VHL 20 in 20 #12: The Can't Miss Kids

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The Can’t Miss Kids

The VHL is a lot like the NHL when it comes to the draft. While the draft is an exciting time for both players and teams, it definitely can be stressful. Simply put, while you have a better chance of drafting a good player in their early stages of a VHL draft, the threat still looms that your highly-prized 1st round pick will turn out to be a player fit for the dreaded “bust” tag. Unlike the NHL, the VHL players who sport the “bust” status will likely still enjoy lengthy VHL careers due to a lack of players, but rest assured that the teams that drafted these monstrous disappointments are wishing for a do-over.

As a former VHL general manager, I can tell you that while draft day is certainly an exciting time in the VHL’s fiscal year, it is equally as stressful. While you’re eager to draft some good, young talent to your roster in hopes of either prolonging your team’s dominance, or trying to re-build a fallen franchise, you can’t help but worry. This guy that I’m drafting 1st overall: will he live up to my expectations? Often, it is the General Manager who takes the fall for a player not turning out, which is why you’re just as nervous as your are anxious to see how your drafting will impact your team several years down the line.

What makes a VHL player worthy of the “bust” tag? For me, there are three things to consider: draft position, number of practice hours, and on-ice performance. A high draft performance couple with low practice hours and on-ice performance is what defines a player as a bust. For the sake of this episode, most of the names I have are players who have been drafted between the 1st and 4th overall selections. The qualiy of the draft itself may magnify or reduce the impact of a “bust” player on a franchise/GM’s reputation. For example, a bust from the very weak Season 4 draft might look better than a bust from the freak Season 18 draft.

”It all depends on the draft because you’ll have some drafts with 2-3 good prospects and some drafts with 10-11 good prospects. The real busts for me are the players who work super hard up until they are drafted, and after that tail off. Especially if you’re in a top 4 position the hope is that you will be submitting your point tasks every week.” – David Knight

”Any high draft pick that does not reach at least 400 practice hours is a bust. In some cases, even that may be considered bad depending on the player agent's history. With more practice hours comes better stats and solid play. If players fade out before achieving the high amount we expect from them, they're not good players.” – Vase Trikamaki

I could discuss the Robert Sharpe scenario for a second time, but I don’t see much use in doing that. There is, after all, an entire episode dedicated to his story, so his name will be mentioned in passing. Yes, he is a bust, but let’s look at some of the other players who fit this tag just as much as Sharpe does.

As mentioned, the Season 4 VHL entry draft was perhaps the weakest of the weak. Only the Season 9 disaster draft may stack up to this one in terms of a lack of real talent. Players like Derek Harland, Anders Heissman, and Chad Elmy were all good, but not great. Heissman did win the Joe Malone trophy one year, but cut his career short due to personal reasons. These players, however, are preceded by the selection of Alec Miller. Miller was the 1st overall selection in this draft by the Stockholm Rams.


Alec Miller

”Alec Miller came in towards the end of the ESHL and made a huge impact straight away. He was taken 2nd overall in the Season 5 Entry Draft. In the short span of time between the draft and the league closing, he amassed 203 TPE, which was good enough to rank 3rd among left wings in the league. His time in the VHL was fairly productive, but he never quite lived up to the stardom that was expected of him. He kind of burnt out early on, similar to Eric Lindros, although not quite the same circumstances.” – David Knight

In Season 3, Alec Miller dominated the VHLM with 135 points – 30 more than the runner-up. This was good enough for Miller to win the MVP award, and the awards for most goals, assists, and points. It seemed like Miller had all the makings of being a VHL superstar and he was, at the time, rightfully drafted 1st overall. Miller would hit 92 points in his 1st VHL season,  which was good enough for him to capture the Christian Stolzschweiger trophy for best rookie. After that, however, Miller would never hit that point total again. He would split his career between Stockholm and Avangard/Davos and was able to etch his name on 2 Continental Cup winners. However, it was a far cry from the lofty expectations placed unto him when he was first drafted. Never hitting 100 points, Alec Miller was left to fade into obscurity once he retired in Season 11 after an 8 season career. However, due to the general weakness of his draft, was he a bust? I say he was, because even with a poor draft class, Miller was expected to be a silver lining in an otherwise cloudy draft, and he failed to live up to that.

”Alec Miller was a solid VHL player in his time and given that the draft was weak, I would not say that he was a bust. There were only a couple of players who bettered his amount of practice hours, and the Season 4 draft was slim pickings. Alec seemed like the safe bet to go as the top draft pick and any other pick could have gone horribly wrong.” – David Knight

Speaking of the Season 9 draft, that is where we go to find the next object of discussion. The Season 9 draft, as mentioned, is perhaps the bottom of the barrel. It makes the Season 4 draft look respectable simply because there were very few good players that came from it. If we were really critical, we can say that only 2 good players came from this draft: Jack O’Riley and Zach Arce. Unfortunately, while O’Riley was drafted 1st, Arce went 14th – both went to Avangard, who were definitely the only team happy with this draft. Going right after O’Riley were Jericho Kozmalov and Mikhail Sevastiyanov – a Russian and a Belarussian.

Kozmalov was a monster of a man, who was right behind O’Riley at the time of the draft. The Vasteras IK Black Eagles drafted him after he had a strong year with the Ottawa Ice Dogs in the VHLM. While never billed as an offensive juggernaut, Kozmalov still struggled to find his game with the Vasteras IK, and even after a trade to Avangard/Davos, he simply couldn’t become what was expected of him. He would also capture a Continental Cup with Davos in Season 13 before retiring from the league, but it did little to justify him as a good player in VHL lore. Despite already looking like the weakest draft of all-time, it was Kozmalov’s personal failure that really did the Season 9 draft in, and justified it as the worst of the worst. Sevastiyanov would also have a long career, but would also fade into obscurity soon after. Even 4th overall Derek Evans was a bust – he waited until his 5th professional season before getting even a sniff of VHL action, though he was a star for many years in the VHLM.


Mikhail Sevastiyanov

The next year, the Season 10 draft was full of young players who were eager to distance themselves from the previous season’s disappointing draft. With eventual Hall of Famers Tomas Jenskovic and Grimm Jonsson headlining the class, it was sure to do just that. The big pitfall of this draft came at #3 when the Vasteras IK picked Tuvia Bielski, a shifty Slovakian scorer who, even at the time, was not the best player available. Clearly a project, Bielski spent his first season in the VHLM for the Vasteras IK J20 where he was just a point shy of 100. Naturally, the Vasteras management thought he was destined to be a VHL star, and quickly thrust the young man onto the big stage the following year.

Unfortunately, the points weren’t coming like they had thought, so Vasteras traded Bielski to Davos, where he would go on to be a part of their Continental Cup team. It was his first and only championship win. In Season 12, Bielski would come back with an 80 point season, but it was not enough for Davos, as they traded him to Calgary where he managed to put up another 80 point season.  In Season 14, his 89 points was enough to lead the Wranglers in scoring, but he found himself traded to the New York Americans. A disappointing year in New York saw Bielski moved to the Seattle Bears, where he was unable to match his previous totals. Bielski finished his career in Season 17 with the Helsinki Titans, his 6th VHL team in 8 seasons. Instead of being known for his strong play, Bielski will likely go down in VHL history for all the different teams he played for – maybe a VHL record. Other than that, you won’t remember much from him at all.

” We had Michael Joseph, our goalie, go inactive on the team which forced me to trade another prospect to acquire Tayson Barabash. To top it all off, Jorgen Aqvist (who we gave up a fair amount for) retired out of nowhere and set our team back even further. I could go into full detail about the terrible luck Toronto had which would really give some perspective to just how unlucky Toronto was. However, we all worked through it and did our best to compensate for the issues that were plaguing us.” – David Knight

The amount of unluckiness that Toronto went through between seasons 12 and 14 is not exaggerated. This unluckiness can especially be seen through the drafts that the Legion had during this period. The Season 12 and 14 drafts, especially, were very deep, though the Season 13 draft was rather weak. Either way, the Legion had 5 top 4 selections during this period: Geoff Gartner, Fulton Reed, Juha Ikonen, Cody Carlson, and Malcolm Kelly. When you have this many high picks, one would expect a Pittsburgh Penguins-style rise to prominence for a lengthy period of time, but this was not the case for Toronto.  Cody Carlson was never thought of as a blue-chip prospect, and it wasn’t overly surprising to see him fade away, but Ikonen was expected to be a strong player for the Legion. Unfortunately, he disappeared from practice very suddenly, and the same happened for Season 12’s Fulton Reed, who went 4th overall after the “Big 3”.


Geoff Gartner

However, the two botched picks that likely hurt the most were Gartner and Kelly. Both players had well-known and well-respected agents who had both been responsible for Hall of Fame players in the past. If anything, these guys were sure bets to be strong players for a considerable length of time. Gartner would actually win the Stolzschweiger trophy with 99 points in his inaugural year, beating Matt Bailey and Devon De La Soul, his two big rivals. The next season, unfortunately, his performance would sharply decrease as he fell to 74 points. He’d fall to 70 points in Season 14 and was on pace to disappoint again in Season 15 before a trade to Seattle helped him heat up and finish the year with 89 points. Things were looking up for Gartner, until he retired suddenly, citing a lack of passion for the game as his reason for doing so.

Kelly, meanwhile, was the 1st overall selection in a very deep Season 14 draft class that boasted names such as Emerson Hrynyk, Ryley Dawson, J.D. Stormwall, and Marek Schultz. Kelly, however, was supposed to surpass all of them with esteemed agent Joey Kendrick in his corner. Much like some of the aforementioned players, Kelly simply couldn’t rise up and be the player everyone had expected him to be. 86 points would be his highest output as he spent time in both Toronto in Helsinki before ending his 4-year career in Season 17.

”Either I worked on the wrong aspects of my game and it didn’t work out, or I just didn't fit chemistry-wise with the rest of the Legion. I would say this league has two types of draft busts. The first type is the player that shows so much potential before the draft and then just "calls it in" after being drafted. The second type shows promise and will always be active but he, unfortunately, never amounts to anything. I fit the latter description.” – Malcolm Kelly

”Kendrick was used to have really successful seasons with his other clients so when Kelly struggled during his first two seasons, I think it was a bit of a shock for him. His expectations were unrealistic since he figured he would immediately be a superstar, but I tried to convince him that Kelly would grow into one eventually. When a GM spot in Helsinki opened up, I think that was when he decided he wanted out of the team. He wanted a fresh start and I was forced to trade him to Helsinki for a player that would give me one year of service – hardly a fair return for a top player entering his prime.” – David Knight

There was a bit of mystery surrounding Kelly’s retirement. A lot of it had to do with his eventual ascension to power within the Helsinki Titans organization, more so than it did with his frustration over a lack of production on the ice. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really save Kelly from the “bust” tag as he still failed to provide the VHL with the impact that everyone thought he would bring forth to the league.

”I don't think the team would've benefitted as much from having an under-achieving winger on their team then they have from having an all-star goaltending. You’re a fool if you think bring in Kjeldsen was a worse choice than staying on the team myself. – Malcolm Kelly


Ryan Walls

The Season 16 draft saw Ryan Walls go 2nd overall to Vasteras, a team that has made too many appearances in this episode for their difficult draft history. Walls had a quiet Season 15 in the VHLM, joining the league while the season was in progress and only putting up 66 points in 46 games – a relatively low amount in the minors. He was sent back to the VHLM for Season 16 and had a much strong year, breaking the 100-point barrier and earning him a spot in the VHL. Walls became a 70-point player for the newly named Madrid Thunder for Seasons 17 and 18, but dropped down to 33 points when traded to Davos in Season 19. Ryan Walls retired from the league after that season and is certainly worthy of the “bust” tag.

The New York Americans definitely didn’t luck out with the Season 17 draft class. Jordan Berglund, the 1st overall pick, certainly didn’t pan out the way that the Americans had hoped, but despite that, he wasn’t the biggest story from this draft class. One of the biggest names in the Season 17 Entry Draft was Icelandic forward Stefan Arnason. While Gartner and Kelly had their agents’ reputations going for them, they didn’t come close to Stefan Arnasson’s agent, the legendary Scotty Campbell. Not only is he himself a Hall of Famer, but so is subsequent client Tomas Jenskovic. Simply put, Campbell had a history of getting his players into the Hall of Fame, and Arnason was destined to be more of the same. This is why the New York Americans selected Arnason 3rd overall in the draft.

”I definitely had very high expectations when drafting Stefan Arnason and I expected him to become a top line center in the league. He was a client of Scotty Campbell, the successor of Tomas Jenskovic, and pre-draft discussion led me to believe he was the real deal. The fact the he stopped practicing so abruptly just weeks after the draft was extremely disappointing for me and the rebuild in New York.” – Vase Trikamaki

Arnason completed his rookie year with New York, earning himself a respectable 76 points. He came back the following season, traded to the Riga Reign during the year, and managed to improve on his totals with 85 points. He faded back to 79 points in Season 19 before he retired from the game. In Arnason’s case, a lot of his failure as a player came from a lack of practicing, as Trikamaki mentioned. It was Campbell’s first big failure in the VHL, as prior to this, everything he touched would turn to gold. He was the definition of a money player, but perhaps Arnason has led to people being a bit more cautious when picking his future clients, including R.J. Stafford, his newest player.

The final player we’ll look at is from the infamous Freak Draft of Season 18. As mentioned in the past, there were bound to be some busts from this draft class, and you don’t need to go too far down the list to find one. Again, it comes at the hands of the Toronto Legion. Cedric Pollack went 2nd overall to Toronto in a massively top-heavy class that featured many current and future VHL superstars. While Pollack remains in the league today as a member of the HC Davos Dynamo, there is no question that more was expected out of him.


Cedric Pollack

”The biggest bust has to be Robert Sharpe, and it`s not even close. There was a plethora of 300-400+ TPE guys from that draft, including one Scotty Campbell. For Robert to be taken first overall in hindsight is possibly the worst draft choice ever. Granted, one could not have predicted the whole Robert Sharpe scandal so it was a bit unfortunate for the Amstel GM at the time.” – David Knight

With so many eligible candidates, and so many different criteria by which to judge a player given the “bust” tag, it’s difficult to really pick one who stands out above all the others. While Knight had no trouble doing so, I find myself a bit more hesitant to single somebody out. Personally. I don’t take the quality of the draft into account when evaluating players, unless there are two players that are very close in terms of “bust” status. Otherwise, I’d rank them by practice hours and statistics. Each of the players listed in this article definitely fit the “bust” stereotype, in my opinion. Many of these players had all the tools to become superstars in the VHL, but simply couldn’t pull it together when they absolutely needed to. Unfortunately, these players will go down in VHL history as disappointments, but hey, someone has to.

End of part 12
Thanks to Vase Trikamaki, Malcolm Kelly, and David Knight