Ringless: The S26 Vasteras Baby Eagles

[Matt_O 897]

 

Welcome to the fourth edition of Ringless. In this series we look at the best teams throughout VHL history to never win the cup.

 

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Some teams have the talent to win it all, but can’t put together the pieces to do it. Someone could say that these teams are even cursed. If you want to talk about cursed teams, look no farther than the Vasteras IK. After their season 1 Continental Cup win, they didn’t win it all again until S26. They moved to Madrid for a few seasons before returning to Vasteras, and the whole team was an absolute mess until S26. Vasteras was very irrelevant but still got hate simply for existing. Everything about the team was a disaster, but once S26 rolled around, things changed in a hurry.

 

That year was a special year for the Iron Eagles organization. Not just did they have the big league team end their curse and win it all, their minor league team Vasteras IK Jr., also known as the Baby Eagles, had serious championship ambitions. The S26 VHLM draft class was pretty hyped up, featuring numerous big name re-creates as well as some solid first gen players. Some of the biggest names were Satan (@Bushito), Phil Rafter (@Phil), Ying Qin (@tfong), Gunnar Rask (@Advantage), Alexander Chershenko (@Victor), and Marius Henchoz (@Frank). There are more high profile re-creates, but those are just the very high profile users from that draft class. If the Baby Eagles could pick up a few of these big names, they could put themselves in a great position to contend for a cup. The Baby Eagles GM, @Edgar, decided he wanted more than just a few of those big names. By the time the S26 VHLM draft was ready to start, the Baby Eagles had the first overall selection. And the second pick, and the third. It keeps going. In one of the most hyped up draft classes in VHL history at the time, the Baby Eagles had the first 16 picks of that year's draft. No other team made a pick until the third round. Keep in mind that these draft classes were no more than two rounds deep, and even though this draft class was extremely hyped up, they still got very low on talent come the third round. It was the Baby Eagles league, and everyone else was just playing in it.

 

Vasteras GM @Edgar strikes a deal for the 11th overall pick with the Bern Royals GM on draft day. 

 

This was, without a doubt, the greatest team in VHLM history up until S69. Owning half of the first round in a draft would put you in a great spot to win, but Vasteras took that to another level. To truly understand the Baby Eagles dominant roster, we have to compare them to the rest of the league. During the regular season, the Baby Eagles dominated. They had a jaw dropping 64 wins, and their 130 point season was 29 more than the second placed Brampton Blades. They had 53 more points than the Bern Royals, who finished second in the European Conference that season. Defensively, this team was historically tough to score on. Vasteras had the lowest amount of goals against that season, with only 179 goals getting scored on them all season. That may seem like a high total, it’s nearly three goals against per game. However, this era of VHLM hockey had high scoring, so we have to look at how well the other teams did defensively to truly understand how good Vasteras was. How many goals against could the second best defensive team let up? 200? 225? 250? 275? Even 300? If you picked any of those numbers, you are wrong. Not a single other team in the league that year allowed less than 317 goals against. The Baby Eagles goaltender Satan also put up incredible stats, with a .910 save percentage and a 2.35 goals against average. These may seem like average stats, but compared to the rest of the league, Satan ironically was the second coming of Jesus. The second highest save percentage was a pathetic .883, and no other goalie had a goals against average below 4.25. Satan would win the Sawchuk Trophy for best goaltender that year in what was most likely the least contested award in VHLM history.

Vasteras goaltender Satan makes a stick save against the Royals in a regular season game. Satan's elite play helped the Baby Eagles win 64 games

 

While the defensive and goaltending stats for the Baby Eagles were incredible, the individual player stats didn’t jump off the page. They only had one player finish in the top 10 in points, which was defenseman Nic Ropel. This is because the star players of other teams would have time on ice totals approaching thirty minutes, while Vasteras didn’t have anyone playing more than 25 minutes in a game because of how well rounded they were. Every line on Vasteras could have been any other team's best line. Come playoff time, they were the heavy favorite to win it all.

In the European Conference Finals, the Baby Eagles would face the Bern Royals, who finished second in the European Conference that season. This was about as predictable of a series as you can get, as most people pronounced the Baby Eagles the winner of the series before a game was even played, and most believed it would be a quick and easy sweep. Game One was a back-and-forth contest that saw a third period comeback by the Royals to force overtime. In overtime, the Royals would shockingly win. Vasteras was supposed to sweep their way to the cup, but they had just lost their first playoff game. They responded with four straight wins to force their way into the finals. Things were going well despite the loss. Surely that loss was just a fluke.

 

In the finals, the Baby Eagles would have to play the Blades, who finished second in the league. Their 101 points were nothing to look past, but the Baby Eagles were still far better. While one loss wouldn’t be completely shocking, anything more would be. If the Blades wanted to win, they would need Seth Plaut, the MVP of the league with 215 points, to really step up and lead the way. Plaut and superstar winger Aidan Richman would do exactly that in Game One, as the Blades stole a win from the Baby Eagles. Game Two was back to normal, as Vasteras bounced back and beat down on the Blades in that one, but Games Three and Four both went Brampton's way. The Baby Eagles longest losing streak that season was three games, and they had just lost two in a row in the finals. The greatest team in VHLM history, with the first 16 picks of that year's draft, were down 3-1 in the finals to a team that had one third round pick and one fourth round pick from that year's draft. This should have been an easy series. It clearly wasn’t. Despite Vasteras' dominance in Games Three and Four, they still couldn’t pick up a win. They had their backs against the wall heading back home for Game Five.

 

Vasteras had all the momentum going against them. They couldn’t afford any slip ups, or else their season was over. A 4-1 win in game five was much needed, and another 4-1 win in Game Six forced a deciding Game Seven. Could Vasteras survive this scare and win it all? Or were the Blades about to shock everybody and pull off a stunner in Game Seven?

Game Seven began in the worst way possible for Vasteras, as the Blades had a 3-1 lead after one period. A bad start got even worse as Brampton had a 5-2 lead heading into the third. Twenty minutes left in the season. Vasteras needed to give it everything they had, and they did. Two quick goals brought them to within one, but a dominant third period simply wasn’t enough to overcome their three goal deficit. It was over for the Baby Eagles. The Blades stunned everyone and won the Founder's Cup. 

 

The Blades stun the VHLM by defeating the star studded Baby Eagles in seven games and win the Founders Cup

 

How did the greatest VHLM team of all time not win the cup? This is still a mystery, as a team with that skill should not have lost a series to anybody. Even though they won the cup in S27, the team was very different from the S26 team. The Vasteras Baby Eagles in S26 are the greatest minor league team to not win a championship.

 

Before I finish, I wanted to thank @solas. His three part series about this team was extremely helpful as a research tool, and if you want to check out his articles on this team, click here. 

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by Matt_O

[Doomsday 4,120]

It's insane to me that a team can have the first sixteen picks of the VHLM Draft, yet still not win the championship. Absolute madness. 

[Victor 10,844]

On 8/18/2020 at 2:31 AM, Doomsday said:

It's insane to me that a team can have the first sixteen picks of the VHLM Draft, yet still not win the championship. Absolute madness. 

#JustVasterasThings

[Crstats23 338]

So was this team the reason why a teams number of picks per round is now limited?