predicting where my S99 goalie will go

[scoop 3,382]

As someone who fully intends to create a goalie for the Season 99 draft, I am paying close attention to the goalie count in the VHL. We recently saw the addition of Vladimir Trunov to the Season 96 draft, which brings the total of legitimate goalie prospects in the draft to five. After we saw the retirement of seven starting goalies over the past two off-seasons, the prospect pool is filling right back up. I don't think there will be a shortage of goalies by the time I am being drafted. In fact, we could potentially have a surplus at the time, which could hurt my draft stock and greatly reduce the number of teams that could be interested in drafting me. This is way too early to be trying to predict who will draft me in Season 99, but I'm going to do it anyway.

 

As mentioned, my next player Evangeline Glover will be part of the Season 99 draft. My intention this time around will be to play a season in the VHLE, so teams that should be looking to draft me have a starter spot open in Season 100. I suppose me being backup for a season could also be in the cards, so I'll expand that a bit to say a team that would have a starter spot open up for me by Season 101 at the latest. So who are those teams that may need a goalie at that time? Obviously, goalies don't always play their full careers with one single team. That's the biggest reason why this is way too early to be trying to predict this. Yes, Los Angeles has Roger Eagles now, and his career could go as late as Season 103. But Los Angeles may not have the supporting cast to be good in Season 100, so maybe Eagles will not be on the team at that time. For a VHL.com article, I'm not going to try to predict the entire scope of the VHL, so for the most part, I'm just going to be assuming goalies stay where they are. Again, if a team won't have me starting by S101, they're almost certainly out of consideration. An S93 player who plays a full career would play their final season in S101, so in theory, the perfect timeline for a team would be to have an S91 goalie who retires after S99, and then I take over. I think teams with an S90 or S92 goalie also make sense, as one could simply have a gap year or, again, I could end up being backup my first season. So to make things simple, I'm going to narrow things down and say the team that will most likely draft me will be one that has a starter from S90 to S92.

 

Los Angeles, Calgary, Vancouver, Helsinki, Warsaw, D.C., Malmo, and Davos all have goalies that are more recent than S94. London and Prague will both likely draft a goalie in S96.

 

That narrows things down to the following six teams: Seattle, Toronto, Moscow, Riga, New York, Chicago

 

From these six, I'm going to cut Seattle, Toronto, and New York from being the most likely. Seattle is the only team among these has has an S92 goalie, which would mean if they finished their career there, then I would have to backup in my rookie season. That's not why I'm cutting them, however. I actually think there's a chance that Seattle at some point trades Costanzov away to replace him with a younger model when he gets to be too expensive. As for Toronto, while they do have an S91 goalie in Toddly Bobbly, but they are not exactly the most reliable. Toronto will probably look to add a goalie prospect before I'm drafted. Alternatively, Toronto may trade for New York's WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, in which case the timeline for the Legion and me could line up. If that happens, then New York is the team that will likely need to find a goalie before my draft. Because I could see things going either way and I need to cross teams off my list, they are gone.

 

That leaves Moscow, Riga, and Chicago

 

With Chicago have an S90 goalie while Moscow and Riga each have an S91 goalie, it will make more sense for them to try to potentially draft someone like Vladimir Trunov in the S96 draft, though it may be a little early. If Trunov takes until S98 to reach the VHL, they could backup Artyomov in their first season and then take over as starter in S99. I could see Moscow or Riga drafting RicerFourteen as someone who would likely take several seasons in the minors before reaching the VHL. Looking at the draft picks that each of those two teams has, I think Riga is more likely to be in position to draft them. At this point in time, I will predict that Evangeline Glover goes to the Moscow Menace New York Americans. That's just what feels right, ignore everything else.

[Spartan 4,274]

[STZ 5,339]