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ImASurvivor · 09-20-2019, 05:07 PM

2750 Words x2 Draft Double Media

As the 49th season of the SMJHL comes to a close, each team has seen another year of Four Star Cup hopes come to an end. That means that teams will be looking to next season as soon as possible. With players being called up, aging out or retiring each and every season, there are plenty of factors for SMJHL GMs to consider when overseeing their team's depth chart at the beginning of each offseason. In this series, we will take an extremely in-depth look at each team's current depth chart and what moves will need to be made in the off-season in order to ensure the best lineup possible will take the ice when S50 begins. This episode focuses on the Carolina Kraken (formerly known as the Montreal Militia).

The Carolina Kraken not only just relocated from Montreal but are doing so off the back of winning the coveted Four Star Cup with a team that seemed to be destined for a down year after they had 14 rookies play at least a single game for them since the S49 SMJHL Entry Draft. They narrowly avoided playing in the play-in round of the S49 SMJHL playoffs, entering as the sixth seed. This meant that once the second round started, they would be forced to face the third-seeded Halifax Raiders. It was a tight 7 game series, but the Kraken won the final 2 games to secure their place in the semi-finals. They were now in for their toughest competition to date, in the powerhouse Detroit Falcons. All the pundits wrote off the Kraken in that series, but surprisingly it took Carolina just 5 games to get past the Falcons, shocking much of the hockey world. They had booked their place in the finals and just had to wait for the other series to end, and it turns out that their final opponent would be the Kelowna Knights, their rivals in arms. Once again, the Kraken made swift work of their opponent, probably thanks to the youth that had been injected during the previous offseason, and secured the Four Star Cup on the road in Kelowna after the fifth game of the series.

The formerly-known Militia had not won a Four Star in almost 20 seasons, having last won in S33 under Copenhagen and Grapehead. The new management team of Fuzz and trella have swooped into Montreal, started a rebuild, and somehow managed to win during the first stage of said rebuild when all the rookies were developing. Now that the impossible has been done, the Kraken now have the potential to build around the current core that was built during the previous offseason, in order to create a dynasty for seasons to come, having the potential to win back to back (to back?) championships after it is all said and done, but we'll have to wait and see. The Kraken seem in an incredible position to succeed based off these first glances, but once we take a deeper dive into their depth chart and ineligible players, there might be a different story to be had.

Now that we've become accommodated with the recent history of the Montreal Militia, now Carolina Kraken, we can begin to dissect their current roster and determine what steps need to be taken in order for the best chance at overall success in seasons to come. The sacrifice for committing to a cup run last season in Montreal is that they have 3 players who they will be losing with nothing in return, due to them becoming ineligible age-wise. On the other hand, with the youth that was injected into the roster during the previous draft, they have no one being called up into the SHL.

Mike Hunt - G - 343 TPE - Austria
Mike Hunt was a sixth-round selection back in the S45 SMJHL Entry Draft, which was a huge reddit draft that forced the creation of two new SMJHL teams, the Lethbridge Lions and the Anaheim Outlaws. The latter of the two was the team that selected Hunt with the 60th overall selection, who played a season and a half as the Outlaws backup before being traded to Montreal where he continued his slow but steady development. It wasn't this past season, S49, where Hunt transitioned into the starting goaltender role, and he certainly showed up for the Militia. Since he has become ineligible for the SMJHL, Mike has since retired and plans to create a new player on the website.

Hunt had a roller coaster of a career, as he played 30 games in his rookie season for the Outlaws but sat out an entire season for the Militia back in S47. In total, Hunt appeared in 91 SMJHL Regular-Season games, registering 38 wins, 35 losses in regulation, as well as 9 losses after regulation. He played 5012 career regular-season minutes, allowed 248 goals, made 2279 saves and had 9 career shutouts. During the SMJHL playoffs, Hunt became a different monster, specifically during the S49 playoffs. In total, he has recorded 12 wins and 5 total losses most being for Montreal in these past playoffs. 1036 playoff minutes played, 45 goals allowed, 489 saves made, and 1 shutout round out his playoff goaltending stats.

Hunt's playing career has come to an end after a pretzel of a career but during his final season in the SMJHL he put the young Militia men on his back and most likely earned playoff MVP on his way to his first and only Four-Star Cup. Aside from his success during his final season with the Militia, Hunt brought relatively no team success during the playoffs for whatever team he was playing for. This will be a huge loss for the now Kraken as we will see later, they do have a rookie goaltender coming through the ranks but I'm sure that the Kraken would love to have had Hunt for one more season to develop their next goaltender further.

Olin O'Dowd - RHD - 253 TPE - Ireland
Unlike Mike Hunt, Olin was a homegrown prospect of the Montreal Militia, from the same S45 SMJHL Entry Draft. He was taken at the beginning of the 5th round in this jam-packed reddit draft but unfortunately never remained active enough in order to cap out at the SMJHL level. Olin is one of the rare prospects to have played every possible regular-season game, meaning they were just good enough to make the roster as a rookie but also not quite good enough to get called up into the SHL during their fifth season. No one has heard from Olin, as the creator of this player has gone completely inactive since the season after he was drafted, so it is likely we will never see O'Dowd step on the ice again.

As mentioned above, during the regular season O'Dowd managed to play all 50 games during all 5 of his seasons, resulting in a total of 250 games played, 19 goals, 74 assists for 93 points. He also had 168 hits and 286 blocked shots during 4706 career minutes played. These stats show that while he was clearly a defensively-minded defenseman, O'Dowd was not afraid to get forward and despite failing to reach the SMJHL cap, he was clearly a serviceable defenseman for the Militia. Throughout his career with the Militia, O'Dowd did not shy away during the playoffs, he played 61 career playoff games, scoring 1 goal and 23 assists for 24 points. He also had 46 hits and 59 blocked shots during 1255 career playoff minutes on the ice.

Olin has played his final game of hockey at the professional level, but he leaves behind a major gap in terms of offensive production and defensive stability for the now Kraken roster. He leaves the game of hockey with a Four Star Cup ring that he achieved during his final season with the Militia just like Mike Hunt. I haven't yet taken a look at the depth and development that the Kraken have coming up on the backend, but they will certainly be feeling the effects of losing Olin as they push for their second straight Four Star Cup.

Gaspard Boone - C - 353 TPE - Canada
Here it is, the moment all Kraken fans have been reluctantly hoping would never come. Gaspard's offensive domination of the SMJHL will come to an end beginning in S50 as he is now ineligible to play for the Kraken. It seems as if Gaspard was initially signed by the Halifax Raiders following the S45 SMJHL Entry Draft, he was then traded to the St. Louis Scarecrows during S47 and then following the conclusion of S48 he was then sent to the Montreal Militia who are now known as the Carolina Kraken. Boone has seemingly gone inactive since just barely reaching the cap of 353, so his playing career is most likely over considering no SHL team retained his rights after he made it to waivers.

Besides his rookie season, Boone was a workhorse for each team he played for in each season of his career, playing in almost all 250 possible games. While playing his 229 regular-season games, Boone racked up 69 goals and 86 assists for 155 career points. He also laid 170 hits and blocked 40 shots during an exact total of 4000 minutes of ice time. During the playoffs, Boone continued to be an offensive star, playing in 59 career playoff games, he scored 16 goals and 20 assists for 36 points. While also laying out 57 hits and blocked 8 shots during 1058 career playoff minutes. He was Montreal's leader in terms of point production throughout his 5th and final season in the SMJHL and will probably be on the ballot for regular season and playoff MVP.

Boone's playing career is over, but he gets to walk into retirement in style with his Four Star Cup ring that he accomplished during his final season. Boone's offensive production will need to be replenished by upcoming prospects as well as new rookies being drafted in the upcoming SMJHL Entry Draft. These will not be easy shoes to fill but the Kraken now have to move on to defending their Four Star Cup in hopes of becoming one of the best dynasties the SMJHL has seen in recent history.

Carolina is losing none of it's players to SHL call-ups yet, but if the prospects from the most recent SMJHL Entry Draft continue their activity after being drafted into an SHL pipeline, then they could be at risk of that in the next couple of seasons. Now that we have become aware of the histories of the players that the Kraken are losing following this offseason, we will take a deeper dive into the Kraken depth chart heading into S50.

Center - Tom Fiddler (252) - Michael Fitted (208)

That's right, that's not a typo, the Carolina Kraken head into the S50 offseason with only two natural centers on the roster following the loss of storied captain Gaspard Boone. This is a huge problem for the defending Four Star Champions as the key to success in any hockey league is depth down the middle. Reports out of the Kraken locker room reveal repeated attempts from the management team to persuade some of their abundant wingers into transitioning into the center of the ice, but only time will tell with that avenue. The other obvious options for the Kraken are to dip into the trade market or provide rookie stopgaps with prioritizing centers in the upcoming entry draft. Fiddler has shown the ability to maintain his activity and should be able to cap during his upcoming sophomore season, so be on the lookout for him to dominate the first-line minutes at center.

Winger - Herry Morris IV (350+) - Ravyn Tedisko (350+) - Bobby Lane (291) - Heikki Jaakola (277) - Phineas Gold (277) - Ricky Bobby (274) - Alexei Rykov (270) -Joseph Weston (269) - Capp Hatter (185)

This chat is the polar opposite of the one we see for the players that will take the faceoffs. After examining this list it becomes evident why the Kraken are looking to move some of these soon to be capped players into the center of the ice in order to balance out the lines, and I would be surprised if some of them refused because they could see their minutes improve from bottom-6 to top line minutes. 2 already capped players, 5 players coming off their rookie seasons with activity, poised to cap fairly quickly after they are drafted into the SMJHL. With 7 players about to be capped on the wings, the Kraken seem to be ready to defend their title if they can figure out how to balance out these lines.

Defense - Kaspars Claude (350+) - Padraig Sarantez (350+) - Zbigniew Pokrywka (254) - Wyatt Ruschkoff (213) - Hans Schweinsteiger (206) - Antti Halonen (150) - Zeno Miniti (150)

The Kraken are actually fairly stacked defensively as well, with two capped players as well as one rookie who should get close during his 2nd season. They also have some present inactive depth to fill out the bottom pairing, but will likely grant those minutes to any rookie defensemen that they draft in the upcoming entry draft. The one gap I can see is on the top-4 next to Zbigniew, as their closest player is Wyatt and he has gone inactive as of recently. Moves will likely be made before the draft so be on the lookout for that. Overall, not a lot to worry about for the upcoming season, but it's rumored that Kaspars goes up next season.

Goalie - Mitchell Maverick (240)

With the loss of Mike Hunt who backstopped the Kraken to a Four Star Cup last season, Maverick will need to take a premature jump into the starting position. Luckily for the Carolina fans, it seems as if his offseason development will get him close to the cap, which should provide solid goaltending to the jaw-dropping supporting class that Maverick will have in front of everyone. Look for the Kraken to also draft a backup goalie in the upcoming draft to start the process of development once again.

After taking a look at the entire depth chart for the Carolina Kraken it seems that they are definitely in the best position of the three teams I've chosen to review to take another shot at the Four Star Cup. With superb depth at forward, and just some minor kinks to work out involving where each player will slot into the top-6. Then on defense, they will have a full season of three capped players, but will certainly need to look to acquire another capped defenseman at the deadline before their playoff push. Then in the goal, it will be up to second-year Maverick to prove to the world why he was drafted so highly, and then any rookie goalie that wants some minutes will certainly be intrigued by the idea of playing for the cup defenders here in Carolina.

The Kraken will have limited options during the upcoming entry draft as they traded a couple of their picks in order to acquire some core pieces last season, which obviously worked out. Their highest pick is at the end of the second round, and then they don't draft again until the fourth round. That means they really should only bank on pulling 1 potentially active player out of this non-reddit draft, and then maybe some inactive fillers in the later rounds. Very different from the S49 reddit draft, but that's what GMs in the SMJHL should be striving for, excelling in the deep reddit drafts and maybe pulling 1-2 actives out of the non-reddits, and that's why Carolina is set to make a push for a dynasty, so hats of the Fuzz and Trella.

That's going to conclude the series of article, and I do apologize for not being able to get to every team but these articles take a ton of research and finding the little details which I take pride in. I'm sure that this upcoming season of SMJHL hockey is going to be exciting and I can't wait to matchup against the rest of you talented individuals! Usual disclosure that I am a mere first-generation and this is my perspective so take it mostly with a grain of salt, but these are my true feelings. Also, disclosure that I play for the Kraken so there is a slight bias in this article. Thanks, everyone for reading and best of luck in everyone's respective upcoming seasons!

I'm off for now but thanks for reading!