That I played as well as I did. When the skipper came to me at the start of the season and said I'd be splitting time with a new goalie, I was a little skeptical. Just coming off my first full season as a starter, blew chunks pretty hard thanks to a good amount of inexperience, so I was looking forward to a new season after an offseason of growth. So, they come to me and say they're gonna give this rookie a good share of starts. Not the majority, mind you, but a bigger chunk than I got my first season. I thought, well, okay, that's fine, but I probably won't do as well as I'd like. In hindsight, fewer games probably helped me look better. I'm happy we performed as well as we did as a team, as well. Coming from dead last to 2nd in the division is a huge jump and everyone showed how hard they worked in the offseason. Hopefully we can recreate that same jump and just dominate the coming season.

There is only one right answer, and it's immunity to penalties. Like, wow, they have an extra skater, big deal we can just hack them down all game with literally zero repercussions. Probably says a lot about me that the first thought I had when I read this question was "nice so we can basically murder them on the ice and get away with it". Any other answer is just honestly wrong. Plain wrong. You're telling me you'd rather have one extra skater than the ability to crosscheck as hard as you want and get away with it? You can bully the goalie as much and as hard as you want and zero consequences! Fuck and extra skater, lemme kill em.

Definitely Hugo Gronroos. I mean, have you seen how well he stays hydrated? On top of having INSANE stats without even setting foot in the league. A crisp, clean, lock for Hall Of Fame and he hasn't even set foot in the league. Although, things could change. As I said, he hasn't even played a minute in an SHL rink, so there's always the chance that he doesn't keep up this brisk Hall of Fame pace and just fizzles out before he has the chance, but I mean, come on. It's in his blood. There's just no shot he doesn't continue to crush it. If anything, he's only going to turn the heat up and dominate EVEN harder now, in my opinion. No doubt in my mind, if Hugo Gronroos continues his pace for ten more seasons, he's a hard lock for the Hall of Fame. Take that check to the bank.

I think I've got to do better in the locker room. I think I played well enough in our run, and maybe it's just one of those things where your best isn't as good as their best and there's not much you *can* do differently, but it can't hurt to try and be the leader I really should be at this stage. Going into my fourth season and I'm kind of just the silent veteran right now, I don't say much or rock any boats and maybe that has to change. Maybe I need to be the leader I know I can be, and the one this squad deserves. Aside from that, I just need to hit the treadmill, hit the pool, stay fit, stay prepared for anything. Honestly, as a keeper, trying to figure out what you need to do better and working on that is a little hard. There's only so much reflex training that can be done, right? It's not like, as a defenseman you can just say "I need to be faster" or "I need to be stronger". The best I can do is have someone come with me to the rink and fire shots at me for hours, which while productive, doesn't *feel* like I'm doing all I can to improve.


Obviously NL. We played really well during the season, being third overall in the standings I believe. We go out in the second round, and it's like, you know, we can do much better than that. We're that capable. Especially given who we lost to. I mean no disrespect, but with all the data we have on the season, there's no reason we shouldn't just wipe the floor with those boats, and that's frustrating. When you know you can roll someone and they roll you instead. It's humbling and infuriating. We've just got to channel that into positive improvement now.

Honestly, international play is just a vacation to me, I don't put much thought into it, and there's not much investment given I'm usually loaned off to another squad for the games so I've got no national pride or anything going on. I predict whoever did well last tournament, will do well this tournament. That's usually how these things go. It's hard to improve as a national squad since growth is always pretty much locked to how well your homegrown prospects come up. There's some limited transfers between nations, but it's organic growth or none at all for the most part. Maybe the UK can show up and do something in the WJC. That's who I'm with this tournament, and they seem solid so we'll do our best to bring some hardware to an underrepresented region. I think I got third with Sweden a bit ago, so maybe we can do as well as that. That'd be nice, I think.



https://simulationhockey.com/showthread....pid3010990