Claimed: First Round Predictions (1/2)

[Banackock 8,142]

Hey ho, hey ho, the season has once again come and gone. Looking across the board now, 6 of the 10 VHL organizations have reached the seasonal ending point for their regular seasons and only 4 (all in the North American conference) have a game remaining. With some very great seasons behind them and the race for the final prize bigger than ever - we're curious to see how the first round will play out. With all of the first round match ups set and ready to go, we figured we'd give it a shot and see if we can hit the grey goose on the head and predict who, what, where, when and why for the first round. Without any further delay, the European conference. 

European Conference 1st Round Predictions

The race for the first place bye was an amazing one in the European Conference, however, Stockholm just fell shy of winning that honour. Taking an extra overtime loss than win compared to Helsinki, Stockholm finished the season 1 point behind with 117 points on the regular season standings. As a result of this, Stockholm and the HC Dynamo will be facing off against one another and when taking a look at the rosters, the stats and regular seasons standings, we can safely say we have a winner in mind (though stranger shit has happened). The Vikings put up 59 more goals while allowing 23 less on the season - beat them by 29 points and finished the year off better (7-1-2 compared to 7-3-0). We will, however, like to mention Davos is rolling on some good momentum as they're heading into the playoffs on a  5 game winning streak.

 

Average TPE per team

Stockholm: 506.54

Davos: 323

 

Clear cut winner here, largely gives the Vikings the edge in the first round. Chemistry would be something that would strongly help Davos take down the Vikings, however, even with boosting amounts of chemistry we feel Stockholm has this in the bag.

 

Roster analysis

2 players break a point per game on Davos (Trombone - 79 and Gretzky - 77) with the next players coming in at 67, 63  and 58. Honestly not too bad but nothing you would expect from a championship winning team. Depth scoring seems to be pretty good on Davos - so watch for that to potentially be a factor in the series. Aside from this, the Vikings goalie edges Davos out and Stockholm's players scoring point wise goes 96, 92, 91, 90 and 70. Carrying on, their depth similarly matches Davos.

 

Result

4-1

 

North American Conference 1st Round Prediction

In my opinion, the European conference will likely be the series to watch in round one as I feel like things could likely be a little different in that one as opposed to this one. Could be my distaste for Calgary and being a little biased, but I see the Americans walking all over them and sending them back to their cowboy infested hole in the ground. While the Americans did;t have quite the explosive season as say Stockholm or Helsinki etc, they're season was still good enough to stack up on Calgary by 29 points in the standings, all while scoring 67 more and letting in 50 less. Based off those stats alone, that's the kind of series I expect it to be. 

 

Average TPE per team

Calgary: 326 (only 7 players)

New York: 711.55 (9 players)

 

Roster Analysis

3 players over 59 points for Calgary, then 2 at 37 with the rest being below 12. For the Americans, 4 above a point per game ranging from 75 to 113, then 69, 49, 23 and the rest below 8. Again, not as exciting as the European conference to watch in my opinion. Holik is the goalie to beat in this series and likely is the icing on the cake. People claimed Jacob should be nominated for something and while he did manage a strong season on an otherwise poor team, his stats just don't pop out to me like it does to others. Boring series, high scoring games and Calgary goes home in 4.

 

Result

4-0 

 

6 for Federov

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

REVIEW:

 

Nice article detailing your predictions for the first round. I don't think I disagree with any of your series outcomes, but I think DAV-STK is more likely to go 6 games and that CAL has a chance to take a game off of NYA, but obviously they don't have a shot for the series at all.