1. Geoffrey Allen is an interesting story in the SHL in terms of how he’s done over his career and specifically his postseason successes and failures. Allen was once drafted to the Texas Renegades and immediately became a solid player for them, putting up an impressive 37 points in only his 3rd season in the SHL. Allen also eventually took over the reins of management for the Renegades, eventually leading them from the basement to one of the top teams in the Western Conference. Although it was lengthy and saw many failed attempts, Allen finally put together the perfect roster with the perfect lines and managed to win the Challenge Cup. While this might not seem like a “hardship” to some, I think it’s really impressive how long Allen stuck to his plans and eventually was rewarded a cup win. After this cup win Allen decided to step back from the management side of things, which allowed the Texas GM to trade his player while they started to retool. Allen was traded to Manhattan and in his old age was able to really dominate and help his team reach the cup finals. I find it really awesome that Allen, having just been shipped to a new team with after only playing on one team his entire career prior, was able to slide right into that top line role and kick some ass.


2. Since this is the only task I can homer it up on, I’m going to take advantage of that and talk about my beloved Wolfpack. In the 7 games that the New England played against the Manhattan Rage in the 1st round of the SHL Playoffs, there were very few consistent players from the squad. Dieter Dominique, Raven Silverwing, Jasper Clayton, sure they all played well, but all of those players had some trouble keeping consistent, however one player really put the team on their back and that is goaltender Mikke Laukkanen. Laukkanen had a very off S37, which helped the Wolfpack miss the playoffs for the first time in seasons. However, in S38 Laukkanen had a bounce back year of sorts, and that was demonstrated perfectly in the playoffs. Laukkanen faced a total 229 shots and managed to save all but 16 of those goals, which resulted in an impressive .930 save percentage and a great goals against average of 2.26. Overall Laukkanen was a bright spot in an otherwise dull playoff run for the Wolfpack.


4. Since all of the other rookies had pretty piss poor playoff performances, I’m going to do what I’d imagine everyone else did and talk about Roman Augustus. Augustus joined the Dragons this season and became a pretty important part of their unexpected Challenge Cup run. Augustus logs roughly 21 minutes a night for the Dragons, which as a rookie, is no small feat by any means. Right now he seems to be a bit snake-bitten when it comes to scoring goals, but he’s definitely done well in the assists category, putting up 9 of em’ in the 16 games he played. He certainly has made a name for himself as a possible break out player for next season, which I assume he will accomplish with ease. Although he was a -4, and clearly needs to work on his game in almost every aspect, he still seems like a promising and dedicated player who will have a long and successful career. Best of luck to him.


6. Since I’m actually an SHL coach this task pains me quite a bit. Just needed to say that. If I were the coach of the Calgary Dragons I’d be looking at a few changes to their defensive game and their special teams, specifically. First of all, I don’t know what the hell they were thinking dropping Joe Kurczewski from forward to D on the power play. I’ve had very little success running a forward on the power play defence during my time as a Co-GM and as a coach. I’d probably drop Mike Izzy, who’s been having a pretty rough playoffs, and move Kurczewski alongside Randleman and Pedersen on that first line to emulate their dominate 1st forward line. I’d also run a 1-0-4 on that line, just because they aren’t strong enough in the passing game to get away with running a 0-0-5 on the power play. I’d slot in Forsberg on that 2nd line power play and I’d probably drop them from 40% to 35%, and I’d highly consider running 1 point in physical or 1 point in defence, since I just don’t think they’ve played well enough so far. Aside from that, their team looks really solid, but at the very least I’d probably utilize that fourth line on both offence and defence a bit more than they currently do.