Claimed:No tanking: The VHL's unprecedented parity [FINAL: 6/6]

[CowboyinAmerica 2,889]

 

No tanking: The VHL's unprecedented parity

 

There’s an odd phenomenon currently happening in the VHL. Every season, there seems to be an Edmonton Oilers — that team that can’t seemingly do anything right now matter how hard they try. There’s a reason that the league’s commissioners have instituted a lottery system as an anti-tanking measure, after all.

 

This year, though, that trend doesn’t seem to hold true. A little over one-quarter into the season, even the league’s worst team — the Riga Reign — have five wins and 12 points through 21 games. At this rate, the Reign are on pace for 41 total points this season. The next worst teams, a three way tie between the Legion, Wranglers and Dynamo, are sitting at 17 points, almost one per game.

 

What’s happening here? It’s not often that the VHL experiences this kind of parity. In fact, it’s rare that the worst team in the league is actually this good, at least since the league expanded to ten teams.

 

The worst teams in the league by season

S31: Toronto Legion – 25 points

S32: Seattle Bears – 20 points

S33: Vasteras Iron Eagles – 21 points

S34: HC Davos Dynamo – 21 points

S35: Riga Reign – 12 points

S36: Calgary Wranglers – 13 points

S37: Helsinki Titans – 15 points

S38: Quebec City Meute – 22 points

S39: Toronto Legion/Quebec City Meute – 30 points

S40: Seattle Bears – 24 points

S41: Stockholm Vikings – 29 points

 

So, what does this table mean, other than the completely odd trend that saw eight teams in eight seasons sit as the worst team in the league? It means that the Riga Reign have 51 games to get 19 points, thereby becoming the best worst team in the VHL since expansion. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s extremely likely that they will make that mark. Why, then, is this trend occurring this season? I’d say there are three main reasons.

 

 

1. Rebuild? What rebuild?

 

In almost every single instance above, the team that finished with the worst record in the league had completely gutted their team from the season before. There are a few cases where teams were just beginning rebuilds with new rookies — see S39 Quebec City and S41 Stockholm, for example — but even then, it was extremely rare to see a team at the bottom of the league hold on to 500+ TPE players. This year, however, that isn’t the case. It was widely expected entering the season that Riga and Calgary would be the worst teams in the league. However, both teams decided to hold onto key pieces, with Calgary holding Gow III and Encarnacion, and Riga not parting with the other Gow and McQueen. Even if those players go elsewhere at the deadline (and in the cases of Encarnacion and McQueen, I doubt it), their teams will have gotten enough solid play with them on the roster so that it won’t matter.

 

 

2. Cushion at the top

 

There always seems to be one or two dominant teams that have been awaiting their turn in the spotlight. This season, though, everyone seems to be building or fading. Last year’s finals competitors, New York and Riga, are certainly fading. Seattle is definitely building, as are Stockholm, Davos and Toronto. Cologne is in a weird spot where the strength of the team is still on rookie contracts, but with an aging goaltender. I could make the arguments that Quebec and Helsinki are this year’s juggernauts, but a few of Helsinki’s top updaters have tailed off, and Quebec doesn’t have the top end talent (no players above 750 applied TPE). As a result, pretty much any team in the league is beatable on the right night this season, as evidenced by Calgary wins over Helsinki and Seattle and Riga wins over Quebec and Stockholm.

 

 

3. The goalie dilemma

 

Of course, the reason that any team is beatable is an odd lull in the goalie progression. Normally, there are one or two goalies per draft class that are supposed to be dominant, and that range of dominance typically lasts between a goalie’s third and sixth seasons. For this season, that means the top performers would be top TPE earners between S37 and S40. However, those top TPE earners... don’t really exist. S36 goalies Brick Wahl, Mike Szatkowski Jr., and Martin Brookside are now entering the twilight of their careers and are subject to off days. First or second year goalies like Niklaus Mikaelson, Callum Sinclair and Fedir Okranitz still have room to grow. And as for the middle guys: Kimmo Salo (S37) stalled out after early progression, Blaine Olynick (S37) did the same to a lesser extent, and Brock Waldron (S38) has always been progressively slower at practice gains. There are no top goalies from the S39 and S40 draft classes, meanwhile. Until the new guard becomes stronger, there’s an opening for worse teams to steal games.

 

[eaglesfan036 4,603]

Interesting article. So everyone sucks less then

[boubabi 4,725]

Stockholm's already making history !

[Guest]

Content: 3/3 - Very interesting take on the bottom of the barrel, probably hit 450 words within the first 2 paragraphs haha. Well done, interesting, and unique!

Grammar: 2/2 - No errors I could see. Looks like solid proofreading here.

Appearance: 1/1 - The header, color coding of the teams in the chart, and the pictures to go with the 3 reasons all make this a visually appealing article!

Overall: 6/6

 

Less than a minute to grade because I spent 5 minutes reading and digesting the piece, well done!

[Kendrick 4,741]

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