The Saddest Team in VHL History: S20 New York Americans

[Matt_O 896]

 

Part 2 of a 3 part series

 

Part 1

Part 3 coming Thursday, April 16th

 

While I am sure people that have been around for most of VHL history will disagree with me on this, they would at least agree that the 20th season in our leagues history was one of the wildest. The incredible talent gap between the leagues worst and the leagues best was on full display this year. The sudden increase in scoring. The beginning of the Shaw vs Kanou rivalry that remains as one of the VHLs best player rivalries to date. Today, we will be looking into this season as deep as someone who wasn't around to witness it can.

 

I think we can agree parity is a wonderful thing. It makes sports more exciting. Take the NHL for example, where we never know who will win the Stanley Cup. Anyone can, even in years where it seems like a foregone conclusion, such as last year when the record breaking Lightning got swept. Any team can beat any other team on any given night. But now, let's look at the MLB. Most people don't love it because most teams are tanking, and only some teams are contending. In the playoffs, anything can happen, but it makes the regular season far less interesting. This is very similar to S20, where the teams not in the playoffs were terrible, but the teams in the playoffs were great. Except, unlike the MLB, we are dealing with historic opposites. The top of the league consists of the Riga Reign, Toronto Legion, and HC Davos Dynamo. The Reign have the greatest offense in the history of the league. The Dynamo and Legion have Daisuke Kanou and Aiden Shaw, two of the greatest goalies in the history of the league, and they would form one of the greatest player rivalries of all time. However, we also have the teams stuck in the bottom of the league. The Calgary Wranglers, despite having a solid offense, suffered from one of the worst seasons of goaltending the league has ever seen. The New York Americans, however, took being bad to the next level. Despite having two 100 point scorers, they still had only ten wins in S20. There are many factors to look into when talking about the Americans season. First, let's start with their biggest accomplishment: their incredible losing streak.

 

The S20 New York Americans may be the worst team to ever play in the VHL. Even though they had Jukka Hakkinen and Japinder Singh, both with 100 points that year, they still finished with only ten wins. However, they do have one thing to pride themselves on. They would have the most embarrassing losing streak in the history of the VHL. I say would for a reason. Meet the S46 Bears.

 

I firmly believed the S20 New York Americans were the worst team ever before looking into the S46 Bears. The New York Americans had a 21 game losing streak, starting the season a putrid 1-23. I thought this was the worst losing streak ever. I was mistaken. When I saw the S46 Bears schedule, my jaw dropped to the floor. They started with a win to start the year, and then followed it with 16 straight losses. Pretty bad, but it gets worse. They win another game, but then lose 10 in a row before another win. And then, in between their third and fourth wins of the seasons, it took them a jaw dropping, record shattering, 39 games before they won another game. How is that possible? I couldn't tell you. But at least they will get the first overall pick for their troubles. Oh wait, they traded their pick to Cologne. A four win season, all for nothing. 

 

While the Bears put up the worst losing streak in terms of magnitude, the Americans may have been the most humiliating. During the Bears 39 game losing streak, guess how many times they lost by more than five goals. For a team that only won four games, I would assume it would be at least four or five times, maybe more. Well, the actual answer is that it didn't happen a single time. Only four games were won by five goals, and not a single game was determined by more than that. That's only 10% of games being determined by five goals or more. The Americans on the other hand? In their 21 game losing streak, almost half the length of the Bears historic losing streak, they lost by five or more goals 11 times, 52% of the time. The Bears only let up seven or more goals in a game twice during their 39 game losing streak. The Americans let up seven or more goals 14 times, including a stretch of 4 games where they let up double digit goals every game.  During the Bears 39 game losing streak, they allowed 103 more goals than they scored. During the Americans losing streak, they allowed 100 more goals than they scored, despite that streak being 18 games shorter than Seattle's. The Bears only lost by five goals four times during their losing streak. The average amount the Americans lost by during this losing streak? 4.8 goals. The Americans took what the Bears did only four times during their 39 game streak, and made it what they averaged every single night.

 

Now, enough with the S46 Bears. They aren't in S20, we only wanted them to compare just how pathetic this losing streak was for the Americans. However, there is more than only a 21 game losing streak that makes the Americans terrible. Let's look at games 42-50 of the New York Americans schedule. Let's also mention game 40, where they lost to the Bears 10-1. Keep in mind the Bears are a team that's only one game above .500. Anyways, let's look at game 42 on the Americans schedule. Riga? Well, we can pencil in a loss, but maybe it will be respectable. If you said that, you would be wrong. They lost 9-0 that game. Game 43 is against the Legion, another top tier team. They lose 6-1. This is more respectable, but still pathetic, considering Toronto had their computer backup playing. The only American to score that game was a computer defenseman. Game 44 is up next, and it's against the lowly Calgary Wranglers. Perhaps a win is in the cards. What happened next just may be one of the most unbelievable games in VHL history. 

 

When the Wranglers and Americans meet, the sparks tend to fly. On the all time list for most goals scored in a game, the Wranglers and Americans hold five of the spots in the top 10. The combined 20 goals this game is the most ever scored in a single game, and it likely will stay that way for the rest of time. After one period, twelve goals were scored. After two periods, fifteen were on the board. If they never played the third period, this game would still nearly crack the top 10 list. But five goals in the third period cemented this game into legendary status. The Americans 11-9 win over the Calgary Wranglers is the highest scoring game in the history of the VHL, and it will more than likely stay this forever.

 

How did the Americans follow up this historic game? They proceeded to only win one game out of their next twenty, with their lone win being an 8-2 win over the Wranglers a few games later. They didn't just lose, they got destroyed. In game 45 for the Americans, they lost 10-3 to the Legion. In game 46, they lost 9-0 to the Dynamo. In game 47, another 10-3 loss. In game 48, they lose 10-5 to the Wranglers. In game 49, they beat the Wranglers 8-2, but they followed up their big win with a 7-0 loss to the Bears. In game 50, they lose 6-0 to the Reign. Not only did the Americans lose at a historic pace, they got blown out. Every game. I'll bring up the S46 Bears one last time. For this study, I will say a blowout is a win of 4 or more goals. The S46 Bears, who had only 4 wins, got blown out 23 times. After just 39 games in the S20 season, the Americans had been blown out 23 times. The Americans got blown out an equal amount of times as the S46 Bears despite playing only 54% of the games the Bears had to play to get there. The Americans got blown out 41 times in total during S20. That's 57% of their games. All blowouts. How can a team with multiple 100 point scorers be so bad? How is it even possible? 

 

One way to maybe answer that would be their goalie. Wu Tang Fan was the Americans goalie that year, and was he ever awful. He had a GAA of 6.98, and a save percentage of .840%. That is disgusting. The Americans computer goaltender had better stats, with a 6.44 GAA and a save percentage of .862%. Another thing jumped out to me. Wu Tang Fan played in 66 games, but the computer goalie played in 44 games. How is this possible? This led me to uncovering what may be the most putrid goaltender stat ever to grace the Victory Hockey League. Are you ready? The Americans computer goalie started..... eight games. This may not seem so terrible on the surface if you don't realize what it means. Remember that the computer goalie played 44 games. Wu Tang Fan started 64 games that season. That means that Wu Tang Fan was pulled and replaced with his computer goaltender in 36 games. That's over half of all of Wu Tang Fan's games he played in. That has to be a record for most times pulled in one season, and as far as I'm concerned, it probably isn't close. Unfortunately there isn't a list for most times a goalie is pulled in a season, but if there was, Wu Tang Fan would sit at the top. And it wouldn't even be close.

 

In case you didn't get the message by now, the S20 New York Americans were historically bad. But let's talk about one more thing. The New York Americans played 10 games against every team besides the Madrid Thunder and the Toronto Legion, who they played 11 times. The four playoff teams in S20 were the Legion, Reign, Dynamo, and Bears. They have not a single regulation win against any of those teams. They have an overtime win against the Legion and Bears, and then a shootout win over the Bears. In their 41 games against playoff teams, they went an unbelievable 3-38. Now, anyone would expect a horrible team such as New York to do terribly against good teams, that is a very reasonable expectation. But it's more than just losing. They lost to Toronto ten times that season, and lost by 4.6 goals on average every game they lost to the Legion. The Americans lost to the Bears eight times that season, and on average, they lost by five goals every game. They lost to the Reign all ten times they played them by an average of 5.2 goals per game. The Dynamo, however, showed some mercy. I'm just kidding. They beat the Americans all ten times they played each other, by an average margin of 5.8 goals. Every time the Americans played a decent team, they would usually get blown out.

 

While the S46 Bears are statistically the worst team in history, the S20 New York Americans aren't far behind. They were the biggest victims of having to play three all time great offenses in the same season. While they lost less games than the Bears, they lost games in unbelievable fashion. Getting blown out as frequently as New York did will probably never happen again in the history of the VHL. And that's what makes this team so beautiful. Such a unique team. They had two 100 point players on their team, and yet, they still were absolutely terrible. Nothing like this will ever happen again. The S20 New York Americans are the saddest team in the history of the VHL.

 

2,028 words

[Victor 10,668]

It gets sadder you know. They lost the draft lottery to Madrid meaning losing out on a franchise goalie in Andreas Bjorkman. They had to settle for @Beketov's Niklas Kristensen who turned out to be a pretty big bust.

 

and then because they were outbid by Calgary for Joey Clarence @.sniffuM, they continued to not have a starting calibre goalie until S24.

[.sniffuM 1,741]

7 minutes ago, Victor said:

It gets sadder you know. They lost the draft lottery to Madrid meaning losing out on a franchise goalie in Andreas Bjorkman. They had to settle for @Beketov's Niklas Kristensen who turned out to be a pretty big bust.

 

and then because they were outbid by Calgary for Joey Clarence @.sniffuM, they continued to not have a starting calibre goalie until S24.

 

I remember wanting to go to NY over Calgary because they felt like they were a goalie away from being great, but ultimately chose Calgary because they offered Seattle more for me. It worked it out in the end (for me and Calgary at least).

[Motzaburger 1,590]

I'm pretty sure S71 NYA is the saddest team ever (insider knowledge)

[Beketov 8,794]

19 minutes ago, Victor said:

They had to settle for @Beketov's Niklas Kristensen who turned out to be a pretty big bust.

Truly the shittiest player I ever made and that’s saying something.

[Doomsday 4,074]

Another great read, can't wait for the last installment!

[Matt_O 896]

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