I had a bit of a disappointing season, even by my relatively mediocre standards. As an offensive defenseman, I expect to be able to contribute on the scoring side of the game, which didn’t happen in either Baltimore, or Toronto (where I was traded). My takeaways were back near the top of the league, where they were 2 seasons ago, so that was pleasant to see. And once I was on Toronto, my defensive game rating went way up. I would often lead the team in games I played there, so that was nice to see. I’m not sure if it’s relative, or if I was doing something right. Either way, I was happy to see that. I’m hoping to build further and see what I can do defensively for a whole season. Probably not expecting much scoring though. Overall, I’d call this season disappointing for me, but there was enough there that I like what the next couple seasons before regression look like.


In general, the SHL seems to have a major lack of parity. The top teams are the top by a light year, while the bottom teams are basically irrelevant. I see this continuing, possibly to the worst we’ve seen this upcoming season. However, balancing the wealth should improve this in the long run. Hopefully. Every team will lose a player, mostly of limited value. To write about it from one team’s perspective would be to cover a negligible impact. No team is going to be gutted, and the expansion teams are both going to end up in the same place. With a lackluster starting roster. While this may be bleak, the teams are primed for decent draft positions, and in a matter of a handful of seasons both will be poised to make the jump. Both expansion teams are going to start out with the same advantage, the difference will come from how the GMs deal with the hand they are dealt. The individuals selected will likely not matter and factor into great team success, but they may be useful assets here shortly.


Sure, there should be SHL expansion teams all over the world eventually! Spread the game and get access to fans all over in order to maximize profits and enjoyability. In a meta answer, why not? There’s no travel. As long as there are actual European fans and players in the SHL, we should try to accommodate them by representing regions/countries/cities of their choosing. It wouldn’t hurt, it would just be a neat thing to have for the game. It shouldn’t really impact anyone in a negative way, unless someone is really opposed to going against “tradition”. I only see positive reasons for doing it.


The Edmonton Blizzard were the best team to not make the finals. I thought it should have been a Stampede - Blizzard matchup. Edmonton had a fantastic record, matching the champion Buffalo team in regular season points, though finishing with one fewer win. I like the Blizzard roster, I thought they performed extremely well and proved they had what it takes to win. They probably would have done well in the finals. From my very limited look at the finals, it seemed like the team that beat them and lost in the finals was doing some questionable things with their tactics. Dirty play got around a team poised for a chance at glory. Unfortunate, but the way things go.


Well if we’re going off of the previous example, the United States is going to blast every team on their way to an easy gold. That would be the safe pick, and will probably be the favorite. I think Canada will “surprise” by beating the American juggernaut. Good team, if they get the tactics together, they could win. I’m not sure about the WJC tourney, that’s probably a crapshoot, but I haven’t looked enough into it to give a decent opinion. Great Britain looked good in the last IIHF Tourney, so I’ll pick them to do worse for no real reason other than them being British. Sorry, folks, not up for discussion. I don’t envy anyone in the American side of the grouping, probably going to be a whole bunch of losses. I hope it’s better for the middling teams. An upset by someone like Austria would be good to see, however unlikely against the “top” teams.



A: I’m gonna go with New Orleans, seeing as they have every player set to a defensive style in the tactics. Probably makes them pretty hard to score on. The Stampede gave up the fewest goals in the regular season, which is quite impressive. But it doesn’t seem like they want to go with exclusively defensive forwards and two-way dmen.

B: I don’t expect home ice to play any real impact in this series. I expect back and forth action, and probably a game 7 finish, like what we saw with the New Orleans series before in the semi finals against the Edmonton Blizzard. Home ice and last change seems to be an overrated impact if the coaches aren’t doing anything about it.

C: Yes, but not necessarily a positive one. Higher aggression and fighting will probably just lead to more PIMs for New Orleans, giving Buffalo more chances to score on the power play. In the future, I would look to players adapting and teams deploying softer more skill based lineups, even in defensive roles. Overly aggressive players aren’t going to add many positives to a lineup.


TPE: 16/16