Playoffs?

[diamond_ace 3,114]

The VHL stands a few sims away from the playoffs. Right now, there are two true races - five of the playoff seeds are relatively set. It's mathematically impossible for Calgary to finish anywhere but the NA 1 seed, Seattle the NA 2 seed, and New York the NA 3 seed. Riga and Helsinki have not officially locked in their seeds, but with Riga being 6 points clear at the top, and Helsinki being a further 6 points clear behind them, it seems unlikely that either will be moved - Riga will likely be EU 1 seed and Helsinki will likely be EU 2 seed (despite being right there in the race one sim ago). Malmo is eliminated, and while DC is technically capable of overcoming a 6 point deficit, it's harder to do so when they have to pass 2 different teams - relying on 1 team to slip up is fine, relying on 2 teams to slip up is significantly less likely.

 

This leaves a race between Vancouver and Toronto for the final NA playoff spot. There's a bigger and more complicated race in the EU, but we'll get to that one in a bit. This race is between two teams with their own interesting storylines going into these final games. Toronto, after having been out of the playoffs for every season since Peace has taken over, seemed like they had a spot locked up early in the season. They've been comfortably in the playoffs most of the season, at one point even as high as second in the conference. Some might say that by all rights, Toronto should have had this locked up a long time ago. Others might say that by roster composition, their current positioning is more accurate to where they should have been. Regardless of which camp you're in, it's got to be heartbreaking for Toronto, a team that's been in dire need of a playoff appearance, to be dragged back into the race after seemingly having a berth secured.

 

Vancouver, on the other hand, has arrived at this point rather unexpectedly. Having been a contending team both the last two seasons, but not quite managing to win the cup, Vancouver made a big play before the season in acquiring free agents Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen and Gritty. This did not go as planned. I'm not privy to any discussions held behind the scenes, so I can't speak to the motivations of either free agent or Beaviss in signing them, but it's unlikely they expected they were joining a team that would later trade away both Julius Freeman and HHH. I'm not interested in dwelling on that particular aspect of this in more depth - it does pertain to the topic at hand, but there are reasons I'm leaving it be. Nonetheless, it's a team that at one stage looked like attempting to contend, and at a later stage looked like attempting to tank. They even traded away Werbenjagermanjensen right before the deadline, and he's ended up on a much stronger team in Calgary. Theoretically, I would assume that both Toronto and Vancouver would prefer Toronto to make it in, at least from a management standpoint - this could be wrong, but based on the trajectories of the teams, it's a guess I'm willing to make. Unfortunately, the games are not played in the minds of management, they're played in the sim, and Toronto has a 1 point lead but is on a downward trajectory. This could go either way. Another interesting thing to note is that Toronto and Vancouver are currently sitting in 9th and 10th place overall, and they're 4 points behind 8th - it's a big enough gap given the lack of games left where it's probably safe to suggest that an EU team will miss out despite a higher total than whichever of these NA teams earn the final spot.

 

The EU race is between 3 teams for 2 spots. Moscow has 71 points, Davos has 71 points, and Prague has 70 points. Moscow also has two games in hand on both Davos and Prague, so they're probably the most likely to get in, despite the fact that the trades of all three teams point toward Moscow being the team that least wants to get in, or has tried the least to do so anyway. This race is also among teams on different trajectories much like the one above. First, let's delve into Moscow. They traded Jet Jaguar and Killy Foilen to Davos, who looked to pick up a few more pieces to push them over the hump. In return, they recieved Milos Slavik, Michael Hall, and Derek Eriksson, and some picks exchanged hands both ways that have no bearing on either team's current roster as composed. For Moscow, adding two relatively young but not as developed players (Hall is in the minors and therefore also has no bearing on the roster) but losing two guys who were significantly more developed, including a league star in Jaguar, should have made them worse. This was only compounded later in the season when they traded away Moscow lifer Mat Tocco for Ryo Yamazuki II and Kazimir Komarov (Komarov is in the minors). The downgrade from Tocco to Yamazuki is fairly insignificant, and will likely be offset heading into future seasons with Yamazuki still around and developing, and Tocco on the later stages of his career, but as of this season alone, it is a downgrade. Losing Jaguar and Foilen and getting Slavik and Eriksson is a bigger downgrade. Nonetheless, call it a magic line combination or what have you, the trades have made Moscow better. They've performed better since making them.

 

Davos is on the opposing side of the Jaguar/Foilen trade, and it's had the opposing effect. They picked up two guys who were at the time (and still are at the time of writing) objectively better players than those they traded away. This made them worse somehow. Then it became a sort of quicksand effect for Davos - whatever they tried to do to improve, it just dug them a deeper and deeper hole. Something of note as well is the flurry of trade activity prior to the season wherein Davos acquired Jerry Garcia, Jerry Wang, David OQuinn, and the free agency rights to Acyd Burn (who would later sign with them, as well as ACL Tear). Davos was primed to take the next step. It seemed to be working out for them early, but not quite enough to be cup contenders, hence the Foilen and Jaguar trade. This started a slight decline, but surely nothing of great consequence, right? Wrong. Acyd Burn was then traded to New York in a three team transaction that saw HHH from Vancouver dealt to Davos. Surely acquiring HHH, one of the best in the league, would sort the issue? Wrong again. Every trade Davos would make, every attempt to get better, to undo the damage done by prior trades, would just make it worse. Perhaps there was a little bit of the sunk cost fallacy at play here, perhaps there wasn't, we'll never really know. Nonetheless, the team that acquired all these weapons find themselves tied with the team they got a large portion of them from, having played 2 more games to get there. There's still time to right the ship, but it has definitely been sinking, and this team is performing worse as the season wears on.

 

Finally, we reach Prague. Currently the lowest point total of the EU teams, but only by a single point, this is a team that hasn't won a playoff series in their history. Admittedly, that history has been only since S68, and the first two seasons were basically write offs coming out of the expansion draft. Their NA counterparts from the S68 expansion, DC, have also not won a series - in fact, both teams have made the playoffs in the exact same seasons, and gotten exactly as far by number of rounds. The only difference is that DC lost in 7 last season, whereas Prague lost in 6. To qualify for the playoffs this season, when DC look very unlikely to do so, would give Prague a leg up in that little friendly rivalry. How did we get to this point? The biggest thing of note was of course the loss of Brick Wahl and Joel Ylonen to retirement - these two deserved better in their final season, but couldn't put it together. Solomon Crawford was finally going to take over the goalie position, a prospect that had been somewhat concerning, as Crawford would represent a downgrade from Wahl, who had been one of the best goalies in the league. Ylonen, on the other hand, there was no direct replacement for - just the improvement of other players on the roster and the return of Blake Laughton from his gap year in Helsinki. Privately, the decision to start Crawford had a few players outside of the team concerned about Prague's outlook for the season, and it may have been a factor in the decisions of said players. The team was behind him though, and he would actually perform pretty well early on, despite the team's struggles. Prague had been bouncing back and forth between 5th and 6th in the conference for much of the first half of the season, and obviously neither one would do a great deal of good. With the expansion coming up and with it, the expansion draft (something I knew about ahead of time, and which played into the decision) Crawford was traded to Malmo. He was finally given the reigns and wasn't even performing badly, but the opportunity was there to acquire a slight upgrade (albeit an older player) in Virgil Ligriv. Since the trade, the goaltending has been comparable, if not marginally worse (it's hard to get a statistical output for Ligriv from just his time in Prague, without his time in Malmo being counted) but the team has markedly improved. This is a team that has gone 18-11-1 in the last 30. This is a team that's fought tooth and nail for this playoff spot, and momentum is on our side, but STHS is notoriously fickle. Will it be kind, or will it dangle the playoffs in front of us, only to rip them away expertly right at the last? Stay tuned for what will surely be an exciting final few sims for both conferences.

 

1736 words

[Victor 11,043]

2 hours ago, diamond_ace said:

it's hard to get a statistical output for Ligriv from just his time in Prague

 

 

You are right though.

[Banackock 8,160]

Davos

 

[diamond_ace 3,114]

2nd week

[diamond_ace 3,114]

third one will be for week ending 7/12