. They really have to make it count though this is not gonna be an end for Malmo regardless of the result in the playoffs. 

 

 

10.  Warsaw Predators

 

Now we're entering the rebuilding teams zone. The teams that we did expect to suck for the draft picks and they did just that. Warsaw is gonna be place lower than other tanking teams by default as they finished last. Also the fact neither Kisslinger or Anisimov are gonna have a shot at the rookie of the year award is making this a very meh season for them. 

 

9.  Vancouver Wolves

 

Another tanking team that just did better than Warsaw which is enough to be place above them in this list. Which means nothing for them. 5 first round draft picks however...now we're talking! 2 of them are lotto picks too and 2 others may potentially be inside the TOP 8. Frank would love to see that for sure. In other words, nothing much to say about this team. Just another tanking team that just did better than Warsaw. 

 

8.  Moscow Menace

 

I think despite ending up lower than Vancouver in standings I feel like they shown more promise for the future. Left Alone was a good leading piece for their rookies. In fact, Gunner has a good shot at the rookie award. In overall, they were playing decently and I feel like they actually had a potential for more wins than they got in reality. But I think this was a somewhat positive season for the Russian team. Could they get into the competing following this season? You know, EU conference needs more contenders as we don't have enough of them yet. 

 

7.  New York Americans

 

I'll be honest - I was expecting less from them. They didn't have any goaltending before bringing in Fuhr which cost them some games for sure. But after making a trade for a Vancouver goaltending legend plus a body at defence they suddenly started to play a decent brand of hockey. Having both Davis and Mancini doing a wonderful 1-2 punch also helped the cause. At the end of the day they fell of short from the playoffs, but I think there is some positives to look forward. The first thing they need to do though is locking Davis in. Otherwise, they are back to a never ending and agonizing rebuilding purgatory they never left.  

 

6.  London United

 

Now we're back to the big guns who did as good or even better than I expected. Like London United. The only nitpicking I have about this team is perhaps their secondary could've participated more at attacking. Sure, they did well at defence. But Teno has already proven the world class status so maybe it was the time to show more courage. But I guess they are sticking to their system which is working as they would want to. Their leading lineup did the most of work for this team so I'd say the trade for Wann Kerr worked very nicely for the UK hopeful. I just feel like there was a potential to do even more that they already did. Other than that, good showing and avoiding the wildcard is a nice bonus too. 

 

5.  Toronto Legion

 

The reg season's first half Toronto - the upper placement at the disappointment tier. They totally forgot what the luck looks and were struggling to get over .500 for a long time. That's before Castle decided to take matters to his hands. From that point on, it was very tough for other teams to break their spirit and they finished just below LA in the conference. The only question here is they didn't do enough at offense to fully be recognized. But they will have a time to address this issue against Chicago in the playoffs. I actually did have them below LA and DC in standing so that's why they are above London in my list. Good season in overall. 

 

4.  Los Angeles Stars

 

Kinda funny to see the black letters on black font. But hey, most of their logo is black colored so here's shrug from me. Anyways, I had them winning the Victory Cup. That's not exactly what happened, but they still topped the NA conference and placed at the TOP 3 league wide. Their roster is screaming that this season is the ultimate chance to bring the glory to the glorious city...to some people it's glorious I guess. Joyo was a pleasant surprise and Abass Jr is likely about to snatch a Boulet trophy. They for sure gonna be one of the favorites in the playoffs. But they gotta hope Vandelay steps his game up. .928 is not the elit'est stat, can't lie. Might not work at the playoffs. 

 

3.  Davos Dynamo

 

Their GM is just out there trying to prolong Davos' contention window. All of that for winning the Victory Cup. It's not like that was a hell of a surprise anyways. But I was never sure how is this gonna work out with some more newcomers getting brought in. You know, chemistry and all of that stuff. It ended up really wonderful for them and Leandro took them to the next level. And knowing their improved playoff luck during Alex tenure, you might see another deep playoff run from them. In overall, the Victory Cup could've been enough to warant the first place in this list. However, there were two teams that jumped out out of nowhere and made things in standings more complicated. 

 

2.  Chicago Phoenix

 

Prior to this season they only had one player above 700 TPA. At the end of the season they're still having only one player above 700 TPA. 

 

They made the playoffs while avoiding the wildcard altogether. Above DC and Calgary. This season in a nutshell. I mean, Sundin was always being a good scoring threat. But this season was something else. He chose to bring a chaos to NA conference before retiring from the hockey altogether. He will receive at least one award for being the best point scorer but perhaps the MVP is also in the books. Shout out to Legacy Gaming for being good at keeping up as well. But even with Sundin, nobody would expect them to have such a Cinderella story like they actually did. I thought they would be good enough for the 7th place in NA...not the 3rd lol. But it's their ability to hold on in regulation time so they could get some valuable points from OT or SO was really clutch for them. They just lost 23 games in regulation which is crazy for this roster. I don't give them much chances against Toronto in the playoffs, but they already exceeded any expectations everyone had for them. But also...no lotto picks might hurt them in the long run. Might be interesting to see them 5 seasons after this one and see if this performance affected their future. 

 

1.  Riga Reign

 

I was not being upset when VSN put us at the 6th place in their EU conference predictions. Bringing in Monkey and Shrimp was good enough for us to try make other 5 contenders' life harder. And if we were lucky, squeaking into the wildcard spot...that's what I thought before the season. 72 games after, we ended up 1 point away from the Victory Cup. Somehow, this was the roster that would really be one of the favorites for Simon. AK decided to stop being mid. Shrimp hitting new career high as well and Monkey. Same for Tucker Jr. The second line was doing fine and Anand is one of the best rookies for the season. Everything we did was working...well except for the games 50-65 or something when we started to lose the ground and it eventually cost us the regular season trophy. But then, I don't think anybody was expecting us being one of the best teams in the league in the first place. So that ended up way better than I could've expected. The only question remains is - can we continue our big run in the playoffs. Stay tuned starting Monday. 

 

 

So yeah, this was my opinion on the season and VHL teams. also 4 weeks yay.

 

That's it and I'm out. 

[Beketov 9,033]

2 hours ago, hedgehog337 said:

The only bright period happened at the ending when their leaders finally chose violence and started to actually put up some work

Brightest spot was actually right at the beginning. We won like 8 of our first 10 or something and were basically leading in every category… and then we fell off a cliff and lost like 14 straight or something.

[hedgehog337 3,483]

39 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Brightest spot was actually right at the beginning. We won like 8 of our first 10 or something and were basically leading in every category… and then we fell off a cliff and lost like 14 straight or something.

 

that was so long time ago....I do remember how you were having fun destroying NYA at the very start. but I more remembering a good run at the end when yall finally separated from the non playoff teams. 

[hedgehog337 3,483]

w2 and w3

[hedgehog337 3,483]

w4 out there