Claimed: Team Mercenaries [1/2]

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

When the VHL announced that there would be changes to the World Cup of Hockey, people did wonder what would be the changes. Instead of multiple teams, Scandinavia was now grouped together along with Western Europe then we had the rest of the World on Team World to go along with Canada and USA. However, the VHL didn't want just 5 teams in the World Cup, they announced a new Team Mercenaries would be added to the World Cup. What exactly is Team Mercenaries? Well they could be any player that has not been named to any of the 5 mentioned hockey teams. So it is the best of the rest. Here is a Team History.

 

Season 37 - 6th Place

Team Mercs started their World Cup in Season 37 with a roster comprised of 6 forwards and 4 defenseman with a goalie. Brick Wahl might have been the biggest name on the team but the team also had Robert Gow III and a few youngsters that became household names in Don Draper and Logan Laich. Robert Gow III led the team in scoring with 9 goals and 6 assists for 16 points in just 11 games. Shane Baker and Cody Inko also had nice showing with 13 and 12 points a piece. Wahl went 4-6-1 with a .881 save percentage and a 3.82 G.A.A. The Team would play the Americans in the 5th place game. The Americans proved to be too much and won 4-3 meaning the Mercs would finish 6th out of 6 teams. Where most would have put them before the tournament.

 

Season 40 - 6th Place

The Mercs had a much better showing in Season 40 with a record of 3-7-0 which was good enough for 5th in the overall standings ahead of Team World who had 8 points. Team Mercs best players this season were Bennett Wahl (Canada), Chris Raymond (USA), Joshua Rubin (Canada) and goaltender Blaine Olynick (Canada).

 

Wahl was the leader on the team with 4 goals and 10 assists for 14 points in 10 games. Raymond also contributed with 8 goals and 4 assists for 12 points. Rubin did lead from the backend with 2 goals and 6 assists for 8 points. Olynick finished with a 2-6 record with a .912 save percentage and a 3.13 G.A.A. The team also started Jax Barnstormer who went 1-1 with a .905 save percentage and a 3.00 G.A.A. 

 

In the quarters, the Mercs would play the Scandinavians and after a hard fought game, the Mercs fell 2-0. Olynick stopped 28 of 30 shots but it wasn't enough. Wahl had 8 shots but none of them were good enough to beat Kimmo Salo. Team Canada fell to Team World in the other quarter-final 3-2 in OT and since Canada was able to score 2 goals and take a game to OT, I have them the 5th place finish meaning for back to back tournaments Mercs would finish 6th again.

 

Season 43 - 4th Place

After back to back last place finishes, the Mercs would name Shadu Rathod Jr (Canada), Marcus Hurley (Canada), Patrik Demko (USA) and Callum Sinclair (USA) to the roster and these four were their best players. However, it didn't translate well to the round robin as the Mercs finished with a record of 2-8-0 for 5 points which was 7 points behind 5th. It wasn't looking good at all.

 

Young American defender Patrik Demko led the team in scoring with 10 points while Shadu Rathod Jr, Bronson Faux and Raphael Pettyfer had 9 each. Sinclair had a rough go at it this tournament with a 2-8-0 record with a .888 save percentage and a 4.18 G.A.A. 

 

In the quarters, the Mercs would play Team Canada in what many though would be a rout for Canada. However, the unthinkable happened and Mercs won! They beat the mighty Canadians in the quarters by a score of 4-2. In the semi's the Mercs would play Western Europe where the Cinderella story would would come to a end for goal. West Europe won 5-3 in a scrappy game. In the 2 games, Marcus Hurley would score 5 goals and have 1 assist for 6 points. Tyrone Williams who came into this tournament to fuck everyone's bitch, scored 1 goal and assisted on 3 for 4 points also led the way. Sinclair shut the door with a 1-1 record with a .914 save percentage and a 3.50 G.A.A. In the Bronze medal game, the Mercs would play Team World. It went all the way to double overtime before the Mercs fell just short after a 4-3 win. It was a heart breaking game, particularly for Callum Sinclair who had stopped 51 of 55 shots in the game. Patrik Demko also shone bright with 2 goals and 1 assist. 

 

Just like that, the Mercs almost won their first medal ever after back to back 6th place finishes. The Mercs finished 4th and came just a goal away in double overtime from winning a Bronze Medal.

 

Season 46 - 3rd Place

Team Mercs wanted to follow up their near Bronze win with a strong showing in Season 46. The Mercs named a pretty strong roster led by Tyler Cote (Canada), Gifford Shock (Canada), Rami Jakobssen (Scandinavia), Brady Stropko (Canada) and Sandro Clegane (West Europe). The team was great as they finished with a 6-3-1 record which was good enough for 2nd in the Round Robin and guaranteed them a spot in the Semi-Final so, the team would play for Bronze at worst once more.

 

Tyler Cote did lead the way with 3 goals and 10 assists for 13 points, Brady Stropko and Rami Jakobssen both chipped in with 12 points each as well. Sandro Clegane was the leader in net with a record of 6-2-1 with a .930 save percentage and a 2.01 G.A.A. He even recorded Mercs first shutout by a goaltender. 

 

Team Mercs awaited the winner out of Canada vs Scandinavia, most thought it would be Canada but Scandinavia would upset Canada. In the Semi's many thought Mercs would go through and be guaranteed their first medal, but after a 2-0 loss to Scandinavia, the Mercs would have to play for Bronze again. Clegane did all he could as he stopped 31 of 33 shots as that was the only bright spot in this game. The Mercs would play Team World for the Bronze Medal once more in Season 46. After a thrilling double OT game the World Cup before, this time the Mercs made sure they would win at least a medal and beat World by a score of 5-1. History was made as the reject team won their first medal ever.

 

Season 48 - 5th

The Merc wanted to keep building after two great World Cup tournaments looking to go for gold. For this season, the team did bring back Gifford Shock and had S42 1st OA pick E'Twaun Delicious. The defense was where the team had some good players and was considered a strength. Bubba Nuck, Souryuu Kaminogi, Pablo Escabar comprised a solid 3 man unit. Back in goal too was Sandro Clegane so the team look good on paper. However, it wasn't able to translate to the ice and the team finished 4-4-2 with 13 points in 5th place.

 

Delicious led the way with 9 points, Nuck had 8 while 4 others had 7. Sandro Clegane started 7 games going 4-2-1 while Artom Zhumbayev started 3 but had a tougher time going 0-2-1. Clegane had a .935 save percentage and a 2.10 G.A.A with 2 shutouts. Zhumbayev had some decent stats too with a .913 save percentage with a 2.93 G.A.A.

 

The Mercs had a tough game in the quarter-final against Team Scandinavia. It went to overtime and once again, the Merc would fall in a overtime game in the playoffs. Kaminogi scored the lone goal with Bogdan Podarok getting the assist. Clegane stopped 29 of 31 shots. Despite the Americans losing by one goal as well, they only mustered 14 shots on net with Wingate having a bad day, so I gave the Merc's the 5th place finish as they went to OT and had more than enough chances to win and they were better than America this tournament. This was their first 5th place finish.

 

Season 50 - 4th

The Mercs have found it hard to try and keep competing year after year in the World Cup as you basically help these players develop and then they move onto their own nation team and you have to start over. It was a pretty lean year in terms of pickings this year for the Mercs. Their best players this season were Pablo Escabar, Jory Rose and of course goaltender Sandro Clegane. For the first time since Season 43 the Mercs finished last in the standings with just 7 points which was 7 points behind Scandinavia.

 

Giovanni Reuel and Sven Wolf led the team with 9 points a piece with Pablo Escabar and Asher Donovan chipping in with each. Sandro Clegane did all he could with a 1-6-1 with a .922 save percentage and a 3.10 G.A.A. Dmitri Dadonov made his debut for the Mercs too with a 1-1-0 record. 

 

The Mercs would have to play Canada as the last place team going against the 3rd place team. It was supposed to be a route for Canada. However it didn't happen that way with the Mercs winning 3-2 and moving onto the semi final to face the Europeans. After a 2-0 win the Mercs would find themselves in the Bronze Medal game for the 3rd time in team history. In the Bronze game, the Mercs would go to overtime for what seems like once a tournament. Like everytime too, the Mercs would fall in OT to the Americans for he Bronze Medal, 4-3. Clegane did all he could as he stopped 43 shots in a loss. The Mercs have lost in the Bronze Medal game once again and now fall to 1-0-2.

 

Season 52 - 5th

The Mercs weren't as star studded as they were in the past picking up a more workman like team this season. LeAndre St.Pierre was the real star of this team with Clegane moving on finally as Wingate retired making room for Clegane on the Europe roster. Kopralkov was the goalie set to replace him and he was just as good as Clegane to be honest. In a pretty even tournament all around, the Mercs finished with 13 points which was 4 ahead of 6th place Scandinavia and actually tied with Canada.

 

Sean Blacker led the team in scoring with 9 points while Maksym Barnyshev had his coming out party with 8 points as a rookie, LeAndre St.Pierre and Ted Doughty chipped in with 8 as well. Ilya Kopralkov and Dmitri Dadonov shared the net this tournament with Dadonov sporting 2-4-0 record with a .902 save percentage and a 4.04 G.A.A. Kopralkov had a .936 save percentage with a 1.94 G.A.A to go with his 2-1-1 record. 

 

In the quarters, the Mercs would play a rival in Canada. The previous two meetings the Mercs had won but this time Canada made sure that they would not fall to the Mercs once again in the quarters. Canada just squeaked out a 3-2 win. The other quarter final had Scandinavia lose to USA 5-1, this led me to believe that Mercs were better and they finished 5th in my eyes. This was their 2nd 5th place finish in 3 tournaments.

 

Season 54 - 6th

The Mercs were coming off a 5th, 4th and 5th place finish in the last three tournaments meaning the Mercs weren't reaching the heights of their Bronze medal finish in Season 46. To try break this streak of bad finishes, the team had named Marc-Andre Lablanc, Shawn Gretzky, Pavel Komarov and Roman Sokolov to the team all have been 1st round picks in the VHL Draft. The team also had a solid duo of Astrid Moon and Jacob in net. The team finished 4th in standings which was a good sign.

 

Marc-Andre Leblanc led the way with 13 points. Pavel Komarov also reached double digits with 11 points while the final player to reach 10 points is Daryl Dortch who had 10 points. Shawn Gretzky tied for lead with 6 goals. Astrid Moon went 4-1-0 with a .952 save percentage and getting two shutouts (the only goalie other than Clegane to get a shutout for the Mercs) while Jacob has a tough time with 1-4-0 with a .891 save percentage and a 4.33 G.A.A. 

 

In the quarters, the Mercs would play Scandinavia who they have played against well over the years. However, this was not the game for the Mercs, despite being the better team, Moon let in 5 goals on 36 shots while the rookie Torstein Ironside only let in 3 on 36 shots. In the other quarterfinal, the Europe team lost in OT meaning the Mercs would finish 6th in the tournament for the 3rd time and the first since Season 40.

 

Season 56 - 6th

The Mercs were coming off a 6th place finish for the first time since Season 40, it wasn't a good feeling, but to try and break back into the semis, they did something interesting, the Mercs named a younger roster. The best players were Xander Finn, Niko Bogdanovic, Jack Sheppard and Shawn Brodeur. The Mercs finished 5th in the round robin with 7 points, just one ahead of the Scandinavians.

 

Niko Bogdanovic led the team with 13 points with Jack Shepard and Xander Finn contributing 12 each. Bourdon had 9 points and that is where the offense ended. Shawn Brodeur had a record of 0-3-1 with a .901 save percentage while Ike Arkander had a .862 save percentage but he had a record of 2-4-0.

 

In the quarters, the Mercs would play a good team in the form of the USA. The Mercs lost 6-1. Scandinavia lost 3-1 meaning for the first time since Season 37 and Season 40, the Mercs would finish 6th place in back to back World Cups.

 

Players Stats:

I am over 2000 words so im just going to leave this here

Team Mercs Career Stats and Stuff

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

claiming for the weeks of:

October 23

October 30

November 6

November 13

[Gudnason 607]

I left them guys like Sokolov, Komarov, Moon, and Jacob in S54 and they still finished 6th... Actually think I gave them Fujimoto too

Edited October 25, 2017 by Gudnason

[DollarAndADream 3,357]

Review:

The good old TLO stat articles. Great read, buddy.

Mercs!