Under 250: The VHLM Review (S75 #1)

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Hello, and welcome to another edition of Under 250: The VHLM Report. In this 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!

 

World Cup Part 2 | VHLM Awards | VHL Awards

 

The Review

 

So far, the VHLM in S75 has shaped up much like other seasons in recent memory. Perhaps the biggest exception is that this season the basement appears to well and truly belong to a single team, rather than 2-3 teams competing for it, although at the same time with the waiver system and new players coming in, that position can change easily. The Ottawa Lynx, the same team who has lost significant pieces of draft capital due to some decision making in S74, is significantly last as of right now with only 2 wins and a staggering -94 goal difference. Pick up the right players though, and it’s early enough they could still find themselves in a playoff position when it matters. Comebacks of that nature do happen in the VHLM since roster composition is so volatile from week to week. 

 

At the top, the Philadelphia Reapers and Mexico City Kings are battling it out for the top seed, although as we saw last season, seeding is not everything. Still, surely they’ll want to secure what is on paper anyway a better matchup in the playoffs. The middle of the pack just shows how little conferences matter, in that the 3/4/5/8 teams are all in the Western Conference and only the 6/7 teams are in the Eastern Conference, with the exception of the Reapers up top. There are also a few interesting races developing as of now, with the San Diego Marlins, Saskatoon Wild, and Las Vegas Aces all jockeying for seeding (and one of them earning a potentially more lucrative 3 seed where they avoid a first round matchup with one of the other teams in the clump). Additionally, the Miami Marauders, Halifax 21st, Yukon Rush, and Mississauga Hounds fighting it out for 3 playoff spots among them. Our two remaining teams, the Minnesota Storm and Houston Bulls, are in a kind of limbo zone. They’re not terribly far from climbing up into the playoffs themselves, but neither are they exempt from potential passing by Ottawa. 

 

 

The ELO chart paints an interesting picture for the Halifax 21st in particular. Our top two lines are as we might expect them to be, the Reapers and Kings. It’s after that where it gets interesting - the third highest line, despite being well below that in the standings, belongs to Halifax. Could this be a sign of a later surge for them in the season? They’re not even in the immediate trailing pack (that’s the Marlins, Wild, and Aces) yet their ELO is above all three. This could mean either Halifax is better than the standings indicate, or they had a few large margins that swung the chart in their favor and it hasn’t balanced back out yet for them. A similar story can be told for the Miami Marauders, whose line isn’t quite as high as that of the 21st, but it’s still above ⅔ of the pack ahead of them in the standings. Speaking of that pack, the Marlins are roughly where we’d expect them in 4th - not necessarily the teams ahead and behind you’d expect, but on balance it’s about right for them. However, when teams have a higher ELO than standings, the reverse must also be true, and it appears the teams with the reverse effect have been the Wild and Aces at this level (one more later on). They’re largely in a clump with the Rush for 6/7/8, despite being 4/5 in the standings. Still, clearly they appear to be playoff teams based on the ELO as well as the standings.

 

The bigger shock seems to be where the line appears for the Hounds. Not only are they well below the lines of the borderline playoff teams (a race in which they are behind by only 3 points) they seem to be below the Bulls as well. Admittedly that looks like it was caused by a sharp downward spike around game 21, so it’s likely a single game result and somewhat of an aberration. It’s also a bit telling that the Lynx’ line is as far below the rest of the field as it is. There seems to be about as big a gap between 11 (Minnesota) and 12 (Ottawa) as between Minnesota and 4/5 (Marlins/Marauders). Again though, it’s early, and their current roster may not be anything like the roster we see at the end of the season, so it’s still plausible they could climb out of it. It’s just going to be a lot of work for them going forward. 

 

The Highlights

 

It’s definitely too early to get too deeply into any awards talk, so perhaps more of a general overview of names making waves, people setting their stamp on the league so far, would provide an opportunity for a little recognition. A quick look at the scoring chart shows why Philadelphia is having such a strong season; they just seem to have a knack for putting the puck in the opposing net. Three of the top four names on the list are theirs, with Addison McLaren, Robert Bouchard, and Darius Marimoto joined by Dolant Fertitta of Halifax over the 40 point mark so far. Cowboy Prout of San Diego leads defensemen in points, ahead of Ron World Peace III of Minnesota, Jolly Greene Giant of Philadelphia (there they are again) and Kevin Wu of Mexico City. Another person deserving of recognition on the points end of things is Florent Vericel of Saskatoon - he’s short of 40 by a single point (39) but has created something of a gap behind him to solidify top 5 in the league. 

 

Plus-minus is a stat with some level of skepticism behind it, some claiming it’s nothing but a team indicator, others saying that some value can be gained by where a player stands relative to said team. A bit of evidence toward the team theory, then, that a massive 7 players from the Reapers find themselves in the top ten at the moment, which is perhaps to be expected - but what’s not to be expected is that the other 3 are all from the Marauders, not the second place Kings. It’s not entirely certain what the reason is behind this, but perhaps the Kings are better at special teams, which are not reflected in plus-minus as a stat, or perhaps the Marauders are top heavy with contributions from a single line bringing that line’s plus-minus up, or maybe they’re just a better team than their record indicates. This seems to line up with their ELO in any case, so the signs seem to be there for a Miami surge of sorts as the season goes on. 

 

One area we start to see the results we might expect from Mexico City is their goaltending. Markus Emerson Jr is top of the league in SV% and second in GAA, behind Jacob Carson of the Reapers, who is second in SV%. Thadius Sales (Miami) and Michael Olson (San Diego) find themselves in the top 5 of both major goalie stats, while Hi Hello (Minnesota) is doing his best Jean Pierre Camus impression and trying to backstop an otherwise lower team to a higher position. 

 

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!

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Will add tagging later

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second week of this will be the week ending in 12/6