Inaugural Seasons

[Seabass 593]

Inaugural Seasons

 

This last decade in the VHL has been a pretty active one. We seen the cup change hands several times but that's not what we will be focusing on this on this week's media spot. This week I'm going to take a look at the Expansion teams introduced in the last decade and more specifically their inaugural seasons. I will then be ranking them afterwards. 

 

The Moscow Menace

 

So let's start with the first team introduced to the VHL in this decade. The Moscow Menace were introduced to the VHL almost ten seasons ago back in S65 . In their draft they got a couple of solid pieces in Dan Baillie and Paolo Nano but Nano was traded during the S65 season to the New York Americans for goaltender, Chase a 3rd and a 4th round pick because Nano made it clear to management that he wished to explore Free Agency at the end of his current deal. That wasn't the only stick in the spokes move during this season, Nathan N, a highly touted prospect coming off a 113 point season in the VHLM acquired through the expansion draft, announced his retirement mid-season. The Menace finished the season in last place in the VHL which is expected from a expansion team. They managed to only win 9 games that season for a measily 25 total points in the standings. They were lead offensively by Mark Gebauer who was acquired by the Menace from the Calgary Wranglers in exchange for Moscow's first round pick in S65 (Elasmobranch Fish). Despite the team's total wins Gebauer still managed over a PPG by scoring a career high 93 points in 72 games. Gebauer looked like he was worth that first round selection at the very beginning but as we know he eventually went inactive. They also got good production from guys like Kyson Blake (88pts) who, like Gebauer also eventually went IA and Dan Baillie who had a good rookie season earning almost 60 points (59). Other than from those three players (Gebauer, Blake, Baillie) the Menace didn't really have any other offensive contributors and that's really why they did so poorly, no depth. 

 

The Malmo Nighthawks

 

The Nighthawks were introduced to the VHL in the very next season, S66. This expansion draft gave them more quality selections as the Nighthawks picked up good pieces like Jack Lynch, Matthew Materazo, Sergei Kovalev, Brian Strong and Teagan Glover who all had respectable VHL Careers. They fared a lot better than the Menace in the standings in their inaugural year by more then doubling them up on points (59pts) and scoring almost 20 more wins (28). The Nighthawks even managed not to finish last in the VHL standings by beating out the Seattle Bears by 4 points. The team was lead by Teagan Glover with 71 points followed by Jack Lynch (61) Matthew Materazo (58) and defenseman, Vaydar Odinsson (58), who signed on as a free agent to then retire at season's end. The big difference here between the Nighthawks and the Menace's inaugural season is that the Menace had nothing after their top 3 scorers and the Nighthawks had contributions from nearly everyone in their lineup. They ended the year with 8 players scoring more then 40 points, which didn't include then rookie, Jerry Garcia (31). Things were looking real good for the Nighthawks but they took a hit after S66 due to some retirements. Ordinsson who was the team's big minute cruncher on the backend retired unexpectedly to add onto the loss of other retirements like Sergei Kovalev and Blake Gaudette who retired after a promising 54 point rookie season. 

 

The D.C Dragons

 

The VHL waited two more seasons before Season 68 blessed VHL fans with 2 expansion team's at once, the D.C Dragons and the Prague Phantoms. Instantly there was a small rivalry going on between the two teams as both teams competed not to finish last in the VHL all season long. The Dragons ended up finishing the season in last place falling 12 points behind the Phantoms for last ending the year with 43 points, which is still not Moscow Menace kind of bad, but then again there was two expansions teams here not just the one. The Dragons at least had the chance to pickup a few extra wins by beating out the other expansion team. There wasn't as deep of a pool to pick from since there was two teams selecting but the dragons fared well selecting solid pieces like Dan Gles and picked up aging veteran Maxim Kovalchuk but the key selection for the Dragons is when they picked up a star through the expansion draft by selecting Mikko Aaltonen from the Reign. Aaltonen just retired at the end of this season (S73) after going on to play 6 seasons for the Dragons since and is currently the franchise's all time leading scorer with 421 points in 432 games. Aaltonen will forever be remembered as we expect his jersey to be retired after having such an impact for the franchise. During the team's inaugural season Aaltonen lead the team with 40 goals and 78 points which was 28 points more than next leading scorer Dan Gles who managed 50 points. Those two lead the offense for the Dragons during their inaugural season but the team also saw promising contributions from their rookie blueliners, Luciano Valentino (48pts) , Kaspars Claude (45pts) and Charles Drumm (35pts). With a promising young blue line and a elite goal scorer in Aaltonen the Dragons looked like a team to watch for the future. Unfortunately for the Dragons the regressed the season after as they weren't able to attract much via free agency and saw Gles and Claude fall off the face of the earth.

 

The Prague Phantoms

 

As I mentioned earlier, S68 introduced the VHL to two new teams. The city of Prague was lucky enough to be awarded one of the two new franchises. The Phantoms performed better during their inaugural season than their D.C rivals and that's while the Phantoms played in a more stacked European conference. To show you just how stacked the European Conference was at the time, the Moscow Menace missed out on the playoffs that year with a 82 point season. 82 points would've been good for 2nd in the North American conference that year. The Phantoms impressed the league with 23 wins and 55 points for the year. The team didn't acquire a superstar of Aaltonen's calibre through the expansion draft but the Phantoms still managed to sneak out with two solid pieces that would become future captains by selecting Alex Pearson and Erik Draven. In their inaugural year the team mostly consisted of VHL rookies as the team only had 5 players that wasn't(Meyers, Draper, Thunderfist, Laughton and Draven). Rookie, Zeno Miniti lead the team in scoring with 67 points followed by Erik Draven (63points) and Don Draper (58 pts). The team was getting contributions from across the board as they had 3 other players break the 50 point mark (Laughton and rookies Wolf Stansson Jr/Alex Pearson). Over all it was a success as the Prague Phantoms looked like a young team that was only going to keep getting better with time. There was just one big flaw to this team, goaltending. The team drafted goaltender Bruce Grimaldi 15th overall in the S68 Entry draft in hopes that he would continue on to grow into an elite goaltender for the team down the road, however Grimaldi dissapeared soon after being drafted and never amounted into anything. 

 

The Los Angeles Stars

 

Alright now we're in more recent territory. As you may know already, the VHL decided to expand itself by adding 4 more teams to the league in S73, 5 seasons after the last expansion. With the addition of 4 more teams I was expecting the leagues scoring rates to skyrocket due to having several weaker teams added to the league. The scoring rate has been as different but not as different as I was first expecting as the expansion teams were mostly able to show that the belonged in the VHL. The Los Angeles Stars are the prime example of this as they finished with a very respectable 29 wins and 64 pts in the standings which was the best record of any of the four expansion teams. The team built itself around VHL veterans Sigard Gunnar and Markus Nygren who were drafted via expansion. The team managed to reunite Gunnar with one of his old Wranglers team mates, Tyler Barabash Jr. which the team managed to pick up via Free Agency and that move by itself drove the Stars offense. Gunnar went on to lead the entire VHL in goals and points and winning both the Kevin Brooks and the Mike Szatkowski Trophies. He ended the year with 60 goals and 119 points with his line mate, Barabash Jr. also breaking the highly coveted 100 point mark by scoring 107 points. Nygren also played well scoring 80 points this season for the Stars. Rookie Jeffrey Pines also had a strong showing offensively by contributing 52 points after the Stars drafted him 8th overall in the first round of the S73 VHL Entry Draft. It was a very promising start for the new franchise as the team definitely has enough firepower to compete, their weak spot is their defense and goaltending. Their top two defencemen, Kaspars Claude and Gert B. Frobe have experience playing for expansion teams having played respectively for the Dragons and Phantoms but I wouldn't say their VHL all stars. They had a good showing from Kolur Bjornsson who posted a .920 save percentage, but the team relied more on a unamed goaltender during the season. If the Stars are to compete they're gonna have to get themselves a bonafide starter.

 

The Chicago Pheonix

 

The Chicago Phoenix were less impressive than their other expansion counterparts. They went full tank mode from the get go going more for draft selections than established veteran players. They still managed to pick up Adam Syreck, Squirrely Dan and Vladimir Shaposhnikov out of the expansion draft but expectations were low for the team. The team ended the year with 18 wins and 39 points which was good for last place in the VHL Standings. The team was mostly consistent of no name players so what do you expect. Adam Syreck lead the team in scoring with 73 points but ended the year with a abysmal plus/minus of -63. Squirrely Dan was not too far behind Syreck with 68 points. Shaposhnikov had a okay season as well scoring 64 points but all three of them finished off the season with a plus/minus that was under -50, ouch guys where's the defense? That was their problem as they iced 3 inactive blueliners all season and no named AIs all season long. Jean-Pierre Camus had a solid season considering he was playing behind garbage, with all those abysmal plus/minus ratings, Camus still managed to keep his save percentage over .900 by posting a save percentage of .907. Even with the horrible season, Casmus is still active and is only going to get better from this point on. But, he's going to need help on the blueline in order to get him there.

 

The Warsaw Predators

 

The Predators were projected to be one of the top expansion teams this season, it just seems that the projections were right. The Predators finished behind the Los Angeles Stars by ten points with 23 wins and 54 points. Still, the predators proved that they were a competitive team in the VHL and surprised many teams teams by playing spoiler at the season's end. The LA Stars aimed at being competitive right off the hop, the Predators built with the future in mind. Else than future draft selections they ended up drafting a hot young prospect, Arthur Dayne who played in the VHLM this year for the Ottawa Lynx and scored 107 points which was good for 10th on the VHLM Scoring List. They also drafted VHL defenceman, Alex Bridges from HC Davos. Bridges was just coming off a 26 point rookie campaign when he was picked up by the Predators, but he was young and had enough promise to him that Predators were betting on Bridges to improve. Boy did that bet pay off for them big time. The young defender not only improved but he exploded anyone's expectations in his sophomore season with 20 goals and a whopping 86 points which was good for 9th among VHL Defenders. A lot of Bridges' success is due to Hunter Hearst Helmsley's decision to spend the last season of his career with the Predators via Free Agency. The GM then added onto his roster by signing on Zeno Miniti, Scotty BigShotty and Dalton Wilcox further turning this team into a more competitive team. Helmsley came into Warsaw and had the best season of his career scoring 113 points good for 2nd in VHL Scoring behind LA's Sigard Gunnar and it would be very hard to see Bridges have the same type of success without him. Both Miniti and Wilcox had career years for the Predators. Wilcox managed to score 40 goals and 83 points, Miniti managed a 72 point season. The team also saw some success from other contributors, BigShotty had 64 points, Wolfe had 56 points, the veteran defender Chan had 52 points. Which is all nice but eventually the Phoenix is going to need to get themselves some active members to their team as their Inactive Vets will soon depreciate themselves to use VHLers. The Phoenix are bound to regress next year with HHH's retirement unless they can surprise us with another key UFA pickup to fill the void. 

 

The London United

 

The London United ended up being the winners of the Expansion Draft Lottery, so they had the chance to select first. With the first expansion selection the team went with prospect, Jay Jones from the Reign who was coming off a 63 point season for the Mexico City Kings but had yet to make his rookie debut. The United followed that selection by picking another prospect in defender James Rose who had finished 73 point season with the Houston Bulls. The United had also manage to grab veteran Guy Lesieur from the D.C Dragons but they opted to trade Lesieur back to the Dragons in exchange for D.C's first rounder pick in S74. The United tried to fill that roster spot by then signing veteran Koda Adok from Free Agency. The prospects they drafted out of the expansion draft, Rose and Jones ended up leading the team in scoring with 63 points each in their respective rookie seasons. The team got good production from veteran Adok who scored 56 points but the surprise was The Terrible Trivium who stepped up for the United. The 30th overall pick from S73 was an immediate impact for the team and came out with 62 points in his rookie campaign. However the team ended the year with 2 old inactive goaltenders from S66 and I figure goaltending and depth issues were big reasons why the team ended the season last in the European Conference with 23 wins and 48 points. The team seems set with core pieces like Trivium, Jones and Rose. They're also about to pick twice in the first round of the upcoming from trading Lesieurs so that'll give them two more pieces to work with. Hopefully one of those two pieces will be used to land themselves a goaler because as of now the team has no goaltender at all. 

 

Seabass' Rankings

 

1. Los Angeles Stars, closest to making the playoffs, had the VHL's leading scorer,  most points (64), 

 

2. Malmo Nighthawks, 59 points season, 

 

3. Warsaw Predators, had the VHL's 2nd leading scorer, 54 points

 

4. Prague Phantoms, 55 points

 

5. D.C Dragons, acquired franchise player, 43 points

 

6. Moscow, worst inaugural season, 25 points, worst bad just bad

 

 

2710 words

Edited September 7, 2020 by Seabass

[Victor 11,043]

1 hour ago, Seabass said:

The Moscow Menace we're introduced to the VHL almost ten seasons ago back in S65 when the Quebec City Meute was relocated from French Canada to a different continent by moving to Russia

erm no that's Vancouver

[Seabass 593]

2 hours ago, Victor said:

erm no that's Vancouver

 

 

haha woops my bad edited

[Seabass 593]

Claiming week 2 for the week of the 13th

 

2/5

[Seabass 593]

Claiming for week of the 20th of Sept 3/5

[Seabass 593]

claiming for week of oct 4th 

 

4/5

[Seabass 593]

claiming for week of oct 11 

 

5/5 

now i have to finally create new content.