17/16

1. 3 TPE
In a season full of surprises. Looking back upon this season, the biggest surprise from my initial season predictions was that Winnepeg made the play-offs and Seattle finished last in the northwest. Despite acquiring Reid Sutherland and Gabe Johnson Seattle struggled quite a bit. They just never seemed to get it right. They continued to drop games against opponents that they should have handled easily. On the contrary, Winnipeg called up a pair of rookies defensemen in Adrik Baranov, and Sarah Burke and they seemed to hit the ground running. I would have thought that Winnepeg losing someone like Reid would have been a nail in the coffin for them to having the ability to make it out of the northwest. I would have even been able to understand if Minnesota had made it out over Winnepeg. However the west ended up being the traditional “blender” that we’re use to. Who’s playoff future was decided on the last day of the regular season.

[~163 words]

5. 2 TPE
 The SHL team that was the best team to not make the finals was actually a team that did not even make the play-offs. This team is the Chicago Syndicate. After winning the cup in S57 there was a clear hangover. This is a team that was a near shoe-in to make the play-offs going into the season was dashed by a series of bad bounces. First things first, this syndicate team even with having a pretty bad PDO for the caliber of team they are would finish first in each of the other divisions in the league. Due to the misfortune of being in the stacked Great Lakes Division Chicago needed every puck to bounce their way. Llalo Selmen continued being the worst on the team in PDO (puck luck stat) with a 97.6. Over ½ of the roster suffered scores lower than 100 PDC with only 1 player above 102--Chico Smeb with 102.8. If you compared PDO to the other great lakes teams, Toronto only had 3 players with a PDO less than 100 but even they were high 98.8, 99.4 and 99.9. Buffalo was the team in the great lakes that was closest to Chicago but with only 6 players with less than a 100 PDO and lowest at 98.4 they had a slight edge over Chicago in PDO and so they don’t matter for this exercise because they were in the final. Same with Hamilton. Texas would be a close second but even Texas had PDO’s higher than Chicago but they were also playing in the weak conference so their season point totals may be a little inflated.

[269 words] 

12. 4 TPE

 a. One thing that Buffalo can do to give themself a leg up over Hamilton in this series is to put their faith in Elizabeth Doyle. The Buffalo Stampede and their goaltending set the record for the most shut-outs in a season and if they can get that magic in this series that’s a chance that Buffalo can come out as the victors. 

[62 words]

B. I will go back to the idea of the Movie/book/reality??? Of “moneyball”. This concept is that in order to win you need to score runs, therefore if you can “buy runs” instead of players you can come out ahead more often than not. I think this concept translates to the SHL pretty well and that Hamilton will come out ahead but I don’t think it’s solely from having a great offense. Hamilton offense was one of the best in the leagues because it was also one of the hardest hitting teams in the league giving them solid possession numbers and more scoring opportunities.
[105 words]


C. I prefer the branding of the Buffalo Stampede, I generally tend to gravitate towards the color scheme of green and yellow of Buffalo than the standard colors of Hamilton. In addition to the colors, the logo for buffalo seems more complex than the Steelhawks logo. That being said, I do enjoy the clean lines that are part of the Steelhawks logo. I don’t really care about the name, location or that other stuff.
[73 words]


D. If the game was on the line the four players that I would send out for Buffalo would be Monkey D. Luffy because he seems to find the back of the net when the game is on the line. Centering Luffy would be Bobby Sharp. Sharp knows how to throw his weight around and create quality scoring opportunities for Luffy. The defensive pair would have to be the combination of Nicholas Owens and Augustus Wang. 

If it were Hamilton’s roster I would be sending out Mitchell van der Heijden because he has proven to be clutch already scoring the series winning goal while part of the New Orlean Specters cup run. Alongside MVDH I would want Hugh Jazz, Samuel Michaud and Aaron Wilson

[123 words]

15. Milestone Claim: 2 TPE 

16. Be nice to the homies task: 3 TPE

@sve7en you're nice and you have a lot of opinions. Muford @Muford your on ice performance is definitely better than @trella, I also really enjoy unwinding after a long day to watch your stream at Twitch.tv/muford... Following his channel was one of the best decisions I could have done. Word on the street is that there's a reward stream when 100 follows are hit. This message was brought to you by Squarespace.

ISFL Affiliate Claim, 3 TPE 
PT#1 Draft Day- Different Site Username: Footballiscool