ecn ECN VHL Coverage "Conferences, expectations and two-way situations"

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This week in our full media coverage we will look at the situation in VHL and current standings, look at teams and players that are showing their best hockey and call our ones that are doing less favourably. As always, all ECN coverage is brought to you by Frostbeard Entertainment, independent network of quality news covering everything VHL Sports.

 

To start off, ECN has been following VHL from the start of the season but hasn’t commented anything about it because we never thought there was a necessity to do so, league was moving forward with its reintroduced conference system that is quite a nice addition as it brings more character and a lot more to talk about for us – media.

 

“Conferences and Differences”

 

At the start of the season, ECN Chief editor had a talk in our office and said that he believed that both conferences will be equal, and we will see teams on both sides playing amazing hockey. Currently, it seems that our chief editor was dead wrong. European Conference is dominating over North American Conference in all categories. If we look at points – first two teams of European Conference – Helsinki Titans (18 points ahead of NYA and CGY, who both are at 60 points) and Riga Reign (8 points ahead of NYA and CGY) – are both in a pretty good lead over North Americans. HC Davos Dynamo who are in 3^rd place in European Conference with 58 points would be biting both NYA and CGY ankles. If we compare goals for, North American conference in 51 games played has scored 713 goals while European Conference in 51 games has scored 806 goals. We are talking about almost 100 goal difference between both conferences. Goals against are in a very similar situation too, so it begs a question – will North American Conference’s playoff teams be able to compete against juggernauts that we see in European side? Well, in last 10 games when teams from difference conferences played each other European Conference won 7 of those games, surely something to think about.

 

“Did anyone expect this?”

 

An interesting situation has occurred that we at ECN didn’t ever consider as a possibility – Julian Borwinn is leading VHL with 74 points in 51 games played. We always thought he was a dedicated player that can show up in big games, but to show up on this stage with such a great passion was remarkable, to say the least. We expected that he will be again on pace to be at 75/80 points in total but never imagined that he will be there with more than 20 games left to play. We at ECN are proud of his hard work and would like to say that Helsinki Titans with his leadership on ice will prove to be deadly opponents to anyone who faces them in Playoffs. We are truly rooting for you Julian and we are calling it – your first 100-point season is incoming! Another player that has been full of surprises is a Canadian sniper from Toronto Legion, Roctrion King. Even though he doesn’t have even close to the amount of TPE that others are having, he is tied for the first place in all VHL for goals with 46 in 51 games played. He is tied with one of the best players in all VHL currently Matt Thompson. Roctrion King has been shooting the puck quite a few times as he currently sits with 42 more shots than 2^nd in that category in VHL. He has shot puck 75 more times than Matt Thompson. He is surely an interesting player and one to look out for as he is deadly with his shot and doesn’t make many mistakes as currently after 51 games played, he has been penalized only 2 times.

 

“Best Two-way forward in VHL?”

 

There were quite a few conversations about who is the best two-way forward in VHL last season, before the award ceremony, so it is quite important to look into that right now when the season is at full swing and evaluate players who really do deserve and who really do not deserve the award. A lot of people will go and look at a player like Beau Louth and scream that he deserves the award because of many reasons that are just wrong. After asking our Chief editor his opinion about who currently seems to be on pace to get that award, he mentioned two very well-established names in VHL – Sebastian Ironside and Kronos Bailey. They both are great faceoff takers, a heavy hitter that don’t take as many penalties and someone like Beau Louth and added to all that, they both are in Top 10 in +/- category too. ECN would strongly suggest putting a higher value on the +/- category as no matter how good defensively you might be – your team has to win.

 

And that will be all for this weeks ECN’s coverage of what is going on in VHL. I hope you liked this post and will enjoy the next editions of it too. Stay tuned and follow Frostbeard Entertainment.

 

People mentioned in this post: @Jubo07, @Romaris, @Beketov, @Beaviss, @Quik and @DollarAndADream