VSN Presents: Under250- Building A Powerhouse in the VHLM: San Diego Marlins

[fromtheinside 1,278]

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BoG Update: Future Hall of Famers  |  The Talents Behind The Trophies: The Devon Marlow-Marta Trophy  |  U250: Houston, We Have A Problem!

 

 

 

The regular season is slowly drawing to a close with only a handful of games left to be played, and for the most part all playoff implications have been set in stone. Perhaps the most notable change over the past couple weeks has been the San Diego Marlnis strong surge up the Western Conference standings. Two or three weeks ago I would have considered there two be two major players in the VHLM but now I think it is safe to say it has turned into a three-team conversation with the Marlins throwing their name in the ring with Philadelphia and Mexico City.  Our feature story below will break down the Marlins incredible season. The rest of the league is pretty much status quo. Saskatoon and Las Vegas continue to shine in the West. Houston actually had a very nice run in the past couple weeks and made things interesting for Yukon and Halifax but unfortunately their efforts came up a bit short as they were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention earlier this week. Nothing much has changed in the Eastern Conference either as none of teams really moved up or down in the standings. The only real race left to speak of is the one for the 7th seed. Currently the Yukon Rush sit one point back of the Halifax 21st and both clubs have one game left to play, and wouldn't you know it... it's against each other! The winner of this game with take the 7th seed and play Philadelphia in the first round while the losers will get the 8th seed and face Mexico City. 

 

 

 

The league did however see a flurry of trades that led up to the trade deadline. This really helped define the contenders from the pretenders. The Las Vegas Aces were amongst the biggest buyers at the deadline. They acquired forwards Sheldon Juniper , Jordan Tate and Dan Dan and then to top it off they went and got max capped goaltender (and soon to be GM of the USA World Junior team) Thadius Sales. While this was quite an impressive haul, the Aces have gotten a mixed bag for results so far, but their team is unquestionably stronger on paper going into the playoffs. The biggest sellers were Mississauga and Yukon, both teams shedding some heavy assets to restock their cupboards come draft time. While Mississauga is clearly out of the picture, Yukon actually continues to win a decent amount of games despite losing some of their best talent. 

 

 

 

The San Diego Marlins were basically the Ottawa Lynx of Season 74. A team that finished with single digit wins, the Marlins were in full rebuild mode going into Season 75. As we mentioned in the VHLM Roundup, the Marlins developed into one of the league's premiere teams this season. While they started off strong, they finished the season even stronger, boasting the league's best record in the ladder half the year. When it originally seemed like Philadelphia and Mexico City were the two teams to watch, San Diego slowly crept into the upper echelon of the league and have shown they are a team to be feared this postseason. The question is how did they get here. Obviously GM Instant Rockstar and AGM Kevin King had their hands full going into this season. Let's break down exactly how this incredible roster came together to be what it is today.

 

Returnees: Unlike in our previous U250 piece that examined the Mexico City Kings roadmap to being a powerhouse, the Marlins were pretty much starting from scratch in Season 75, which to me makes their run all the more impressive. The sole returning player from last season was depth left winger Logan Hoffman. While Hoffman may not play top minutes, he is a mainstay with the organization  He was drafted by San Diego way back in Season 73 and he has stuck with the club ever since. In his rookie campaign he saw the S73 Marlins go on a decent playoff run, and then the aforementioned painful season that was S74 came shortly thereafter. This year he is in the final season of his 3 year deal and looks to capture a Founder's Cup before the end of his tenure.

 

Draft: This is where San Diego really defined it's team and made their presence known. The team made a whopping 15 picks this past draft, and many of them were homerun picks. After winning the draft lottery, they took defensemen Cowboy Prout with the first overall pick of the draft. Prout played his rookie campaign in San Diego and surely must have warmed up nicely to management as they were eager to scoop him up immediately with their first pick. The S75 draft will be known for two things. First was the overall mass of talent that was available largely thanks to the S74 recruitment drive, but more specifically this draft was loaded with high end defensemen. Recognizing this, the Marlins made a huge splash right after taking Cowboy at #1. A trade was announced that would see the Marlins trading their 1st in S76 and two 3rd Round Picks for the second overall pick in the draft! So with their second consecutive pick to start the draft, the Marlins took another second year defender in Scotty Kaberle!  This aggressive drafting strategy really dictated how the rest of the first couple of rounds would go, as blueliners began flying off the board left, right, and center. By dictating the flow of the draft, the Marlins were in a great spot when they came back up for their third pick of round one. Since many other teams felt the need to get defenders before they were all gone, the Marlins now had a great selection of top-end forwards to choose from with only 3 forwards going off the board at this point. So at pick number 10, the Marlins took the fiesty Italian center Nero Endrizzi. 

 

 

After three solid picks in the first round, the Marlins were back on the stage for the first pick of Round 2. At 13, San Diego would take right-winger Red Lite who was a notable recreate from well-known and successful user Tate. The trend of taking big name recreates would be a recurring them for the Marlins throughout this draft, but more on that in a moment. It would be awhile until San Diego picked again, having only the one pick in Round 2, but to kick off the third round the Marlins would select centerman Nikolas D'Andrea.  This gave them a dependable second-line center and was a smart move because a noticeable trend in the league this season is that alot of teams were lacking depth down the middle. Now back on the subject of big time recreates. The Marlins would go on to take Frank Funk Jr at 32nd overall, Gunnar Odinsson at 37th overall, and Phil "The Rock" Johnson at 60th overall. All three of these players belong to legendary users whose combined accolades could probably stuff a trophy room to the brim! It was very savvy of the Marlins brass to snatch these guys up, as players like this have a known pedigree to be reliable and develop their players quickly and efficiently. This mix of accomplished recreates and motivated first-gens proved to be one hell of a draft class for San Diego, however they were still missing a couple pieces, and through the course of the season those pieces were added via trade.

 

Trades: A key acquisition that really got the ball rolling on the Marlins roster rebuild actually happened two days before the draft. In a big time swap, the Marlins gave up picks 1 through 4 all in S77 to acquire what ended up being their starting goaltender Michael Olson,  as well as a high quality defender in Yuuto Kira Cloudera from the Minnesota Storm. Having procured their goalie ahead of the draft really helped form the decision to go heavy on defense early in the draft. Coming out of the first round of the draft San Diego had already solidified 3 of their top 4 players in their defensive core, their starting goalie and their top line center. This trade really should have signified to the rest of the VHLM teams that San Diego was going to be in it to win it for Season 75, especially since they mortgaged their future by dealing all meaningful assets in Season 77. About a third of the way into the season the Marlins were off to a great start but almost all their scoring was coming exclusively from 4 players and two of them were blueliners. It became evident that the Marlins could use a little more firepower up front.  They wasted no time in making a splash by acquiring high TPE center Maksim Yakolevsky from the Ottawa Lynx for two depth forwards who will be mainstays next season for Ottawa.  Maksim immediately began paying dividends and clicked with this new squad immediately. To put into perspective how much of a positive impact Yakolevsky has had in San Diego, he came to the team sitting at a -15. He is now +9 and has 86 points. He was instrumental in getting the second line going offensively and was the perfect remedy for the Marlins. The last major acquisition came on the eve of the S75 trade deadline. The Marlins decided to further bolster their already rock solid defensive core by picking up Kate Upton from the Halifax 21st in exchange for their 2nd and 5th picks in the upcoming S76 draft. By adding another max-TPE defenseman, the Marlins really established themselves as the best defensive team in the league. While it was by no means a position of weakness before, the trade really put them over the top.

 

Waiver Signings: While the Marlins were not super active in signing waivers throughout the course of the season,  they did make a nice little splash this past week. New player recreates for the draft class of Season 77 opened up this week so players who intend to retire their pro players began working on their new players this week. There were a few notable names who made recreates. Luckily for the Marlins, 2 of them decided to join San Diego on their cup run. Right winger Duncan Idaho and center Paul Atreides  both decided to offer their services as depth players to even further add to the immense depth the Marlins already have.  While they may not be big minutes eaters, they guys will be developing rapidly and they still could make an impact for San Diego come playoff time!

 

Over the course of this season San Diego has seen a ton of success, but the second half of the campaign is where the Marlins have really transformed into an S-tier "powerhouse" team.  The first half of the season saw the Marlins go 22-13-1, which is a great record. However, considering since then they have gone 29-5-1 since the half way point, you can really see how they have taken the giant leap forward. This second half was highlighted by a franchise record 14 game winning streak.  With only one game left on the regular season schedule, the Marlins have two players who have already eclipsed the 100 point plateau and Tate is 3 points shy of it himself. Scotty Kaberle has 103 points which is 4th in the league and leads all defensemen, while Nero Endrizzi is not far behind with 100 points and 6th overall in the league. The offense is top tier, the defense is arguably the best in the league and their goaltender is rock solid also. The Marlins are truly clicking on all cylinders  heading into the postseason and management is hoping the move to go all in will pay off.  Only time will tell, but it looks as though they are destined to go up against the defending champion Miami Marauders in the first round of the playoffs. It should be a thrilling series that will be sure to draw a ton of attention. This wrap up the breakdown of the San Diego Marlins journey to becoming a powerhouse.  In a couple weeks I will be back with another in-depth look at what's going on in the VHLM. Until then, happy holidays and thanks for reading!

[fromtheinside 1,278]

claiming the christmas drive community doubles week on this too btw

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