Under 250: The VHLM Review (S72 #4)

[diamond_ace 3,112]

 

Hello, and welcome to season 72, edition 4 of Under 250: The VHLM Report. In these series, we will be taking a look at the trends and topics from the past week in the VHLM. What twists and turns will our minor league hold? Stay tuned to find out!

Speaking of other VSN content, make sure to check out the other great work from the greater VSN family! Here are a few handy links to check out, from our weekly podcasts to in-depth history articles, scouting reports, and more!

 

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The Review

Well into the season now, and things are really starting to clear up for our teams in the VHLM. The standings are, anyway - there’s been an ongoing debate about what the playoff format should be after the expansion Miami Marauders have raised the team count to 12. While strictly on performance, the Marauders themselves should be worthy of a playoff spot, the conference they’re in is stronger than that of the Yukon Rush, who have fewer points but are in as things stand. This will surely have to be looked into at the end of the season, but for now, we have what we have.

 

 

Standings-wise, things are fairly simple now. The Minnesota Storm have really pulled away as the top team overall, a total of 107 points at this stage is particularly impressive. The best of the west title seems to be relatively settled as well, and it will be going to the Saskatoon Wild barring a late-season collapse. In fact, the only real playoff race we have left at this stage is for home ice between the Las Vegas Aces and Mexico City Kings, and that likely won’t make much difference either way as they’ll just end up facing each other in a playoff series. The better team will prove itself the hard way out of those two. The Philadelphia Reapers sit in a sort of no man’s land, definitely contenders and will be favoured to get out of at least one series but will have to pull some upsets (or have upsets pulled elsewhere) to come home with the cup.

 

Both the Mississauga Hounds and Ottawa Lynx are strong, competitive teams that just don’t quite seem to have enough to climb up into that top tier. Mississauga, in particular, were on the heels of Philadelphia last time out, but what was once a two-point gap has blossomed to 14. The Miami Marauders, Halifax 21st, and Yukon Rush have enough about them to always be a threat in a game, even if they come out on the losing end more often than not. Then there is the expected fall to the bottom teams, the San Diego Marlins and Houston Bulls, who are surely just playing for pride at this point. 

 

What does all of this look like in the ELO chart? Have things spread out similarly there, or is there still a cluster of teams in the upper-middle of the chart? Let’s take a look at the chart as it stands and see what effect the most recent games have had.

 

 

One noteworthy thing that was mentioned in a previous edition of Under 250 was the placement of Las Vegas’ line on the ELO chart. They’re still only the 6th line now, but at least their recent upward swing has pulled them close to the lines of the Reapers, Hounds, and Kings, respectively. Plus, they’re now tied for 4th in the standings so having the 6th line isn’t as far from where they’d expect to be. In the same cluster of lines, but performing more highly in ELO compared to the standings, are the Mississauga Hounds. A clear 6th in the standings, well back of the Aces and Kings, surprisingly the Hounds find themselves above both in ELO. In fact, it’s only been within the last few games where Philadelphia’s line has pulled away from that of Mississauga. 

 

The steady decline in ELO of the Ottawa Lynx stands out as another particularly unusual trend - in the standings, they haven’t really moved. They’ve been in 7th for much of the season, and closer to 6th than 8th. Early on, they had been bouncing around with some of the teams in the cluster above them, but for a while now they’ve been pretty settled. On the ELO chart, however, their line has just continued to fall this whole time, and two unexpected things are true of the Lynx at this stage. The first is that ELO seems to consider them closer to the streaking Marauders than any of the teams above them, and by a good margin; the standings do not bear this out, but it’s interesting to note. The second is that they’ve dipped below the starting point of 1000, and trajectory-wise seem likely to be there for good. They’ve been fairly consistently above it all season, with a brief stop on the wrong side around the 36 game mark, but considering the angle the line has taken since about game 51, it doesn’t appear as though they’ll see the better side of 1000 the rest of the way. 

 

At the bottom of the chart, the Marlins and Bulls seem to be levelling out. This makes sense, as a loss by either of them would be expected, and therefore shouldn’t tip the scales a great deal, unless the margin is particularly high. Just above that, it looks as though Yukon may pass Halifax by the end of the season. This would be noteworthy since, despite their proximity in the standings, it was back in the single-digit game days when Yukon was last above Halifax in ELO. The gap has been tight but fairly consistent for some time now, but both are on trajectories where they may meet back up. 

 

The Highlights

There have been some interesting trends in the last 10 games played for each team - strong showings as expected from the Storm, Wild, and Reapers, with 8-2-0, 8-1-1, and 9-0-1, respectively. The most surprising result is that of the Las Vegas Aces. Despite their nudge upward in ELO, their last 10 is only a modest 5-4-1. This is a team tied for fourth yet only going .500 recently. Among the teams outperforming the Aces in their last 10, surprisingly the expansion Marauders have put together a solid late run and have trended upward with a 6-4-0. The only other real standout in this particular category comes from the last place Houston Bulls, who despite only 5 wins in 62, have won twice in the last 10. 

 

In terms of individual performances, this season has been the Adam Syreck show. 133 points in 62 games is more than 2/game on average and is also 18 points clear of his next closest competitor. In fact, tied for second is Syreck’s Philadelphia teammate, Bob Helminen with 115, and it’s likely the two have worked together for a lot of those points. The highest non-Reaper is Lucas Brandt of Saskatoon, also with 115. In addition to topping the total points chart, Syreck also leads in assists with 81, although he’s much more closely followed there by Alex Letang with 79, Tyler Walker with 78, and King Kruul with 76. Helminen, on the other hand, is tied for the league lead in goals with yet another Reaper, Big Chungus - both have 55. Ike Bennett closely follows with 54, Lucas Brandt with 53, and Syreck pops up once more in 5th with 52. 

 

There are a few other stats with a runaway leader as strong as Syreck is in points, however. Fat Palloon has been the shot-blocking king this season with 190, 39 ahead of his nearest competitor. Big Chungus, who popped up a few times in the point charts, has done a lot of his work on the power play - his 25 power-play goals are 8 ahead of 2nd, and the rest of the pack tightens up behind him so strongly that 2nd is only 4 goals ahead of 10th. Lucas Brandt, on the other hand, has taken advantage of the extra ice space when his team has been down a player. Shorthanded goals tend to be rare to begin with, so Brandt’s 5 stands out among a field where only one other player has more than 2. Finally, the current point-scoring streak is led by Tyler Walker with an impressive 8. Defenz Mann has 6, and after that, there are 7 players each with 5, so in comparison, Walker’s 8 stands out. 

 

That’s all for this edition of Under 250: The VHLM Review. Thank you all for reading, and stay tuned next week for the inside scoop on all that’s going on in the league. Until next time!

GMs: @Rayzor_7 @Sonnet @DoktorFunk @Ricer13 @MexicanCow123 @iRockstar @Dil @ColeMrtz @Spartan @Motzaburger @McWolf @DMaximus

Players mentioned: @Spade18 @Advantage @Mike @twists @Caboose30 @Ferda @LefLop @Big Bob @UnkemptCL4PTP

[Ricer13 2,823]

Wait, so we aren’t in a playoff spot? How does Yukon have an X?

[Mr_Hatter 1,608]

1 hour ago, Ricer13 said:

Wait, so we aren’t in a playoff spot? How does Yukon have an X?

Its the top four from each conference, so you aren't competing with Yukon for a spot; you would have to catch Ottawa.

[Ricer13 2,823]

4 minutes ago, Mr_Hatter said:

Its the top four from each conference, so you aren't competing with Yukon for a spot; you would have to catch Ottawa.

Sounds like it could be changed to league wide rather than conference. We shall see 

[solas 1,952]

The playoff format should be whatever gets Yukon in the playoffs  

[Spade18 1,308]

I am the poster child for welfare players.

 

take that rest of the VHLM

[diamond_ace 3,112]

2nd week of this is week ending 6/28