Ottawa with the upset

[diamond_ace 3,112]

So in the world of strange and unusual STHS results, the Ottawa Lynx have pulled one out of the bag with an upset in the first round over the Las Vegas Aces. The thing is though, while it looks like a big upset on the surface, was it really? Ottawa was in a bit of an odd position for a VHLM team, being clearly toward the bottom of the standings but not really selling like one might expect, having only flipped Mark Gebauer to Saskatoon and keeping the rest of the roster intact. Pairing this with the development of Pat Svoboda who has been one of the fastest rising players in the league, and the acquisitions of Rocky LaGarza, Gritty, Max Coffey, Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen, and Jason S, and Ottawa is almost certainly a better team than we were for much of the season. Elias Dahlberg, as well, has been arguably the best player in the league this season and has also been the player most responsible for the first round win. Looking at the TPE rankings posted weekly, there are several Ottawa names near the top, showing that perhaps if anything this team slightly underachieved in the regular season, and should have actually been the midtable team I'd expected from the start (although given that of the players making any real impact on the team, the majority weren't on the team for game 1 of the season, there was a certain hole dug early on that couldn't be escaped). The average of Ottawa's season is the distant 5th place we finished, but the team we currently have is not a 5th place team, and so it's not as surprising as it might have looked the way the result turned out. Yukon though? Not likely.