marshall_222's articles

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Lynx Prospects the Silver Lining in Dreadful Season

The VHLM season is now about a quarter done, with each team having played 20 games, enough time for teams to show us what they are capable of, or in a couple unfortunate instances what they are completely incapable of. The North American Conference of the VHLM hosts three of the most downright awful teams in recent memory, with the Wild, Lynx, and Blades combining for a meager five wins between them in sixty tries. When teams are this bad it is common practice to simply ignore the bright spots as they are overshadowed by other negative factors. This is especially unfortunate for draft eligible players as they can be overlooked, even if they are managing relatively strong individual campaigns. We won’t let this be the case for three Lynx prospects, who despite their teams terrible deficiencies are still worthy of recognition for their individual performances thus far.

 

The most polished player of the bunch is left winger Chris Raymond. Raymond leads the dismal Lynx team in scoring, notching an impressive 23 points in 20 games and has consistently been the teams most dynamic offensive threat night in and night out. The young winger has also shown that he can be a leader, being very active for the team in terms of communicating with other players. Although Raymond is not realistically going to challenge for the #1 spot in the draft he remains a very solid VHL prospect and projects to be a solid top 6 forward for a long time. Although the Lynx shockingly have a shot at a playoff spot, it is expected they will be looking to move current assets for draft picks when the time comes and Raymond is likely going to be the most sought after player. Expect Raymond’s strong individual performance to be his ticket out of Ottawa at the trade deadline and for his numbers to take a considerable bump once he starts playing with better players.

 

Another S38 prospect that is just waiting for a chance to break out for another team is winger Leo Tesla. The speedy Finn has been playing out this season on the 2^nd line for the Lynx which has stuck this talented offensive player on a metaphorical island, Tesla simply has nobody to play with. Despite his tough situation, Tesla has battled through it to put up some decent numbers to the tune of 8 goals and 14 points. Tesla could certainly play on some other teams top lines and the way he has progressed this season suggest that he will be a bonafide VHLM first liner by the end of the season. If there is any positive to be taken out of Tesla’s banishment to the second line is that he has shown potential suitors that he can be productive no matter what the circumstance. It is expected Tesla will finish the season in a different jersey and it will certainly be interesting to see what he can do when he’s put with better linemates.

 

The last prospect of any significance on the Lynx is the enormous center Seth Rollins. A waiver wire pick up by the Lynx, Rollins is a pure goal scorer who has found a home centering the top line for the Lynx. His 16 games with the Lynx have been impressive as he’s managed to put up 17 points and find chemistry with Chris Raymond. Rollins is an intriguing player going forward as his talent for scoring goals often isn’t found in players that stand 6’3, 230 pounds. As a recent entry into the VHLM he is not quite as developed as Tesla or Raymond but so far has shown an ability to be effective in a top line role. It would be foolish for VHLM teams loading up for a playoff run to ignore a goal scoring center with size, expect Rollins to be yet another Lynx player with a good chance to be on the move by the end of the season.

[marshall_222 12]

This will be part 1 of a 3 parter

2 will be about the negative impacts these fill ins may make

3 will be issues about implementation 

 

 

Making the Case for Better Fill In Players

A great thing I’ve noticed about the VHL over the years is that it’s unafraid to make changes to better the league. For the most part, if a good idea is brought forward from a member its pro’s and con’s are weighed through discussion on a public forum, and if the idea makes sense changes are quickly implemented. Well I have an idea I’d like to throw out there. What if the VHLM replaced a number of the 0 TPE filler players with more developed players, that is players not attached to any account but with a certain amount of TPE added to them. As with most proposed changes there are positive and negative aspects, and for this week I will be outlining some of the positive aspects this change would bring.

 

One thing that has remained consistent with the VHLM in my time here is that there is never a whole lot of parity. At the start of the season pretty much anybody with a passing knowledge of the league can say “well these three teams are the clear cut favourites to win, these few are going to be ok, and these last few teams will probably struggle to get to double digit wins.” What this makes for is a fairly predictable league, and unfortunately predictability often comes at the expense of excitement. Last season I joined Oslo just towards the end of the season. At the time there was a sort of pseudo-playoff race between Oslo and Vasteras, although Vasteras would really have to do poorly for there to be any legitimate chance at us overtaking them. As far as playoff “races” go it was pretty tame but I have to say it was sort of exciting. The guys in Oslo had a lot of material to write on for media spots, and there was definitely a lot more anticipation that usual for the next sim to see how we did. I can only imagine that excitement would be compounded if playoff races were a lot closer, and the only way to ensure that is to create more parity league wide. One way I believe we can get closer to a more competitive VHLM is the addition of these more talented filler players. How is a team with one semi-active guy on defence and no goalie supposed to compete against a team with a couple good defenders and six developed forwards? The simple answer is they cannot, and the results are overwhelmingly blow outs.

 

That touches on my next point. The addition of a couple talented fill in players for teams otherwise barren of active players would prevent these “skeleton” teams that are currently in the VHLM. The Lynx and the Blades have combined for 2 wins in 58 games, that’s pathetic anyway you want to look at it. I can’t imagine what being on a team like that must be like for a new guy entering the league, especially a guy coming in with 0 TPE who can’t even chisel a few points off of a more developed line mate. These teams are a drain on the VHLM as a whole. For players on them their only excitement is waiting to see if they’ll get dealt to a team that actually has a chance. For players on good teams they only need to check how many points they got against these skeleton teams, there is no interest in the actual result as there is no impact on playoff seeding. I’m not saying that we need to infuse a ton of TPE laden filler players to get these teams to .500, that would be a bad idea, what I’m saying is that maybe a couple 50 TPE guys added to these teams allows the Blades to get 18 wins instead of 0 and at least make a few games interesting. The main point of my argument here is that an extreme talent disparity has resulted in some teams unable to even approach competitiveness resulting in a weaker league, and that adding several filler players would help to address that.

 

Addressing parity issues isn’t the only positive adding these talented filler players would bring. I believe that creating a bit of diversity among them would allow GM’s to stylize their teams, adding another dimension of depth to the league. For example, a team like Minot is built around three offensively strong forwards, their GM would have to make a decision on his filler players. Would it be better to add a couple defensive players to balance out all the scoring upfront? Or does he stack the deck and add a couple puck movers on the back end to create a high flying offensive team. What choosing from a selection of diverse filler players would bring is an overall better league. The VHLM GM’s have a lot more say in how their team is created and teams playing an identifiable style creates a lot more fodder from VHLMers to write about.
 

Yet another bonus to diverse filler players is the fact that it allows people brand new to this site to be placed in a situation with a better chance to succeed with the added bonus that it can open another line of communication between them and their VHLM GM. I believe communicating with these new people is crucial to getting them interested for the long term. With these filler players a VHLM GM can open a conversation with them about what type of player they intend to build and where they will place them based on their build. They want to build a defensive defenceman? Great you can play them with your other defensive defenceman and create a shutdown tandem, something for that new player to start building their player identity from. On top of that they are placed in a situation where they are more likely to succeed based off of playing with a player already a little more developed. What this might mean is that your 18 TPE defensive defenceman might be able to snag the odd assist off of playing with their more offensive partner. Overall it is just better for a new player to be placed on a team with a couple players with TPE.

 

The previous points are some of the reasons I see adding filler players with TPE to VHLM teams as a positive. But this idea is certainly not a slam dunk, there are drawbacks to be sure. Next week we will look at a few of them including less playing time for new but active players and what kind of impact these filler players can realistically be expected to make.

Edited March 25, 2014 by marshall_222