Season 44 Draft Retrospective [Final 6/6]

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We’re currently only about an hour away from the Season 46 Draft, so I figured that I may as well have a look back at the Season 44 Draft and see if the concerns that were put up prior to the draft about it being the weakest draft in recent history hold up.

 

 

 

1st Pick - Edwin Reencarnacion

 

Only one of two players from this draft to have played two full VHL Seasons, Reencarnacion has been the highest point getter from this draft class in both of the seasons that has passed. He hasn't quite had as big an impact as some first overall draft picks have had in the early goings, but he’s proved to be a clutch provider for the Americans in the regular season, as he led the league in game winning goals this season. Reencarnacion has made the playoffs in each of his last two seasons but he’s also yet to win a game in the postseason and failed to even put up a point in this season’s playoff series against the Wranglers. The high work ethic demonstrated early on in his career seems to have slipped a little, but he still remains the highest TPE earning player in this draft by over 100 TPE. 

 

 

2nd Pick - Kerkko Hyvarinen

 

Unquestionably the biggest disappointment from this draft, Kerkko has failed to turn up both in training and on the ice. Sitting at 245 TPE, Kerkko is currently tied for fifth place in TPE from this draft and, despite playing an extra season in the VHL, is already behind both Valmount and Faux in points, having only managed to put up 45 points in two seasons. He does however have a Continental Cup to his name having won in Season 44 with the Wranglers.

 

 

3rd Pick - Marcel Faux

 

Faux is the second player in this draft to have won a Continental Cup having just won it this season with the Titans. Playing a much more disciplined game than his brother Bronson (he only recorded 27 hits last season), Faux was a solid contributor for the Titans as he put up 64 points despite only playing around 20 minutes per game. His work ethic currently sees him just ahead of Valmount in TPE, however with recent changes to his extracurricular work limiting him to welfare, that lead will likely disappear around the start of Season 46.

 

 

Taken By

Now At

4^th Pick – Simon Valmount

 

The first non-recreate to be taken in the draft, Valmount has made a big impression around the league with his consistent involvement with matters relating to the VHL. The Finland native was the only player not named Reencarnacion to put up over a point per game in Season 45 and he in fact matched the Americans winger in points per 20 minutes. Like all the other players selected before him, Valmount was part of a roster that made the Season 45 playoffs as a member of the Davos Dynamo and even helped them defeat his former team (the Riga Reign) before they  lost to the Titans in the European Championship Game. Already at over 400 TPE, if Valmount keeps up his work ethic, he will likely end up at least with the second most TPE from this draft.

 

 

5^th Pick – Le’Sean Coutzen

 

After a promising start, Coutzen has already shown signs of inactivity and will likely not be a member of the Reign for much longer if he doesn’t pick himself up. Out of every human player to play 72 games last season, only Larry Esposito managed to score less points than the 13 points that Coutzen picked up in Season 45. While he did make a playoff appearance with the Reign, he failed to make an impact and didn’t score any points in the four games that he played in. Although he is currently fourth in TPE out of all the players selected in this draft, this is actually more indicative of the performance of the other players taken in the draft than of Coutzen’s own performance. In fact despite being fourth in TPE from this draft, due to a failure on his part to add any of the TPE he’s earned since leaving the VHLM, he currently ranks seventh in total TPE added to the player. 

 

Edited November 5, 2015 by XaviYEAH! Woods

[Ahma 1,428]

Long live S44!!

[Hybrid1486 577]

Content 3/3 This looks like a pretty weak draft, but you did a good job of covering the first five picks of it. I'm not going to go back and look, but I doubt there was much else to really care about.  Well done.

Grammar 2/2 The Reencarnacion paragraph was a bit awkward, but there weren't any mistakes worth taking points off over.

Appearance 1/1

Total: 6/6