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Sometimes a little wandering through the statistics page can produce something interesting and insightful. In this case, let’s take a glance at the faceoff percentages in the VHLM. There is a clear and distinguishable gap between fifth and sixth place. In fact, there’s a greater distance between fifth and sixth than between first and fifth, or between sixth and off the top ten list entirely. The top five players in faceoff percentage are, in order, Jody 3 Moons (64.96%), Til Baumann (64.54%), AIM-11 (63.64%), Rift Pajodcast (62.64%), and Oskars Harumpf (60.75%).

 

So five players have a much greater faceoff percentage than the rest of the league, that’s nice. How does that affect anything? Well, the first thing to notice with these players is that, to a man, every single one is either a highly valued prospect heading into the draft or a seasoned and drafted player spending a development year in the VHLM. There is not a single “VHLM lifer” on the list, which speaks to the quality of the seasons 40 and 41 drafts.

 

The players are good, but how about the teams? Each of these players play for a different team, so no one team has gained a significant advantage by having two of them, but when we look at the standings, an interesting phenomenon becomes even more apparent. Of the five teams these players play for, four of them are currently in playoff positions. Baumann, second on the list, plays for the league-leading Oslo Storm. His two European rivals, the Watchmen and Royals, are represented by Harumpf and 3 Moons, respectively. Rift Pajodcast, fourth on the list, is a member of the Minot Gladiators and is a key reason why they are pulling away from the Rush and Blades in the North American Conference. The only player on the list not to be in a playoff spot is AIM-11 with the Brampton Blades, and his team is trying to make a push for third in North America behind the aforementioned Rush. Furthermore, the only two playoff teams not to have a player on the list are the Wild and Rush, one of which is in danger of falling out.

 

We know the teams are among the top teams and the players are among the top players, but is this correlation or just coincidence? To determine this, a closer look must be taken at the rosters. The Gladiators boast one additional center in Guy Lukovski, but he has been in the VHLM for years now and while he’s skilled, he’s never been the difference for a team. The Blades have a full roster of centers and Hunter Backenbauer could be considered more skilled (currently, anyway) than AIM-11, despite activity differences that should reverse that soon; Backenbauer is well back of AIM-11 at the skill but could serve. The Storm’s only other center is John Heffley so they employ some people out of position, notably Hudson Backenbauer. Baumann’s faceoff wins are key to the team.  The Watchmen are probably the team who least needs Harumpf’s faceoffs as Gifford Shock and Raphael Pettyfer are fair substitutes, but the Royals desperately need 3 Moons’ abilities at the dot as the only other player on the roster to take more than 300 faceoffs (Alexander Adams) is a paltry 47.18%. This shows the value of these five players and their ability in the circle to affect the results of their respective teams.

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As this magazine has already pointed out, the Oslo Storm are the first team this season to clinch a playoff spot. While the Storm are the best team on points, it’s not by such a wide margin if the whole league is taken into consideration. The Saskatoon Wild, not a direct competitor due to conference, are a mere seven points back with a game in hand, and even Oslo’s more direct rivals in the Watchmen and Royals are putting together respectable seasons. What is the difference that makes Oslo tick just that slight bit better this season? Two words: Niklaus Mikaelson.

 

The VHLM has historically been unkind to goalies. It’s a high scoring league and that is borne out when looking over several seasons of stats and records. That makes it especially rare when a player is able to post below a 2.00 goals against average. Mikaelson is doing so as of this point in the season, with a 1.97. That’s an impressive goalie stat in a regular league and even more impressive in the VHLM. What’s more is that he’s nearly a half point ahead of the next best goalie in the league, Gunnar Skovsgard. This is an anomaly especially when compared to the standings. Mikaelson is miles ahead of everyone in this one, whereas his team isn’t really that far ahead in the standings. If Oslo had a different goalie, might this season be going differently?

 

So sure, he has a good goals against. Maybe it’s his team. Nope, just look at save percentage. 0.918 isn’t a spectacular number along the lines of a 1.97 goals against, but it’s yet again another major goalie category where not a single other player is even in the same league. Yet again Skovsgard is in second, but he’s well back with a 0.903. Skovsgard’s stats aren’t bad, and in a normal year maybe he’d be in contention for some goalie trophies (well, in a year that doesn’t include Mikaelson, Skovsgard would probably have slightly better numbers) but this year Mikaelson is just lighting it up and no one is anywhere near him, not even Skovsgard, the Mitch Higgins of VHLM goalies this year.

 

Mikaelson has five shutouts on the year. The entire rest of the league has six combined, and the next closest one (Vladimir Bodnar with three) isn’t really even competing with Skovsgard elsewhere, much less Mikaelson. He’s also leading in wins with 44, although wins are definitely more of a team stat. Skovsgard, again, is in second place. This time he’s not trailing Mikaelson by much, as he has 40, but it’s still another second place in a season full of them for Skovsgard. The only positive stat Mikaelson isn’t leading in is penalty shots percentage, and that’s because he’s faced far more of them than the two players who are beating him (Fedir Okranitz, who admittedly has faced a fair amount, and Jose Canseco, who has stopped all of his 1 shot against). Mikaelson is just crushing anyone who stands in his way this season and it could be enough to see his team through to a title.

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When a team is in contention for the playoffs, it’s often implied that their motivation to win games will just be that little bit stronger, the edge on the players’ shots just a little bit harder, goalies just a little more on top of their game. Typically, this is what makes playoff races such fun hockey to watch; a team faced with the proposition of playing for their playoff lives can liven up even the regular season to an intensity unmatched in most major sports. This counts double for when two potential playoff teams are facing each other, as it’s a must win for both sides. The Yukon Rush, the strongest VHLM team over the course of several recent seasons, must not have gotten the memo.

 

The only two teams not to have either guaranteed a playoff spot or to be eliminated are the Rush and the Blades. Neither team is great – the Blades, the stronger of the two, have only 64 points, which is six more than the Moscow Red Wolves, a team in the European Conference who has been eliminated. If they can only beat an eliminated team by six points, clearly they’re not a spectacular team. However, the Rush are practically handing them the playoff spot that theoretically they’re both supposed to be fighting for.

 

Where is the Rush’s fighting spirit? Where is the motivation that is supposed to lead them to win games down the stretch? Where is the competitive edge that typically comes with a team trying to get into the playoffs? At this point, that competitive edge is lending itself to a last ten games of 0-8-2. The Rush are not even trying in the slightest. It’s potentially an intentional plan of theirs, they may not want to make the playoffs, but there are some actives on their team and it does them a disservice to not at least try to get them some bonus hockey. It’s likely that Matej Nemecek, Brandon Holmes, and Fedir Okranitz wouldn’t like to whittle away their time in the VHLM with a team that would prefer not to be in the playoffs, but it certainly seems like the Rush are headed that way.

 

Only Holmes and VHLM lifer Mario Corvia are really playoff-worthy players, so it’s probably best, at least in theory if not in practice, that the Rush miss the playoffs. That said, if they’re going to do so, why were there no trades at the deadline? Holmes at least could have been sent somewhere and gotten the Rush a pick, and perhaps Corvia for some small bit of value as well. For the sake of activity, either Holmes or Corvia could have dragged along Nemecek as well and given the recipient team a little extra depth, as well as been better for the sake of the league and keeping active players interested. As for Okranitz? Well, there would probably have been limited suitors for a goalie anyway, especially on a competitive team, but actually if there’s ever a year where a draftee goalie would actually be a solid starter even for some of the top teams, this is the year. Okranitz could have gone to any of the Gladiators, Royals, and Watchmen and potentially made the difference, as a continually improving player whose skill has already at least matched the starters for each team.

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There’s a common misconception wherein people refer to Dr. Frankenstein’s monster as Frankenstein. The monster is not Frankenstein, the crazy guy who built him is Frankenstein. The monster is never named. In any case, Dr. Frankenstein assembled a whole being from bits and pieces of other beings. What would happen if Dr. Frankenstein tried to build a VHLM team from the scraps of the discarded non-playoff teams? If he were to take an arm from Yukon, a leg from Moscow, and piece together the most competitive roster of the non-competitive rosters?

 

First, let’s set the parameters of the exercise. Dr. Frankenstein’s team will be comprised of six forwards, four defensemen, and a goalie. Activity will not be taken into consideration for the team except in cases of tiebreaker, and there is no stipulation requiring a player from each team (sorry Outlaws). This team will be determined by the player’s Overall, which admittedly isn’t the best barometer for gauging talent, but it would take too long to calculate out the effective TPE for every player. Forwards will not be further divided into positions.

 

The goalie is fairly self-explanatory: Fedir Okranitz (50) is the selection by a mile. Defensively, we’d have Blake Knight (68), Brandon Holmes (56), Razzle Dazzle (54), and Lights Bokan (52). Our forward selections will be: Mario Corvia (58), Bobby Ricky (57), Mike McGrattan (54), Maris Ziedins (53), Gordon Bombay (51), and Seth Rollins (50). Already it looks like we have a good team here, as every player is 50 or higher. The defense averages out to 57.5 and the forwards average out to 53.8.

 

To determine how good this team is, let’s first take the averages of a mid-pack playoff team, let’s say the fourth place team, the Gladiators. The forwards for the Gladiators average out to 53.9, admittedly across ten players so there’s much greater depth, and the defensemen average out to 54.5. The Gladiators have marginally better forwards than Dr. Frankenstein’s team but a substantially weaker defense. Using just the top six forwards for the Gladiators, their average is 56.7, which is a lot better (and using this formula, the Gladiators’ forwards beat our forwards by about the same margin our defensemen beat their defensemen, suggesting similarity between the teams). Hypothetically, this suggests that Dr. Frankenstein’s team would finish at about the level of the Gladiators. However, it’s often said that forwards have a greater impact in STHS formulas than defensemen. If that’s true, then the Gladiators would finish above our team here.

 

If we take the forward-bias into consideration and assume the Gladiators marginally beat our team, then we can also assume that so do the teams ahead of the Gladiators. Let’s take the next best team (the Royals) and plug them into the formula. The Royals have exactly six forwards, so depth won’t be a concern here. The forwards for the Royals average out to 51.2 and their lone two defensemen average out to 52.5. Both these numbers are significantly worse than Dr. Frankenstein’s team. Given that the Royals finished on 82 points and the Gladiators finished on 96 points, and taking into consideration that Dr. Frankenstein’s team is between the two but closer to the Gladiators, it could be speculated Dr. Frankenstein’s team would finish somewhere around 90 to 93 points. Not bad for players who missed the playoffs!

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Usually in professional sports, the focus is on the star players. Whether it’s the age old adage when describing a trade that “the team who got the best player won the deal” or in looking into a prediction of some sort and assuming the winner will be the team with the most stars, it’s just an accepted state of affairs in sports. Who does the media talk about more: Sidney Crosby or Manny Malhotra? Lebron James or Zoran Dragic? Peyton Manning or Kawann Short? Star players gather the attention, and in doing so, the public often thinks of the star players as somehow indestructible, unable to lose and always finding a way to get it done. The North American Conference is proving that adage wrong, even if only for a single playoff series.

 

At the time of writing, the Minot Gladiators are down 3-1 in their playoff series with the Saskatoon Wild. This comes as no surprise to the people who have watched the two up to this point; Saskatoon has been the stronger team, both in the regular season (earning the top seed and the conference’s first round bye) and in the playoffs (taking such a strong early lead in the series itself). Saskatoon’s players, in many instances, are considered to be better all-around players and arguably stronger future VHL candidates (although not in all instances as there are several good players on the Gladiators as well) and thus they should rightfully move on. However, the ultimate point of hockey, if simplifying to John Madden-esque levels, is to score more goals than one’s opponent. Based on this, one might expect the Gladiators to win, despite everything else.

 

The leading scorer on the Wild, Kurtis Hunter, thus far into the playoffs has only a total of 11 points. Don’t discredit that total; 11 points are still quite the respectable amount and could even lead to a playoff MVP in an instance where the Wild go on to win the cup. However, 11 would fall well below the top point scorers on the Gladiators. Brady Stropko and Marcus Hurley both have 14 points, 3 up on Hunter, and Shadhu Rathod Jr. and Teuvo Ruutu both have 13, which is still 2 up on Hunter. Furthermore, looking past Hunter, the next three Wild scorers are Joshua Rubin with 10 and Jarome Iginla and Rami Jakobssen, each with 8. By the time we go all the way down the points list to players with 8, the Gladiators have Jakob Ackerman with 11, Rift Pajodcast with 10, and Guy Lukovski with 9.

 

The biggest and most obvious explanation for this discrepancy is that the Gladiators have played more games, which is certainly true (they’ve played over twice as many) but looking proportionally into points per games played, the two rosters actually come out very similarly, which should imply a closer series than this has been so far. Additionally, looking at the European Conference in comparison, the team with two rounds of games (Bratislava) is winning their second round of games, yet their top scorers are comparable to those of the Gladiators, who are losing their second series. If the results show the Wild as better with respect to their conference opponent than the Storm (which it does), then why are the Wild allowing more goals against? Does this prove that the Wild are working more as a team than the Gladiators, or is it simply explained away by the difference in games played?

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The Bratislava Watchmen have just won the Founder’s Cup, surely an unexpected result given that they were not a favored team and didn’t have a bye in their conference. In fact, they were a massive nineteen points back of the Oslo Storm in the regular season, and were fifteen short of the Saskatoon Wild as well, the team they ultimately beat in the finals. How did this happen? What factors led to the upset, and given current roster compositions, was it truly even an upset?

 

First, for those who are regular readers, it’s obvious that the last question wouldn’t have been asked if the answer was yes. Given the rosters as they stand right at this moment, this result was not an upset and was in fact the expected result. It just seems unlikely given that the roster that competed for much of the season for the Watchmen was not the roster they have now. There was one key change: Jax Barnstormer.

 

Most of the season, the Watchmen were suffering from poor goaltending. Soren Douffet was really not living up to the standards needed at this level. The Watchmen had plenty of talent among their skaters, among these Jody 3 Moons, Oskars Harumpf, Sachimo Zoidberg, Wesley Matthews, Nicolas Caprivi, Gifford Shock, and Danny Schneider. By some accounts, Sachimo Zoidberg is the best player in the entire VHLM by some margin, and besides that, the rest of this roster is just loaded with talent. If anything, it’s surprising that they were third in the league in the regular season, but that’s what happens when the two best goalies in the league, Niklaus Mikaelson (who as has been stated before by this article, is the best goalie in the VHLM by a long shot) and Gunnar Skovsgard (a respectable second) are on the two teams ahead of the Watchmen. Now it’s not that Barnstormer is that great, at least not yet (although he has a ton of potential) but he’s already a definite improvement over Douffet. That change was what kept the Watchmen in games and thereby allowed their offensive talent to shine.

 

Barnstormer, while the newest piece of the puzzle for the Watchmen, certainly isn’t the only key piece. Zoidberg and Harumpf took the top two spots in playoff scoring by some margin, coming in at 29 and 24 points respectively when no one else was higher than 20 (and one of the players at 20 was their teammate Wesley Matthews). Granted, to some extent that was easier for them to do as they played more games (something that was discussed last week at length) but Zoidberg in particular scored 29 points in 17 games for a proportion of 1.71 PPG. Kurtis Hunter slightly topped that with 19 points in 11 games (1.73 PPG) and Joshua Rubin held the highest average for any player who reached the finals with 20 points in 11 games (1.81 PPG), but the Watchmen also had five players at a PPG or above, compared to the Wild’s four.

 

Looking into the rosters, the conclusion that seems to be supported is more that the Watchmen underperformed in the regular season and played up to what they should have in the playoffs, with the addition of Barnstormer. The conclusion that they were really the third best team as their regular season indicated and that their playoff run was one of upsets actually seems unfounded in comparison.

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All the teams in the VHLM want to succeed, of course. Winning games and taking home the Founder’s Cup are both excellent things to achieve and players enjoy the feeling of a successful season. However, the ultimate purpose for the VHLM is to develop its players for their future success in the VHL. Both drafts were recently held, and while the VHLM draft will see new talent join the ranks, the VHL draft shows which teams have developed their players well to move onto the next level.

 

The team whose charges were deemed the most VHL-ready by the VHL GMs were the Minot Gladiators. They are the only team to have had four players drafted in the first two rounds, as well as five players overall. Teuvo Ruutu leads the way for the Gladiators at fourth overall, followed by Rift Pajodcast, Jakob Ackerman, David Blind, and Valentin Taneyev.

 

Second and third were actually a close battle, and it came down to depth against top talent. The Bratislava Watchmen placed three players in the top 17 spots of the draft, while the Oslo Storm (who also had three players drafted) had the top two but weren’t found again until 26th. The Storm ultimately get second by the tiniest of margins, with Niklaus Mikaelson, Jack Kowalski, and Til Baumann over Gifford Shock, Mario De Rossi, and Raphael Pettyfer.

 

The Saskatoon Wild and Yukon Rush round out the top five, and while Yukon placed one extra member in the draft, the edge is with the Wild due to a small gap in the early second round. Jakub Rhinehart, Borje Samuelsson, and Markus Muller round out the Wild’s draftees while Fedir Okranitz, Brandon Holmes, Matej Nemecek, and Zach Voss all played with the Rush.

 

Sixth and seventh, as with second and third, represent two teams whose drafts went in opposite directions. The Bern Royals placed only two members into the draft but both were very highly sought after in Kyle Kingma and Nicklas Karlsson. The Saskatoon Blades double the Royals in sheer number (and in fact only finish behind the Gladiators and tied with the Rush in number, surpassing the Storm, Watchmen, Wild, and Royals in that regard) the only Blade drafted before the third round was AIM-11. His teammates in the third were Yannik Zug, Jack Harkness, and Kristers Daugavins.

 

The Ottawa Lynx find themselves eighth, yet very respectably so. They snuck into the back end of the first round with Dirk Firkley, three spots before the first Blade, yet they had only two third rounders instead of three, as Arthur Grosberg and Carl Sledgehammer were drafted late.

 

With these last two teams, the draft success rate really begins to fall off. The Lynx, our eighth place team, are perhaps closer to first than ninth. Neither the Moscow Red Wolves nor the Turku Outlaws could place more than just a single player into the draft. The Red Wolves get the reluctant nod at ninth because at least their player, Maris Ziedins, looks like he will become a success in the VHL and was drafted in the middle of the second. Turku, on the other hand, would have been just about the same had they placed no players. Their lone draftee, Dyemond Fondalear, was Mr. Irrelevant (or the final selection in the entire draft). The Outlaws have a lot of work to do if they want to make a name for themselves with the big clubs.

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The basement is sometimes a lonely place. There’s usually one team who just has no redeeming qualities and is doomed to finish last, their only solace coming in the fact that they have tons and tons of picks in the pipeline. VHLM teams can’t even look forward to prospects like VHL teams can, because VHLM teams are the prospects themselves. Last year, this team was Turku. They’re looking a lot better this year, adding AC Savage, Wolfgang Strauss, Valentin Taneyev, Matej Nemecek, Prince Gigga-Bijou, and Ivars Klajums, and claiming Artemis Fowll through waivers. That’s not a great team, not by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to last year’s squad, they might as well be world beaters.

 

This season, we have not one but two teams fighting it out for the dreaded wooden spoon. The Bern Royals and Ottawa Lynx have such sparse rosters that a combined roster from both sides likely still would miss the playoffs. The entire Royals roster is Jordan Cousins, Zach Voss, Atticus Finch, and Not Intheface. The Lynx aren’t much different, with Daniel Kreutzer, Dylan Raseri, Carl Sledgehammer, Merlin Malinowski, and new goalie Jim Moriarty.

 

The battle for last (or, more accurately, the battle to avoid last) could be a spirited one and could keep a few players on these squads interested in at least some aspect of the season. Right now, the Lynx have a grand total of one win, which is one more than the Royals, who have thus far been held pointless. If the Lynx pull off a few more wins, especially in games against the Royals (the team against whom they’re most likely to do so) then this may end up not being much of a battle at all. The Lynx are bad, but there are bright spots on their roster, which is something that can’t really be said of the Royals.

 

Coincidentally, the thing that is currently keeping the Lynx down is probably the thing that will see them climb in the later portions of the season. Jim Moriarty, a brand new waiver claim goalie, is currently much worse than the default goalies that these teams start off with. That’s just the thing though: Moriarty is hardly a default goalie. He might be worse now, but he’s actively improving, which could see him among the top by the end of the season. Surely there are others who will be ahead still (and Moriarty has been less impressive early on than fellow waiver claimee Blake Campbell) but an active goalie, even if nothing else, will see Ottawa climb well ahead of Bern. For that matter, if Moriarty becomes a top tier VHLMer by the end of the season, it’s entirely possible Ottawa isn’t second to last either, as there are mediocre teams out there with default goalies just ripe to be passed.

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At this point in the VHLM season, the standings have finally begun to take shape. Some teams have pulled away at the top, others have fallen off to the bottom, and the rest languish in varying states of mediocrity. However, we do still have one statistical oddity: the plateau of 37 points. There are three teams at this particular level in the standings (at the time of writing) and it’s hard to determine which of them will finish highest at the end. The three teams are the Saskatoon Wild, Yukon Rush, and Bratislava Watchmen, three of the historically strongest teams in the league.

 

How do we determine which team will finish the highest? First, let’s take a look at the goaltending play across the three teams. Based on the stats these goalies are putting up, Gunnar Skovsgard currently looks to be the strongest, although it’s not by a wide margin. Jax Barnstormer and Fedir Okranitz are both also capable VHLM goalies in whose hands a playoff team could see success. While he’s likely the third of the three at present, over the course of the season it seems likely that Barnstormer will create the biggest push for his team as he is the only one of the three to be improving at a rapid rate. Skovsgard and Okranitz have plateaued in their development, whereas Barnstormer has not. This category will be rated Watchmen 1, Wild 2, Rush 3.

 

Looking at the star power for these teams, we find four such players on the Rush: Bismarck Koenig, Freedom McJustice, Ryan Cattrall, and Brandon Holmes. Additionally, Dirk Firkley is approaching that level, although not yet there.  This is a strong showing for a team that is used to strong showings in recent years. The Wild fall below this standard, as Borje Samuelsson and Nicklas Karlsson lead the way for them from the blue line. Joseph Roy and Travis Willcox have performed well also, but there’s no denying this is the Samuelsson and Karlsson show. Finally, the Watchmen have AIM-11, Lord Karnage, and Danny Schneider, while Kyle Kingma puts up the goals for the team and Mario DeRossi also performs well. This category will be rated Watchmen 1, Rush 2, Wild 3.

 

The final category to examine is depth. The Wild are the only team with four defensemen on their roster, but as one is DAV D5, that might not be the best barometer. In any case, excluding bot players, the Wild have 11 usable skaters. With the two star defensemen and Gunzerker Salvador, the Wild also have the strongest group of defensemen among the three teams. The Rush have 14 usable skaters, although one of them is Alex DeLarge who is currently barely better than a bot player. The Rush are stronger than the Wild at forward, but are weaker on the back end. The Watchmen, on the other hand, have easily the least depth. Their 11 usable skaters match that of the Wild, but Patrik Rolinek and Sepp Reiter (like DeLarge of the Rush) are barely better than bots, leaving the Watchmen with only 9 realistic players to use for depth. It won’t hurt them anyway, as they’re the one of these three teams in a conference without either of the others, but it might in the finals if they get there against one of the other two teams. This category will be rated Rush 1, Wild 2, Watchmen 3.

 

Final scores: Watchmen 5, Rush 6, Wild 7. These are very close scores, but they suggest that the Watchmen will finish the best, followed by the Rush and then the Wild. There is one caveat, however, with regards to the North American race, which is the Wild’s defensive prowess. That could stand to close the gap on the Rush and the two teams could finish similarly in the standings.

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As most of our regular readers are aware, there was briefly a time when the VHL experimented with a thing known as “crossover” where if the best team out of the playoffs in one conference held a better record than the worst team in the playoffs in the other conference, the better team of the two would get the spot, even if having to switch conferences for the duration of the playoff run in order to do it. It was a brief period, one that was met with much debate and discussion as to its validity in a league with so few teams, and ultimately it was scrapped shortly before expansion. The VHLM, more than the VHL, has had several instances where this would have been beneficial to a team in a stacked conference. This year, at least so far, is one of those years.

 

The Minot Gladiators, 6th best team in the league as of the current standings, would not make the playoffs despite six berths being available. On the other hand, the Moscow Red Wolves, three points back of the Gladiators, would make the playoffs due to conference alignment. Some might say this is unfair to the Gladiators, others might say it doesn’t matter because they’re not good enough within their conference (essentially treating the conferences as two separate leagues), and still others might say it’s irrelevant because neither team would win the cup anyway, nor are the playoffs an actual prize.

 

However, the gap is only a small three points. Regardless of argument, the Red Wolves may yet end up the 6th best team and therefore deserve the berth by any metric. The Red Wolves do have a marginally better goal difference on the year, perhaps indicating a stronger team that’s just had a string of one goal results go against them.

 

Looking at the two teams, the Gladiators are clearly better in goal, with both David Blind and Blake Campbell better than anyone the Red Wolves have. Mike McGrattan and Maris Ziedins are the Red Wolves’ best two skaters, with Lights Bokan holding up the back line as a singular defenseman in the absence of any others on the roster. The Gladiators are not particularly strong either, but Jakob Ackerman is miles ahead of the entire Red Wolves roster, and Guy Lukovski and Jacques Grande matching up at least with Bokan and offsetting Ziedins and McGrattan along with Ackerman.

 

Neither team, to be honest, is particularly playoff-worthy. However, without taking conferences or the current league rules into consideration, just counting the teams themselves against each other, the Gladiators clearly look like the better team. Who knows why the goal difference is against them? That could be the result of any number of things, not the least of which is random chance over the course of the season. However, with Ackerman, along with the goaltending tandem of Blind and Campbell (really, both should have starting jobs), the Gladiators are clearly better. Whether better translates to in, well that’s up to the rules to decide, and right now it looks like the answer is no.

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Goalies are, as has been said numerous times, a much bigger part of a more defensive VHL than the offensive juggernaut that is the VHLM. However, a good goalie can definitely make the difference, especially if the opposing team doesn’t have the same. It is, after all, no coincidence that the top four teams in the league also have the top four goalies. Gunnar Skovsgard has been a mainstay at the top of the VHLM, finishing among the league’s best goalies for quite some time now, and he is joined by Fedir Okranitz (who was rumored to be called up by Toronto), Jax Barnstormer and Callum Sinclair.

 

Oddly, even though Callum Sinclair’s team (Turku Outlaws) are far behind the other three in the standings, Sinclair’s stats seem mostly to line up with the other three. This is mostly explained by one stat – Games Played. Sinclair only played 45 games total (not all with Turku either), leaving the much worse Hans Wingate to play 7 of the games, which Turku split. However, based on the wins (Sinclair has 22 in 45, the least of the other three is Barnstormer with 44 in 52) Sinclair is actually performing worse, at least team-wise. Even if Turku (or his former team, Brampton) won the 7 games for Sinclair that are the gap between his wins and Barnstormer’s, he’d need another 15 in 0 extra games to match him. Furthermore, wins actually place Sinclair in fifth, behind Ivars Klajums of Brampton (who had played for Turku while Sinclair was with Brampton). Additionally, Sinclair’s goals against average is 3.96, well back of the other three. Skovsgard has a 2.11, Barnstormer has a 2.62, and Okranitz has a 2.76. Theoretically, it could just mean that Sinclair is not as good as the other three, but is that the case?

 

The single most goalie-only goalie stat (there is no true goalie-only goalie stat, but this comes as close as possible) is save percentage. In save percentage, Skovsgard leads the way by a solid margin, with a .914. After Skovsgard, though, is where Sinclair’s case for the top tier lies. Barnstormer is in second with a .905, but Sinclair is in third with a .902, ahead of Okranitz’ .901 and not much difference between second and fourth. While other stats might paint a lesser picture of Sinclair compared to his contemporaries, save percentage puts him right in line with them.  This makes sense, because Sinclair hasn’t played on as strong of teams as the other three (neither Turku nor Brampton quite seem to match up with the other three teams, although Turku is surely better than Brampton) so he probably is as good as the other three and just doesn’t have the supporting cast. Ultimately, the conclusion is as yet undetermined, but based on the proportion of team stats to stats more heavily influenced by the goalie, Sinclair is probably of similar talent and has just been unfortunate to be on two teams with lesser rosters, especially Brampton.

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This is a very interesting final few days of the regular season in the VHLM. Three teams, the Bratislava Watchmen, Yukon Rush, and Saskatoon Wild, are all competing for the top overall seed in the playoffs. Additionally, the Rush and Wild are still battling for the bye in the North American conference (Bratislava has Europe’s bye locked up and has for some time). The Brampton Blades, while not technically clinched, have realistically put their playoff battle behind them and taken the third spot ahead of the Minot Gladiators (crazier things have happened, but the Gladiators are 8 points back with 6 games remaining, so even if they somehow win out, the Blades would have to drop 8 points the rest of the way). The Moscow Red Wolves are this year’s obligatory non-playoff playoff team, having made it in despite probably not even wanting to, and now have a chance to play four extra games and ruin their draft pick.

 

So that makes five teams: the Watchmen, Rush, and Wild at the top, the Red Wolves at the bottom, and probably the Blades escaping the tougher North American conference with the berth. There are six teams in the playoffs. Which team is left out of either discussion? That would be the Turku Outlaws, with a solid lead over the Red Wolves (and would easily be clinched even in the other conference) but a wide margin behind the top three. At the time of post, the Outlaws were 18 points back of the Watchmen and Wild and 21 points back of the Rush. It looks like a fairly simple equation for the Outlaws: sweep the Red Wolves, hope to steal a game or two against the Watchmen, bow out in the conference finals. However, that wouldn’t make for a very entertaining playoff series in either round. Is there any hope of competitiveness in the European conference?

 

Looking at the Turku roster, there might just be. Starting at the back, Callum Sinclair, who was discussed just last week, is actually not a huge drop off from the three goalies backstopping the top three teams. He’s probably worse in skill, that’s a fair conclusion, but not so much that it’ll lose the Outlaws the game on his own. Roster-wise they have A.C. Savage, who is asked to carry the team as the best player by a good margin, but he’d also stand at or near the top on any of the other teams in the league. Jakob Ackerman heads up the blue line, trying to make Sinclair’s job easier, and he is partnered with the up and coming Artemis Fowll who isn’t that skilled yet but shows significant potential. If the Outlaws are going to make noise, players like Fowll and solid S42 draftee Wolfgang Strauss are going to have to step up. Ultimately the Outlaws will have to mask a lack of depth and overcome quite a bit to become truly competitive with the Watchmen, but at least that series should be more entertaining for the neutrals than the one against the Red Wolves.

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Everyone has heard the age-old adage “defense wins championships” and sometimes it proves true, sometimes it doesn’t. The VHLM is not yet at its championship, but in the early stages of the playoffs, the defensemen are making a big impact, even when compared to the forwards. Three defensemen are in the top ten in scoring thus far, and two of them are tied for the lead. Additionally, many defensemen have contributed in other areas in the first round of the playoffs and have attempted to help out their teams for potentially advancing.

 

The scoring lead at this point is nine points in four games, which is undoubtedly an impressive total since it’s more than two points per game. The players with the nine point total so far are Joseph Roy III, Griffin Simons, Borje Samuelsson, and Jakob Ackerman. Of these four, Borje Samuelsson and Jakob Ackerman are both defensemen. Half of the players tied for the scoring lead are defensemen, and these two are contributing to points for their teams from their respective blue lines, which further helps toward the fact that their teams are both in the lead in their respective playoff series. Samuelsson’s Saskatoon Wild have advanced in a sweep over the Brampton Blades, and both Roy and Simons, the forwards in the four way tie, are on the Wild as well. Ackerman’s Turku Outlaws are up three games to one on the Moscow Red Wolves. Additionally, another contributor for the Wild is Nicklas Karlsson, another defenseman, this time with seven points. This puts him in a three way tie for eighth, behind our four aforementioned players with nine and three players with eight.

 

Another factor that have helped defensemen contribute to this first round of the playoffs is merely the depth of each team’s blue line. Saskatoon has three defensemen with any points at all to Brampton’s two, and Borje Samuelsson, Nicklas Karlsson, and Gunzerker Salvador are all better players than Brampton’s Zach Voss and Jack Harkness. Chuck Goody remains pointless for Saskatoon but is potentially an up and coming player, whereas Kaspars Tsizling and Martin Van Nostrand for the Blades, who are also pointless, don’t seem likely to reach the levels of Samuelsson or Karlsson. Moscow’s Lights Bokan isn’t a bad player and has contributed quite a bit, but as the only defenseman at all on the entire Red Wolves roster, there’s only so much he can do, and as Ackerman is a better player than Bokan, that leaves everything Turku’s Artemis Fowll does as extra, further providing the gap between the two clubs.

 

As for other ways defensemen can contribute besides points, look no further than Borje Samuelsson. The guy is near the top in every major defensive stat, and even some offensive ones. He is fourth in shots blocked, a stat that normally favors players on losing teams, and he is third in hits, with one of the players ahead of him being a forward, Prince Gigga-Bijou. Lights Bokan is putting forth a good effort on a losing team as well, first in hits and second in shots blocked. So far, this has definitely been a round for the defensemen, and let’s see what the next round brings.

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Most players in a sport compete primarily for the cup, or whatever trophy their sport awards for the team winners of the overall competition. Some do it for the high salary athletes earn, and still others do it for the personal accolades, such as player awards. Whether it was their intent or not, players who earn awards are rightfully seen as the best among their peers, which in turn usually leads to higher pay and a greater chance at glory, in both an individual and a team sense. Which players are in line to receive some of the VHLM’s most prestigious awards this year, and cement their names among the best?

 

Defenseman of the year is a bit of a tricky category this year. Borje Samuelsson leads the defensemen in points, and right or wrong, points are typically taken very highly into consideration in this category. Perhaps it’s because we have no true representation of defensive capability on the stat sheet. Nonetheless, Samuelsson also finished fairly well in another category that’s often considered defensive: hits. He finished 6th in hits. There were two players who finished among the top three in hits who also performed equally as well in shot blocks, perhaps the most defensive category of all (yet one with its own problems in representation among poor teams compared to strong ones). Merlin Malinowski finished atop the hits leaderboard and was third in shots blocked, and Lights Bokan had the most shot blocks and only fell short of Malinowski in hits. Of these two, Bokan’s points totals were more respectable than Malinowski’s, and Bokan’s team made the playoffs as opposed to Malinowski’s. Brandon Holmes, Jakob Ackerman, and Nicklas Karlsson would make appearances, but each of them only finished strongly in points, yet were behind Samuelsson. Samuelsson will likely take home this award.

 

Goaltender of the year, on paper, looks to be the easiest award to decide. Gunnar Skovsgard leads save percentage and goals against by quite the margin. However, Skovsgard has stopped showing up to practices, and historically that has gone against players for awards. As such, it will likely fall to Fedir Okranitz, who while not the most active prospect, has at least continued to contribute, and finished second to Skovsgard in both categories as well as had the most wins.

 

MVP is always tricky. Often it goes to just the highest point getter. If that played out this year, it would be AIM-11, with 196 points on Bratislava. Some argument could be made for A.C. Savage, with only two fewer points but a much greater percentage of them as goals, meaning he was more often able to create his own contributions. Sometimes an MVP case is strengthened by what percentage of the team’s contribution was done by the player, but both AIM-11 and Savage had second-in-command players with roughly the same contribution, Mario De Rossi for AIM-11 and Wolfgang Strauss for A.C. Savage. Neither of these two finished higher than the other by enough to weaken his teammate’s case. Perhaps the best goalie could make a case for MVP? It’s been done before, but this is not the year. Skovsgard is the best goalie and no one will be giving him awards due to his lack of practicing with the team. In the true definition of MVP, Skovsgard would actually be a favorite to get it, as the leading scorer on Saskatoon (Samuelsson) was 59 points back of AIM-11 and without Skovsgard, they may have been in a closer battle for a playoff berth, but this will be a two man race, and AIM-11 will likely just nip out Savage.

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Not everyone steps into a new job and immediately gets a sense for everything perfectly. It’s unreasonable to expect it, even in the highest of jobs. When the new VHLM Commissioner, Austin Gow, stepped into the position, nothing was different. He couldn’t be expected to be perfect at the beginning, as it would take some time to grow into the position. As such, it’s not unexpected that his first blunder was at the draft. A high profile draftee, Blake Campbell, was left off the draft board and was unable to be selected despite almost certainly being a lock for a high draft position. As far as little mistakes go, this one was not so little, but it’s a growing pain for Gow and one that was quickly resolved with a fair solution.

 

Campbell will be allowed to be an active free agent in the VHLM, something that is a rare feat and not often seen. It can’t be said that it’s the first time this has happened, as there have been players with a modest level of activity who have appeared late on in their career (once their initial rights from the draft have expired) and agreed to sign on with a specific team at that time, but it’s definitely the first time in the modern VHLM era (since the league reformation of S20) that the active free agent has been this active and this early on in his career.

 

As of the time of writing, Campbell has not yet chosen a team, yet it might be speculated where he would consider going, based on comments he’s made in various locations. He has made a statement listing three demands he’d like to see met from a team looking to sign him, and they’re all perfectly logical expectations from someone in his position (and ultimately might see him in a better fit than had he been drafted). He wants an active locker room, a starting role, and a chance to win. In the VHLM, wanting a chance to win almost always entails an active locker room, so while there might be active locker rooms without chances to win, there aren’t chances to win with inactive locker rooms. Therefore, an active locker room doesn’t have to immediately be taken into consideration as a chance to win is a narrower yet all-inclusive requirement.

 

Teams with starting-quality goalies already are Minot Gladiators (Hans Wingate), Moscow Red Wolves (Gunnar Skovsgard), Yukon Rush (Fedir Okranitz), and Oslo Storm (Coca Cola). While any of these teams could still go after Campbell, and he’d certainly represent an upgrade over some of them, they’re less likely due to their goalie situations. Oslo, despite Coca Cola, have already made overtures to Campbell, which would likely prompt a trade of Cola to another location where he could start. Bern and Brampton have both shown interest and neither is set in the goalie department, though for personal reasons Bern seems unlikely. Brampton would be a good guess, but it is a guess nonetheless. By the time this comes to post, we should all know where Campbell signed!

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Last week’s edition was full of articles pertaining to one Blake Campbell, and rightly so as he’s a rarity in the league. The active free agent is the VHLM equivalent to the two dollar bill, it exists but just about every other type of player is more prevalent. An immense amount of hype surrounded Campbell’s free agency, ultimately culminating in his signing with Brampton about a week ago. Brampton seemed very pleased with the signing and looked at it at an opportunity to take a step forward toward contending. Now that he is with Brampton, what kind of effect has that had on the team and their chances?

 

As it turns out, at least so far, it probably hasn’t even done anything at all. That sounds very harsh and maybe it is, but the Blades are in third place in the conference, somewhere they might have been even with Ivars Klajums. The roster is full of good players, so it’s expected that they’d make a playoff appearance, and that’s just about what they’re doing. Campbell’s numbers so far have been horrendous, actually. An 0.870 save percentage? 3.47 goals against average? Even in the VHLM where scoring is more prevalent and goalie numbers tend to be down, those type of stats are just not even worth bothering with. Campbell fans, keep reading though, because there’s definitely a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow here.

 

Sure, Campbell’s save percentage ranks lowest in the league among goalies who’ve played enough to appear on the list. Sure, his goals against only trumps 2 Gud, Yukon’s mainstay backup who has been thrust into a starting role on a losing team. If we want to find out what makes Campbell a good signing, and he is absolutely a good signing, it’s futures value. Right now, Campbell is a decent VHLM starting goalie, should be better on raw skill than he’s playing, but that can come in time. One thing he has over Klajums, the man he replaced, and Gud, the other player in whose vicinity his current stats lie, is that he’s actively attending practices regularly. Campbell can only improve, and imagine how vital that will be for Brampton when it’s nearer the playoffs, which is the time when a team really wants to be winning games. If Campbell continues to improve, and if that improvement starts to actually show in his performances on the ice, he’ll be a goaltending force just as Brampton will need him to be at that point. Until then, all he really has to do is stay good enough to get them into the playoffs. At that point, his improvement over the season will do the rest. Additionally, it’s entirely within his grasp (since, as stated above, Campbell already has more raw talent than shows on the ice, so improvement would pile even on top of that) to become the top goalie in the league by the time the season is over. It’s not the most likely scenario as Hans Wingate would have something to say about that, but it’s very likely Campbell at least makes a contest out of it by then.

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It’s not often that a player makes a massive impact in the VHLM over several seasons. It’s just the nature of careers here, either the player makes such an impact for a season or two and then moves on to the VHL, or he/she performs moderately and fades into obscurity. It’s not entirely unheard of, considering the careers of players such as Tyler Vassell, Wojciech Lobodzinski, and even relatively recently Razzle Dazzle made a decent case for such a claim. Not since Vassell, however, has there been a player with such a gigantic hand in the flow of the entire league as Gunnar Skovsgard.

 

Over four seasons, Skovsgard has never been below a .909 save percentage in a high scoring league where .900 is elite. He has finished first in the league in both save percentage and goals against average in two of his three completed seasons and is first in both at the moment this season. The only time he didn’t finish first was when Niklaus Mikaelson took the league by storm, making one of those strong but brief impacts discussed above which are far too common – even then, Skovsgard was a close second in both categories. So far this season, he’s posting career best numbers by a mile, and that’s saying quite a bit when his prior numbers were as good as they were. A .936 save percentage, which is what he currently has, is unheard of in the VHLM. In fact, in the VHL, a league where strong goaltending performances are much more common, .936 would be tied for eighth best in the entire history of the league. In a much more offensive league, which the VHLM is, that might just be a record, or very nearly one if he keeps it up. Looking at Sawchuk winners, the highest recorded save percentage was a .927 for Drew Barclay in S7, followed closely behind by a .924 by both Marek Van Urho in S8 and Martin Brookside in S36. Unless there was a player who, despite a save percentage at least .009 higher than another goalie in the same season, did not win the Sawchuk, Skovsgard’s .936 (if it, or something like it, holds up) would be the record. In fact, Skovsgard has two Sawchuks himself, and is having a far stronger season than either of those. CAL G, Mattias Backlund, and Pavle Buric are the only other three players to have two Sawchuks, and Skovsgard has already matched that and looks like a certainty to break it this season.

 

The debate, and honestly it’s the only debate surrounding Skovsgard that he hasn’t already answered with a resounding yes, is if he is the best player in VHLM history, regardless of position. This is not an individual season debate, because of course there have been individual seasons more outstanding than any of Skovsgard’s (although this season may change even that) but instead it’s a question of over the course of a career, one in which Skovsgard has more ammo with which to fire because he hasn’t gone up to the VHL. Factoring in longevity as well as phenomenal performance, one might argue that yes, Skovsgard is the best VHLM player of all time. Others may oppose that view, but we will see if, by the time his career is over, there’s anyone else in the conversation.

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People often talk about statistics in a negative light, saying that they lie or are misleading. This is false. Statistics are 100% true, all of the time, provided they are real statistics and not fabricated for emphasis. The following statistics, then, are all statements of fact. Take them as you will.

 

Every team currently in the VHLM playoffs holds said position by at least 29 points, and has at least double that of the nearest non-playoff team capable of overtaking them. Even the interpretation of this statistic, the thing that often lies (not the statistic itself) is truthful and accurate. The statements point toward a complete lack of playoff race in this VHLM season. This interpretation, then, is as true as the statistic. The teams currently in the playoffs will make the playoffs when the season is complete. That much we know. There will be no comeback for the Rush, Wild, Outlaws or Watchmen.

 

Every team currently occupying a position of bye in their conference holds said position by at least 11 points. The Blades, currently atop the North American conference, look to be fairly secure in their perch over the Gladiators. In the European conference, the gap is even wider as the Storm have decimated the competition. There is a lead of 20 points over their nearest competitor, the Royals. There is no room for any of the four first-round playoff teams to stage a challenge, leaving the byes all but locked up even as early as this. It’s not completely unheard of for an 11 point gap to be overcome, so perhaps the Gladiators aren’t theoretically out of it, but Brampton has shown no signs of slowing down.

 

Of the teams that are out of the playoffs, the fourth team in each conference holds an advantage (or disadvantage, if targeting picks) of at least 17 points. Among top teams, 17 points is a massive advantage. Among bottom teams, it’s simply unreachable. In fact, the Wild and Watchmen may or may not reach that total at all, let alone make it up in a gap to their next nearest conference opponent.

 

In any case, these statistics help to break down this season’s VHLM into clear strata, taking away any real opportunity for a competition. In fact, the only thing resembling a playoff race right now is the Royals and Red Wolves, and fighting for an extra home game in the first round is pointless if they’re so much worse than the team the winner would face. The VHLM this season is divided into something of a caste system.

 

For those who are unfamiliar with a caste system, it’s a societal function, primarily used in India (although it’s still going on today, it has much less of an impact than it did even 50 years ago) wherein people are separated into levels of respect and influence based on social standing, determined mostly by occupation. A caste system places one group of people as clearly better than another, and so on and so forth, until all of society is broken down into five tiers, or castes. It’s the perfect analogy for this VHLM season, with the Storm and Blades holding a firm grasp on the top caste of the league, the Gladiators essentially on their own in the second spot, the Lynx, Royals and Red Wolves in third, the Rush and Outlaws in fourth, and the Wild and Watchmen in fifth. It will be interesting to see if any castes comingle come playoff time, but it’s doubtful; the season, as it seems, is already set.

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It’s often found that a team will have a superstar on one wing and an average to above average player on the other, just because sometimes that’s how it happens to fall. It’s certainly not an aberration when it happens on a team by team basis. It is, however, an aberration when an entire league is full of one wing and sparse on the other. Some might think that somewhere along the way, some of these players would have found their way to the other wing, or that players who already play the other wing would have joined the league. In the VHLM, this is not the case. There are tons of stars playing right wing. Left wing, not so much.

 

There is a 35-point gap between the top scoring right wing and the top scoring left wing. 51 between the respective second scorers, 45 between the third, and 34 between the fourth. Across the top four scorers at each wing, that makes a combined 165 points more for right wingers than left wingers, and that’s just counting until right wing runs out of 100-point players. Right wings would have a combined 515 points, whereas left wings would have a combined 350. Additionally, even the fourth-best scorer among right wings, Markus Muller with 111 points, has outscored the leading left winger thus far, Maris Ziedins with 106 points. The difference between right wing’s top four scorers and left wing’s top four scorers (165) would itself be leading the league in scoring, by 21 points. In fact, it takes until the eighth scorer for each position in order for left wing to finally win one, and by then, right wing would have amassed a gigantic 230-point lead. It almost makes it irrelevant that Hashtag Jeffership finally manages to surpass Edgar Balthasar as each wing’s eighth best.

 

So what would it take to average the two out? Among just the top four of each wing, Vogon Jeltz and Markus Muller would have to trade wings with Thomas Duddy and Earl Parker. That would give the Jeltz-Muller-Ziedins-Taneyev wing 431 combined points, and the Kingma-Willcox-Duddy-Parker wing 434 combined points. That’s the closest total that can be achieved among the top four of each wing, and it would be very close. Across the top 7 of each position, if we simply added the most evenly split 5-6-7 to each side, the Gigga-Bijou-Grosberg-McColister set would account for 253 points, which when added to the Jeltz-Muller-Ziedins-Taneyev wing, would give a total of 684 points. The Delicious-O’Neal-Zeptenbergs set would provide a 246-point boost to the Kingma-Willcox-Duddy-Parker wing for a total of 680 points. Notice that at this point, left wing was so far down that it required adding right wing’s 5th scorer to their 5th and 6th scorers to balance out right wing’s 6th and 7th scorers and left wing’s 7th scorer. The fact that the best two of the lower set of left wings wouldn’t even catch up when paired with the best of the lower set of right wings just proves how much stronger right wing is this season than left wing. It’s incredibly lopsided and unusual.

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The VHL has announced a contraction of teams in the VHLM for the first time in league history. The two teams to be removed are the Minot Gladiators and Turku Outlaws, neither of which seemed to cause too much of an outrage among league reps, even those affiliated closely with these teams, showing that they were likely the right teams to remove. How will this change affect this season, however?

 

As for the Outlaws, it most assuredly will not affect anything. The team has already been eliminated from the playoffs, and even if they play with the largest amount of motivation ever seen, they might move up to a whopping seventh place, still not enough to do any damage. The Gladiators, on the other hand, are a different story entirely.

 

This season has primarily been owned by the Brampton Blades and Oslo Storm, each leading their respective conferences by such a wide margin that they can’t be caught. These teams will win the byes, regardless of how any other team finishes. However, there have certainly been cup winning teams that have gone on a tear in the playoffs, despite being outside of the bye. Even before the announcement, the Gladiators were the team most likely to do this, although that likelihood wasn’t great. Now that they’ve been told this will be their last season, since they’re already a team in a fairly secure position, this news might just motivate them to play their hearts out and send the city of Minot out with a bang. Their fans, who will cease to have any hockey to see in the upcoming seasons, will be clamoring for a cup and this season’s iteration of the Gladiators might just give it to them.

 

It’s a widely held adage, and has proven true in the past, that a team can go on a playoff streak due to a hot goalie and not a whole lot else. Hans Wingate is between the pipes for the Gladiators and is certainly capable of taking over the series against the Lynx in the first round, and could steal a few extra games against the Blades in the second. The Blades have Blake Campbell, though, and he’s not going to roll over for the Gladiators. The two are similar in terms of skill, but Wingate has two motivational edges on Campbell: this is his last chance to prove himself to scouts before the draft (whereas Campbell is already owned by a VHL team) and as this article has discussed, Wingate’s team is the last iteration of the Gladiators.

 

As for skaters, Vogon Jeltz and Jack Ryan are the primary players for the Gladiators, but if new acquisitions Tim TebowGow and Simon Valmount get off to a hot start, they could certainly contribute to the Gladiators’ legacy. That’s not to say the Blades will roll over either, not with Sam Teibert, Bronson Faux, Valentin Taneyev, E’Twaun Delicious, Travis Willcox, Danny Schneider, and Golden Jedtsson. On paper, the series should resemble something of a mercy killing, with the superior Blades putting the dying franchise out of its misery. Stranger things have happened though, and the Gladiators will have much to fight for. That alone has put teams over the top in the past. Will it be enough now?

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There will always be more attention given to the goal scorers and high point getters in hockey than the other players. Role players, hits guys, shot blockers, defensively minded players – these guys aren’t the stars, they won’t get the accolades. Sometimes, though, despite the lack of attention, there are players in this second category who have a bigger influence on a team than anticipated. It is these players who will look to make an impact for their teams in the upcoming VHLM playoffs.

 

Patrick Demko of the Oslo Storm finished third in the regular season in shot blocks. That might seem odd – why would it matter if a player is third? However, shot blocks tend to heavily skew in favor of poorer teams. To finish third in the stat as a member of a conference winning team, proportionally that’s like winning the stat. Demko also showed a clutchness this season by scoring 27 goals on the power play, leading the power play goals stat by a fair margin. He shows up on the points leaderboard as well, leading all defensemen with 179. Patrick Demko is contributing to the success of the Rush defensively in a way that’s successful for his team.

 

Valentin Taneyev of the Brampton Blades topped the hits category, providing a solid 343 hits for his team. Considering that any hit has the potential of depossessing the puck from the opponent, Taneyev’s showing in this category helped the Blades take back possession when the opposing team could have had a scoring chance. Taneyev also showed up well on the points leaderboard with 105, good for an impressive 19th place showing. Taneyev’s all around game, providing physicality as well as offense, helped Brampton to win the North American conference. His contributions to the Blades’ success can’t be underestimated.

 

Enough has been said about Vogon Jeltz this season in the traditional sense. As the leading goal scorer in the league with 128, he’s not exactly an unsung hero, but there is one way in which he qualifies. He leads the league in game winning goals. Not exactly a leap in logic that the guy who has scored the most has also won the most games with his scoring, but if this is about contributions to the success of a team, what contribution is greater than the direct winning of a game? Jeltz has done this 20 times. Only two other players in the league (Kyle Kingma and Travis Willcox) have over 12.

 

A brief mention must be made of Prince Gigga-Bijou, Thomas Duddy, and Marcio Greusinho for finishing tied atop the shorthanded goals list. Antoine McColister was in on the tie as well but did so for a team that missed the playoffs, so he can’t help his team win a cup as the others can.

 

As it turns out, this season most of the biggest contributors in non-flashy stats also made a name for themselves on the scoreboard. This often doesn’t happen, but when it does, it truly encapsulates the all around talent of the players in question. Look for these guys when the playoffs roll around, it might just be one of them that wins it for their team.

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As has been discussed within these pages, the Minot Gladiators will no longer exist as a hockey club starting next season. As they’ve just recently been eliminated from the playoffs, that means there will never be a Minot Gladiators game again. What happened in their series against Brampton to see their franchise come to an end?

 

Vogon Jeltz, leading scorer of the Gladiators, kept up his highly offensive ways in the playoffs. He had 13 goals in 13 games, leading all goal scorers to this point by a wide margin (yes, he’s played more games, but only E’Twaun Delicious and Kyle Kingma are even on a better ratio than he is). Jeltz, however, has been very one-sided with the goals, only scoring them and never setting them up, as he only has three assists. This is pretty standard for a player to focus on either scoring or passing, but it also means he has to have other players on his team that are capable of getting him the puck. Tim TebowGow and Jack Ryan were the next highest in points on the team, and while Ryan’s 3 goals and 8 assists fits in pretty well with Jeltz, TebowGow had a nearly even amount of each. A few more passing oriented players might have helped Jeltz score even more, and may have also lifted TebowGow’s point totals, as he’s more evenly balanced between scoring ability and passing ability. Of course, a few more players in general would have been a massive difference for the Gladiators, as outside of Jeltz, TebowGow, and Ryan, their roster was rather limited. This gave us the opportunity to see the potential in guys like Simon Valmount, who looks to make a career for himself over the next several seasons, but at this point he just wasn’t developmentally ready to help the Gladiators extend the life of the franchise.

 

In goal, Hans Wingate did everything he could for this team. With a .918 save percentage, Wingate was only behind Gunnar Skovsgard and Coca Cola, both of whom played in the European conference and were therefore never in direct competition with Wingate during the playoffs. Despite this exceedingly good effort in goal, he still allowed a goals against average of 2.89, or last out of the starting goalies in the playoffs. How does someone put up such a solid save percentage and still fall behind in goals against? Shots against. Wingate faced a lot of shots because his team lacked depth. There weren’t many talented Gladiators out there against him, so Wingate had to do a lot of the dirty work on his own. He gave it a valiant effort, and with normal shot totals he probably would have been able to do enough, but under the circumstances he would really have needed to steal the series and he couldn’t quite do that. As such, the Gladiators see their existence end at the hands of the Brampton Blades.

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Determining awards can sometimes be difficult, and at other times is the simplest thing in the world. In some years, a certain player will stand out as miles above the rest and deservedly walk over the field en route to a trophy. In other years, there are several deserving candidates with little to separate them. Most years have a few of each. This year, the three positional awards (MVP, which let’s face it is often synonymous with top forward; top defenseman; top goalie) are some of the more difficult in recent memory.

 

Starting with where a team begins and ends, the goalie is the lifeblood of a roster. Teams can afford to play more freely if they have confidence in the man between the posts. This season, several goalies put in solid work and deserve recognition, but only one can win. Four goalies swept the top four of each major statistical category – save percentage, goals against average, shutouts, and wins. Anyone outside of Blake Campbell, Hans Wingate, Coca Cola, and Gunnar Skovsgard can be eliminated (sorry, Roland Rengel). Of these four, Skovsgard is the easiest to eliminate. He has won the award in the past with better years, and while he’s in it with the others, we shouldn’t really reward being stagnant. Skovsgard has not improved. He’s stopped attending practices and this is his peak. Of the other three, there’s an argument for each, although Wingate is not in the top two of any of the above stats, leaving it realistically between Cola and Campbell. Playoff performance isn’t supposed to weigh in here, but it will be fresh in the minds of voters that Campbell outdueled Cola in the finals. Campbell will likely take this one.

 

Top defenseman is even more difficult. Patrick Demko leads in points, which is often the strongest indicator of the way the votes will go (we’ll save the argument as to whether that is the right way to go about it for another day). Demko will probably win it, but should he? He does have a strong showing in shots blocked, finishing third behind PK Subban and Michael Clardy, neither of whom really have a claim to the award. Jack Ryan is another one to look at. He falls behind Demko in both points and shots blocked (second among defensemen in points, sixth overall in shots blocked) yet he appears somewhere Demko does not: the hits leaderboard. Ryan is top ten on all three fronts, whereas Demko only has two. Demko’s stronger performance in the two stats will likely carry him through to the award.

 

MVP is the most difficult of all. The above players (Campbell, Cola, Demko, Ryan) have to be among those considered, but it is usually a forward’s award. Does it go to Kyle Kingma, the leading point getter? Without Kingma, the Storm still have Demko, Gigga-Bijou, Ziedins, and Matsikas, not to mention Cola in net. His absence likely wouldn’t cause any major ripples in the standings. Sam Teibert, another high points guy, has much the same case. Willcox, Delicious, Taneyev, and Schneider in front of Campbell might not win the cup, but they’d certainly have to be favorites for at least the finals. Vogon Jeltz is an interesting case. Yes, he had Jack Ryan, but no one other than those two broke the 100 point barrier for the Gladiators (nearest is Jacques Grande with 87). Yes, he had Wingate behind him, but Wingate’s performances were on par with any goalie in the top four teams, and realistically this award doesn’t go outside of the top four teams, so any other candidate is matched there. Jeltz seems the most likely candidate, even though he was outscored by three other players, and so he will likely take home the award.

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Well, VHLM fans, I’m back. Depending on how long you’ve been following the VHLM, you might recall a certain GM of the then-Ottawa Ice Dogs (now Ottawa Lynx) who moved into VHL management and also wrote for this mag. This certain GM, Jason Glasser, is me. I am incredibly pleased to announce my return to the VHLM ring, so to speak, as I have accepted a GM position with the Oslo Storm.

 

I don’t have a great deal of history with Oslo, back in my stint they were just the team that kept changing names (Oslo Screaming Seamen and Oslo Naggerwolves were two of the more unique monikers among them) and no one really took this franchise that seriously at the time. In fact, in the entire history of the franchise since the S20 reformation, Oslo has only won two cups (in a total of 22 seasons, but the cups were only 3 seasons apart), and as far as cup winners go, neither the S29 team nor the S32 team were particularly memorable. Despite the great management at the time by Mitch Higgins, the S29 team was carried on the ice by Evgeni Galchenyuk and that’s about it (in some ways, this sounds similar to my own S21 team, carried on the ice by Evgeni Fyodorov, but I’d say that Keon Henderson was better than any second player on the S29 Storm roster). The S32 team was undoubtedly an improvement, if more for what the players became in the VHL than for what they were in the VHLM. Keiji Toriyama, Thomas Landry, Felix Zamora, and Karsten Olsen all played for the Storm in S32 and won a cup in front of future bust David Poulin. With goaltending being as important as it is, it’s perhaps a surprise this team won, although again they were fairly stocked up front. Despite either of these teams, it’s been ten seasons since the Founder’s Cup was taken back to Oslo.

 

As for my own pedigree, as well as a bit of background on my qualifications for the position: I won two cups in a six season stint as Ottawa GM. I led the S21 team to glory on the backs of Evgeni Fyodorov, Keon Henderson, and the only decent goalie in the league at the time, Mattias Backlund. The S23 team was a lot more evenly balanced, with five active defensemen and five active forwards (as well as a decent inactive forward in Andre West) as well as one of the top goalies in the league at the time in Matthieu VanCoughnett.

 

It’s time to take the Storm seriously. With one of the top five VHLM GMs in all of VHLM history returning to the helm (and with the only other double cup winning GMs - Jack Reilly, Austin Gow, Jim Gow, and Vince Wong - all out of the league) the table will start to stack in the Storm’s favor. It won’t be this season, but expect to see cups out of this team. Expect big things in Oslo. Expect the thunder and anticipate the lightning. The Storm is brewing.

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Coca Cola is the best goalie in the VHLM. That statement doesn’t really need much defending – Wingate and Campbell are up in the bigs now, Skovsgard is out of the league due to running out of years of eligibility, and Bernie Gow is going to be better but is earlier in his development. One player isn’t going to make or break a team, not even a goalie; Cola was on Oslo to begin the season and Oslo still performed poorly, and Brampton only lost one game with BRP G while they had yet to acquire anyone. However, it should stand to reason that Brampton will likely be a far improved team with Cola than without. Just how much of an improvement can this team expect?

 

On one hand, it’s tough to really say that they can expect much of an improvement, seeing as they won the most recent Founder’s Cup and even so far this year, they’re a single point out of first place in the league. It’s hard to improve upon that. Brampton is a strong team and would likely have even contended with BRP G. On the other hand, how well would they have contended with BRP G? The goal of a team isn’t simply to contend, it’s to win the cup. Last year, they won the cup, but last year they had Blake Campbell. Brampton would get into the playoffs either way – in the post-contraction era VHLM, it’s nearly impossible not to – but they certainly would have had trouble once there if their best goalie option was BRP G. Bot goalies in the VHLM aren’t going to kill a team’s chances, 50 TPE is better than no TPE, but going from that to the best goalie in the league can certainly do wonders for a team in the playoffs as well as the regular season.

 

BRP G had a save percentage of 0.904. That’s not terrible, especially for a bot and in an offensive league, but it’s doubtful he’d have maintained that. Looking at another bot goalie who plays significant minutes, YUK G, his team is significantly worse than Brampton. Now it’s unfair to put all the blame for that on YUK G (and in fact, YUK G has helped his team place above Saskatoon so far, which shouldn’t actually be the case) but it does go to show that a bot goalie is just not good enough for a major starting role. Assuming BRP G would have come back to earth over the season, Brampton probably loses an additional 10 games or so compared to a season of Cola, and maybe that’s enough to finish below Ottawa (who are only 2 points back at the moment). If so, this acquisition saves them the bye and a round of rest in the playoffs, as well as home ice for the conference championship. We can’t know for certain, but if that was at stake, it certainly seems like a wise move, especially considering that if Brampton doesn’t get Cola, Ottawa is a good chance to get him instead, directly costing them.