Under 250: The VHLM Review (S74 #1)

[Mr_Hatter 1,603]

 

Hello, and welcome to the first edition of a new season 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!

The Review

 

Eighteen games into the season and we have already found a hierarchy of teams to make up the standings. The Western Conference is leading the way with high performing teams, while the Eastern Conference is more balanced throughout, as even its worst two teams have found some small successes. 

 

The Saskatoon Wild lead the league with 35 points, two ahead of their conference rivals, the Yukon Rush. The Las Vegas Aces follow closely behind, as this trio forms a juggernaut top three for the Western Conference. Filling the fourth position is the Mexico City Kings who, while not having quite the same record as the aforementioned teams, stand with a positive goal difference and a respectable 22 points, 15 more than the fifth placed San Diego Marlins. Filling out the West is the last-placed Houston Bulls, whose 4 points is worst across both conferences. 

 

Going now to the Eastern Conference we have perhaps the pre-season favorites in the Halifax 21st given their nine picks in the first three rounds of the draft. They are living up to the hype, and lead the East with 34 points, just one behind the Wild for overall first place. Next come the Mississauga Hounds with 28 points, but this is where things get a little muddy. No other team in the conference has a positive goal difference, but both the third place Ottawa Lynx and the fourth place Philadelphia Reapers have 20 points or greater. While the Minnesota Storm and Miami Marauders, who met in last season’s Founder’s Cup Finals, may have more points than their counterparts in the West, neither look likely to catch the Reapers and make the playoffs. You never know, but it does seem like all of our eight playoff teams are more or less set just a quarter of the way into the season. 

 

This rounds out our review of the standings. Let’s take a look at our ELO charts to see who has been our highest performers as of late, points notwithstanding. 

 

The Teams

 

The Halifax 21st lead the ELO charts, as they have for the whole season, but in a somewhat curious fashion. The 21st has just one player in the top ten for points, Michael Hall, whose 37 points through 20 games places him fifth overall. They do it through a combination of depth scoring and killer defense/goaltending. 11 of their players have already reached the 10 point mark, and six of them are scoring at a point per game. On the other side of the ice, the 21st has allowed just 30 goals against, the lowest in the league by 16 goals, giving them the best goal differential despite scoring 17 less than Saskatoon. This is in a large part thanks to the fabulous goaltending thus far of Kevin Malone, whose .923 SV% is a league best for a starter, and whose 1.5 GAA puts VHL teams to shame. With a quarter of his games coming in the form of shutouts, the American goaltender is looking like a prime goaltender of the year contender. 

 

Following the 21st is Las Vegas, who lead their Western conference rivals Saskatoon and Yukon in ELO despite trailing both in the standings. Led by star right winger Gary Rush, the Aces also dominate both sides of the ice, and have the next best defensive record after the 21st thanks to their blue line general, Kasper Kankkunen. The London United prospect is vital to the Aces defense, and is proving just what he can do once he makes his move to the big leagues. 

 

The Wild closely follow the Aces in ELO, as they have for most of the season. While the Aces and the 21st may have the most balanced teams, the Wild have the deadliest. With a league leading 105 goals scored in just 20 games for an average of 5.25 goals per game, the Wild have four of the top ten point scorers, the most of any team. This includes current MVP favorite Brian Strong Jr., whose league leading 28 goals and league leading 33 assists (tied with teammate Florent Vericel) combine for a league high 61 points. The center is currently scoring at a 3 PPG pace, and has just been an absolute revelation thus far.  

 

Next we have the Yukon Rush in the charts. They are about where you would expect from their standings bar them sitting behind the Aces. They are a very deep team, with top, top, quality across the board. They have a well balanced squad with a plethora of options at all positions;  their only current weakness is goaltending. Both Kloxified and Artem Tretiak are young goaltenders, and while both are rapidly improving, they need to do better if the Rush want to contest for the cup. Yukon’s strength definitely lies in their blue line, which has some very big names represented, and look to be strong come playoffs. 

 

Rounding out the teams sitting above 1100 in the charts is the Mississauga Hounds. The Hounds certainly have some strong players, including young defensive studs of L and R, but they have a lot of growth to do if they want to compete with the likes of Halifax or Saskatoon. Their goaltender Vsevolod Askarov is a great player, whose talent outweighs his poor statistical performances thus far in the season. It has been Taro Tsujimoto, however, who has impressed the most, sitting at fourth overall for points scored and really is the one star player on the team. 

 

This is where the talent starts to drop off somewhat. The Kings are certainly a good squad, but lack the depth to compete with the big dogs this season. Following them and rounding out our playoff teams is Ottawa and Philadelphia, each of whom have strong teams but have been unable to string together the kind of performances we have become accustomed to seeing from the top four or five teams. Really these two teams have been slightly underperforming; expect them to possibly improve in the coming games. 

 

Our next two teams were very evenly matched last season, but this season both Miami and Minnesota are in their cup run hangovers. We think that out of the two, Miami probably has more potential, with the likes of Rara Rasputin, of the famous Alfredsson agency, in net, as well as a reasonably solid blue line. Minnesota has a solid goaltender as well in Michael Olson, but lacks the depth in their other positions to mount a serious playoff challenge. Next comes the Marlins, who are struggling to find points. One brightside is they have a young team, with players like Lauri Korpikoski who can grow into the league in future seasons. Finally we have the worst team in the league by ELO and standings, the Houston Bulls. They are also a project team, with some very exciting prospects such as Vladimir Mlinksi, Ryan Ryker, and Kunibuni UnGuri, but have little to look forward to this season, as their 2-18-0 record can attest. 

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!

 

Players Mentioned:  @Hops, @eaglesfan0366, @G_Rush, @ZP16, @Wheaties, @dart, @Kloxified, @Molholt, @gorlab, @Kylrad, @Gooningitup, @GustavMattias, @Victor, @MSO94, @Jansgasm, @Brrbisbrr, @Jayrad28, @Berocka

 

@VHLM GM

 

 

VSN Writer Mr_Hatter
 

[rory 1,759]

Aight, Mexico City will wait

[gorlab 4,321]

lets go hound dawgs lets go WOOF WOOF

[Molholt 2,183]

I'm trying, Jennifer.

[emidas 76]

7 hours ago, Molholt said:

I'm trying, Jennifer.