What Happened to Seattle? [1/2]

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The Stats the Determined Seattle's Season

 

The Seattle Bears finished the regular season with a record of 42-26-4 and 88 points, good for the sixth best record in the league by a solid 23 points over their next competitor. But it wasn’t enough. When the dust settled, the Bears were on the outside looking in on the playoffs, finishing fourth in North America behind Quebec City, Toronto and Calgary.

 

Obviously, in a season where seemingly everyone in the conference was going for it all, somebody was going to be left in the dust. Still, this particular failure hurts. The Bears, after all, have a number of players entering their prime like Yu, Federov and Laflamme, and even a goalie in Mist4ke that is entering the latter part of his career. Coupled with the fact that Seattle doesn’t hold its own first round pick this year, missing the playoffs could be a staggering defeat for the franchise.

 

Of course, the team will be back next season mostly in tact, and with Quebec expected to start rebuilding, they will be expected to make the playoffs. But what do they need to fix in order to get there? Here are a few stats that explain why the Seattle Bears couldn’t get it done this season.

 

1. It Starts Between the Pipes

 

To any impartial observer, it’s clear that Seattle’s goaltending simply didn’t get it done this season. Mist4ke is one of the goalies with the highest TPE, which would make one think that he would at least finish in the middle of the pack in terms of final stats. But while young guns like Ike Arkander, Shawn Brodeur and Norris Stropko had middling seasons, Mist4ke finished with just a .912 save percentage – good for dead last among goalies that played at least 64 games for their teams. His 2.43 GAA was also in the bottom half of the league (sixth), while he recorded just four shutouts – one less than the computer goalie CGY G1.

 

Seattle does have another goalie in the recently-signed Vernon von Axelberry, but there’s no evidence that he would have performed any better. In his eight games, von Axelberry finished with just a .918 save percentage, which would have finished seventh in the league. And for the most part, those games came against easier opponents, and there’s no telling how he would have performed against the best of the best.

 

To me, this performance seems like a matter of bad luck as much as anything. There’s no reason that goalies with that much TPE should perform that badly, and sometimes it just happens. Take a look at what happened to Astrid Moon this season, with a former MVP finishing with a .916 save percentage. If I had to guess, the Bears will select one or the other to be the full-time goaltender next season – I would put money on von Axelberry given more recent activity and him being younger. And I would imagine that the Bears’ goalies would not perform any worse than they did down the stretch in particular.

 

2. Help from the Depth

 

It’s clear that the acquisitions of Fook Yu and Peter Quill over the offseason helped the Bears immensely. Quill had a career year upon coming to Seattle, finishing with 41 goals (second on the team) and 79 points (tied for second on the team). Yu, meanwhile, understandably took a tiny step back from his Quebec City days, but 30 goals and 70 points is certainly nothing to laugh at. In total, the Bears finished with four players with at least 29 goals, when Gabriel McAllister (47 goals) and Mattias Forsberg (29 goals) are added to the mix.

 

Outside of those four, though, it was expected that the Bears would at least have a little help. Aleksei Federov has a surprising amount of offensive power for a defenseman. Xavier Laflamme was supposed to be the left winger of the future when he was drafted back in S55. And players like Koprolov and Bourdon were at least supposed to contribute something. In total, though, not a single one of those players scored more goals than Laflamme’s 14, and outside of Federov’s total 79 points (with 66 assists), no other Bears player outside of the four goal scorers even reached 40 points.

 

Many teams have been able to win with only a few top scorers before, but players like McAllister and Yu aren’t quite at the level yet where they can carry a team by themselves. With that in mind, Seattle absolutely needs more depth. Don’t be surprised if the money cleared up by moving a goalie off the roster is dedicated to another guy that can put the puck in the net. A player like Quebec’s Muller certainly has to be tantalizing. The question is, what does Seattle have left to trade?

 

3. Beating the Teams You Should

 

Seattle actually did pretty solid against its North American competitors – they won five games against Quebec, four against Calgary, and three against Toronto. That should give them confidence moving forward that they can hang with the best, particularly in a playoff situation. Unfortunately for the Bears, though, you also have to play every other team in the league eight times. And that’s where they ran into some trouble this season.

 

Four losses to the Americans. Two to the Express. One to the Legion. Couple that with seven losses to the Titans – a team that the Bears considered their equal to start the season – and there were simply too many losses outside of the teams they were competing with in order to keep pace. The Meute, Legion and Wranglers, meanwhile, beat the teams they were supposed to beat, and that kept them ahead.

 

Again, this could very well be the luck of the draw, and the Bears could perform better against these teams next season. But it also reveals that the team’s coaches need to take these matchups more seriously. The Bears were left tinkering with the lineup a few too many games this season, and it led to some winnable losses that left them wanting in the end. By finding the preferred lineup earlier in the season, Seattle could hopefully avoid this sort of letdown against what are supposed to be easier teams.

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For the weeks of November 20 and November 27.

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REVIEW:

 

But Seattle was the only team to not have a negative record against Riga  

 

As for this article, you should've started and finished with

 

On 24.11.2017 at 11:56 PM, CowboyinAmerica said:

1. It Starts Between the Pipes

 

because this is the main reason why Seattle didn't make the playoffs. 10 point difference wasn't something big, but mist4ke was too mediocre and he will never be a top class goalie for sure. Curious to see how Axelberry will perform as he also has 500 something TPE now.