A Look at the Bulls

[Nykonax 1,566]

A Look at the Bulls

 

 

Intro

 

The Houston Bulls are one of the VHLM’s newest teams. They were introduced to the league at the end of S64 along with the Philadelphia Reapers. Situated in Houston, the team brings a strong hockey team, and an amazing hockey atmosphere to Texas and the Southern USA.

 

GMs

 

The Houston Bulls are led by Sonnet. Sonnet is a very active member if the community, and once held a recruitment job, so he’s very situated with helping new players. He’s been a big fan of adding a roleplay aspect to the VHL and VHLM, with him doing articles, banners, and even adding goal songs to his team. He’s assisted by GlowyGoat, a newcomer to the VHL scene, but has been very active in learning how it works and what to do. He’s built the team atmosphere along with Sonnet, and is probably one of the better AGM’s (but not as good as me… obviously)

 

Players

Starting off with their captain, Viktor Kozlov was one of their first expansion draft picks, and Houston paid so that Halifax wouldn’t protect him. He was the Alternate Captain on Halifax, a team that went to the finals, and is a perfect person to captain Houston. He isn’t a star player in points, only having 30 in 28, but he’s a physical guy with 99 hits and 76 PIM, showing he has what it takes to stand up for his team.

 

Kirbsson is one of two Alternate’s on the team, and this is one of the players I really like. I’ve played with him on other teams in other sim leagues, and he’s a perfect player for the franchise. Kirbsson is a pass first player, and has been dishing out assists to all his teammates as he has 39 points on the season. Although I only expect him to improve as he builds MONSTER players in every single sim league.

 

The other Alternate is Callum MacElroy aka. Houston’s AGM. Like I talked about Glowy before, he’s been amazing at building the houston atmosphere, and especially in the world building department, where he writes amazing articles about his player in Scottish (or Irish?) with the words written in an accent. I always find his work hilarious.

 

One of my honorable mentions for the players is Karri Jurri, or hockeyis66. Hockey is my AD in the SBA, and is great at helping new players. He's an active member of the community, and his player has been successful in the VHLM scoring 38 points, pretty evenly spread between goals and assists.

 

Another guy who deserves a mention is Ludvig Sederstrom. He’s been an active earner since his pickup, and has earned over the cap every single week since. He’s got 20 points in 28 games, and will only improve as he keeps earning.

 

Season So Far

The Houston Bulls are sitting just above .500, and are in 5th place, putting them just inside a playoff spot. You can’t just look at their standing though, as 4th place Vegas is ahead by 1 point, and the 3rd place Lynx are ahead by 4. With a couple wins, and the other teams losing, Houston could easily jump into 3rd or even 2nd. They are 1 of only 2 teams in a playoff spot with a negative goal differential, the other being the Ottawa Lynx.

 

Houston definitely looks like they are in a position to be buying. With the Reapers already selling, teams are having to rush the decision on whether to sell or not. I’m sure Houston is looking at a couple players to help boost them in the standings, and are willing to pay the price for them. We know that they are definitely trying to compete, trading for picks in the last draft, but we’ll have to keep an eye on them throughout the next weeks as the trade deadline soon approaches.

 

Strategy wise they definitely need some more offensive firepower. Jurri and Kirbsson can’t do all the work for the team like Ottawa’s Jack Lynch, and the Bulls aren’t getting enough scoring from their depth lines, and that's what they need. Trading for a superstar to carry the 2nd line, or adding a couple depth pieces could definitely turn around their season.

 

Conclusion

It’ll definitely be interesting to see how one of the newest VHLM franchises fairs in the next few weeks, will they be like Halifax and make the playoffs every time but never win? Or will they be able to bring home a championship this season? With STHS, who even knows, but with a couple good moves Houston could easily skyrocket in the standings and into the cup finals.