Virgil Ligriv, Theme Week Player Profile

[Seabass 593]

Wow, it's theme week already time flies. I had absolutely no clue who I should write about in the first place but in the end I decided to write about our goaltender Virgil Ligriv as he's a newcomer on my team and I didn't really know too much about him to be honest. Here goes.

 

Virgil Ligriv, Tale of the travelling goalie

 

Season 66, Rookie Debut in the VHLM

Virgil Ligriv started his journey to the VHL back in S66 where he signed on with the Las Vegas Aces of the the VHLM. He had a pretty rough rookie season with the Aces where he managed to grab over 50 starts for the year but he posted a brutal .871 save percentage and had a GAA over 4 as his team missed the playoff completely.  Things looked pretty bleak for the young netminder as he was stuck playing behind a terrible Aces team.

 

Draft Day

Ligriv was ranked 46th by the VHCS on draft day and it was expected he would be drafted somewhere in the 5th round of what was a deep draft class. However due to a draft class that was heavy in goaltenders (including future VHLers: Rayz Funk, Greg Eagles and Michael Johnson) Ligriv had to wait till the 6th round to be selected by HC Davos at the 55th spot in the draft. That 55th pick would end up being a steal as Ligriv is currently ranked 22nd in his draft class in total TPE so far.

 

Season 67, Year 2 in the VHLM

Things only turned around for Ligriv when his GM, Matt_O decided to pull the trigger on a trade to ship him off to the Minnesota Storm for a pair of career minor leaguers in Justin Cole and Raphael Nazarians. When he returned to play in S67 Ligriv looked like a new man as he backstopped the Storm to a third place finish in the standings with a league leading save percentage of .901%. The young netminder didn't show any nerves in his first playoff series as he and his team full of future VHLers (ex: Sundqvist, Palazzo, Foreskin) shutout Houston twice on the road to their series sweep. He continued to backstop the Storm all the way to a VHLM final loss at the hands of the S67 VHLM Champion Ottawa Lynx. Ligriv also made an appearance at the WJC playing for Team Asia where he had a strong tournament.

 

Season 68, Last Year in the VHLM

HC Davos had quite the logjam going on in net. They had their starter, Finn Davison and then they had three other goalies fighting for the backup role, Pekka Pouta, Wrike Chyrnoble and Virgil so of course someone had to go. Except it wasn't just someone that went, it was all three of them in a trade to Vancouver, where Davos paid Vancouver a first round selection to rid themselves of 5 contracts. The next day after, Virgil was traded once again from the Vancouver Wolves to the Helsinki Titans for a fourth round selection. 

 

After having his VHL rights moved around so much, Virgil ended up playing another season with the Minnesota Storm in the VHLM. Even though the Storm lost a few big names from the season prior, they finished their season in third place once again. The Storm didn't end up going on another run as they lost this time in the first round of the playoffs. Virgil had a mediocre season compared to the last year but it was still enough to earn himself a place in the VHL come season 69.

 

Season 69 and Season 70, Backup Years

Virgil made his VHL debut in S69 in a backup role playing behind VHL All Star, Alexander Pepper. He played 19 games over the spand of two years and he did very well in the few showings he had. In his 8 games played in S69 he had a stellar .936 save percentage, in his 11 games in S70 he had a .925 sv%. With how well he played Virgil looked like a future VHL star goaltender, it was just a shame he was stuck behind a star goaltender of Pepper's calibre. Fortunately for Virgil, Pepper was set for retirement after Season 70 and the reigns were set to be handed over his way.

 

Season 71, First Year as a starter

Helsinki was going through some rough times, they were a shell of their former selves. They lost Alex Pepper, Julian Borwinn, Sidney Crosby and Joey Boucher to retirement and they traded away Chico Smeb to HC Davos. It also doesn't help when Ben Hafkey, who was the teams 2nd leading point getter in S70 regressed to the point where he couldn't even hit 50 points in S71. No matter their miseries, their one constant factor every game that season was Virgil who finished his first full season as a starting goaltender in the VHL with a GAA of 2.67 and a save percentage of .917. Everything looked on the up and up for the next season as the Titans were to continue on from their rebuild.

 

Season 72/Conclusion

 

Career Trade #3

In the end Virgil pulled all the stops to convince the Titans that he was up to snuff of being their VHL starting goaltender. Even though he had a great season in S71, the Titans were convinced that his fellow S67 Draftee, Michael Johnsson was the stronger candidate for them down the road and moved down from a 2nd rounder to a 3rd rounder in order to make the goalie swap happen with the Malmo Nighthawks. 

 

Career Trade #4

Virgil had a strong start for the Nighthawks and they were in a position to battle for a spot in the playoffs when their GM decided to trade Virgil midseason in yet another goalie swap as the Nighthawks received Solomon Crawford and a 2nd rounder from the Prague Phantoms in return for Virgil and Adam Syreck. The move was controversial as Crawford was well liked by his peers in Prague and this move proved to be near career ending for Crawford as he is now pondering retirement after being told by Malmo leadership that the team see him solely as a backup in the future. 

 

Despite being moved around a lot, Virgil has had a solid season playing with a save percentage just above .900 playing for the two European bottom dwelling teams. But what has Phantoms leadership worried is the fact he has been almost non-existent in the team's Locker room and hasn't updated his player since the Malmo's training camp. Lets hope a goaltender that showed so must potential just a season ago doesn't go down towards VHL obscurity and go down as what is starting to look like the worst trade in the Phantoms short history. The rest of the season and the playoffs will prove to be the real test to see if the 2nd round selection the Phantoms gave up will be worth it in the end. Virgil has shown flashes of brilliance in the past and has a proven track record of success playing on mediocre teams, this is a make it or break it situation for the goaltender at this point in his career. 

 

 

 

@MMFLEX

 

 

WORD COUNT: 1211 words

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by Seabass

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[Seabass 593]

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