Rookies in Riga - past [1/2]

[hedgehog337 3,480]

This article was inspired by a fact that our team the same amount of rookies as the rebuilding Moscow Menace. At this moment, both teams have seven players spending their first season in the big league. It may be weird for a contender to have so much rookies, but maybe getting more fresh faces will bring us to a promised land? Who knows. Right now, I will check older indexes to see how many rookies Riga has in each season since S61. I'm not going to check indexes from S54 (the season when my GM tenure started) as I believe we didn't have a lot of rookies back then. And majority of players came in via trade. I also won't check the season 60. The Reign didn't make the playoffs, but it was hardly a rebuilding year as I tried to make a fringe contender team. To just give it up at the trade deadline period. Good thing I already had three S61 picks to start this rebuilding how it should be (and not how I did in S54 lol). 

 

 

S61 - 3 rookies (Edwin Preencarnacion, Podrick Cast, Arvid Aamo)

 

So the S61 is where all started. I had three first round picks (#3; #5; #6). I used them to draft two future Riga superstars in Preencarnacion and Cast. The fifth pick was used to draft a goalie named Arvid Aamo. Back then, I had a center as the GM player as I believed that Arvid has it all to become a solid goalie at least. Nowadays, even a contender team has three or even more rookies in their teams. This definitely helps them with a cap. Back then, I was good with three immediate call ups since I had one more that I drafted in a later round. And then one more player suddenly returned in the mid-season which made him a steal. Plus more S62 picks. I couldn't complain about this. 

 

Who stayed in Riga and who didn't? 

 

Edwin Preencarnacion - YES. He is only one of four remaining players from the S63 championship crew. And one of three drafted players left as Kallis Kriketers is my GM player. 

Podrick Cast - YES. The same can be told about Cast. He formed a dynamic duo with Edwin and to this day, they're still the first line partners. 

Arvid Aamo - NO. Without the doubt, this is the worst pick I've ever made in my GM'ing career. I had some picks that didn't pan out, but they all were drafted in round 2 or even later. And there are some players from round 1 that didn't live up to our expectations, but they still were at least decent second line/pair players. However, Aamo became a straight bust. A couple weeks of updates after the draft and then he was gone forever. There is only one good thing he did for our team. Sucking in the S62 wild card round series against Seattle which gave us another first OV pick. Which turned into Ryan Kastelic. Also, this is the moment where Kallis Kriketers was born. As for Arvid - he was traded to Davos in the S62 off-season for...the fourth round pick. What a fail. After playing two more seasons for the Dynamo, he was set free. I'm pretty much sure he will never be signed by any VHL team since he is even worse than a CPU goalie. 

 

 

S62 - 2 rookies (Leph Twinger, Mikka Pajari)

 

The S62 was even more quiet in terms of rookies. However, they both made their contribution to Riga in following seasons. Leph Twinger was the first OV player in the S62 draft and obviously was immediately called up to Riga. Mikka Pajari is the aforementioned draftee who returned to the practice facility in mid S61 and became a draft steal. By the way, good ol' S62, when all goalies but Stopko were almost non-existent. This was a good year for forwards and Leph wasn't an exception. He posted a very good rookie season. And to this day, 116 points is his career high. Which is crazy as his potential is suggesting he can play better than he is doing right now. Pajari didn't have that much luck, but he was more of a second line center type of a player. Considering that he was drafted in the third round in not-so-deep draft - no complains from me. 

 

Who stayed in Riga and who didn't? 

 

Leph Twinger - NO. He was one of the first ''victims'' of the cap hell that came into our team. He was traded to the Americans in the S64 off-season. And to this day, he is still trying to find his game that allowed him to score 116 points in his rookie season. 

Mikka Pajari - NO. He stayed in Riga one season longer than Twinger. He even managed to post a solid season with Crimson and Kisshan, but the cap forced me to sell him to the Nighthawks in last off-season. I assume he will stay in Malmo till his career is over. 

 

 

S63 - 6 rookies* (Ryuu Crimson, Ryan Kastelic, Dylan Nguyen, Shawn Glade, Kallis Kriketers, Paolo Nano)

 

* - Kallis Kriketers is a GM player and wasn't drafted. 

 

Even without Kallis, Riga still had five rookies which is the highest number since I started another rebuild. But hey. Drafted or undrafted, Kallis is still a member of Riga so let it be six rookies. Four out of six of them were S62 draftees and only Kastelic and Kallis were immediate call ups. Dylan Nguyen and Ryuu Crimson were first players drafted by me in the S62 draft. They also wanted to play together and I fulfilled their wish. Shawn Glade was taken 11th OV. I was choosing between two players for that pick - Baxter or Shawn. It appeard that I made the right decision - Lando is solid, but Glade could become one of the best two way defencemans. Paolo Nano was the last active taken S62 draftee - I picked him at #19. As for S63 rookies - to the surprise of no one I took Kastelic first OV. And I said it all about Kallis. So this makes it 6 rookies. There was an uncertainty in the air about my plans on S63 - contending, or not yet? At the end of the day I went into the season with the 7/5 setup and this proved to be a winning combination for us. The depth helped us to get both Victory and Continental cups. 

 

Who stayed in Riga and who didn't? 

 

Ryuu Crimson - NO. He was one of many players who was traded in the S65 off-season due to cap situation. The 9th pick of the S62 draft was sent to Davos in a big deal with his draft peer. At this moment, he is the first line player and finally has a chance to unload his full potential. 

Shawn Glade - NO. The other player who was traded to Davos. Which makes it better for the Swiss team is they got another Glade's (as a member and GM) player which means they got a good D for multiple seasons. 

Ryan Kastelic - YES. He became the leader of the Riga defence after the retirement of Joseph Bassolino. The only thing he could use is becoming a captain, but it's hard to do when you're a teammate with EdwinCast. 

Dylan Nguyen - NO. He was one of parts of the big trade with Davos. Unfortunately, Dtayl didn't have any motivation for Dylan anymore as he was rarely updating him this year. At this moment, he is the only draftee in this list who made it into the big league, but already retired. 

Paolo Nano - NO. He was traded in mid-S63 as he never got full minutes and Helsinki could provide him that. At this moment, he is waiting for the decision on NY. He was signed by them, but it appeared that they never had a cap space in the first place. So we may be witnessing a rare moment - he could become a free agent during the season after he signed a deal in the off-season prior. Let's hope he will be signed ASAP because this would be a shame to see this solid defenceman being sit out due to unfortunate circumstances. 

 

 

S64 - 2 rookies (Rylan Peace, Kisshan Shan)

 

It was certain that our team won't have so many rookies after a productive S63. After all, I picked a 199 TPE Kyson Blake at #8 because I just didn't have a space anymore. However, Riga wasn't empty. The S63 draftees Rylan Peace (12th pick) and Kisshan Shan (16th pick) were ready to make a splash in the big league. The transition from the minors to VHL wasn't very easy, though. Kisshan was put into the third line, so he never had a chance at good performance. Rylan assumed to be the more talented than his draft peer. And while 46 points was a somewhat decent performance in a 7-forward team, Peace wasn't happy with himself. He finally managed to show flashes of his potential in playoffs, it seemed like his best seasons is ahead of him. 

 

Who stayed in Riga and who didn't? 

 

Rylan Peace - NO. So the best seasons are ahead of him? This definitely was the case after I traded him to none other team than Davos. The less stacked team is what he needed to unleash his potential. 103 points was the breakout season and right now he is expected to be one of offensive leaders of the Dynamo. 

Kisshan Shan - NO. Despite of not being as much hard worker as Rylan, he stayed for one more season in Riga. And even managed to post solid 57 points in the second line. The cap was up right there, though. So the S65 was he last he spent in Riga jersey as he was sent to the Americans in the following off season. Well, ok. Maybe not last. After all, he still has five seasons left. The only downside of this is his activity has vanished as of late. Will he find another drive to finish what he started? This is an interesting question for Spade. 

 

 

S65 - 1 rookie (Bolt Vanderhuge)

 

The following season was even less attractive if we're talking about rookies. It was all about the roster (which was full of S61-63 players) reaching it's peak and rookies were having a hard time to find a space in this team. Also, the expansion happened. In the expansion draft Moscow decided to take one of S64 draftees, Kyson Blake. So it left us with one and only Bolt Vanderhuge who was picked 24th OV in the S64 draft. He had a decent season as a defensive defenceman. He showed that he can become a fine second pair DD. Also, he is the only active player left out of all Riga S64 draftees. Now that's a steal. 

 

Did he stay in Riga? 

 

NO. He only stayed in our team for one season, though. In yet another S65 off-season trade he was dealt to Malmo with Mikka Pajari. At this moment, he is remains as the second pair defenceman with his old Halifax teammate Basaraba Moose. His offensive game also stepped up as he already registered 8 points in 10 games. So this could be a breakout season for him. 

 

 

This was the breakdown of Riga rookies in S61-65 period. In the span of 5 seasons, Riga had 14 rookies that played at least a half of season in our team. Four of them are still part of the Latvian team. Maybe not the best ratio, but it happens when majority of them are very active and the cap is doing it's thing. It's not a surprise that with this activity level all of them are enjoying solid or award-winning careers. 

 

The part 2 soon. This won't be a long article though. Just a a couple of words about the present and future. 

 

And I hope I broke 200 word mark. 

 

6x4=24 TPE goes to Kallis

 

06.05 - 12.05

13.05 - 19.05

20.05 - 26.05

27.05 - 02.06

[Victor 10,828]

Cap did us dirty.

[Renomitsu 934]

Review - Wonderfully interesting look at past rookies; you can really see the seasons where Riga went for the jugular, and obvious rebuilding seasons. The sheer number of roster moves for vets and draftees alike - both for picks and for adjusting for the cap - leaves few self-drafted players remaining and really makes you think about how free agency will be with limited cap space. Nice write-up.

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

Twinger definitely didn't live up to how I thought he would be. He teased me in his rookie season.

 

Although, I do think he'd have been better as a concrete top line guy in Riga, but Riga was just too stacked. He's been a lot better in NY.