S63 Draft Class Rankings Week Eight + Week-By-Week Draft Rankings

[Tagger 2,722]

Overall #	Up/Down	Positional #	Up/Down	Name	Position	TPE	VHLM Team	Nationality	Username
1		1		Ryan Kastelic	D	304	OTT	SVN	Enorama
2		1		Julian Borwinn	LW	268	LVA	CAN	Jubo07
3		2		Tzuyu	D	253	HFX	TWN	Tfong
4		3		Joseph McWolf	D	247	OTT	ENG	McWolf
5		1		Scott Shawinganen	C	218	LVA	CAN	Cornflakers
6		1		Alexander Pepper	G	201	LVA	KOR	sonnet
7	Up 2	4		Sidney Crosby	D	196	LVA	USA	SidTheKid87
T8	Up 2	1		Dan Wilinsky	RW	187	OTT	CAN	Oilmandan
T8	Down 1	2		Jose Gonzalez	LW	187	LVA	USA	Jose Gonzalez
10	Down 2	2		Cole Mertz	G	184	HFX	USA	ColeMrtz211
11		2		Anthony Dabarno	C	180	HFX	CAN	LordTony
12		2		Vaydar Odinsson	RW	166	OTT	NOR	BOOM
13	Up 5	5		Mountain Thunderfist	D	156	LVA	?	AdamEss
14	Down 1	3		Chance Matthews	C	148	OTT	USA	DaftRaincloud
15		3		Kisshan Shan	RW	146	OSL	RUS	Kisshan
16		3		Chace Trepanier	LW	141	OTT	CAN	ChaceT
17	Down 4	4		Nathan MacKinnon	C	139	HFX	CAN	Bagelbitesisbae
18	Up 1	6		Jesse Wilson	D	138	OTT	CAN	monkeywrench15
19	Up 1	4		Rylan Peace	RW	134	HFX	CAN	Peace
T20		T3	Up 1	Rhett Stoffiday	G	133	YUK	USA	Pierogituxedo
T20	Down 3	T3		Tyler Smith	G	133	HFX	USA	DrHexDex
22		5		Jorgon Weyed	RW	131	LVA	JAM	Joubo
23		6		Joey Boucher	RW	122	LVA	CAN	joeyboucher1
24	Up 1	7		James Lombardi	D	116	LVA	ITA	Nymets5
25	Down 1	7		Nikita Flipachyev	RW	114	HFX	RUS	Arayvenn
26		8		Toby Fitzgerald	D	101	HFX	CAN	JohnnyT_77
27		8		Wlodzimierz Zajaczkowski	RW	95	SASK	POL	nicolas01
T28		4		Athanasios Andrianopoulos	LW	80	YUK	GRC	803
T28		9		Jessy Thomas	RW	80	LVA	CAN	jtww
30		9		Burnt Toast	D	76	SASK	CAN	Toast
31	Up 2	5	Up 1	Randoms	LW	71	OTT	LVA	hedgehog337
32	Down 1	6	Down 1	King Gow	LW	70	HFX	USA	eaglesfan036
33	Down 1	10		Gregor Rasputinov	D	68	OTT	RUS	Joobles
34		5		Theodore Gauthier	C	61	YUK	CAN	Frank
35		7		Anderson LaVey	LW	60	SASK	USA	Doomzday
36		5		Johannes Benoit	G	59		CAN	PremiumFunk
T37		10		Anssi Koivuhaka	RW	53		FIN	Pelimies
T37		11		Robert Renner	D	53	OTT	USA	Tacocat
39		12		Juri Rykonen	D	50	HFX	FIN	Rykonen
40		6		Fizz	G	49	YUK	CAN	Fizzwidget
41		6		Chris F.	C	48	SASK	CAN	ChrisF
42		7		Mike Lavalee	C	47	YUK	CAN	CB204
43		11		Zhang Shou Tian	RW	42	YUK	CHN	Shou Tian
44		12		Rzerk	RW	40	OTT	CAN	Rzerk
45		13		Jesse Sublime	D	35	YUK	CAN	Sublime
T46		T8		Bilal Syed	LW	34	SASK	CAN	CanucksHD
T46		T8		Lars Tommernes	LW	34	HFX	ISR	Flare
T48		T10		Paris Papadakis	LW	32	YUK	CAN	Rosco
T48		T10		Vander Peng	LW	32		USA	Dijital
				Aaron Butcher	LW	30	HFX	USA	devilsfan35
				Adam Werynski	C	30		USA	KnucklePuckAdam
				Ajay Minhas	D	30		CAN	brownboy102
				Alex Schmidt	G	30		CAN	Schmidt
				Andreas Bergkvist	G	30	OSL	USA	Foehammer
				Andrew McDade	D	30		USA	DurdenBrandSoup
				Anton Jokelainen	RW	30		FIN	mjrv21
				Beckett London	D	30		USA	bdlondon
				Bernard Bernardov	D	30		RUS	Rad Russian
				Bobby Larkin	LW	30	OSL	USA	DickRobbins
				Chris Jonah	G	30		CAN	Jonah38
				Conor Scott	G	30		CAN	ViIlains
				Craig Kost	D	30		USA	Tigerteeo
				Dana Piebird	C	30		USA	Dude
				David Lance	D	30		CAN	Nelson
				Donald J Wafer	RW	30		USA	DonaldJWafer
				Edwin Bergstrand	C	30		SWE	FuzzyLeeroy
				Ethan Sawatzky	C	30	SASK	CAN	Greenert11
				Finn Schaefer	D	30	OSL	GER	SupaSta
				Frenchie French	LW	30		CAN	Galchenyuk_Is_God
				Frenezo	D	30		USA	Sook
				Harrison MacDuff	RW	30		CAN	Pauly51
				Ho-Train	RW	30	LVA	?	Josh Ho-Train
				Hyuk-Kyu Kim	RW	30		KOR	Deft
				Ian Drake	RW	30	LVA	USA	Claust
				J.P Desjardin	RW	30	YUK	CAN	Mike_Houle
				Jace Stravinsky	G	30		USA	Scorpio
				James Wolf	D	30		USA	Ventsan
				Jeremy Myalls	D	30	HFX	CAN	Sllaym
				Jerramy	RW	30		CAN	Jerramy
				Jesus Christ	G	30		JPN	KyleS56
				Joe Bronie	RW	30		USA	colton14
				Johnny	RW	30		CAN	RealJohny211
				John McCan	RW	30		CAN	McCan
				John Robertson	C	30		CAN	JR0B13
				Johnson Johnston	RW	30		USA	libbyfanaccount
				Justin Graves	C	30		CAN	Gravyncarrots
				Justin Recker	RW	30		USA	Reckasaur
				Keywi Miles	C	30		CAN	Keywi
					LW	30		CAN
				Kyle Desjardins	G	30	SASK	CAN	Desjar
				Magnus Backlund	D	30	SASK	SWE	T65
				Marcus Ruggiero	LW	30	YUK	CAN	Ruggiero10
				Matt Hart	LW	30		CAN	mhart97
				Max Hosafros	LW	30		USA	madmonstermax
				Nick Blagden	RW	30		CAN	Nick Blagden
				Nick Ward	RW	30	YUK	CAN	SirRupertBarnes
				Potato	G	30	HFX	?	Potato
				Prescott Triomphe	D	30		CAN	PaintingItOrange
				Radovan Svejkovsky	LW	30	YUK	SVK	UltraMick
				Rick Slambone	D	30		CAN	Drob127
				Riku Rantala	G	30		FIN	RickRandles
				Rob	RW	30		USA	Flyershockey90
				Russell Jerome	D	30		CAN	Russell Jerome
				Ryan Cruise	D	30		USA	Steve Razyn
				Ryan Dodds	D	30	SASK	USA	RJHockey21
				Sebastian Dietz	G	30		USA	Bazmandoo22
				Steve DeMatteo	C	30		USA	Nyr1994
				Steven Hovden	RW	30		NOR	Steveziedoesit
				Ted Thomas	G	30		USA	DBCrumpets
				Toshinaga Akutsu	D	30		JPN	toshimann
				Trjegen Pisz	C	30		CZE	JaacTree
				Victor	G	30	YUK	USA	Zetna
				White Goodman	RW	30		USA	Tniz15

 

 

So for this week, I figured I've done looking at week-by-week TPE of players, why not break down the week-by-week rankings of each of these players? So I've made up some graphs that illustrate how the top 30 TPE players in this draft class have climbed up the rankings or fallen down the pecking order and will give some descriptions to accompany them. Originally I had done one big chart including all 30, but it was a cluttered mess, so I've broken it down so most of the charts have five players each (and if they don't, you'll understand why in the description).

 

 

In truth, I had forgotten when I'd started these rankings that for the first few weeks of doing these draft rankings, Ryan Kastelic was in third place and was 84 TPE behind Tzuyu. However after a huge surge of Hall of Fame articles along with extremely strong weekly activity and the additional perks of donating, Kastelic is currently the unquestioned number one at the top of the TPE leaderboard and is now 51 ahead of Tzuyu, therefore Kastelic has earned 135 TPE more TPE over the course of the season, an insane figure! Had it not been for Kastelic, winger Julian Borwinn would have been regarded as arguably the best pre-draft first gen this league has seen in at least the last 30 seasons. While he occupied third place in the rankings for four weeks, he overtook Tzuyu in my week seven rankings and now that he's already 15 TPE ahead of Tzuyu, looks set to pull away from the Taiwanese defensewoman. It will be interesting to see which player out of Tzuyu and English defenseman Joseph McWolf will enter the draft with the third most TPE. McWolf has been earning capped TPE at an un-toppable rate, but I imagine Tzuyu is likely to have the better achievement tracker results given her success in the VHLM this season. Rounding out the top five is center Scott Shawinganen, who has held the same position outright for the last six weeks (in Week Two he was tied for fifth with Nikita Flipachyev). Given that he started at quite a bit of a time-disadvantage given that he joined after the draft, Shawinganen has done exceptionally well to separate himself from the rest of the class and ensure he doesn't even enter the VHLM Draft with the amount of TPE he has already earned.

 

 

One of the big stories around this draft outside of the top five selections was which goalie would be the best in this draft class and, in truth, that answer may not have a clear cut answer as of right now as it seems Cole Mertz may be deliberately holding off in his TPE earning activities in a desire to stick around in the VHLM for another season. As it stands right now though, the goalie with the highest TPE entering this draft looks set to be Alexander Pepper, who has also been the top goalie in six of my eight weekly recaps and has never been below #10 in the rankings. Sidney Crosby was overlooked by the VHLM GMs when the S62 VHLM Draft took place, as he wound up not being selected, but this seemed to only work to encourage Crosby to prove them wrong and, from week two onwards, he's never been outside of the top ten TPE players in this draft class and, while I'm not sure, could potentially be the first undrafted (as in was eligible for a draft but was passed over rather than too much TPE) VHLM player to be selected in the first round of the VHL Draft. Jose Gonzalez and Dan Wilinsky currently sit in joint-eighth place and both have been doing a great job in regards to keeping up with their weekly PTs, with neither slipping below 11 capped TPE over the past month. Wilinsky deserves special praise here given that he's the first prospect we've mentioned here to not earn TPE till the second week of my scout rankings and managing to reach the top 10 in spite of having less time to get to those TPE levels, is evident of the effort Wilinsky has put in to this point.

 

 

Currently the third highest TPE player to have been created after the previous VHLM Draft, Anthony Dabarno occupies an interesting position in this draft class, having occupied 11th place for the last three weeks, Dabarno is one of the highest ranked players outside of the top four to find themselves in a position where they can consistently hold on to the same place in the rankings, although if Mertz is continuing with his intentions to head back down to the VHLM, we will likely see Dabarno head into the top 10 before the start of the draft. Another interesting case in this draft has been the resurgence of "The Tittymaster" BOOM and his player Vaydar Odinsson. In the early goings, it seemed like Odinsson was satisfied with making a single-PT/welfare player and in turn his high place in the rankings fell pretty early. However, over the last month and a half, we've seen Odinsson return to the form that saw him create multiple Hall of Fame players, frequently posting capped TPE weeks of 10 TPE or more, which saw him claw back up the rankings to the point where he now finds himself in potential contention for a first round selection. Throughout this whole process, Mountain Thunderfist had been probably the most consistent player in this entire draft class outside of the top four in regards to his TPE ranking, as from week one through to week seven, Thunderfist had never had a weekly ranking higher than 16 but also never had one lower than 18. That changed this last week though as, after a bumper submission of special PTs, Thunderfist wound up climbing up the ranks in a big way, all the way up to #13. There was a time earlier on in the season where Chance Matthews was considered a player who looked set to contend with the likes of Gonzalez and Crosby for a late first round selection, and while he is still earning a lot of TPE through his VHLM Magazine job, he's stopped doing as much of the side activities (such as his podcast) which has seen him slip out of the top ten TPE players. Kisshan Shan is the highest TPE player to have started earning his TPE from the third week of my rankings and has shown he's capable of big earning numbers, with a couple of 12 TPE weeks to his name. If he were to keep that up, he'd be a very good contributor for any team that drafts him.

 

 

For a while it looked like Chace Trepanier and Dan Wilinsky, two players signed on the same day as each other to the same team, would also have around the same TPE as each other. However, while Wilinsky has gone on to greater things, Trepanier hasn't been able to keep up the same pace and is now over 40 TPE behind Wilinsky. While Trepanier is consistently earning TPE, it's only in small amounts right now (Welfare + Practice Facility) which, while obviously better than no earning whatsoever, may see himself drafted later than some currently lower TPE players who are showing more TPE promise. Trepanier's earning rate right now is at least significantly better than Nathan MacKinnon's, who seems to have unexpectedly disappeared from the league. While being eligible for the VHLM Draft, MacKinnon didn't start earning TPE till the third week of my rankings, but once MacKinnon started earning, he went in hard with several high-capped TPE weeks. However as he looked set to play a greater part in the league and threaten for a first round selection, he disappeared off the face of the earth and hasn't been seen in two weeks. Given that he had a long absence between his draft and his first TPE, there is a chance we'll see MacKinnon return, but as it stands, his draft stock looks set to fall in a big way. On the opposite end of the spectrum though is Jesse Wilson and Rylan Peace, two players who didn't earn TPE till the fifth week of my scouting, so have done extremely well to break into the top twenty of what is an already talented draft class. At their current rate of earning, you could see both of these players in contention for a second round selection. The reason this chart has six players is that there's a very interesting tie for 20th between two goalies in Rhett Stoffiday and Tyler Smith, a battle that you could never have seen happening a few weeks earlier. Tyler Smith was a player who was earning 12 capped TPE a week and was always just on the fringe of a position in the top ten TPE players and was even close to threatening Mertz and Pepper in their goalie battle, however work commitments have restricted Smith from earning at the rate he once had and, while he still visits the forum and earns TPE, it's not near the same 12 TPE rate he was earlier on in the process. On the other side, Stoffiday has exploded into action after a slow start that didn't see him earn TPE till the third week of my rankings despite being selected in the draft, Stoffiday has gone onto huge things since then and has done remarkably well to close down a gap that would have been thought to have been insurmountable, and is a great demonstration as to why you keep faith in players regardless of when they are drafted!

 

 

Jorgon Weyed is an interesting case of a player, jumping into 20th place in just his second week, I boldly proclaimed in my Mock Draft that Weyed would go in the second round of the draft and had the potential to rise even higher, but in reality, he's actually two positions lower than when I did that Mock Draft. This seems to have come about with a bit of unfamiliarity with welfare, as there were a couple of weeks where, despite doing plenty of other PTs in the same week, welfare wasn't claimed when a six-point PT wasn't done and, had those welfare claims been made, he would have been sitting five positions higher in the rankings. Now that the player is familiar with welfare should he not have time to do a PT, maybe we will see him come back into the form that saw me project him entering the second round. Joey Boucher and James Lombardi are two very similar players in that while they will do Point Tasks when there is a specific benefit from doing so, they will predominantly use welfare and practice facility for the bulk of their TPE, which will be enough to see them become solid role players on a VHL team in the future. Nikita Flipachyev is probably the most unfortunate case of this draft class. A few weeks in, it looked like Flipachyev would be among the top prospects in this draft class, not quite a Kastelic/Borwinn/McWolf calibre player, but certainly someone who could be a great first round selection. However he hasn't earned points since the third week of my rankings and, as a result, will likely slip out of the third round of the draft. 

 

 

Toby Fitzgerald and Wlodzimierz Zajaczkowski are very similar to Boucher and Lombardi in that they predominantly rely on welfare for their main PT and, for the most part, they are actually more consistent in earning extra TPE than Boucher and Lombardi, however the reason they are currently behind them in TPE is that they haven't done a PT when bonuses and incentives were presented for doing one (E.g. The Mid-Season PT, which would have seen them earn 12 TPE more than their welfare claim). Given that they, especially Fitzgerald, do more stuff like press conferences more consistently than some of the players above them, they may well gain some ground on the players above them, but doing those themed bonus-PTs would see them not potentially lose that advantage. One of the recruits from the EHM world, Jessy Thomas looked set to become a potentially solid player, getting as high as 19th in the TPE rankings, however like Tyler Smith, work related stuff has come up and apparently he's gone silent in a number of other leagues because of this. #PayUsToVHL. Athanasios Andrianopoulos was looking like a player who could potentially be a solid depth player on a VHL roster through the welfare system, but unfortunately the last couple of weeks, he hasn't submitted for welfare or practice facility, leaving him falling behind some of his contempories. If he were to come back and do welfare, he could certainly still play a part for a VHL team eventually (We've had players who've gone on to have success in the VHL who entered the draft with much less than 80 TPE), but as it stands it's difficult to see Andrianopolous go any higher than a late third/early fourth. Burnt Toast can be used as a prime example of counting your chickens before they've hatched. Even before the VHLM Draft had started, Seattle Bears GM Blake Campbell was proclaiming Toast would become his assistant GM and first round selection. However, due to out-of-league commitments, he's not earned TPE since Week One and his stock has plummeted 26 places since the first rankings, only Theodore Gauthier and Anssi Koivuhaka (who both fell 27 places) have fallen down the rankings further than Toast. 

 

@tfong @Enorama @Jubo07 @McWolf @Arayvenn @Sonnet @DaftRaincloud @ColeMrtz21 @Jose Gonzalez @Toast @SidTheKid87 @Cornflakers @BOOM™ @Frank @Joobles @Doomzday @AdamEss @Pelimies @LordTony @803 @Rykonen @DrHexDex @VV2O4 @Tacocat @ChrisF  @nicolas01 @Sublime @nymets5 @Rzerk @Dijital @Zetna @devilsfan35 @brownboy102 @Schmidt @Foehammer @DurdenBrandSoap @mjrv21 @Bdlondon @Rad Russian @DickRobbins @ViIIains @Tigerteeo @oilmandan @Nelson @pierogituxedo @DonaldJWafer @FuzzyLeeroy @Greenert11 @SupaStu @Galchenyuk_is_God @Sook @ZST @Josh Ho-Train @Deft @Claust @Scorpio @ventsan @Sllaym @Jerramy @KyleS56 @colton14 @joeyboucher1 @McCan @libbyfanaccount  @Mike_Houle @Reckasaur @Keywi  @Desjar @T65 @mhart97 @bagelbitesisbae @Nick Blagden @SirRupertBarnes @Potato @UltraMick @Drob127 @RickRandals @Flyershockey90 @Russell Jerome @Steve Razyn @RJHockey21 @Bazmandoo22 @Nyr1994 @DBCrumpets @JaacTree @Tniz15 @ChaceT @Jtww @canucksHD @PremiumFunk @Gravyncarrots @JohnnyT_77 @Shou Tian @eaglesfan036 @KnucklePuckAdam @Flare @toshimann @Pauly51 @Kisshan @Joubo @RealJohny211 @madmonstermax @hedgehog337  @PaintingItOrange @Ruggiero10 @Steveziedoesit @monkeywrench15 @Dude @Rosco @Jonah38 @JR0B13 @Peace @Fizzwidget  

Edited February 7, 2022 by fishy
removed personal information per request by user

[McWolf 3,116]

From week 2 to right now, I've been 4th and @Cornflakers was 5th. Pretty crazy how that top 5 was pretty static all season

[BOOM 8,821]

Another excellent write up. 

 

As for Odinsson, I think it's simply been a case of having some time to do things. That's likely to change. Any GM who is considering a first round selection should have their GM position reviewed!