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Mazatt · 11-03-2023, 07:50 PM

What's up. As a former SHL player for the esteemed Tampa Bay Barracuda, I wanted to take a look at where the franchise has gone since my departure. I wanna rip through their young roster players, their current bread-winners, some veteran presences, and finally the up-and-comers (including who might join that group shortly). Let's just hop right in--spoiler alert, this is over 500 words.

Youth
Max Carnage, Johnny Wagner-Svenson, Klaes Ashford, Fitted, Jølngüštrâädüvich DuBølk, Mit Wobet, John Brown, and Tibuk Soonika.

Here are the u66 players on the Barracuda that make up the conceivable near-future core. To start, we have the near-prime John Brown. He gets into the conversation of, he’s approaching his prime but he’s far enough removed from the heat of regression that he can easily be the teams 1D when they’re competitive.

DuBolk, Ashford, Wagner-Svenson, and Fitted are going to be the obvious core going forward. All within 200 TPE of each other, all S69, there’s no reason not to project top 6/top 4 out of each player here. Realistically in their prime, Brown and DuBolk are backing up a Cuddle - Ashford - Svenson line. The biggest positive for Tampa Bay through these first 5 players is the user recognition. We have the J commish on top of multiple recognizable high-earning users in AS360, MCP, and Leoben. And of course, we gotta mention the media GOAT Fitted. This current core has the makings of a strong league presence as they move forward.

Beyond those 5, Wobet is another huge piece for the defense of the team. Remember me saying that the DuBolk - Brown pairing was going to be huge? Well the biggest threat to that pairing is another top earning RD behind Brown. And all that means is whoever is taking on 2RD responsibilities is being complimented with a peak defender. 3 seasons off of the main core we will still see Max Carnage–another high-pace earner at forward. In the name of projecting a lineup, we of course see a dangerous 1-2 punch with Ashford-Carnage (not to mention the potential that Crazy Tomato can be a cost-controlled long-term 3C with LR presence).

Oh yeah, and how are they going to be complimented? A S70 goalie above 1K TPE in Tibuk Soonika. Of course the FHM question is always going to be “is it a positive for a team to have a high earning goalie?” and I’m not really qualified to answer that. But what I do know is that Tampa Bay does not have to worry about acquiring a netminder as long as there’s mutual interest in Soonika sticking with the team.

Prime
There’s not that much to talk about with players in their prime. Biemans and Messer are the two players that stand out as 1K+, right into/around regression players. If we’re thinking of prime S69 being a contention window, so ~S77-78 there’s different paths to go on for two prominent players. Biemans is another long-time user on the site in Katth, and they’re going to have options going forward. They will be on their prime on a team that has the pieces to compete but is waiting for the team to take a step forward–but are they willing to spend their prime waiting for that next step?

As we’re going to see, there are plenty of open roles on Tampa’s current roster to fill so I feel it’s an easy decision to hold on to players like Messer and especially Biemans while they can. With only 2 young, productive wingers on the roster today I figure it would be the best move to keep productive players through any growing pains to raise the chance that Tampa gets to continually push LR engagement through competitive seasons. They won’t be blocking young players on the up–with 3 wing prospects on pace, it becomes a question of what those players want to do. But for me, that’s still just a 1 winger surplus that Biemans can survive through with surplus provided by a potential trade of a younger player to supplement the current core, or an older player to recoup prospects/picks for future use.

Veterans
There are a good number of players that are seemingly finishing up careers in Tampa. Or at least sub 1K, regression players. Lesgo Brandon is already retired, Holden Steady, Zomp, Aaron Wilson, etc. are unlikely to fight through regression to be better than up and coming prospects while the team wants to win. There’s not a whole lot to speak on for this section, just looking at the potential for 5+ spots to be up for grabs whenever the next generation is ready to take it by the reins.

Prospects
Speaking of the next generation, hoooo boy. Not going to go into every player here, but Svatos is coming up, and we’ve got 2 more strong users in Trella and Trashae ready to jump up as soon as next season–if not sooner. I also gave a shoutout to Crazy Tomato earlier, and while they’re lower on TPE ranks from what I’ve seen there’s activity there to be pushing the roster–if the GOAT Wilson is every ready to hang up the skates there’s an open spot for them to hop into.

One thing to note for Tampa is that they’re pool is very defense heavy. They’re S73 class is all defense–they’ve got the aforementioned 3 wingers ready to jump to the SHL, but they’ve got 3 SHL spots on D they need to fill through the prime years. The interesting wrinkle is going to be how they approach the upcoming draft–they are going to be getting a free Shawn Pawn so that fills an eventual winger spot, and with that in mind there’s no obvious position of need. Trella is an obvious top 4 baller, they’re going to have 3 young LWs with Pawn, Murray, and Svatos. Craig is someone I hadn’t mentioned yet but that’s another RW. With Biekmans already on LW, positional flexibility is going to give them a maxed out roster.

The obvious point to say here is that not every player in the system is a sure bet to pan out, but just on name recognition alone it’s hard to imagine the players themselves not working out and it’s hard to predict who may want to stay or go in free agency. To me this screams BPA in the draft. They could potentially lean centre since they’ll have no C prospects once Tomato is up. Bjorntjast might be gone by the time they pick, but Murdock & Banes are down there for a Carolina connection that can slip through to them. Realistically position doesn’t matter, I just wanted to put my player in this piece.

The main takeaway I have here is that with the position of the S74 draft class, there is no shortage of prominent recreates that would fit in with Tampa Bay’s current makeup of established users. With their high potential core they really can’t go wrong with S74. Let the Cuda cook, Fitted4Life.