The first week of the FHM 8 SHL is behind us, let’s recap the events of the week!

Pacific Division: The death of the fox
The old trio of Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco are still at the top of the division, with two surprises coming from Calgary and Edmonton. While Calgary is so far doing probably better than expected (look at that goal difference), just about trailing the Pride and the Argonauts, Edmonton has fully embraced the tank and their only two wins this week came against the other tank commanders in Minnesota Monarchs. For these two, it’s a race to the bottom at the start of the new SHL sim engine era, and they are going down with the style. Panthers are enjoying their great home record, and worrying eyeing the fact they have barely played any away games, which seem to be a problem with many teams this season. If they falter, this could be an invitation for the other two competitors, but Seattle has been a bit unlucky with their shootout performance so far with 2 of their 5 losses coming from them, and San Francisco is really not doing well at away games, even if both teams are basically spotless at home. The three top spots are going to be close to decide her for now, and with two teams effectively aiming for single digit points at the season's end, even the 4th spot gets to enjoy playoffs, so Pacific is going to be a game of placement rather than a run towards a qualification.

Central Division: Healthy margins
The only division to have any major separation between all of their teams, the Central has a clear leader, a fight for 2nd, a clear 4th and a clear 5th team. Minnesota has just about managed to score a single OT point, so they won’t repeat the legendary tank job of Tampa Bay from the beginning of the FHM 6 era, but are still on for an impressively low pace of points right now. Chicago up top of the division has had a decent time, but they have a chunk of losses to their name already and it’s expected they get caught up to a little bit, while NOLA has risen up a bit and is currently holding down 2nd, albeit with games played over Winnipeg chasing them for 3rd. NOLA is enjoying a very decent defensive game, while Winnipeg is one of the 3 teams that are yet to lose in a shootout once they got there, and with no loser points so far, one can assume that they have been pretty decent with close games and getting all the points they possibly can. Them, Chicago and NOLA should be the playoff teams coming out of the division, with Texas likely getting a free ticket in the wildcard spot thanks to Edmonton and Minnesota, even if they are in middle of a retool themselves.

Atlantic Division: The death zone
If the Atlantic thunderdome wasn’t close enough last season, Manhattan has effectively all but exited the rebuild phase and are currently fighting their way into the playoffs. Atlanta is currently leading with an impressive point %, likely meaning they will soar up the league standings towards the next week and leave the loud, screaming fight behind them, while Philadelphia and Baltimore are suddenly left a little behind and surprised at the sudden jump of Manhattan’s form, leading to them having to scrap away at the potentional wild card spots, and the unenviable rendevouz with one of the first seeds of the East. Tampa is still doing well for themselves, but they got caught up in some games and are decidedly behind Atlanta, and worryingly close to the competition below, so our finalists of last season would be happy to find some form as soon as possible. With all 10 teams in the East doing well though, nothing is guaranteed and grabing a playoff spot might be a reward here itself, unlike in the West, so you might not get the luxury of picking who you play, since you might miss the post-season all together if you don't work 100%.

North East Division: Wait more death?
Last season, this division had a very clear top 3 that would take it to the playoffs to resolve their positions, and New England with Montreal scraping away with Manhattan for the last wildcard spot just to get murdered by the eventual winner of the east. Right now, all three of these teams are on pace to genuinely fight for a proper spot in the top 3 themselves, and anything and everything is still in the cards. Buffalo is the only team with a bit of a cushion here, with the leagues 3rd best point %, they lead the division and even the conference, although with just a point over Atlanta and with 2 more games played than them. Hamilton and Toronto are right about a .500 pace, and getting caught up quickly by the young and excited crews of Montreal and New England, making it seem that in North East, there is all to play for and no time to rest.

Is it really this easy to score or are we all just this good?
The rise in goals in the league has been somewhat obvious. Edmonton and Minnesota losing games by double digit margins, teams routinely scoring 5+ goals and games often ending with 7+ goals, the teams are definitely feeling themselves a little bit offensively this season. Last season, a team was expected to score a bit shy of 3.5 goal a game. This season, we are so far looking at about a 0.5 goal per game increase across the board. A likely culprit? Mixture of reasons could be expected, but it’s, as per usual, likely a mix of several. Teams that can’t test don’t have ideal defensive structures, meaning they will leak more goals. On top of that, it seems to be considerably easier to make your offense click even without the aforementioned testing, so more firepower is shooting at a worse defense, making the situation even worse. Another possible circumstance might just be that a few more teams joined the fight and are capable of creating offense on their own (Manhattan, Calgary, New England, Montreal), making the games become a bit more chaotic.

This weeks leaders: Names to remember
This weeks craziest lead goes to Jesper Aittokallio of the Manhattan Rage. And no, I am not quite talking about him leading the goal scoring race by 4 with 20 goals in 17 games. Someone just woke up one day and decided that a 35% shooting is perfectly reasonable and absolutely fine. That’s the one way you realize that this is likely the least sustainable pace you have ever seen, even if funnily enough, Jesper’s PDO is actually not that wild. So you can expect these numbers go down, but one has to wonder just how low they will actually go.

The other interesting lead is the one in PIMs, where it seems a lot of the competition up top is very even with the exception of a single name. Baltimore’s Rob Wright has a healthy 6 PIM lead at the top (where the 2nd and the 10th player are separated by 5 PIMs), and so hopefully you have him as your Turd Ferguson prediction. You don’t, do you?

The last interesting anomaly in the statistical part of the SHL is the 3rd pair from Chicago, Tanjiro Kamado and Ben Jammin, who are leading the +/- race with a decent lead from their own teammates, Okamoto, Turtle and Marner. Maybe not as surprising as Chicago currently has the best goal difference in the league, it’s still a bit of a surprise to see your 3rd pair do so well in the defensive game and even be on the productive side, as not only you need to limit the scoring against, but actually be a part of the offensive process too.

Well, that’s it from me this week, see you next Sunday!