It's A Race

[Smarch 3,194]

The Race For First- Part 1 of 2

 

While we don’t have the exciting playoff races that we sometimes experience in the VHL here in Season Fifty-Five, the race between the top two team in both the North American and European Conferences are well alive. With the top four teams being the same the past couple of seasons, things can and will get a little dry over the course of a VHL season, but the latest stretch of games in the league have tighten the gap slightly for the race for first.  Today we’ll look at the race in the VHL for first in the North American Conference, while trying to sort through everything to predict who may receive the first round bye in the playoffs.

 

North American Conference:

 

The New York Americans and Quebec Meute are once again battling it out for supremacy in the conference. Quebec has the slight edge with forty games played between the two franchises, currently holding down first place with a five point lead. The Meute are lead largely by players that are still on their rookie contracts, including Pierre Gaudette, Lukas Muller, Fook Yu, and John Locke. Those four players have combined for 209 points for the Meute in forty games this season, being the main key in the cog of the Meute offense. While the Meute currently own the league’s best offense with 148 goals for, you can’t mention the Quebec capital franchise without mentioning Apollo Skye. Skye has been a rock for the Meute since coming over before the Season Fifty-Three season, resurrecting a career that started with a top rookie award. Skye currently has thirty wins in forty games this season, while also putting up the second best goals against average with a 1.52. Quebec won the right to have the first round bye last season, but once again standing in their way of doing that is the New York Americans

 

New York is a team that doesn’t really have father time on its side. With a roster that is made up of many players in their last few seasons in the league, the Americans are looking to take home the Continental Cup for the third time with this core. Although the Americans were stopped in their tracks for a three-peat least season by the Meute, they brought back everyone they could from that Season Fifty-Four roster in hopes of again challenging the younger Meute this year. Diana Maxwell temporarily left the Americans when she opted for free agency to see if the grass was greener on the other side, before agreeing with New York General Manager Ryan Power to come back to the Americans on a two year deal. While Maxwell is still the driving force behind the Americans offense with her sixty-three points this season, the supporting cast of Unassisted, Essian Ravenwing, and Bobby Digital are still playing at an elite level this season. The Americans also employ Jakab Holik in net for his final season in the VHL, and while Holik has been an exceptional regular season goalie during his VHL career, he hasn’t been able to find that extra gear in the VHL post-season.

With both clubs in win mode now with a different set of circumstances, it’s really a coin flip on who will finish in first in the conference, but we believe the Meute will take the bye in Season Fifty-Five by winning the conference during the regular season.

 

 

*For Snatch*