Claimed:No but seriously, this draft yo! [Final 6/6]

[Tagger 2,722]

I think it’s fair to say that this upcoming draft is one of the most intriguing in recent history. With Stockholm becoming the first team since the Season 23 Draft to make the playoffs and also hold the first overall pick in the draft, the top TPE prospect Hans Wingate being predicted to be taken anywhere from first overall to outside the lottery and talks of trades going round, this draft has a whole host of stories surrounding it. This article will break down each of the four teams that had the weight of their first round selection in the Season 43 VHL Draft decided by a lottery and look at what directions they could possibly go, what different scenarios could unfold and what stories surround the picks that are available to them. What this article won’t be though is a mock draft, as I will not be stating who I think will be taken where but more analysing what options are available to each team.

 

#1 Pick – Stockholm Vikings (Pick received from HC Davos Dynamo)

 

When you’re the first team in twenty seasons to both hold the first overall selection and make the playoffs, you know that the team is being managed by someone who has a full grasp of what he’s doing and has a plan that he knows how to execute. Benoit Prevost has not been a general manager for very long (this is only his third season in the role) but he’s certainly gotten people’s attention with his bold managing decisions that look set to make Stockholm a strong contender for the Continental Cup in a couple of seasons time. No transaction proves this more than the trade that saw Stockholm receive this selection:

 

To 
(S41) RW - Mario De Rossi
(S41) G - Coca Cola (Later traded for S43 RIG 2^nd – 11^th overall)
S42 CGY 1st (C Joseph Roy III)
S43 DAV 1st (1st overall)
S42 DAV 2nd (C Severin von Karma)

To 
S42 STO 1st (G Callum Sinclair)

 

Just to clarify, I don’t believe that this was a bad trade for Davos to make. A strong goalie is a must for any VHL team and sometimes you have to pay more than you may want to in order to acquire your franchise goalie. However, Prevost did a fantastic job getting as many possible assets as he could, bringing in two VHL-ready players along with another three who will make their VHL debuts in Season 43.

 

Prevost has done a fantastic job thus far with the Vikings

 

However, the real question now is what does Stockholm do with this selection? Well, while there are quite a few good prospects at the position, I feel like the one area that Stockholm will not be looking to improve upon is its defense. Lord Karnage and Jack Kowalski showed themselves to be two of the best young defensemen in the game this season as both of them were able to rank in the top five positions for points scored by a defenseman. When you combine their performances with Lloyd Light’s strong play on the second line, there’s really no need for the Vikings to use the first overall pick on a defenseman. While they don’t currently have any stars on the front lines, the team is filled with young talent coming through the ranks that should eventually pose a strong threat to teams. While only three active forwards were present this season (Mario De Rossi, Teuvo Ruutu and Joseph Roy III), they will be joined by three more players coming through the VHLM for Season 43; Severin Von Karma, Vogon Jeltz and Prince Gigga-Bijou.

 

So does it turn out that selecting a goalie will in fact be the best option for Stockholm, a team that will already have two VHL-ready players at the position come Season 43? Hans Wingate is unquestionably the best TPE-earning talent in the draft, but is it to a point where it would be worth picking up what would be Stockholm’s third goalie? Well when we dig deeper than just the positional breakdown, such a decision begins to makes more sense. With current starting goalie Blaine Olynick retiring, it looks like playing time will be split evenly between Season 42 draftees Jax Barnstormer and Blake Campbell. While he is currently the better of the two goalies, Barnstormer has failed to show proper commitment to the Viking’s cause, only recording ten practice hours from activities participated in during Season 42. Aware of this potential lack of commitment, Stockholm selected Blake Campbell ahead of Barnstormer in the Season 42 Draft. Campbell has turned out to be a pleasant surprise for the team, recording a respectable 215 practice hours to date, however Wingate is still considered a superior prospect and has the advantage of being a year younger than Campbell.

 

Regardless of what decision Prevost makes with the selection, I would be willing to guess that there will be a trade involved with the selection, whether that is a trade of the selection itself or as a result of the selection made. If we look at where the first overall selection could possibly be traded to, there are three teams that are currently starting a goalie that will be entering his final season in the league. In addition to Calgary, who would perhaps like a more secure option than Coca Cola as their starting goalie, there are four teams who could use the services of Hans Wingate. In some of these cases, I feel like a trade is unlikely considering a lack of assets that would fit for Stockholm. Cologne for example have no valuable draft selections and is a team mainly comprised of players set to hit or currently suffering from regression, and it’s highly unlikely they would be willing to dispose of talents like Thomas O’Malley, Mason Richardson or Nicolas Caprivi in an effort to grab a goalie. Similarly I don’t see Calgary trading for first overall, as they don’t have many talents to offer to Stockholm and, as a team that looks set to have a lottery selection for the next couple of years, I don’t see them being willing to part with Season 44 Draft selections. While I don’t believe any of the three teams that currently start a Season 36 goalie are looking to start their rebuild at the conclusion of this season’s playoffs, if they were, they would obviously be able to offer some of their more valuable talent to Stockholm, which would allow the Vikings to compete for the Continental Cup earlier than anticipated.

 

Ultimately, I don’t see a scenario where a team trades for the first overall pick and then go on to select a player other than Hans Wingate. While there are some talented forwards and defensemen in this draft, I don’t think any of them are worth the amount of assets a team would have to give up in order to select them with the first overall selection. I could though see teams attempting to acquire the services of Blake Campbell should the Vikings select Hans Wingate with the first overall selection.  

 

#2 pick – Riga Reign

 

With Hans Wingate already having earned enough practice hours to his name to enter the VHL by the time Riga Reign’s franchise player Robin Gow declared his retirement, one would have thought that Wingate would become a viable target for the Reign in the Season 43 Draft, especially considering that the Reign already looked to have guaranteed one of the top two picks in that draft at that point with their performance to that point of the season. However, General Manager Jim Gow elected to use his player franchise rights on the services of goalie Bernie Gow, effectively quelling any chance of Wingate joining the Reign. You can see why the decision was made; general managers want to ensure that they have a reliable prospect between the sticks, one that will come into practice every week. While Wingate’s agent CowboyInAmerica last represented a very good player in Karsten Olsen, there were periods where he did not turn up for training. So while Olsen still ended up becoming a very good player, he failed to reach his full potential, something that may have been enough to convince GM Jim Gow to instead look to Bernie Gow to be their goalie of the future.

 

Jim Gow has put his full faith behind his relative, Bernie Gow

 

So, with goalie out of the question, where does Riga go?  Well, if the most talented player is ruled out, one would naturally believe that they would look instead to the second most talented player. E’twaun Delicious is currently the Season 43 Draft prospect with the second most practice hours to his name, and he’s certainly not been shy in saying that he’d love to be a part of the Riga Reign. However the Reign organization has much greater ties with the player who has accrued the third most practice hours to this point, Bronson Faux. Faux’s agent, Jamie, represented Riga Reign legend Brennan McQueen throughout his career, one which saw him captain the Reign for a league record seven seasons. Many have assumed that Faux has lacked commitment to this point, but in actuality that isn’t the case. While Faux is behind Delicious in training hours, it is worth noting that Faux submitted his entry for the draft a month later than Delicious, meaning he has had less time to accrue training hours. Although the later declaration is the reason for the lower amount of training hours, it should be pointed out that Faux hasn’t really closed the gap on Delicious at any point, as the gap is the same as when Faux declared for the draft. However, Faux has also yet to submit his biography or rookie profile, completion of both of these tasks will see the practice hours gap between Delicious and Faux shrink.

 

There is also every chance that the Reign elect to go with one of the lesser known but very respectable defensemen prospects, Pablo Escabar and Francis York Morgan, however history reflects that this would perhaps not be the best move. The last time that Riga Reign was starting a rebuild was in the Season 35 Draft and with their fifth overall pick, they selected the relatively unknown defenseman Edwin Encarnacion. As it turned out, the Encarnacion project was an abject failure and the Reign quickly disposed of him in a trade with the Seattle Bears that saw the Reign receive Brennan McQueen. While Encarnacion continued his abhorrent play, McQueen would go on to become a club legend, leading the team to a Continental Cup victory in Season 40. While it’s highly unlikely that either Escabar or Morgan will turn out as bad as Encarnacion, you have to imagine that this scenario has been reflected on by Gow. The difference this time however is that it would be very unlikely that they’d be able to get as good a player as Brennan McQueen in a trade should Escabar or Morgan fail like Encarnacion did.

 

The possibility of the Reign trading away their first round selection for more picks later on or in future drafts was put forward by their general manager in a recent VHL.com article, however the article was made under the basis that the pick could have been the first overall selection. Now that the Reign’s selection is confirmed to be the second pick in the VHL Draft, one would wonder if there’s anyone available in the draft that would warrant such a move. If Stockholm elected to pass on Wingate with the first overall pick, then I could perhaps see someone trading up to acquire him with the second overall pick. If Wingate isn’t available, then there’s still a chance that a team that holds a later first rounder, like Toronto or New York, trades up to secure themselves one of the top end talents, but I doubt either of those teams are prepared to give the Reign what they want.

 

#3 Pick – Calgary Wranglers

 

Although the new management of the Wranglers will be happy with the opportunity to add some good young talent to the roster, the fans will be hoping that this rebuilding process does not restart as quickly as the last one. After an ill-fated charge for the Season 35 Continental Cup saw them lose first round picks in the Season 36 and Season 37 VHL Drafts, it wasn’t until Season 39 that the Wranglers would return to the playoffs. However, another ill-fated push for the Season 40 Continental Cup saw the team lose most of their valuable assets and their Season 41 first round selection, so after three years of briefly flirting with the playoffs, Calgary are right back in the rebuilding phase.

 

Tim TebowGow will hope to help end a 10+ Season wait for a Wranglers Continental Cup

 

 

The Wranglers are the only team in the draft that have holes throughout their team. While they have some decent forwards, with Marcus Hurley currently and Tim TebowGow set to join the team in Season 44, they will need adding to at some point. With the amount of holes that are in the side, I foresee that Calgary are probably the least likely team to trade away their pick. However, if they were to trade this pick, I presume that they would still keep a first round selection in this draft, whether that is an earlier or later selection than they currently have.

 

Calgary is the most obvious hole for the goalie Hans Wingate to fall to. While they may want to keep faith that Coca Cola will maintain the commitment required to be a starting goalie, at the end of the day he is a player who will be making his VHL debut in his third year of eligibility and should Wingate be available, they should absolutely jump to take him. Out of the players who could potentially fall to this selection, the ones that would make the most sense based on links to the general manager are Bronson Faux and Pablo Escabar. Bronson Faux’s agent, Jamie, managed Brennan McQueen who shared a team with another client of Jim Gow’s agent, eaglesfan, in Robert Gow III. Escabar has also been on record saying that Calgary is one of his preferred destinations, and the interest appears to be based on the fact that Gow is in constant discussion with Escabar’s agent, Mr. Escabar.

 

#4 Pick – Seattle Bears

 

While missing the playoffs was actually the pre-season expectation for the Seattle Bears, it actually turned out to be a disappointment for many of their players. A team that was in first place in the early stages of the season, things slowly but surely got worse for the team, and they ended up missing the playoffs by some distance. While I can understand that such a drop in form would be disappointing to a fan base, it comes as a surprise that those in the Bears organisation did not see it coming considering that the early part of their schedule was filled with rebuilding teams whilst the latter stages of the season saw them face teams such as the Titans, the Americans and the Express multiple times. Despite missing the playoffs though, this is a great draft position for Seattle to be picking from. This will be a team that’s in its third proper season of rebuilding come Season 43, and with no realistic shot at Continental Cup success in Season 42, missing the playoffs will turn out to be great for the team as they look to pick up an asset that will help them improve even further in Season 43.

 

Barabash will hope to help repay the faith his team showed in him with a S43 Playoff Run

 

Seattle are pretty unique in that they are a team that, in recent history, have been very upfront about who they plan on taking prior to the draft. Lloyd Light, Niklaus Mikaelson and Wolfgang Strauss were all confirmed to be targets for the Bears in the draft by General Manager Tyler Barabash prior to their eventual selection by the team. This year is no different, as both Barabash and assistant GM Davey Jones have gone on record to say that they plan on selecting Pablo Escabar in the Season 43 VHL Draft. This is a move that fits perfectly for the team; Escabar is one of a pair of strong defensive prospects and Seattle are in need of defenseman with Phil Villeneuve soon to be retiring and Borje Samuelsson failing to turn up to mandatory training sessions.

 

However, the big question comes if Escabar is not available with their selection. I don’t see Hans Wingate falling this far in the draft and Seattle certainly don’t need him considering that they already have one of the best young goalies in the game in Niklaus Mikaelson, but if Wingate were to fall this far there’s every chance we could see a trade for this selection. If Delicious falls this far, I think that the Bears would be more than happy to select him. They do already have two full lines of forwards, but it’s worth mentioning that two of their players have questionable skill sets; Rift Pajodcast has no real skill with the puck whereas A.C. Savage is much like Carlsberg in that he doesn’t fight, but if he did fight, he’d probably be the best in the world at it.

 

The two question marks come with Bronson Faux and Francis York Morgan. As mentioned several times in this article already, Faux is represented by Jamie, who also represented Brennan McQueen. However, unlike the other mentions of Jamie which mainly focused on positive relationships, the relationship between Jamie and the Bears may not be all that great. This stems from a problem in Season 35 between the pair regarding negotiating a contract for Brennan McQueen; McQueen and Jamie made it clear to the Bears organization that they wanted $4 Million in salary for McQueen, but the Bears and their GM at the time (Greg Harbinson) were only prepared to offer $3 Million. As it turns out, an agreement could not be made and McQueen was traded to the Riga Reign for Edwin Encarnacion. However, the Bears organization has completely changed since McQueen was on the team, so there’s every chance that this is no longer an issue, but it’s something that’s certainly worth monitoring. As for Francis York Morgan, while there is certainly nothing wrong with showing support for Pablo Escabar, it appears in some ways that they are throwing Morgan’s work ethic under the bus. In truth, Morgan is just as hard a worker as Escabar, however Seattle Assistant GM Davey Jones mentioned in response to a recent VHL.com article that he “expects Escabar to easily surpass Morgan”.  As Morgan has made it his mission to keep ahead of Escabar, one wonders how he takes these sorts of comments, and in truth, one wonders why an Assistant GM who could use a defenseman would make these comments. 

Edited April 6, 2015 by YEAH!

[Jamie 438]

Dis a lot to take in

[boubabi 4,725]

This is good

[Phil 5,111]

This was fantastic. Well done sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar. 

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

This is why I'm super excited, have no idea how this is going to go. Excellent article man.

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

Maybe I am hyping up Pablo for someone to take him and he goes inactive. You never know what is up  my sleeve. It could also be a decoy for the real player that Seattle is going to take. The only one who knows outside of me is Bushito.

[Victor 10,829]

Wow I was sure this would end after like two Stockholm paragraphs. This might take a few reads haha.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

Maybe I am hyping up Pablo for someone to take him and he goes inactive. You never know what is up  my sleeve. It could also be a decoy for the real player that Seattle is going to take. The only one who knows outside of me is Bushito.

 

The real twist: Bushito is feeding Jones false information, Seattle actually angling for Roland Rengel as a Mikaelson replacement. Mikaelson traded to Saskatoon.

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

The real twist: Bushito is feeding Jones false information, Seattle actually angling for Roland Rengel as a Mikaelson replacement. Mikaelson traded to Saskatoon.

 

You mean Turku

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

You mean Turku

 

R.I.P.

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

R.I.P.

 

Wingate and Sinclair. The last beast goalies to travel through Turku.

[Victor 10,829]

Oh this is great. Though I loved your Encarnacion persona (and it seems your 590 is still going down that route), I am definitely looking forward to your future MSs if this is the new route you go down.

As for the draft, I think the off-season won't be too trade-heavy but what trades do happen will be huge. There are a few factors I don't think you've considered but you've also brought up some I hadn't - it should be great.

[Kesler 1,514]

worst draft ever

[Tagger 2,722]

Oh this is great. Though I loved your Encarnacion persona (and it seems your 590 is still going down that route), I am definitely looking forward to your future MSs if this is the new route you go down.

As for the draft, I think the off-season won't be too trade-heavy but what trades do happen will be huge. There are a few factors I don't think you've considered but you've also brought up some I hadn't - it should be great.

 

Thanks yo!

 

As for whether I continue with this kind of media more often, there's every chance of that. The main reason for the Encarnacion-esque articles was down to the fact that I didn't feel I had enough experience with the league or hockey to make good enough spots. But now that I've been in the league longer I feel more engaged with it and have found myself starting to have a lot more views about it than I did before. In this case, I made this article just cause I find all the possibilities and the stories surrounding the picks really exciting. So yeah, the Encarnacion 590/VHL media combo might keep going. That might be better actually since I can just go crazy with what I'm saying with the Encarnacion stuff without having to make the structural changes required for media.

Edited April 6, 2015 by YEAH!

[eaglesfan036 4,593]

This was awesome YEAH!

 

Kinda stole my thunder for my mag piece though

[BOOM 8,650]

This is the YEAH I remember. Welcome back my man, great read.

[.sniffuM 1,741]

FWIW I haven't done my bio yet.

[Tagger 2,722]

FWIW I haven't done my bio yet.

Oh my bad, I thought I'd written that in. It was noticed though!

[Tagger 2,722]

This was awesome YEAH!

 

Kinda stole my thunder for my mag piece though

Sorry

[diamond_ace 3,107]

The race for S44 1st overall is officially underway...

[Laflamme 376]

Passed Francis York Morgan  

 

 

looks like he didn't put up much of a fight 

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

Content: 3/3 - Awesome article, man. Quite a hefty article to grade, but it was a great read. I enjoyed all the in-depth information. This draft should be a good one.

Grammar: 2/2 - Only a couple of mistakes I could see, which is amazing for an article this long.

 

"begins to makes more sense." - begins to make more sense.

"with goalie out of the question" - with goaltending out of the question, / with a goalie out of the question,

Appearance: 1/1 - Everything looks superb.

 

Overall: 6/6

Edited April 9, 2015 by DollarAndADream

[Kendrick 4,741]

Claimed