A New Era Of VHL; Team OVR Comparisons

[Devise 4,475]

During the off-season I wrote a media spot regarding where I thought teams would line up this season. A few trades had yet to be made, and some things had yet to unfold but I really (thought) we were going to see a slight breach in the league high parity we saw, especially last season, where teams would be competitive but a bit more tiered. We knew going into the season we were going to have people competing for spots, but myself and many of us seem to have under estimated the current state of the VHL greatly. @Quik posted a fantastic media spot here looking at how teams were expected to perform versus how lucky some of their performances have been. It's not an exact science, but it brings to attention some good points, notably; teams are beginning to perform both positively and negatively more wild than expectations would have them on paper. 

 

That isn't the only strange thing to occur this season, or even the last few seasons. We've seen a dip in the quality of goaltending, and while initially as scoring rocketed and @Victor had Podrick Cast tie Scotty Campbells #2 record for points all time in S62, largely due to the fact that we had so few mid or high TPE goalies, we assumed things would even out. But even out they have not. Last season in the playoffs Stopko had some all time performances but as a goalie with 1500 some odd TPE you'd expect him to perform well. Thus far this season, now with a jam packed full goalie pool with several goalies above 700 TPA and even then another few above 500 TPA, you'd expect goalie numbers to finally begin to average. Yet, that also has not occurred. Goalies continue to struggle even in winning efforts, goal scoring across the board is up. More than that, points scoring is probably as spread out as you'll see. Yes we have scoring leaders this season, but as teams equalize the quality of opposition they play that is likely to average out. Truthfully it just appears like so many teams are capable of icing rosters that can score goals, and be in games. Even in losing efforts. 

 

While it is hardly a gold standard in terms of measuring team quality, especially in relation to playoff success/cup success, Team Overall has always at the least been a good indicator of the teams that are competing and rebuilding. More than that, they were always a good indicator of where the league stood in terms of successful teams/versus successful players. Because of this I wanted to compare this seasons Team Overalls to that of the Team Overalls of the last several seasons. This led to down a rabbit hole of gathering all Team Overalls all the way back to Season 30. Note, the index in the archive of the portal for Season 40 only had VHLM stats, and would error when I tried to go to anything regarding VHL. As such I do not have Team Overalls for S40. 

 

Team Overall Numbers 
S65 - CGY (58) DAV (59) HSK (60) MOS (58) NYA (61) RIG (63) SEA (61) TOR (61) VAN (61) - 5 OVR

S64 - CGY (57) DAV (56) HSK (65) NYA (54) QUE (59) RIG (62) SEA (59) TOR (58) - 8 OVR

S63 - CGY (60) DAV (51) HSK (53) NYA (51) QUE (62) RIG (60) SEA (58) TOR (59) - 11 OVR

S62 - NYA (51) SEA (53) DAV (59) TOR (53) QUE (59) RIG (54) HSK (49) CGY (59) - 10 OVR

S61 - NYA (57) SEA (50) DAV (59) TOR (49) QUE (54) RIG (50) HSK (59) CGY (59) - 10 OVR

S60 - NYA (56) SEA (57) DAV (56) TOR (50) QUE (54) RIG (56) HSK (57) CGY (57) - 7 OVR

S59 - NYA (59) SEA (57) DAV (56) TOR (58) QUE (52) RIG (58) HSK (57) CGY (56) - 7 OVR

S58 - NYA (58) SEA (59) DAV (54) TOR (60) QUE (51) RIG (59) HSK (56) CGY (55) - 9 OVR

S57 - NYA (50) SEA (58) COL (50) DAV (51) TOR (59) QUE (58) RIG (59) HSK (58) STO (49) CGY (57) - 10 OVR

S56 - NYA (48) SEA (54) COL (48) DAV (58) TOR (57) QUE (57) RIG (59) HSK (59) STO (50) CGY (56) - 11 OVR

S55 - NYA (59) SEA (49) COL (48) DAV (58) TOR (51) QUE (59) RIG (51) HSK (61) STO (59) CGY (52) - 13 OVR

S54 - NYA (60) SEA (50) COL (49) DAV (49) TOR (50) QUE (60) RIG (53) HSK (60) STO (60) CGY (48) - 12 OVR

 
S53 - NYA (60) SEA (60) COL (51) DAV (50) TOR (48) QUE (53) RIG (51) HSK (57) STO (60) CGY (51) - 12 OVR

S52 - NYA (59) SEA (59) COL (51) DAV (51) TOR (58) QUE (50) RIG (55) HSK (49) STO (50) CGY (58) - 10 OVR

S51 - NYA (49) SEA (55) COL (55) DAV (46) TOR (57) QUE (47) RIG (58) HSK (42) STO (43) CGY (57) - 15 OVR

S50 - NYA (49) SEA (51) COL (55) DAV (54) TOR (58) QUE (57) RIG (55) HSK (51) STO (47) CGY (52) - 11 OVR

S49 - NYA (58) SEA (52) COL (53) DAV (53) TOR (57) QUE (57) RIG (53) HSK (47) STO (46) CGY (45) - 13 OVR

S48 - NYA (57) SEA (54) COL (51) DAV (46) TOR (57) QUE (49) RIG (49) HSK (56) STO (55) CGY (48) - 11 OVR

S47 - NYA (58) SEA (55) COL (50) DAV (50) TOR (49) QUE (50) RIG (58) HSK (58) STO (56) CGY (57) - 9 OVR

S46 - NYA (58) SEA (47) COL (53) DAV (57) TOR (46) QUE (48) RIG (58) HSK (60) STO (52) CGY (58) - 14 OVR

S45 - NYA (58) SEA (46) COL (56) DAV (57) TOR (46) QUE (53) RIG (57) HSK (59) STO (57) CGY (58) - 13 OVR

S44 - NYA (56) SEA (48) COL (57) DAV (56) TOR (48) QUE (58) RIG (52) HSK (48) STO (60) CGY (59) - 12 OVR

S43 - NYA (52) SEA (56) COL (58) DAV (58) TOR (58) QUE (58) RIG (51) HSK (46) STO (61) CGY (51) - 15 OVR

S42 - NYA (58) SEA (54) COL (59) DAV (57) TOR (57) QUE (59) RIG (48) HSK (57) STO (53) CGY (50) - 11 OVR

S41 - NYA (59) SEA (50) COL (60) DAV (48) TOR (53) QUE (58) RIG (57) HSK (59) STO (51) CGY (50) - 12 OVR

S39 - NYA (57) SEA (54) COL (52) DAV (55) VAS (57) TOR (46) QUE (51) RIG (58) HSK (52) CGY (53) - 12 OVR

S38 - NYA (58) SEA (57) COL (52) DAV (56) VAS (56) TOR (57) QUE (48) RIG (61) HSK (49) CGY (53) - 13 OVR

S37 - NYA (55) SEA (57) COL (50) DAV (57) VAS (57) TOR (57) QUE (57) RIG (60) HSK (46) CGY (48) - 14 OVR

S36 - NYA (52) SEA (56) COL (54) DAV (55) VAS (56) TOR (58) QUE (57) RIG (50) HSK (55) CGY (45) - 13 OVR

S35 - NYA (45) SEA (54) COL (57) DAV (53) VAS (55) TOR (56) QUE (57) RIG (45) HSK (58) CGY (55) - 13 OVR

S34 - NYA (57) SEA (50) COL (55) DAV (47) VAS (48) TOR (55) QUE (57) RIG (57) HSK (58) CGY (56) - 11 OVR

S33 - NYA (58) SEA (52) COL (54) DAV (53) VAS (50) TOR (53) QUE (53) RIG (59) HSK (58) CGY (56) - 9 OVR 

S32 - NYA (57) SEA (46) COL (52) DAV (49) VAS (57) TOR (49) QUE (49) RIG (58) HSK (59) CGY (58) - 13 OVR

S31 - NYA (59) SEA (46) COL (54) DAV (55) VAS (55) TOR (46) QUE (50) RIG (57) HSK (51) CGY (58) - 13 OVR

S30  - NYA (54) SEA (54) DAV (55) VAS (50) TOR (57) RIG (49) HSK (45) CGY (57) - 12 OVR
 

 

 

After that wall of text, and looking through the numbers you certainly find some interesting results. Also I would of put this in a spreadsheet, but meh, I tagged the right person already in this thread who is the master of that stuff.  

 

But man oh man do we have some things from this that information we can note. For starters, 6 of 9 teams in Season 65 have 60 OVR or better. Further, Riga's 63 OVR this season is the second highest recorded OVR since Season 30.  Given before that was pre-expansion I'd be shocked to see a team have more than 60 OVR, as back then it was players who were good, less so teams, which is clearly a trend we are moving in now. Helsinki maintains the highest OVR last season, but it's worth noting that they packed up for the playoffs as they had some retiring players. So it was clearly an OVR that couldn't be maintained. But the 6 of 9 at above 60 OVR is too me the red herring here. We have only seen a team with 60 OVR or better 26 times in our window, and only in 13 of the 35 seasons polled. Never has there been a season with 6, in fact Season 54 was the last and only other time we saw a season with more than 3 teams at 60 OVR or better, which has only happened 2 times itself. 

 

The last thing to note is just the variance between the top team in each season, and the worst. While that isn't the only indicator of where league parity is at, obviously you still want to factor in how many competing teams there are and compare the difference between them and your top teams. Still, it is a good indicator of how deep our player pool is in any given season. This season has the highest variance, with only a difference of 5 overall from Riga's 63 to Moscow's 58.

 

Ultimately I think my conclusion is that we have good players on too many teams and we obviously (as has been let out of the bag a few times now) will be expanding again soon. Still, with the pace of recruitment and the increasingly large size of rosters already, the reality is we could be looking at a situation where even after expansion we have 10 teams that ice full rosters. At least full by VHL standards. When I look at goalie inconsistencies especially, it's hard not to wonder if it's just due to the overall quality of teams increasing, as well as the overall pool of quality forwards and D increasing. Here is hoping that things find a way in future seasons to settle, because if goalies need upwards of 1000 TPE to even have a chance to have good seasons by goalie stats standards, we may have a problem on our hands. Anyway, that is all for this totally long non Fan590 that I'm going to claim for both players. 

 

Going to be interesting to track these things as they move forward as always, the ever progressing narrative of the VHL will continue to shift. 

 

[eaglesfan036 4,585]

interesting stuff this kind of analysis is right up my alley