World Cup Weekly

[Tagger 2,722]

WORLD CUP WEEKLY
WRITTEN BY YEAH!STLEMANIA

 

A series of articles written in the season leading up to the World Cup addressing how teams are looking in the lead up to the tournament and any other note-worthy topics heading into the World Cup

[Tagger 2,722]

Hey everyone, this is the first instalment of a new series for this season that is going to give a preview of the upcoming Season 50 World Cup. With the Season 52 Draft expected to be the deepest VHL draft in a while thanks to the two player rule, many members will be creating a player at the trade deadline wondering what position and country that their new player should represent. So that is exactly what I’m going to cover in this inaugural episode, which World Cup teams will be the best and worst to select with your new player.

 

Forwards

 

Best Countries to Represent: Team World and Team Western Europe

Team World’s desperation for forward talent can be best surmised by looking at the fifth best forward on their roster, Evgeny Nezhmetdinov. The winger from Kazakhstan was drafted all the way back in Season 45 and he’s been on the line between VHL and VHLM for pretty much his entire career. Not only is it bad that Nezhmetdinov is Team World’s fifth best forward, but it’s made even worse by the fact that it is unlikely any of the young talent behind Nezhmetdinov are going to overtake him anytime soon. If a forward prospect was to be created at the Season 50 trade deadline and select Team World, they would almost certainly make their World Cup debut in the Season 50 tournament.

 

You can’t really go wrong with representing any of the remaining teams as a forward, but Team Western Europe probably presents the best opportunity as far as getting on the team as soon as possible. They already have a few good young forwards in Tyson Kohler and Essian Ravenwing, but they may have some holes to fill in the near future with E’twaun Delicious likely to retire before the Season 50 tournament and with Thaddeus Humbert in his seventh season in the VHL.

 

Worst Country to Represent: Team Canada

There isn’t really a bad team to pick if you intend for your next player to be a forward, but Team Canada would likely be the most difficult team to break into. Their best forward Zach Parechkin still has two tournaments left in him, whereas Jon Sleeman, Unassisted and Tom Lincoln can all compete in the Season 54 World Cup should they wish. Add to them the second overall pick of the Season 49 Draft Ted Doughty and the promising first generation player Asher Donovan and you may be waiting a few tournaments before you can break into the Team Canada roster.

 

 

Defensemen

 

Best Countries to Represent: Team USA and Team Scandinavia

While there are a few teams that could definitely use a defenseman, Team USA is the team in the most urgent need of help at the position. While they do have promising young defensemen in Season 49 draftees Titan Kronos and Shayne Gow, the remaining players are either not going to be around that much longer (Lucas Zhukenov has just entered his first year of regression and is the team’s third best defenseman), not VHL quality (none of the young players they have outside of Kronos and Gow are going to make the VHL) or a combination of the two (Chuck Goody, the team’s fourth best defenseman, has regressed to the point where he actually has less than 175 TPA). Anyone who creates at the deadline and puts in decent activity should make it into the Season 50 World Cup team.

 

Another good pick for your defenseman would be Team Scandinavia. While the team do have a couple of good young defensive prospects in Tobias Klingberg and Nikki Kissanen, the team will definitely be losing Kerkko Hyvarinen and Golden Jedtsson to retirement before the Season 52 World Cup (and potentially also Marquis Hyvarinen if he elects to retire at the trade deadline of his final season), freeing up some holes for new players to fill.  

 

Worst Country to Represent: Team World

There’s a lot of reasons as to why making a player for Team World would potentially be a mistake. For one, if they were to pick their best defensemen right now for the Season 50 World Cup (which would be Biggu Kyanon, Felipe Rodriguez, Bobby Digital and Pavel Komarov), not only do they likely have the second best defensive lineup in the World Cup (behind Team Western Europe), but it’s also likely to be the youngest. On top of that, FOUR of the twelve top picks from the Season 50 VHL Draft were defensemen eligible for Team World; Izidors Balders, Guntis Petenis, Maxim Barnyashev and Misha Tobolsk. All eight of these defensemen are still actively adding points to their player, so unless you’re really confident about your TPE-earning abilities or you just want to guarantee selection for Team Mercenaries, you should give Team World a miss if you plan on making a defenseman.

 

Goalie

 

Best Countries to Represent: Team Western Europe and Team Canada

It might sound strange to suggest a member to create a goalie for Team Western Europe considering that they have three of the four best goalies in the league available for selection in Hans Wingate and Greg and Sandro Clegane, but that’s because the quality of the players at their disposal is not the issue. The problem for Team Western Europe is that those three goalies are all currently facing regression and yet there is no young goalie currently available to take over once the current three retire.  Any new player who creates as a goalie eligible for Team Western Europe would have a fantastic opportunity to start for the team from the Season 54 tournament onwards (maybe even Season 52 if both Clegane’s elected to end their careers’ at the Season 52 trade deadline and forgo the Season 52 World Cup).

 

After Team Western Europe, there are three teams that would be decent choices to represent; Team Canada, Team USA and Team Scandinavia, who only have one goalie each worthy of starting. While the high TPE earners might fancy their chances taking on Apollo Skye and Joanna Akerfeldt for the starting spots on Team USA and Team Scandinavia respectively, it would be a safer bet to create a goalie for Team Canada, where you will be able to replace Atticus von Braxton IV upon his retirement.

 

Worst Country to Represent: Team World

It’s very easy to sum up why you should reconsider your decision to make a Team World goalie if you were intending to do so. For one, Team World are able to select from five of the nine starting VHL goalies and all of those goalies are able to participate in the Season 52 tournament as well as this current tournament. Furthermore, the youngest of those five goalies, Ilya Kopralkov, is a Season 49 player, meaning that he can play for Team World until the Season 56 World Cup if he so desires. On top of that, the usual consolation prize of a place on Team Mercenaries isn't necessarily guaranteed just based on the amount of goalies that you'd be competing against on Team World. 

Edited July 24, 2016 by YEAH!stlemania

[Tagger 2,722]

@STZ Remember to add the previous article to this magazine as well!

 

Team Review – Team Scandinavia

 

Last Tournament

 

After failing to secure the Gold Medal in their last two appearances in the World Cup Final (Season 40 and Season 46), Team Scandinavia managed to secure the Gold Medal in Season 48 and end Team Western Europe’s World Cup winning streak with a 2-0 victory courtesy of a Max Molholt brace and a Sven Wolf shutout. While Team Scandinavia had a lot of strong skaters on the team, it was considered a surprise that they won the whole thing considering that their goalie Wolf had yet to make a professional appearance in goal prior to the tournament (in fact never did as he retooled himself to become a center not long after he was drafted), yet he amazingly managed to record a shutout in the final. One of the key assets in their road to victory was the second line combination of Toronto Legion center Max Molholt and New York Americans winger Jorma Ruutu, a tandem which worked so well that they were the top two players in the tournament in total points and also led to Ruutu being named World Cup MVP.

 

Forwards

 

While Ruutu was a key player for Team Scandinavia last year, it seems likely that they will have to do without him this tournament as he is expected to retire at the deadline this season. This retirement would make Ruutu the second forward to not return to Team Scandinavia after their success in Season 48 along with Simon Valmount, however they have two very solid players to fill the holes those absences have created in former defensemen Joel Jarvi and Season 49 draftee Thor Odinsson. Helping Team Scandinavia for their Season 50 tournament is that all their returning forwards from Season 48 have only gotten better since the last tournament. Both Aleksi Koponen and Max Molholt have entered their first season of regression, but it’s not nearly significant enough to have any effect on their performance, they’re still among the league’s elite at the center position. Rounding out the likely line-up will be Theo Axelsson and Niels Skovgaard. Axelsson may only be in his rookie season but he’s already looking to secure his second gold medal this early in his career and is already set up to become a contributor for Team Scandinavia while Skovgaard has always been a consistent producer in the VHL despite being the last first rounder picked in the Season 46 Draft. All in all, Team Scandinavia will likely have the most well-rounded forward group in the tournament.

 

Defensemen

 

While Joel Jarvi’s position change from defenseman to center has helped out the Express, Team Scandinavia may have wished for him to stay at defenseman considering their problems at the position. Marquis Hyvarinen, Kerkko Hyvarinen and Golden Jedtsson are all eligible to return, but all of them have faced regression that has had a significant impact on their ability. The hit on Jedtsson’s ability has been especially damaging as he’s not been training at all in any of the last three seasons, and could actually see him lose his place in the team given that there are two young active players who are only slightly behind him in ability in Tobias Klingberg and Nikki Kissanen. While the majority of the team is returning from Season 48, they will enter Season 50’s tournament with one of the worst defensive units in the tournament.

 

Goalie

 

After backing up Sven Wolf in the Season 48 tournament, Joanna Akerfeldt will be taking the reins at the goalie position for the Season 50 tournament. Like Wolf, Akerfeldt will enter the tournament without making any appearances for a VHL team, however Akerfeldt will likely come into the tournament slightly better than Wolf did in Season 48. While Wolf’s lack of professional experience didn’t stop him from winning the gold medal last tournament, you would still have to consider their current setup at goalie a weakness, especially considering Akerfeldt is likely going to be the weakest starting goalie in the tournament.

 

Likely Lineup

 

Forwards

Max Molholt

Aleksi Koponen

Thor Odinsson

Theo Axelsson

Joel Jarvi

Niels Skovgaard

 

Honourable Mention: Sven Wolf. The Season 50 draftee has progressed well early on in his career, but he will likely miss out to the more talented youngsters Odinsson and Axelsson this tournament.

 

Defensemen

Marquis Hyvarinen

Kerkko Hyvarinen

Tobias Klingberg

Nikki Kissanen

 

Honourable Mention: Golden Jedtsson. Jedtsson has appeared for Team Scandinavia in each of the last three tournaments, however his inactivity may see him lose out on the chance of a fourth appearance.

 

Goalie

Joanne Akerfeldt

 

 

Review

 

Team Scandinavia are entering this tournament with exactly the same strengths and weaknesses as last tournament; they have a great core of forwards, but will need their defensemen and goalies to once again exceed expectations if they are to retain their gold medal from the previous tournament. As far as pre-tournament expectations go; they should expect to at least medal at this tournament through the strength of their forwards alone, but what medal they’ll secure will ultimately depend on whether their goalie can do as well as Wolf did in Season 48.

 

Edited August 2, 2016 by YEAH!stlemania

[Tagger 2,722]

@STZ Just a heads up that I've just updated the above article since posting. 

Edited August 2, 2016 by YEAH!stlemania

[Tagger 2,722]

@STZ - I'll have mine up around 3PM EST Tuesday if that's ok?

 

[Tagger 2,722]

@STZ Here we go!

 

Team Review – Team Western Europe

 

Last Tournament

 

Team Western Europe were heading into the Season 48 tournament on the back of two Gold Medal winning tournaments in Season 43 and Season 46, however, despite making yet another final, they were unable to make it three straight tournament victories after losing to Team Scandinavia 2-0 in the Finals. While the team was fairly unconvincing in the Round Robin phase of the tournament, especially offensively as they ended up scoring only one more goal than Team USA, a team that failed to win a single game over the course of the tournament, they managed to beat Team World in the Semi-Final 3-2 thanks to a Shawn Muller goal in double overtime. Over the course of the tournament, no Team Western Europe player finished in the top ten in points, but Phil Hamilton put in impressive performances on the blue line that saw him take home the Top Defenseman Award

 

Forwards

 

The majority of Team Western Europe’s success on the forward line will revolve around Tyson Kohler and Shawn Muller. Both players specialise in putting the puck in the back of the net, with Kohler leading the European Conference leading Cologne Express in goals while Muller is second in goals for the Davos Dynamo. Kohler will be the most skilled forward for Team Western Europe for many tournaments to come, so it will be exciting to watch this third season forward in action this World Cup. LeAndre St. Pierre is another forward that will likely return from the Season 48 tournament that specialises in scoring goals, however he will be looking to perform better than he has to this point of the season as he’s failed to record over a point per game. Thaddeus Humbert will likely be the oldest player on Team Western Europe and unlike the three mentioned before, he will look to set up his teammates instead of looking to score. Essian Ravenwing will benefit from the retirements of Wolfgang Strauss and Severin von Karma by jumping straight into the starting lineup after his rookie season, but unfortunately those retirements along with the anticipated retirement of E’twaun Delicious will mean the team will likely have to be filled out by third overall selection Sean Blacker, who isn’t necessarily a bad player, but he’s quite a bit worse than the forwards Team Western Europe fans are used to seeing playing.

 

Defensemen

 

Team Western Europe are without doubt the strongest defensive team in the tournament, and there’s only one word that needs to be used to explain why; Hamilton. Phil and Jeff Hamilton are the two best defensemen in the league right now and while David Hamilton isn’t at their level, you would say he is actually a better player than the best defensemen available to some of the other teams at this tournament. The last remaining defenseman spot for Team Western Europe will likely be filled by World B Free, a player who isn’t necessarily a star, but he’s a very solid player at a position where having any kind of moderately active player is a bonus.

 

Goalie

 

If there’s one area where Team Western Europe (or Team Europe prior to the Season 43 tournament) haven’t struggled for quality options, it’s at the goalie position. Since the first introduction of the European team in Season 37, they’ve had goalies such as Remy Lebeau, Martin Brookside and Eggly Bagelface available for selection, three quality goalies who all won the Shaw trophy at some point in their career. Much like the last three tournaments, Team Western Europe still have access to three of the best goalie talents in the VHL in Hans Wingate, Greg Clegane and Sandro Clegane. Despite having faced three seasons of regression, Wingate has banked enough points over the course of his career that he is still the best goalie in the VHL in terms of ability, which will likely mean that Greg Clegane will once again find himself backing up the Scotsman. While ordinarily a player of Sandro Clegane’s quality may be disappointed to keep missing out on representing his nationality at the World Cup, he’s benefited immensely from being the star goalie for Team Mercenaries, winning the Top Goalie Award in the last two World Cups.  

 

Likely Lineup

 

Forwards

Thaddeus Humbert

Essian Ravenwing

Sean Blacker

Tyson Kohler

Shawn Muller

LeAndre St. Pierre

 

Honourable Mention: E’Twaun Delicious. In his final season in the VHL, Delicious would make this team should he stick around, however it seems likely he will retire at the trade deadline.

 

Defensemen

Phil Hamilton

Jeff Hamilton

World B. Free

David Hamilton

 

Honourable Mention: Elijah Dotran. The Season 50 draftee has developed well this early into his career, however he misses Team Western Europe solely because they currently have the strongest defensive lineup in the tournament. Will be a good asset for the team in future tournaments.

 

Goalie

Hans Wingate

Greg Clegane

 

Honourable Mention: Sandro Clegane. Clegane has failed to make the Western Europe team for the last three seasons and we would only likely see Clegane make his debut this season if Wingate were to retire at the deadline of his final season in the VHL, which considering comments he’s made in the past, seems unlikely.

 

 

Review

 

Without a doubt, Team Western Europe should be able to once again medal at the Season 50 World Cup, that much is obvious. They come into the tournament with easily the best defensemen in the tournament and have the best goalies available to select from, but it’s going to be up to the forwards to improve upon their performances from the last tournament if they want to return back to the top of the podium.

 

[Tagger 2,722]

@STZ - Article for this week will come about 4 PM EST Tuesday if that's ok?

 

 

[Tagger 2,722]

@STZ - Here we go!

 

Team Review – Team World

 

Last Tournament

 

Team World had only managed to pick up a sole bronze medal prior to entering the Season 48 World Cup and unfortunately for them, that remains their only medal to this point after they lost 5-2 to Team Canada in the Bronze Medal game in part due to a curious decision to play rookie Jakab Holik in place of regular starter Ariel Weinstein. Despite failing to medal at the tournament, Team World’s leaders Lord Karnage and Edwin Reencarnacion still put forward some typically strong performances, in particular Karnage who lead the round robin phase in both goals and hits. While those two will not be returning for the Season 50 tournament, Biggu Kyanon will be, and he will be hoping to continue his strong performance in the Season 48 tournament where he was runner-up to Phil Hamilton for the Top Defenseman Award.

 

Forwards

 

It would take something special for a World Cup team to lose four forwards to retirement and still remain at a similar quality the following tournament and unfortunately for Team World, they haven’t been able to maintain that quality. Whereas their best forward heading into the Season 48 World Cup was a 1000+ TPE player in Lord Karnage, closely followed by an 800+ TPE Reencarnacion, for this tournament they will be led by two players who have been in the professional VHL system for two seasons in Pietro Maximoff and Bogdan Podarok. Both players will likely become huge assets in the future, however it is probably too early for them to be leading a World Cup team’s offense. Pavel Komarov has moved from forward to defense, so he will not feature on the front line, but fellow Season 48 Team World player Arcturus Mengsk moved in the opposite direction and the Ukrainian will almost definitely feature for the team. Season 45 draftee Wesley Babiy will also likely make the World Cup team for the first time in his career. After Babiy though comes the real question marks at the forward position, currently the best two forwards after Babiy are Evgeny Nezhmetdinov and Alokin Alset, neither of which are of VHL quality. Luckily, three potential Team World forwards have submitted themselves for the Season 52 Draft in the last couple of days (Edwin Threencarnacion, Kaylan Noffke and Alexander Thrower) so it will be interesting to see whether these players can develop to the point where they can overtake Nezhmetdinov and Alset prior to the tournament.

 

Defensemen

 

While quite a few teams this tournament are struggling to field four VHL defensemen for this tournament, Team World is one of the few who are not in that position, somewhat of a relief for them considering their forward woes. The two most prominent defensemen for Team World are Biggu Kyanon and Felipe Rodriguez, both of whom are currently prominent defensemen for Continental Cup competing teams, although they’ve both somewhat been overshadowed by their team’s respective members of the Hamilton family. Filling out the roster will likely be Pavel Komarov, who represented the team in Season 48 as a forward, and Bobby Digital, the Season 49 third overall pick who’s pretty much the lone bright spot of the current New York Americans roster.

 

Goalie

 

While it’s pretty much guaranteed that sixth season goalie Ariel Weinstein will once again be starting for Team World, it will be interesting to see who will be his backup for the upcoming tournament. Right now, Season 48 backup Jakab Holik is currently the favourite as he has a 40 TPE lead over Helsinki Titans goalie Dmitri Dadonov, but it’s worth pointing out that Dadonov has not added points to his player this month, so should have some points left to add. What this definitely means is that two VHL starters in Ilya Kopralkov and Artom Zhumbayev will be missing out on a spot on Team World.

 

Likely Lineup

 

Forwards

Pietro Maximoff

Bogdan Podarok

Arcturus Mengsk

Wesley Babiy

Edwin Threencarnacion

Kaylan Noffke

 

Honourable Mention: Alexander Thrower. I think it will be tight for the final forward spot on Team World, but I think Noffke may edge it based on the fact that Jarvi (Gregreg’s other player) is pretty much guaranteed his spot on Team Scandinavia whereas Dadonov may not even start for Team Mercenaries thanks to Sandro Clegane.

 

Defensemen

Biggu Kyanon

Felipe Rodriguez

Bobby Digital

Pavel Komarov

 

Honourable Mention: Sooryuu Kaminogi. Currently in his final season in the VHL, Kaminogi is just ahead of Komarov in ability, but the Japanese Kaminogi, who represented Team World in the Season 46 World Cup, will likely miss out either to potential pre-tournament retirement or being overtaken by Komarov

 

Goalie

Ariel Weinstein

Jakab Holik

 

Honourable Mention: Dmitri Dadonov. It looks like Dadonov won’t make Team World’s roster, despite being good enough to start for at least two of the other teams in the tournament.

 

 

Review

 

Team World’s strength is that they have a lot of young depth coming through for future tournaments, but that’s not going to help them bring home a World Cup in Season 50. Their goalies and defensemen are competitive, but don’t expect a team playing two Season 52 draftees to compete for a medal this tournament.

[Tagger 2,722]

Will have this up at 3 PM Tuesday again @STZ

[STZ 5,360]

lol motherfucker, I just saw this now..

 

@Advantage @solas @Victor

 

You three able to get something in too? I'll be waiting till tomorrow to post for this G

[solas 1,951]

25 minutes ago, STZ said:

lol motherfucker, I just saw this now..

 

@Advantage @solas @Victor

 

You three able to get something in too? I'll be waiting till tomorrow to post for this G

I'll be able to do the cover tomorrow.

[Advantage 2,891]

48 minutes ago, STZ said:

lol motherfucker, I just saw this now..

 

@Advantage @solas @Victor

 

You three able to get something in too? I'll be waiting till tomorrow to post for this G

Ill get something in at noon

[Tagger 2,722]

While there are certainly instances where the occasional player can make or miss the All-Star Game when they weren’t expected to, typically the rosters for the All-Star Game can be a good way of determining who are the very best talents in the VHL. So this week, in a special All-Star edition of World Cup Weekly, we’re going to look at which countries the players selected for the All-Star game represent to see which teams will have advantages where.

 

Forwards

Canada: 3

USA: 2

Scandinavia: 4

Western Europe: 1

World: 2

 

The big story here is not about the team that has the most forward representatives (The reigning gold medallists Team Scandinavia with four forwards), but about the team that has the least. Team Western Europe, who have made the last three World Cup finals, had just Shawn Muller serve as a representative for the team at the All-Star Game, even less representatives than Team USA have, and they didn’t even record a single win in the last tournament! If their lack of forward talent in the All-Star game is anything to go by, this may be the end of their three-game World Cup final streak.

 

Technically though, Team Western Europe will have just as many representatives from the All-Star game as Team World, as Edwin Reencarnacion is the lone All-Star player to have declared he will not be taking part in the Season 50 World Cup meaning Bogdan Podarok is the lone All-Star forward available to Team World. For both teams though, there has been a significant drop in All-Star representatives for both countries, as prior to the Season 48 World Cup both teams had three All-Star forwards each.

 

Two teams have improved their All-Star forward count from last tournament, Team Scandinavia and Team Canada, both of whom medalled at the last tournament and therefore will be hoping they will be able to achieve similar success in Season 50.  

 

Defensemen

Canada: 3

USA: 1

Scandinavia: 0

Western Europe: 3

World: 1

 

 

While Team Scandinavia certainly have the edge in regards to forwards, they are behind everyone else in terms of All-Star representatives at the defenseman position as none of their eligible defensemen made the All-Star game. While they didn’t have a particularly strong setup on the blue line last tournament either, they at least had Joel Jarvi make the All-Star game in Season 48 as a defenseman to give them some talent at that position, so Scandinavia will likely have to rely on some strong defensive play from their forwards to make up for their lack of star defensemen.  

 

On the other end of the spectrum, the other two medallists from last tournament (Team Western Europe and Team Canada) both have three All-Star defensemen each. While Team Canada had the same number of defensemen make the All-Star game in Season 48 as well, this is an improvement for Team Western Europe as they only had two defensemen represent them in the Season 48 All-Star game. Team Canada though will be more than happy to retain the same amount of All-Stars as Season 48, as this combined with their All-Star forwards gives them the most Season 50 All-Star skaters out of all the World Cup teams.

 

Team World’s low All-Star turnout at the defenseman position is somewhat surprising considering they are a team that have typically not struggled for defensemen, in fact no other World Cup team have more defensemen in the VHL system eligible for selection than Team World (Team Canada equals their count with six defensemen in the VHL).

 

Goalie

Canada: 0

USA: 0

Scandinavia: 0

Western Europe: 3

World: 3

 

The All-Star count at the goalie position was easily the most predictable of the three positions due to the ridiculous amount of goalie talent stacked around two teams. The only starting goalie in the VHL not eligible to represent either Team Western Europe or Team World was Stockholm’s Atticus von Braxton, a goalie who struggled this season behind an inexperienced defense. You would look at Team Scandinavia’s lack of a star goalie as a definitive weakness, but this was actually the same as last tournament when they picked former goalie Sven Wolf (a player who never player in the VHL), so it will be interesting to see whether they can overcome this blatant weakness once again and repeat the same feat from two seasons ago.

[Tagger 2,722]

Sorry @STZ, I've had problems getting access to a computer this week so I don't have anything ready atm. I can have something ready for the same time as last week (3PM today) if you need articles. 

[STZ 5,360]

4 hours ago, YEAH!stlemania said:

Sorry @STZ, I've had problems getting access to a computer this week so I don't have anything ready atm. I can have something ready for the same time as last week (3PM today) if you need articles. 

 

I'll wait

[Tagger 2,722]

Team Review – Team USA

 

Last Tournament

 

Having failed to medal in the Season 46 tournament and losing big names such as Thomas O’Malley and Mason Richardson to retirement along with both of their VHL goalies Callum Sinclair and Blake Campbell, the Season 48 World Cup was always going to be a difficult tournament for Team USA.  While they did manage to surprise everyone in taking Team Scandinavia to overtime during the Round Robin phase, Team USA failed to record a single win during the Round Robin phase and were quickly eliminated from medal contention after losing to Team Western Europe in the Quarter Finals, but not without giving the winner of both the Season 43 and 46 tournaments a big scare. Team USA were leading half-way through the third period, however two goals on two power plays in the second half of the period were enough to see Team Europe through to a 4-3 victory.

 

Forwards

 

While not quite as big a name to lose as O’Malley or Richardson, Freedom McJustice was easily Team USA’s most gifted player at the last tournament and his scoring presence will be missed by Team USA. The positive for Team USA though is that they’ve had a number of young prospects join the fold since the last tournament and while they may not be able to contribute to the cause quite as effectively as McJustice did, these talented youngsters such as Diana Maxwell, Kai Roberts, Travis Gowency and AK-47 will be key pieces for Team USA going forward. Should Sir William Covington turn up for Team USA (there are rumours he will turn down the call due to the lack of talent on the national team roster), he will be the team’s most gifted and experienced player on the roster, and if he elected not to play, he would be a big miss for the team. The final player to make the roster will likely be Jordan Maverick, the oldest forward on the team having been selected in Season 46 and so this will be his last tournament before facing regression. Should Covington not play in the tournament, the likely replacement would either be Jace Hines or Vincent Adultman, as none of the other active young players look likely to reach 100 TPE before the tournament.

 

Defensemen

 

This looked like it was going to be a promising position for Team USA going into future seasons, with two promising youngsters in Shayne Gow and Titan Kronos. While Gow has kept up good updating form and will likely still become a very good defenseman, Kronos has gone missing the last couple of weeks and, should his current efforts continue, would likely end up being considered one of the worst first overall selections in VHL history. Even without Kronos’ recent lack of training, Team USA would have been struggling on the defensive front and their remaining two defensemen will likely be Lucas Zhukenov and Chuck Goody. Zhukenov is below average depth at this point of his career and Goody isn’t even above 175 TPA with the effect that regression has had on him.

 

Goalie

 

With the Season 48 tournament’s goalie AK-47 moving to winger, Team USA were potentially looking like they’d be struggling at the goalie position once again, but luckily Season 51 draftee Apollo Skye has declared himself eligible for selection by Team USA. Considered the consensus first overall pick in the disappointing Season 51 draft class, Skye will be playing against professionals for the first time in his hockey career when he plays in the Season 50 World Cup and it will be interesting to see how he does given the success that some younger goalies have had in previous tournaments (Sandro Clegane in Season 46, Sven Wolf in Season 48).

 

Likely Lineup

 

Forwards

Sir William Covington III

Travis Gowency

Kai Roberts

Diana Maxwell

AK 47

Jordan Maverick

 

Honourable Mention: Jace Hines and Vincent Adultman will replace Covington if he declares himself ineligible for the Season 50 World Cup

 

Defensemen

Titan Kronos

Shayne Gow

Lucas Zhukenov

Chuck Goody

 

Goalie

Apollo Skye

 

Review

 

While we can certainly have a “Kaepernick didn’t stand for the anthem” style debate over whether Covington is doing the right thing by saying he’d consider not playing for Team USA given their roster, you can’t argue that his point is very valid. However, there are certainly positives for this side that weren’t there last tournament. For one, I don’t see this team losing every game. The other positive is that there is a very good set of young players coming through in this tournament that Team USA will hope to build around in future tournaments. For now though, you can’t realistically expect a medal for Team USA in Season 50.

 

[Tagger 2,722]

Sorry, couldn't come up with anything this week, will use a free week instead.

[FacePuncher 1,343]

1 hour ago, YEAH!stlemania said:

Sorry, couldn't come up with anything this week, will use a free week instead.

I got u covered in the World Cup forum