Sven Svenson had a strong regular season in his last year for the Colorado Raptors. He finished the season with 27 goals and 20 assists, good for 47 points in 50 games. While coming just short of his goal to reach a point per game, Sven is pleased with the progress he made throughout juniors and the season he had. Over his time in the J, Sven went from 17 points, to 33, to 38, to 47 for a grand total of 135 points in 200 SMJHL games played. Sven wishes the Raptors could’ve made a deeper run in the playoffs, as his team never won a playoff series. It’s frustrating for him to think back and wonder what could have been if the stars aligned and everyone played well at the right times. Sven certainly isn’t blameless, as he posted big numbers in the regular season but seemingly disappeared in the playoffs (including 1 G, 1A and -4 in 6 games this series).


The expansion draft will be very interesting to witness. For expansion GMs, they have to be able to balance building a team that can hold the interest of the players while still building for a brighter future. I think it’s going to be pretty hard to strike that balance, with existing teams only letting either their older players or youngest prospects be available to be selected. I think Cassius Darrow will go first overall because he is a renowned user on the site, known to be a positive locker room presence, and despite facing regression can still hold down a 1D spot for a budding franchise for season to come. I also expect Bo Kane to be selected relatively early. He is an interesting player in that his desire for a large contract are known and will be a free agent after the inaugural expansion season. Taking a risk on a player like this could really work out for that team if they are able to get a long term deal to tie up Kane through his prime. However, Kane also might want to go to a team with a good shot at the cup – he could be a costly one and done player for an expansion team.


Yes, Europe should have teams. Scheduling is already unrealistic for travel times, with teams apparently flying all over the North America for back to backs. I understand the desire to keep an “NHL” type of feel to the league, but I think the pros of having teams in Europe would outweigh the cons. First, it’s just really cool to imagine having a “super league” of sorts that has the best teams from all over the world. In our super league SHL universe, the owners of the league have invested in a Space X like company that has developed suborbital transport ships for teams to travel anywhere in the globe in an hour. With that taken care of, having teams in hockey hot beds like Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Slovakia, Russia, and Germany and Austria is both really cool to me, a North American user, as well as European users.


The best SMJHL team to not make the finals this season will be either the Carolina Kraken or the Newfoundland Berserkers. These teams match up in the conference finals and finished as the #1 or #2 seed in the league. While this matchup is due to a fluke in the FHM playoff system, in a more typical format these teams would likely be meeting each other in the Eastern Conference finals anyway. NL and CAR finished with 76 and 75 points, respectively, incredibly impressive point percentages for 50 games. Both teams put up 184+ goals and let in 105 goals or fewer, scoring over 3 goals a game while just barely letting up over 2.


My predictions for the WJC are that Sweden will get over the hump and win gold. Sweden has iced a number of good teams in recent seasons, having collected a few bronzes and silvers along the way. While the team didn’t compete for a medal last WJC, they bring back a strong core group of players that is hungry to get back to the top of the podium. The team also has a budding group of youngsters that is ready to take the next steps in their SMJHL development. Sweden has recently been in a weird spot of not being a powerhouse big country in the SHL IIHF, but also isn’t a tiny one that needs to join into a federation. Because of that, the team can’t compete on talent alone and has to get creative in optimizing tactics, playing players out of position, and transferring in abandoned talent whenever possible. The team gets treated like a big country in the transfer rules, which is understandable but also frustrating.


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