Last Minute Mock Draft!

[Tagger 2,722]

Right, the lottery has been done, the Continental Cup has found a new home, that means all the selections are in place for the Season 62 VHL Draft. Let’s see who is set to go where?

 

1 – Riga Reign – Leph Twinger (LW)

 

This one seems to be the most obvious selection in the entire draft; Twinger is leading the draft class in TPE with 319 TPE right now (43 TPE ahead of his nearest competition Rauno Palo) and has a really good history with making elite VHL players (He’s never fallen below 800 TPE with any of his players and has surpassed 1000 TPE twice). Even despite these advantages, not everything is in favour of Twinger; there is still the issue of Twinger being the second player of the Toronto Legion GM which may ordinarily raise commitment issues, but it seems like Twinger plans on keeping at his current level of activity. The last time DollarAndADream went first overall, the team that drafted him wound up winning three consecutive Continental Cups in a row, will Riga do the same if they bring in Twinger?

 

 

2 – Seattle Bears – Maxim Kovalchuk (D)

 

The worst team in the league last season, Seattle will be gutted to have missed out on the first overall pick this season as there are a lot more question marks when it comes to the players available with this pick with Twinger off the board. Slipher has been on par with Twinger as far as his ability to earn points goes, but the Bears GM has pointed out people’s histories in the league in the past as a reason for them being bad picks, so would he take someone here with an inconsistent track record? Mulligan and Palo had really good last players, but both have builds that depending on the approach they take may not translate into success in the sim engine (Mulligan has more discipline than passing or scoring, Palo hasn’t added anything to scoring or passing). For me, that’s too many question marks to consider anyone other than his own player second overall. He’s sitting at 235 TPE at the minute, but is probably closer to 245 TPE given he forgot to add his July 29^th updates. While it looked for a bit like Kovalchuk would fall by the wayside with deferring welfare to Smirnov instead of his second non-GM player, Kovalchuk looks back on track to make an impact for the Bears and will be a very good defenseman for a team who very much needs one.

 

 

3 – Toronto Legion – Vesto Slipher (LW)

 

I had Slipher going here in my last mock but with the Reign picking here, and I’m sticking with him here despite the pick now being the Legion’s selection. If anything, this pick fits the Legion better than the Reign as they already have a good defenseman setup in Ironside and Malenko, but definitely are short on offensive firepower that a team needs to win a Continental Cup. People have brought up Slipher’s history as a cause for concern, but at the end of the day, he’s been earning 12 capped TPE per week on a super consistent basis since re-joining the league, that’s point-earning potential that you just cannot dismiss at third overall.

 

 

4 – Quebec City Meute – Dan Montgomery (C )

5 – Quebec City Meute (Via New York) – Rauno Palo (C )

 

This is probably the first shock pick of my Mock Draft given that there’s a 48 TPE gap between Montgomery and the player I originally had going at number four, but I’ll explain why that’s the case when we get to that player. As for the players taken, Montgomery is currently the highest first-gen skater in TPE of the players in this draft class, and given that he’s a VHLM GM now and will be mentored by current VHLM Commissioner Beaviss, we can expect his solid earning progress to date to continue. I’ve mentioned Palo’s build in the previous mock articles and while it’s not ideal, it doesn’t seem to have put people off of considering Palo as worthy of the number two overall selection in this draft, but given that the expectation is that he will stick with this build for a while, I can’t see him going earlier than here and at least he is earning the TPE that will help him reach the milestones that he want to reach quicker.

 

 

6 – Helsinki Titans – Johnny Havenk Carison (G)

 

A big riser in my mock draft having been selected in the second round of my previous one, Carison has made his way into the first round, but the reasoning for that is more to do with the surrounding issues rather than anything to do with the player. I had considered Carison to potentially be taken by Helsinki in the last mock draft I did, but I concluded that it was perhaps more likely that the Helsinki Titans GM Mitch Higgins would go with a goalie as his GM player and draft a different positional player. However, with Higgins posting a job opening for a General Manager, that maybe suggests that his tenure is coming to an end and if the new General Manager doesn’t intend to make a goalie, that makes Helsinki a good fit for Carison. With a 3 TPE SSN Scoreboarder job and a consistent PT presence either on the VHL or through affiliates, Donno should be able to reach a level where he can be considered a consistent starter in the VHL and has the added bonus of forcing Toronto to consider what they do at the goalie position.

 

 

7 – Riga Reign (Via Calgary) – Dylan Nguyen (D)

 

Riga have already got their first line of offense sorted by now, but with Jesper Stromberg falling short of expectations after his surprise second round pick in last seasons draft, the Reign don’t have any defenseman ready to make an impact on the VHL. This is the pick where they rectify that, and it starts with Dylan Nguyen. While Nguyen isn’t the highest TPE defenseman available at this point (after his late achievement tracker is added to his TPE tallies, he’ll be four TPE behind Lando Baxter), one important fact to point out is that Nguyen created his player two weeks after both Baxter and Shawn Blade, so the fact that he’s been able to make this a race despite the later start shows that Nguyen is a player with serious potential and now that he’s started submitting Press Conferences on top of his weekly VHL.com’s and Media spots, Nguyen has the potential to be a very special player for the Reign, and will help the Reign’s next pick as well.

 

 

8 – HC Davos Dynamo – Konstantin Mulligan (LW)

 

So Mulligan, who I originally had going in the top five picks of my first mock, falls to eighth overall and, while this is probably lower than Mulligan could have anticipated given that he earned over 900 TPE with his last player (Marc-Alexandre Leblanc), this is actually a really good situation for both himself and Davos. This is because Davos is one of the few teams that we can definitely guarantee will be going for the Continental Cup in Season 62 and given that Mulligan is over 200 TPE, Davos are able to pick a player that will offer them depth right away rather than having to wait a season where their chances may not be as good with the other rebuilding teams starting to make progress. So Mulligan gets to compete and Davos gets the one player available at the TPE to help them do so, but why is he at eighth overall? Well, looking at Pandar’s TPE earning as of late, it’s not terrible, but it’s dipped to a point where it’s below what we would expect from a top four selection, as he’s only earned 12 capped TPE in the last two weeks. Whether Pandar is just busy at the moment or he plans to come back stronger once he’s on a VHL team, the player cards and the reviews haven’t been there as of late, which is something of a red flag given that his player already has a somewhat different build (e.g his discipline is currently higher than his passing and scoring but his highest attribute is also his checking). This pick really could be any of several players though and, if anything, maybe the potential cap issues brought up in Davos’ recent trade thread indicate that they wouldn’t actually be able to afford a rookie VHL player, but I’ll stick with Mulligan for now.

 

 

Second Round

 

9 – Riga Reign (Via Seattle) – Ryuu Crimson (LW)

 

There may be options right now with more TPE than Crimson, but given that he’s displayed an excellent work rate to get to 151 TPE whilst only joining the league very late on, Crimson is definitely a solid pick here for the Reign at number nine. On top of this, he’ll get his wish and get to team up with his VHLM team-mate Dylan Nguyen, and as veterans of the league will tell you, it’s important that a team is able to have a good atmosphere around it in order to encourage players to grow and welcome new players to the team. Despite his great start, Crimson is still very much capable of reaching a higher level, as he’s at 10 capped TPE a week right now, but displays a lot of energy that I’m pretty sure will be able to translate into a future 12 capped TPE per week star.

 

10 – Toronto Legion – Jake Davis (RW)

 

In my original Mock Draft article, I had Davis being taken at seventh overall, but he’s fallen down three picks to the beginning of the second round now. It’s not that Davis has done anything worse than he had before, it’s just that everyone else has upped their game and Davis has kept some of the same tendencies that were good enough before but maybe need to be improved upon to make sure he stays ahead of some of these other draftees in TPE. One of the reasons for this is a continued reliance on welfare and while he has the VHLM Fantasy Zone job to help him counter that, not doing other extra PTs like VHL.com articles is preventing him from keeping up with the weekly capped TPE output of the likes of Montgomery, Nguyen and Crimson. I originally wrote this Mock Draft a couple of days ago though and since then having spoken with Davis, it looks like he at least will be submitting a point task for this week. If that were to continue and he submitted for point tasks more consistently throughout his career, then the Legion have got an absolute steal at tenth overall! The Legion do need a goalie as well at this point, but the nearest goalie in TPE is Kevin Weekes at 71 TPE, too little to consider him as a second round player in this draft, especially when none of the other teams will likely be looking for a goalie at this point.

 

 

11 – Riga Reign –Shawn Glade (D)

12 – Quebec City Meute – Lando Baxter (D)

 

I feel like either of these players will be immensely valuable selections for whichever team drafts them, especially considering where they are being taken. That’s why I’ve decided to combine these two picks as you can’t go wrong with either one. As of now, I’m giving Glade the slight edge here as, while Baxter is currently ahead in TPE, Glade has been more consistent in submitting for six point articles than Baxter has and although Baxter had previously had the edge in submitting for additional extra PTs, Glade has now started to engage in them himself. Glade has surged up the rankings in the last couple of weeks and in some members eyes has gone from third round prospect to potential first rounder. Baxter on the other hand has been considered one of the top first-gens throughout the process and my position for him in the draft here is only through how I think the draft could potentially play out as he’s actually just as viable an option for one of the late first rounders. I think the difference at the end of the day will be how often Baxter will commit to doing six point media spots. If he can, he stands a chance of maintaining, even expanding, his lead over Glade but if he more consistently dips into welfare, that will give Glade the opportunity to surpass Baxter.

 

13 – Quebec City Meute (Via New York) – Oleksiy Revchenko ( C)

14 – Quebec City Meute (Via Helsinki) – Karl Von Moltke (LW)

 

These are two players with two very similar stories. They’re both extremely consistent when it comes to how they’re earning their TPE, but it seems for the most part like they’re set on what they’re going to contribute in order to improve their player. All of their PTs to date have come through the affiliate process and they aren’t submitting for any of the capped extra PTs but are submitting for event-based point opportunities. If anything, I would say than Von Moltke is the one that potentially shows more promise just on the fact that despite his PT’s coming from other sites, he seems more aware as to the current VHL situation as he recently submitted his Biography and his Rookie Profile along with his achievement tracker whereas Warren did not submit for the achievement tracker. If anything, these are the most predictable players in this draft as you know exactly what they’re going to offer to your team, and unless their approach to the league changes over the course of their career, they probably aren’t going to alter that for the better or for the worse, and that’s fine, because that will allow them to make the solid VHL player that the Affiliate PT rule was implemented to do!

 

15 – Calgary Wranglers – Cayden Saint (D)

16 – Quebec City Meute (Via Davos) – Roctrion King (RW)

 

Like the Baxter/Glade picks, I’m going to put these two together because while they’re picks for two different teams, I reckon that whoever of these two doesn’t go at fifteen goes at sixteen. When I was starting off this mock I originally didn’t have Saint being picked in the first two rounds because he hadn’t been on since Tuesday and hadn’t posted in 10 days, which suggested that his attention lay elsewhere, but luckily he came on in time to at least submit for an affiliate PT and practice facility. Providing he at least kept up with that, I think he’s got a shot at becoming a solid starter for a VHL team, but he isn’t showing quite as much promise as he did when I did my first mock. King’s progress is of a similar mould to Saint’s, it’s good enough but the players ahead of him are progressing at a much greater rate. The main reason for this is that King’s only capped TPE income is his 4 TPE welfare, and while he does uncapped extras and has donated to the league, for him to compete in TPE with these other prospects in the long term (it’s competing at the minute, but he also created two weeks earlier than most of the first-gen players he’s competing against), he’ll need to start thinking about doing some of the other capped TPE opportunities like VHL.com and Press Conferences. You could make the argument that maybe King is actually a better option than Revchenko, since at least King does some extra predictions that Revchenko doesn’t, but if King stays as he is, Revchenko has a greater guaranteed TPE output.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Tagger