Claimed: Looking Back At The Drafts I Missed: Season 57

[Tagger 2,722]

Disclaimer: As I was not active in the league at the time of these drafts, I don't have the full context for the decisions that were made. While I have done some research into some of the reasons for why certain decisions may have been made (Kensington originally just made to be a VHLM goalie, Johnsson missing a few updates in the weeks leading to the draft, etc.) and the rosters for the teams at the time, there may be some information that I am not aware of. 

 

Overview: While this is the first draft that I missed in my period of leave, I’m very familiar with the early development of quite a few of these players as I acquired a few of them during my time as Las Vegas Aces General Manager Even at that point, it was very clear that there was a lot of very talented defensemen that were going to be available for selection and it would not surprise me if the five defensemen selected in the first round was actually the record for most defensemen taken in the first round of a draft. The craziest part of that despite the majority of them still being very much active, none of those five are the defenseman with the most TPE out of this draft class, an honour that goes to Mats Johnsson who was selected with the twelfth overall pick. Even more bizarre is that the highest TPE player to come from that draft was selected eighteenth overall, the goalie Norris Stopko (who at time of drafting was called Norris Kensington). I’m going to imagine that at least part of the reasoning behind this is that opposing General Managers had their doubts about drafting a player who was a general manager of another team, which is an understandable concern and one that makes me wonder why general managers are still allowed to utilize the two player rule when, even during the time of the two-player rule, there were people saying they shouldn’t have second players as those players offer the greatest conflict of interest. All in all, this draft is probably one of the better ones we’ve had in recent memory, especially in regards to first-gen players with Keaton Louth, Colton Rayne and David Kiazkov all excelling.

 

First Round Draft Grades:

 

1.       COL - Chase Keller – A+

Had some disappointing seasons in the sim and would probably have liked to have been closer to Stropko for highest TPE player from this draft, but make no mistake about it, Keller is a phenomenal offensive talent and his output this season has shown he’s one of the very best forwards in the league.

2.       NYA – Casey Jones – A

Won a Labatte in his rookie season with an insane 100-point season and while he hasn’t gotten close to that mark since then, he is still one of the better defensemen in the league. The reason he’s not A+ is that with him being the first defenseman taken you may have expected him to break away from the other defenseman selected in this draft but, outside of that first season in the sim, he hasn’t done that.

3.       STK – Boner – D

Story time! Eighth overall pick in the S56 VHLM Dispersal Draft belongs to the Oslo Storm, I pick ninth and I’m secretly hoping they pick either Casey Jones or Keaton Louth because otherwise it would leave me with an extremely tough decision. Instead, they pick Boner who I had as the fourth best defenseman available at that point (behind those two and Johnsson). While Boner was second only to Chase Keller in updated TPE prior to the VHL draft, his build was EXTREMELY defensive to the point where he had only 7 TPA combined in passing and scoring. While this could have eventually worked out had Boner stuck around, leaving the league after only earning an additional 95 TPE after drafting left Stockholm/Calgary with a player whose had four seasons in the league and has yet to record more than thirty points in a season.

4.       QUE – Keaton Louth – A

At the time of this draft, no first-gen player had been drafted higher than Louth was since Felipe Rodriquez was selected third overall in Season 47, an impressive feat by Louth considering how many players in this draft had surpassed the 175 TPE barrier. Louth would have been an A+ here if the sim had reflected his work ethic, but unlike Jones, he hasn’t had that one terrific season, but he’s definitely heading on the right track, finishing fifth in points for defensemen last season.

5.       DAV – Jeff Gow – C+

This is a difficult one to grade as while Gow is still the third best forward taken in this draft and is still earning TPE, a five-month period of not earning TPE have left him with half the TPE of some of the players drafted around his position. As a result, Gow has struggled to reach expectations in the sim and halfway through his career is still yet to achieve a point per game in any of the four seasons he’s played in.

6.       TOR – Phil Bennington – D

I might be being a bit generous here not giving this an F given that Bennington barely made the VHL, but I think this is one of those where you must look at the circumstances around the pick. For the last four seasons, Toronto had used their first round selection to draft either a defenseman (Roman Sokolov, Dexter Lane, Aackckqz Ky) or a goalie (Torsten Ironside), so having a draft that was so light on offensive talent was probably the last thing that they would have wanted. While Stockholm simply wound up picking the wrong defenseman in Boner, the only forward in this draft class that wound up being better than Bennington was David Kiaskow (although Josh Stronk is likely to surpass Bennington as well eventually) and it would be difficult to provide a reason for him going ahead of Bennington at the time of the draft.  

7.       COL – Shawn Brodeur – B

Brodeur is a weird player to grade for this. He’s certainly not a bad selection and his TPE levels at this point would usually have been considered respectable for the position he was drafted, but at the same time he’s dropped behind a bit in TPE in comparison to the other players in this draft class and, unless he’s taken on a job that I’m not aware of, he’s not done any point earning activities this month, not even welfare. In addition, he’s in this weird place in that he’s never been on a team that’s properly competed in his four seasons in the league, so his GAA has been less than impressive, but he’s also never been in the top half of goalies in save percentage, so it’s not entirely the fault of the team he’s on.

8.       NYA – Colton Rayne – A

The second first-gen player taken in this first round, Rayne had put up less TPE than his defensive competitors in the lead-up to the draft, but he’d also had less weeks in the league having created at the VHLM Playoffs the previous season rather than the trade deadline. What was evident though was that there was potential for a player who could potentially become a good contributor on the blue line for a VHL team. So far he has definitely proved to be that, and actually was the defenseman in this draft with the highest number of points in Season 60, finishing second to Ay Ay Ron.

9.       DAV – Ko Kane – B+

While Kane is a bit off of the pace of the other still-active defensemen taken in this draft both in TPE (he’s currently 140 TPE off of Colton Rayne) and in sim performance (he’s yet to have a season over a point per game), Kane is still very much a solid starter for the Dynamo and, with his continued activity, will break the point per game barrier sooner rather than later.

10.   DAV – Matt Denning – F

When half of the second round look to be able to make the VHL by right and a first rounder doesn’t, it’s difficult to rank him any higher than an F. One of Beaviss’ friends, Denning looked like a potentially promising player in the VHLM, but he wound up going inactive not long after this draft.

 

1000+ words, using for Weeks Commencing 5/28 and 6/4

Edited May 28, 2018 by Tagger

[Bushito 1,945]

That was a tough decision for me going back and forth between him and Louth. Corco said he was going to be at the very least welfare every week but now I have both of them, lol

[Kendrick 4,741]

I did miss about 6 weeks of TPE by being away and not making up for them, so that did have something to do with him

[Beaviss 4,957]

3 hours ago, Bushito said:

That was a tough decision for me going back and forth between him and Louth. Corco said he was going to be at the very least welfare every week but now I have both of them, lol

 

I was triggered when I fell to forth

 

@Tagger Louth is the leading scorer in the playoffs.... you can add the + anytime lol

Edited May 29, 2018 by Beaviss

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

That Phil thing sucked. He was back and active, and said he was back and making someone good. He was the only forward I could really pick at that stage, so I went for it.

 

Obviously in hindsight, it'd be Colton Rayne. I was going to pick him if it wasn't for Phil being a forward.

 

Ah, well. I made other moves to get competitive and had a 1st place team and top 3. I just couldn't finish in the playoffs, or at least, Torstein Ironside couldn't.

[Quik 4,113]

16 hours ago, DollarAndADream said:

Obviously in hindsight, it'd be Colton Rayne

Hi

 

Though, I did go inactive like 2 weeks before the draft lol