Claimed: Derailed or why Cologne wasn't a consistent threat after Devise anymore. [1/2]

[hedgehog337 3,483]

 

*Well, no Cup here*

 

 

The start of S55 was delayed a little bit due to @punkhippie's tanking problems. He tried to have a worse team possible to secure a first pick and even though he wasn't able to do that, his team is still looking bad enough so I think he's going to be alright. Meanwhile, I'm going to write an article about Cologne, but this is not about the start of Punk's era. Right now I will go back to his predecessor, also known as @gregreg. His Cologne had interesting times between S48-51, but their biggest success was only S49 finals; I think they could've done more than that, but something went wrong. I will try to find a reason why this team never was a consistent threat even during their peak. 

 

 

1. Fuck draft picks?

 

 

*something something draft picks*

 

First of all, let's go even more back to last year of @Devise's tenure. His team managed to win the only cup in S42 and then made it to finals two seasons after, but all good things have to come to an end. So the VHL league saw this trade, when Klose and O'Malley were traded to Helsinki. Everybody thought this is over for the Express...well, except for Devise himself. Instead of laying low he decided to give up his S46 2nd and S47 picks to bring some decent players, like Gifford Shock, Nicklas Karlsson, Jacson Miller and Joshua Rubin. These moves were heavily criticized by some members and Ryan Power even needed to make a long ass explanation about his move. What was the final result of this?

 

*Cologne wasn't able to survive the EU massacre in S45, finishing only 4th on their conference;

*S45 DAV first and S47 HSK first for Klose and O'Malley turned into Evgeny Nezhmetdinov (drafted by COL) and Mikhail Gribov (drafted by DAV) and both of them were inactive scrubs;

*The S47 HSK first was traded for Rubin. Slight win for Cologne for sure;

*S47 COL first turned into SWC III. Looks like the Express took an L, because Shock was a decent depth player at most, but you gotta know @BobertZ and his nature...and his fuckery lists where he was expressing his refusal to play there. The S47 draft had a decent player in Virtanen at 6th OV though, so Cologne still takes a slight loss in this one. 

 

Conclusion: Yes, Devise could've done better with rebuilding without trading his picks for depth players, but it wasn't a big loss either. And it's definitely not a reason why Cologne never won the cup under Greg's tenure. 

 

 

 

2. Artom bombs Cologne?

 

 

*welp, screw the Express*

 

Devise stepped down after a S45 fail and gave GM powers to Greg Harbinson. Fast forward to S49: the GM managed to add valuable pieces from drafts:

 

S47: G - Artom Zhumbayev (2nd OV)

S48: RW - Tyson Kohler (4th OV)

 

and from trades, like Phil Hamilton, Niels Skovsgaard and Souryuu Kaminogi. The team was ready to take on the world and even though they lost to Toronto in finals, the things were looking up...unfortunately, not for a long time. First of all, Artom Zhumbayev went inactive even before finals happened and never came back. I still remember when Cologne players used #ArtomBomb as their main hashtag. Seems like @fever95 bombed Cologne's chances for a long-term competing. 

 

Conclusion: That was a huge blow to the Express. You can say that the team can win the Continental Cup with a 400 TPE goalie, like M.T. Power in S53 and Astrid Moon in S54. But let's go back to S49 and look at goalies who were playing back then - both Clegane brothers, Hans Wingate and Ariel Weinstein. It was clear that Artom just wasn't good enough for them and I think the team would have had more chances against Toronto with more quality goalie. Definitely one of the reasons why Cologne was underperforming after their biggest success since

Devise's tenure. 

 

 

3. KO'd by Tyson?

 

 

*bye, bitch!*

 

I don't know exactly what happened between @Kendrick and Greg, but the S50 was the last season when we saw Kohler as an Express. The team was looking to continue their playoff run, but Tyson decided to join the Wranglers and the team lost their big offesnive piece. Some seasons later, they revealed the reason of it - Kendrick wasn't fond of team's direction and even though they respect each other, it wasn't enough for him to stay in Germany. Did this screw up the Express' chances? Not really - Greg managed to bring Tom Lincoln via trade and that saved this team for one more season. But it was clear that something is going on there...

 

 

4. Robbery by Toronto?

 

 

*yup, that's what happened*

 

The final blow happened in S51 off-season: Greg still was looking for making another playoff run and he tried to bring both Hamilton brothers and Greg Clegane to his team. And honestly, I thought that @Victor is about to join the Express, taking both Hamilton's with them. But that's not what happened. @Molholt decided to make things in NA more spicy after four straight finals appearance. And that's exactly what happened - all of them signed with the Legion, leaving Cologne with nothing. 

 

After that, the team was done. We saw ~130-point season from Skovsgaard in S52 and the big scoring trio in S53, when they almost put out Moon and Helsinki out of their misery. But they never were classified as the contender team anymore and it remains to be seen when they will be great again. 

 

 

So I think Cologne had chances for being more dangerous threat, but it is what it is. I'm not going to judge anybody as I don't know all the details and I never had Cologne LR permissions after I left them with Zeptenbergs. 

 

 

That's it and I'm out. 

 

6 TPE goes to Krīgars.

Edited June 11, 2017 by hedgehog337

[Gudnason 607]

Nice article, I don't have time now to read it in full, but Robbie's annoyance analytics are pure gold.

 

And the season wasn't delayed because of me, stop the blame

 

[BluObieZ 1,125]

Lol the annoyance analytics. I remember that lol

[Kendrick 4,741]

Yeah Greg was slowly going inactive back then, which is why several of us were annoyed. Knowing his downward trend it wasn't really moving forward. Kind of like now

[DollarAndADream 3,357]

Review:

Good write-up. It's always hard to trade in the VHL, not knowing exactly who might end up going inactive, unless you trade for some big member. Hell, even then it's not 100% certain.

The acquisitions of the Hamiltons and Clegane in Toronto was really fun as well.