Claimed:A Story of New York and Riga [Final 6/6]

[Victor 10,682]

A Story of New York and Riga Rebuilds



In Season 41, the New York Americans and Riga Reign met in the Continental Cup finals for the second year running, the Americans' Game 7 victory exacting some revenge for the Reign's ridiculous brief run as the best team in the league (timed perfectly for the playoffs) in Season 40. That was the end of this particular instalment of this inter-continental rivalry, as Riga went into a rebuild, a fate which likely awaits New York after Season 42 as well. It wasn't a classic series of match-ups, but had it not been for a Game 7 loss to Davos in Season 39, we would have witnessed three straight Riga vs New York finals immediately after three straight Toronto vs Davos meetings. Alas, it wasn't meant to be and on the balance, the Americans definitely experienced more success over this half-decade, with four Victory Cups, three finals, and two Continental Cups, and still a sold chance to increment all those numbers.

So how did these two teams reach their peaks? Today we look at how New York and Riga's cores were simultaneously built and how, with the exception of three weeks in Season 40, the Americans ended up a dynasty for the ages and the Reign merely a memorable championship team.

---

The Firesales


New York bigger than Riga? Spoiler alert.

New York and Riga's histories have been intertwined for a while, with the two teams meeting in back-to-back finals in Seasons 32 and 33 as well, splitting the two cups between them (ironically both won in the seasons they were heavy underdogs). The Season 34 playoffs ended disappointingly early for both teams and so a rebuild beckoned. The Reign had a few extra pieces and used this to their advantage, but when the Americans had soon-to-be Hall of Famers Alexander Labatte and Ryan Sullivan to dangle in the trade market, they were not going to fall to far behind. Both teams sold to Davos and Calgary, with New York also dealing with Helsinki, while Riga's other trade partners were Quebec and Cologne.

Main pieces moved and acquired:

From New York: RW Thomas Landry, D Ryan Sullivan, G Alexander Labatte
To New York: S36 QUE 1st (David Januzaj), S36 HSK 1st (DuJuan Cook), S37 CGY 1st (Jakob Linholm)

From Riga: C Keiji Toriyama, RW Jarkko Olsen, D Shane Baker, D Malcom Spud, C Michal Wozniak, LW Miles Larsson
To Riga: S35 COL 1st (Edwin Encarnacion), S36 DAV 1st (Robert Gow III), S36 COL 1st (Sami Kravinen), S36 CGY 1st (Phil Villeneuve), S36 CGY 2nd (Johan Hallstrom), S37 QUE 1st (Travis Boychuk)

Well, there was only one winner of the two teams' firesales. There's a few caveats of course: the DuJuan Cook pick was traded before New York used it, while the Jakob Linholm selection was one of three consecutive top four picks they had in S37, with the actual BPA player being Tom Slaughter, who allowed the first-gen Linholm to go second overall and thus took away the opportunity to have Labatte traded for Slaughter. Nevertheless, though Riga also didn't hang on to all their pieces, they got considerably more VHL players and trade pieces, including some players who would make up their contending core. Advantage Riga.

The First Pieces

Before their respective firesales began to bear fruit, both the Americans and Reign set up some rebuild foundations going into Season 35. Both GMs Chris Miller and Mike Szatkowski wisely brought in S36 goaltenders to grow with their core, which they successfully did, as Brick Wahl and Mike Szatkowski Jr. have become top netminders in the VHL. The two teams also had consecutive draft picks in the S35 draft, New York having kept their own, while Riga got one from Davos and traded up to fifth overall by trading Spud to Cologne. Both GMs opted for defencemen to start up their teams, with the Reign picking first and selecting Edwin Encarnacion. The Americans of coursed used the following pick to draft Conner Low. It goes without saying who won that draft, even though Riga ultimately recovered their own pick eventually (seventh overall immediately after Low) by trading Encarnacion midseason to Seattle in a straight swap for Brennan McQueen. McQueen went on to be the VHL's longest-serving ever captain and won playoff MVP in Season 40 but Hall of Fame hopes are low, unlike, well, Low, who will be undoubtedly a first ballot inductee. Verdict: New York bounce back from inferior firesale.

The S36 Draft



By setting some bottom of the league records during Season 35, Riga and New York made their intentions clear: this was the draft to propel them back to prosperity. After a few moves up the draft (remember Cook and Kravinen? They were used to move up to 6th and 4th overall, respectively), the two teams held a whopping seven of ten first-round picks, including five straight after Seattle's first overall. The time to make a statement was here.

New York picks: 3, 6, 10
New York players: RW Xin Xie Xiao, D Andrey Zadorov, D David Januzaj

Riga picks: 2, 4, 5, 8
Riga players: C Robin Gow, C Damon Tyrael, RW Robert Gow III, D Phil Villeneuve + BONUS second round steal LW Johan Hallstrom

All in all, not too shabby for Riga but quite disappointing for New York. Though both teams picked three players who would feature on at least one of their cup-winning squads, only XXX for the Americans was a key part of their wins compared to two for the Reign (Villeneuve and Zadorov could be considered core too in which case the score is 3-2). Tyrael and Hallstrom definitely win this draft for Riga although Tyrael asked for a trade after just one season (compensation was Mikey Blade who retired before the Season 40 championship) while Hallstrom was sadly traded for cap reasons during Season 40, taking away his chance to win the cup (though increasing the Reign's). Even so, Riga's benefits from this draft, which was the direct result of a better firesale, meant they could afford to start competing a season earlier, which they duly did with the trade deadline acquisition of Kameron Taylor and old acquaintance Malcom Spud in Season 37.

The Empire Strikes Back



So, with a clear headstart, how did the Americans catch up to and then overtake the Reign? In truth, they didn't for a while, despite the best efforts of rookie and sophomore stalwart Conner Low, failing to make the playoffs until their first Victory Cup win of Season 38 (though they did give Seattle quite the scare until the last day of the regular season for two seasons in a row). Then, much was attributed to New York's signing of not one, but two free agent stars in center Wesley Kellinger and goaltender Tuomas Tukio. The latter made a significant difference in a season where Wahl was still too young to not have the odd bad game, but these were just two final pieces for a good core.

The core itself, containing Xiao and Low, was boosted in the off-season of the S37 draft. Then, the Riga/New York pick duopoly continued, with the two teams owning the top five selections. The Reign moved up to fifth overall but in truth downgraded Travis Boychuk to Konstantin Azhishchenkov (another Season 40 cap dump), which was cancelled out in part by the Americans holding on to two of their lottery picks, Linholm and Logan Laich, for just two seasons. The real story was about the draft's runaway top two prospects, defenceman Slaeter Fjorsstrom and Tom Slaughter. With Riga having just one blue-liner from S36, their chose of Fjorsstrom first overall was anticipated, leaving New York with three straight picks to draft Slaughter. There was an element of luck to the Americans having those selections, first the foolish Labatte trade by Calgary, then the even more foolish Keiji Toriyama to Vasteras trade the season before the draft (Vasteras suffered a famous collapse thereafter and missed the playoffs), but the fact remains that New York got the better player. Fjorsstrom did his best to keep up but went inactive before Riga won the cup, remaining a good but not elite defenceman.

Finally, with Slaughter secured, GM Chris Miller could focus on wrenching out disgruntled forward Odin Tordahl from the champions in Davos. There is a good possibility that Tordahl would have ended up in New York through free agency but the team opted to give the Dynamo something, getting the winger for just one first-round pick (albeit a top four one). Tordahl was already establishing himself as a premier power forward in the VHL but hit his prime with New York and his immense achievements in the next four seasons need not be recounted. In one off-season, the Americans leapfrogged the Reign and the following year's free agency containing Tukio and Kellinger was the icing on the cake. Meanwhile, Riga certainly did not fail in their rebuild but were forced to watch the start of New York's dominance from the context of three consecutive conference final eliminations at the hands of their rivals from Davos.

---

The moral of this story is it doesn't matter how well you sell and draft, if you pass up two Hall of Famers to be snatched up by your rivals with their next pick (Low and Slaughter) and then watch them prosper in free agency, by the time you catch up, you'll be resigned to being a historical footnote. The Riga Reign performed respectably from Season 37 to 41, but this generation will be defined by the performance of the New York Americans.

[Victor 10,682]

Yeah, I'm pumping out these PTs now.

Too long to be a mag article but a topic I wanted to cover at some point. If someone grades this in the next 12 hours I will add you to my list of loved people. It's currently empty.

[Tagger 2,722]

"Both GMs opted for defencemen to start up their teams, with the Reign picking first and selecting Edwin Encarnacion. The Americans of coursed used the following pick to draft Conner Low. It goes without saying who won that draft,"

 

Was it the team who drafted the player who leads defenseman in two all-time statistics?

[Victor 10,682]

No it was Calgary who opted to stay the fuck away from that god awful draft.

[eaglesfan036 4,585]

Awesome article Vicky

 

I will miss playing for Riga

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

Content: 3/3 - Great article. A nice and long read which I thoroughly enjoyed. I like to read about the history since I've only been around since like S37.

 

S37 QUE 1st (Travis Boychuk) - This one confuses me. I was drafted by Calgary, not QUE. I ended up in QUE through a trade in like S40.

Grammar: 2/2 -  Very good here. For a lengthy article, there aren't many mistakes.

 

"instalment"  - installment. typo

"and still a sold chance" - solid

"The Americans of coursed used" - of course

"their chose of Fjorsstrom" - choice

Appearance: 1/1 - Everything looks fine!

Overall: 6/6

 

 

You can now place me on your list of loved people.

Edited April 2, 2015 by DollarAndADream

[Victor 10,682]

The pick was traded from Quebec to Riga when Miles Larsson went to Quebec. Riga then traded the Quebec pick to Calgary to move up to fifth overall (KJA).

Basically you were destined to play for Quebec.

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

The pick was traded from Quebec to Riga when Miles Larsson went to Quebec. Riga then traded the Quebec pick to Calgary to move up to fifth overall (KJA).

Basically you were destined to play for Quebec.

Damn, I never realized that. That's pretty cool.

[Mike 708]

Ya signing tons of tampered free agents will get you every time.

[CoachReilly 688]

Claimed