The Midway Mark//The Contract Climax

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We have reached the halfway point of Jillian Woods’ career, so lets dive in!

 

She opened her career up on a stacked Menace roster with three 100-point scorers, a fellow top rookie in Maverick Goncalves, and a 108 standing points finish. Woods would carve a role for herself as a strong goal threat with a secondary playmaking agenda. She was a shooting machine, and generated many rebounds, deflections and cover fire for the guns blazing offense.

 

She followed up with the opposite of a sophomore slump, with the goal scoring turning up a notch, and enough assists to warrant a Valiq win, and enough of an overall uptick to secure the Dustin Funk. She made five 100-point scorers this time around in her second straight Victory Cup winning offensive engine.

 

In her third tour, she continued her trend of sending a constant barrage of ripping shots, driving much of the goal scoring on her unit, topping 30 goals. While the deflection, rebounds, and slap-passes were down, the goal scoring showed all-VHL potential, and truly resembled her style.

 

Finally, with the conclusion of this fourth season, things have hit a bit of a stall. She’s ripping more shots than ever, but less and less are finding meaningful homes. Once again, the Menace secured the Victory Cup, and her teammates continue to be league leaders in offense, and Woods and co. are able to keep pucks out of the net, even short personnel.

 

So what should we expect going forward? Well, there is by all technicality a choice this offseason. With Jillian’s contract structure, she has a mutual option. Moscow is a place where she has been given every opportunity to participate in the playoffs, and she has done everything she could to force management to give her the top job. She has run her own units, been given the top minutes on the power play, and she’s seen some personal success too.

 

There’s going to be a lot of change in Moscow, with longtime cornerstones Jarmo and Obuz hanging up their skates, underrated depth winger Catia joining them. Chippy goal-scoring Pombo has yet to sign an extension, the protege quarterback River has the first contract decision of their career, and the awards regular Maverick shares the same contract structure as Jillian. Depending on how the dominoes fall, there is room for the best or worst Menace team in decades.

 

So what does Jillian want? Well, sticking with Maverick means always being in the awards picture, and likely always having a playoff agenda. Securing River leaves a lot of security and flexibility in roster construction. Pombo packs a serious scoring punch, and could be hard to replace. With Kazuma ready to take the next step, there are some massive shoes to fill either of Jarmo or Obuz’s sheer dominance. Management will need to find a second center to ensure enough depth to continue this contendership. I don’t anticipate Jillian being the first to claim her spot. There’s simply too much at stake for her career to play her hand first. But, if the future is secured for a couple seasons, there is also the possibility that she declines her mutual option and instead chooses to sign a longer extension.

 

It’s a fantastic environment, with a proven HOF-calibre management style, but every season is important in the back half, particularly if you have HOF intentions. These past two seasons have raised the stakes, and this offseason matters. It might be the most important offseason of her career.

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The choices players have to make each season, particularly when contracts are ending makes for interesting thoughts.  How will Woods decide, will they continue with Moscow, will they go their own way and try to find a place where they can play a bigger role.  We will see how this progresses.  This article is well written, provides depth for the character and the extended storyline.  I give this article a 9 out of 10.  Keep it up, continue building on the story,