Long before the S80-S83 Menace, there were the S25-S28 Americans

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Younger fans of the VHL may be familiar with the Moscow Menace four-season run of consecutive Continental Cup finals losses from Season 80 to Season 83. They were the sixth team to reach four consecutive finals, but they are the only team to have accomplished this feat at a time when the league had more than ten teams. Unfortunately for them, they lost every appearance, helping give the Vancouver Wolves the second ever three-peat in VHL history. To lose the finals in four consecutive seasons is devastating, and although I was not a part of that Moscow team (I was, however, eliminated by them in three of those seasons), I know the feeling quite well. Before there were the S80-S83 Moscow Menace, there were the S25-S28 New York Americans.

 

First, let's set the stage with a little bit of history regarding the New York Americans franchise. They began as the Hamilton Canucks, a bit of trivia that is not relevant to this story, but maybe worth knowing anyway. The team was not great. In the first 11 seasons, they made the playoffs just once; no other team had fewer than five playoff appearances in this time. The team started to turn things around when Brandon Best took over as GM. They made four straight playoff appearances from Season 12 to Season 15. In Season 14, they finally lifted the Continental Cup, being the last franchise to do so. Soon, Vasteras and their "curse" would become the poster child for futility in the VHL. They now had the longest Cup drought, having not won since their victory in Season 1.

 

My story with the Americans begins in Season 17. My player, Fayt Leingod, was traded to the team in the off-season following Season 16. Shortly thereafter, I became GM of New York. Leingod was retiring, and I had my next player, Geno Esposito, set to join the team in the following season. My first tenure as GM of New York did not last long. My goal was to have New York competitive in Season 18, and while we were, the team was not set up particularly well for the future. After two seasons, I stepped down. After a first round exit in the Season 18 playoffs, the Americans missed the post-season the next five seasons. Esposito bounced around a bit between Seattle and Davos during that time before ending up back in New York in Season 22. James Assayag, my successor as GM, was ready to bring his managerial career to an end. Thus began my second stint as GM.

 

Taking over in the middle of Season 22, I opted to retire Esposito while he was still in his prime in order to create the team's goalie of the future: Benjamin Glover. The team had the opportunity to be competitive even with Glover as a young goalie. Still on the roster was Jukka Hakkinen, my first ever draft pick in Season 18 and a future Hall of Famer. Considering how I had left the team in shambles for Hakkinen (who was in fact James Assayag's player), I wanted to win a Cup while he was still on the team. Famously, James had not and still has not won a Continental Cup with any of his players. I was not, however, so desperate that I would make the same mistake as the first time around. I made a more conscious effort to keep the team competitive long term rather than selling future assets and young studs in order to fast track the rebuild.

 

Glover was one of the faces of the franchise for the years to come. The other was Daniel Braxton, drafted third overall in Season 24. After the retirement of Hakkinen following Season 25, these two were the New York Americans. That's not to say they didn't have help, but this was undeniably their team. Glover was a two-time Top Goalie and won the MVP in Season 28. Braxton won four straight Sterling Labatte Trophies (though the last one in Season 30 was with Davos, in the one season he spent away from New York). The two of them would end up being first-ballot Hall of Famers, inducted together in the Season 32 class.

 

While Glover and Braxton were the mainstay stars of the team, there were several other key roster pieces. Those two of course were with the Americans for all four of their finals losses from Season 25 to Season 28, but so were Dom Mazzetti, a true fan favorite, and Jason White. Keon Henderson, a veteran holdover from Assayag's time as GM, was with the team through his retirement following Season 27. Also with the team for the first three were Jarppi Leppälä and Dustin McKullen. McKullen's career was particularly disappointing for me. I had traded up to get him at second overall in the Season 23 draft. Although I do still think the trade worked out well, if McKullen had fulfilled the potential I thought he had, he could have been the elite forward to go along with Braxton and Glover for years to come.

 

The introduction to the main and supporting characters is actually quite important, as it was a major point of the identity of the team at this time. Glover and Braxton led the way, and the rest of the core was made up of average-to-good players. There were no other big stars on the team for more than a season or two. There was of course Hakkinen, who had already been with the team, but what allowed us to stay as competitive as we were was the guest stars we acquired season after season. These were mostly aging veterans who were still quite good, and they mostly came by the way of cheap trades or free agency, allowing us to not sacrifice our future potential. With that in mind, let's start taking a look at how things went down, season by season.

 

Season 25

Season 25 was the final season of Hakkinen's career, and as I said before, I wanted to win. We had Ignatius Feltersnatch in his first of two seasons as a guest star, so while the core of the roster was still very young, we had the offensive firepower to do well. In the first round of the playoffs, we had to play against Aidan Shaw and the Toronto Legion. They had knocked us out of the playoffs in the previous season and had been to the finals in four of the last five. While the stage could have been set for Shaw and Daisuke Kanou, the two greatest goalies of the time, to face off in the playoffs for the fourth and final time, it was not meant to be. We swept the Legion, finishing things in a convincing manner, outscoring them 9-2 in the final two games. We kept things going in Game 1 against Kanou and the defending champion Dynamo, but that would be our last win that season. While it was unfortunate that we could not get Hakkinen a Cup, I was confident that the team was not done yet.

 

Season 26

Hakkinen was gone, so we brought in Adam Schultz, who had been on that Davos team that just beat us, to fill that void. Feltersnatch was still around for the final year of his career, and we added Kristian Carlson as a nearly-free rental. We met the Seattle Bears in the first round of the playoffs. We closed out the series in six games, and things seemed to be aligned perfectly for us to win the championship. While our opponent in the finals was the Victory Cup winners, it was also Vasteras; the same Vasteras who had a namesake curse as a result of their inability to win. That is another piece of VHL lore with which people should be familiar. This was perhaps the most demoralizing of our finals losses, as even with the curse on our side we came out on the losing end. The series again ended in just five games as we narrowly avoided getting swept.

 

Season 27

In my opinion, the Season 27 roster was the least impressive of this era of New York. While our core of Season 23 to Season 25 players were hitting their primes, none of our forwards were on par with the likes of Hakkinen, Feltersnatch, and Schultz in the preceding seasons. Our retiring veteran addition this season was defender Lars Intranquilo. In the first round of the playoffs, we once again matched up against the Bears, who were our biggest rivals during my tenure as GM of the Americans. Despite finishing 27 points behind them in the regular season standings, we took them down for the second straight season. In the finals, we faced off against some familiar faces on the Helsinki Titans. Nick Fisher had been a role player with us for a couple seasons, but he was now on the Titans. Making more of an impact were Leeroy Jenkins and Japinder Singh. They had both been on the Davos team that beat us two seasons earlier, and Singh had actually started his career with New York. After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the series, we lost four straight games.

 

Season 28

Needing some help on offense, we acquired forwards Pavel Koradek (who, similar to Schultz from earlier, had just beat us in the finals) and Gunnar Axelsson. These two would replace Keon Henderson and Dustin McKullen as our top forwards, and it made quite a difference in our goal scoring. The pair accounted for 14 of our 30 goals in the playoffs. With those two providing the offense, and Braxton and Glover firmly in the prime of their careers holding things down defensively, the team was in a good spot. Playoff crossover meant we played the Dynamo in the first round of the playoffs, rather than the Bears for the third straight season. We made history after a six-game series win against Davos, becoming the first team to reach four consecutive finals. There had been five prior instances of teams making it to three straight, but of those teams won at least once. We were going into our fourth, and as you already know how the story goes, we lost. This fourth loss was against our rivals in the Seattle Bears, who you could say we were lucky to not have to face in the first round. It was a defensive battle throughout the entire series. No team scored more than three goals in a single game, and in the six games it took them to finish the series, the goal totals were just 11 for Seattle and 8 for New York.

 

While this was the end of our streak of consecutive finals appearances, we continued to make playoff appearances. Glover would ultimately played all eight seasons of his career with New York, making the playoffs every year. He was actually the first player to make it to the playoffs eight times with the same team (though he didn't play in the Season 24 playoffs as a rookie, as we had acquired a veteran goalie to give us a better chance of winning). He was reunited with Braxton (after a short stint with Davos) for their final season, and they made one last finals appearance. They would finally make it to a Game 7 in the finals, but again they lost. The Americans would go on to win the Cup in the very next season. While I was still rooting for New York, I was not a part of that victory, as I was also no longer GM after having stepped down following Season 29.

 

While I am proud of how things went in my second attempt as GM of New York, the team certainly found much more success with the GM's to follow. I helped get the team pointed in the right direction, but it was @Devise, @Advantage, and @Tagger who took the team to places I never did and made them one of the best teams over the course of the next 20 seasons. Even still, and although I may be a bit biased, I do think it's fair to consider New York's dominant era to begin with me, even if we never got it done in the end. In addition to the four straight finals appearances, I kicked off a stretch of 11 straight playoff appearances. This was four more than the previous record, and it was not bested until the current 16-team league setup was established.

 

 

 

2092 words; claiming for weeks ending 11/10, 11/17, 11/24, an 12/1

[Victor 10,940]

5 hours ago, scoop said:

This was four more than the previous record, and it was not bested until the current 16-team league setup was established.

Technically only 2 of Riga's season were in a 16-team VHL but semantics aside New York's run was more impressive / difficult.

 

Good times, those 4 finals losses felt more meaningful/end-of-the-world than Moscow's recent run.

[scoop 3,426]

10 hours ago, Victor said:

Technically only 2 of Riga's season were in a 16-team VHL but semantics aside New York's run was more impressive / difficult.

 

Good times, those 4 finals losses felt more meaningful/end-of-the-world than Moscow's recent run.

Yeah, so they matched New York's 11 before there were 16 teams. They didn't pass it before the 16-team setup was established. Look, things were already wordy enough, I didn't feel like I needed to include that detail.

 

Also, I feel like everything was a more dramatic back then. Or maybe that's just me not caring about things as much nowadays.

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claim 2 of 4, for week ending 11/17