Moscow: The VHL's Entertainers

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Since joining the VHL in Season 65, the Moscow Menace have done nothing but entertain the league and hockey fans worldwide. More recently, they've even been entertaining their own fans and their high-ranking patrons in the Russian government.

 

Want scientific proof? Well firstly, in their inaugural season, the Menace were dog shite, successfully tanking for 1st overall. They scored 155 goals, second-lowest in the league, but thanks to a dreadful defence which saw 332 goals fly past rookie Justin Cole, Moscow games saw the most goals in the league:

 

S65:	Goals for	Goals against	Total
Moscow	155	332	487
Seattle	275	178	453
Toronto	255	192	447
Helsinki	235	196	431
Vancouver	208	219	427
Davos	201	216	417
Riga	240	174	414
New York	197	194	391
Calgary	154	219	373

 

Despite such a low-scoring team, most of the goals were distributed between one line and led to a breakthrough season for captain Mark Gebauer and a Stolzschweiger Trophy for the unheralded Kyson Blake.

 

In Season 66, the Menace got much better at scoring goals (2nd in the league despite falling far short of the playoffs) but still pretty bad at stopping them. The result - a league-leading 521 goals in Moscow games:

 

S66:	Goals for	Goals against	Total
Moscow	238	283	521
Toronto	216	236	452
Seattle	182	261	443
Helsinki	265	176	441
Davos	227	206	433
Vancouver	222	210	432
Malmo	185	221	406
Riga	219	182	401
Calgary	207	190	397
New York	183	179	362

 

Such high-octane hockey now propelled Jet Jaguar to what should have been a 2nd straight rookie of the year for Moscow.

 

And now here we are. Halfway through S67 it's more of the same. The Menace are now league leaders in goals scored and having upgraded on the rookie goalie tandem of Owen May and Chase to veteran Roger Sterling and May, are also not as bad at conceding them. Still, quite comfortably in the lead as the VHL's entertainers:

 

S67:	Goals for	Goals against	Total
Moscow	135	118	253
New York	104	128	232
Malmo	103	125	228
Toronto	125	91	216
Seattle	93	119	212
Davos	105	106	211
Vancouver	102	107	209
Calgary	103	102	205
Riga	102	96	198
Helsinki	108	88	196

 

Moscow's strategy now sees their new stars Podrick Cast and Randoms among the VHL scoring leaders, despite playing on different lines.

 

And for a perfect case study of how beneficial playing in Moscow is for individual stats, take Paolo Nano. Expansion draftee in S65, he was putting up career numbers before a midseason trade to NY saw those regress to the mean. After missing the start of S66 after NY ran into cap problems, Nano came back to Moscow and managed to put up 64 points in just 58 points. Now in what should be his first full season with Menace, the veteran Italian is once again amongst the best offensive defencemen in the league.

 

Moscow is the team to watch and the team to play for.