Highlighting Madden's Early Struggles

[Thranduil 293]

It's no secret that John Madden has had a rough rookie season. It's been nothing but disappointing in his eyes, right from the beginning. Madden is in the top 20 in league shots, above the likes of The Charm, Diljodh Starload, Mark Gebauer and Julian Borwinn, all of whom, have scored 20+ goals this season, however all Madden has to show for his constant attempts at scoring are a mere 9 goals. Not only that, but Madden also gets more ice-time than most other players, spending a daily average of 28:40 on the ice, almost half a game. The fact is, Madden has all the time he needs to score goals, yet he fails to do so. Part of the fault could go to his line-mates, two inexperienced rookies, both of whom have less than 15 points this season and are also struggling to find their game, but if this is the case, it is clear that Davos' lines need to be mixed up.

Madden's +/- this season is another big eyesore. Through 37 games played, the young forward has posted an abysmal -24 rating, second worst on the team. This is major cause for concern as Madden has never been on the minus side of the spectrum before in his career. One of the things he is known for priding himself in is his +/- rating but it has clearly taken a turn for the worst this season. While it may be somewhat of a factor, it isn't only because he plays on Davos that his +/- suffers so much, as Rylan Peace, Elias Dahlberg and Pat Svoboda all have +4 or higher, which makes it clear that playing for Davos doesn't guarantee you a low +/-.

Seeing Madden out of character struggles ensue, coaches and trainers have done their best to get him to find his game again, often giving him power-play time with the other Davos stars. Nothing seems to be working and it is becoming a downwards spiral for Madden, so much so, that Madden just finished a stretch where he only had 1 point in 12 games. The lack of production is concerning for Shawn Glade, GM of the HC Davos Dynamo, who picked Madden back in the S64 VHL Entry Draft. Other players drafted after Madden have had much better starts to their careers. The 7th overall pick, Diljodh Starload leads his team in goals with 21, while the 8th overall pick, Kyson Blake is 21st in league points with 42. Both of these players are rookies who played with and against Madden in the VHLM, the previous two seasons and scored less points overall than he did. It just seems like Madden is having a harder time transitioning to the faster paced VHL than most of his peers are.

Another thing to note is that, although Madden has played on the power-play for the majority of the season, he has managed only 3 power-play points thus far. Experts are generally confused as to why the rookie is having such a hard time adjusting to the league and will likely continue to be stumped until he picks his game up. The rookie curse does seem to be an entity in Davos among some of their more notable players. Both Dahlberg and Svoboda had down seasons before they found their groove and started chipping in, so Madden can only hope that this lack of productivity only sticks around for one season, before he's ready to really kick off his VHL career.