Ninetyfourgoalie 168 Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 Season 41 Review: Toronto Legion The season is almost over and with the Legion twelve points behind the Calgary Wranglers, who also have a game in hand, with just ten games remaining, making the playoffs would be nothing short of amazing. Season 41 is all but over for the inexperienced team who failed to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity to end the longest active playoff drought in the VHL. That is not to say, though, that this season has been a total disappointment for the Legion. They continue to make strides towards relevance and were the only non-playoff team able to pose a legitimate threat in each and every game they played thanks to their offensive firepower, resulting in a record above .500 through 62 games. As this season can largely be categorized as a disappointment, it only makes sense to begin with what went wrong for the Legion. While many would point to goaltending as the team's biggest hole, that does not fully explain Toronto's mediocrity in Season 41. The number one thing that killed this team was special teams. While this, at first, seems strange considering they have one of the top emerging offensive talents in the VHL in Sachimo Zoidberg as well as two of the very best two-way players in the league in Jerrick Poole and Tyler Cote, it becomes more obvious as we dig deeper into the team's performance this year. One of the most striking deficiencies for the Legion is their ability to win faceoffs. As a whole, the team won just over 41% of faceoffs with Tyler Cote the only player to win more than half his attempts. In fact, Devin Sundberg, for some reason, has taken just under 2000 faceoffs this season yet has won just 35% of these tries, an absolutely disgraceful number. Devin Sundberg has been a liability in the faceoff circle for the Legion this season As if these faceoff numbers aren't brutal enough, the Legion have only won 38% of their defensive zone faceoffs. This isn't helped by the fact that Toronto is currently the third most penalized team and has also surrendered the third most powerplay goals, just one less than the Dynamo and Vikings, good enough for a penalty kill rate of just under 79%. But killing penalties is far from the extent of this team's issues. Despite having one of the better offenses in the league in terms of goals scored, no team has a more inefficient powerplay than the Legion. Scoring goals on just 12% of their powerplay chances, something is going very, very wrong. Can Sachimo Zoidberg and the rest of Toronto's powerplay unit drastically improve next season? Many will point to inexperience as the reason for the team's poor play and lack of capitalizing on their opportunities. But the question remains: how long can this team continue to use youth as a crutch? At some point, the Legion need to make a move or two that will allow them to win now. Yes, they have a strong core with solid support around them. But goaltender is still an issue as Okranitz has many worrying that he may never be anything more than a below average VHL netminder. The center position is also a huge problem and, barring major improvements this off-season, the team very well could be looking back once again at a season full of missed opportunities. Rathod Jr. has been getting plenty of playing time with nothing to show for it. As nice as it is to build a team through homegrown talent, we're seeing Helsinki struggle to be anything more than a pretty good team and Toronto very well could be headed to the same exact fate barring a major move to bring in not only experience but high quality experience. This may not have to happen through a trade - free agency is always a viable option. But with a roster full contracts expiring after Season 42, the Legion must do something to give their players a reason to believe the best move for the future is sticking with Toronto, a team that, as of yet, has shown no reason to suggest that a Continental Cup is in its future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregreg 930 Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 harsh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgar 283 Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Entirely the offenses fault. They will all be traded shortly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jala 922 Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 nicely done, gotta be realistic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninetyfourgoalie 168 Posted January 19, 2015 Author Share Posted January 19, 2015 it worked 5 game winning streak now including three straight over the Express, Titans, and Wranglers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senior Admin Will 4,660 Posted January 19, 2015 Senior Admin Share Posted January 19, 2015 HEL G let me down Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pxzero 65 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Content: 3/3 It's been a bad season for the Legion, that's for sure. Those special teams numbers are insane! Hopefully there will be some big moves in the future - and some talent coming up from the VHL to fill some holes! Grammar: 2/2 Didn't see much. A few commas here and there While not wrong, the "with just ten games remaining" makes the first sentence a little unwieldy faceoffs with Tyler Cote, the only player - missing comma Appearance: 1/1 Looks good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mook 120 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Below average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caillean 504 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Below average. Hey least you got mentioned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank 5,071 Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Claimed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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