The S66 Seattle Bears - An Exercise in Mediocrity

[HenrikZoiderberg 469]

The S66 Seattle Bears - An Exercise in Mediocrity

 

 

Everyone knows that the current Seattle Bears are a powerhouse team - near the top of the standings, an intimidating goal differential, and a number of rising superstars on their roster who form a core drafted and developed by GM of the Year candidate @Banackock; however, the years that preceded the legendary S67 draft were not as kind to the icicled ursines. In today's issue of The Big Z Gazette, we'll be discussing the terrible year that was Season 66 and how they managed to be so very, very bad.

 

S66 saw The Bears at the bottom of the VHL standings with a mere 23 wins and 55 points. Two key categories seem to make up the bulk of this beautiful disaster:

 

Scoring:

 

In spite of Seattle legend Shane Mars @Spade18 leading the team with a 94-point season, scoring depth dried up beyond the first line. The Bears finished the season at the bottom of the league with a dismal 182 goals for, with only six players putting up double-digit goal totals. The Bears also ended S66 with a shooting percentage well below 10%, meaning that not only skill, but luck were stacked against their limited roster.  What's worse, three of The Bears top six forwards shot under 9% over the course of the season, but eliminating these three as outliers would still leave the total average under 10%. Despite putting pucks on net, The Bears were unable to figure out opposing teams' goalies for a full eighty-two games, and didn't do themselves any favours by taking low-chance opportunities in high volume.

 

Defense:

 

Despite being poor offensively, The Bears also managed to somehow be a glass cannon, finishing the season with the second-most goals against across 72 games, leading to the worst goal differential in the entire league at -79. You heard it right, over the course of the season, The Bears on average were over a goal behind each of their opponents per game. Statistically they could've lost every game they played in S66 by over a goal. Goaltending didn't help, as Glayton Park and Tristan Iseult shared the net but both posted dismal SV%'s and  finished the season with an impressive over 3.2 GAA each - fumbling through the darkness in the team's darkest time. Five other players posted under a negative 40 rating for one of the worst defensive seasons of all-time. Only Jakub Vilhjalmsson managed a positive plus/minus at +3 through 55 games.

 

So who do we blame? Bryce Zhields at 22 points, -49 on the season? Karri Juri at 26/-48? Or was this simply an outlier in an otherwise glorious history of an old and fertile team? Or do we chalk this up to something else? The machinations of a man who saw an emerging draft class of superstars and decided to throw his team in the shitter for the sake of greater glory in the future?

 

One thing is for sure.

 

We roar. We score.

 

500 words

TPE for week ending October 20

Bonus TPE applied for theme week - History

[ThePerfectNut 563]

Oh hi

[ThePerfectNut 563]

See you soon

[ThePerfectNut 563]

like in the Mexico days

[ThePerfectNut 563]

Suuhhhhiiikeeee. Aint getting fined yet : )

[Gustav 6,481]

1 hour ago, HenrikZoiderberg said:

Seattle legend Shane Mars

 

Quote

 

Anyone who wouldn't take Mars at 2 is an absolute imbecile. I mean the epitome of a boot licker.  I would question that person's judgement from that day forward and never trust a single decision they would ever make again.  I would go as far as to say that if you pass on Mars at 2, you should straight lose your job as a GM.  

 

But you know.

 

That's just my opinion.

 

 

[HenrikZoiderberg 469]

bumping for tpe linking