Well I've got some free time so what better to do that review the s39 draft class? Before looking at the number I always thought the S39 class was a pretty weak one, and I found out that I wasn't entirely wrong by thinking that, however there were some pretty amazing pickups to come out of this draft class. We will get into that a bit later, however first I want to give you a bit of a breakdown of how this article is going to look. First im going to redraft the first round based on TPE numbers, (for the purpose of redrafting I will assume that Texas did not have to forfeit their first overall pick because I want them to remember how much that sucked). After that, we will talk about the big winner of this draft and of course, the big loser of this draft. Once we go through that im going to dive into a few individual players like the first overall pick, the worst pick, the best pick and a few others at random. So let get this thing going.
RE-drafting the first round:
Round 1:  


Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
I think its fairly obvious who won this draft. Realistically any team who has nearly 30% of the first round should win the draft, but that isn't what makes this so impressive. The impressive thing is that out of Toronto's eight picks in the s39 draft, seven yes SEVEN of eight are in the top 14 TPe earners of that class. That is either some insane drafting skill, or an incredible ability to motivate players. I understand not all player they drafted in S39 are not on the roster currently, but that doesn't take away from the scouting they did in preparation for this draft.  However there is one glaring absence from the pool or Toronto draft picks from s39... Tommy Tuck, easily one of the top goalies currently in the SHL was drafted by "The Six", so what happened?  Edmonton and Toronto swapped their goalies in a trade on September 28 2018 that saw Tuck and Toronto's S44 First rounder (fourth overall selection Bernard Freeman) shipped to Edmonton for goaltender Michael McFadden and Edmonton's S46 2nd rounder. At the time of the deal Toronto was in win now mode giving the potential of a future star in Tommy Tuck for an instant upgrade in net. Unfortunately for TO, they were not able to win that cup and with McFadden in his regression period, it looks like they could be eyeing up another net-minder upgrade for another run at a cup before resorting to a rebuild. Toronto is still a team that has potential to win a cup soon, but I would expect them to upgrade their net in order to do so. Now this trade may not have been a win for Toronto, but as mentioned earlier, its hard to give the win to anyone else when the North Stars were able to snag a 1121 TPE player in Anders Christansen with the 42nd overall selection.

The flip side
On the other side of the coin we have the losers of the S39 draft and that has to be the Seattle Riot. If Seattle did anything right this draft it was acquiring the right to draft, they selected a league best 12 players out of the S39 draft witch in itself is impressive, we have to look at what remains today.  Only 2 of the Riots players they selected back in S39 remain on their roster today; Kolja Seppänen and Samuel McVay, Ever heard of them? Not likely as the two of these players have a combined 715 TPE (205 and 510 respectively). Lets look at all 12 picks made by the Riot in S39 and see where they are now.


As you can see the results of the picks are VERY VERY underwhelming. This draft was a complete fail by the Riot. When looking at the returns for these players I found that many just fell off into the UFA pool for nothing, some were packaged into trades, and some *cough cough* Ass Pancakes, were driven out of the league entirely. The funny think about the Ass Pancakes trade was the return was their own 2nd round pick in the S44 draft, guess they just wanted to *CTRL+Z* that draft pick...  Out of 12 picks made only 5 are currently on SHL teams, only two of whom play for the Riot... Not a good track record for this draft class.

A Look At The First Overall
So hindsight is 20/20, and looking back at the draft it is really easy to pick apart the mistakes, but were going to do it cause what else do sports journalists do? So the fist overall pick was Fredrich Koenig, and upon looking into his stats, the results are underwhelming to say the least, however that is not in anyway calling Koening a bad player or a bad pick, but at first overall, you just simply expect more than 883 TPE in the players seventh season.  Koening's TPE puts him at number 12 on the S39 TPE depth chart, by no means is this a useless player. Lets break down Koening's point totals by season.


Looking at the number Koening has been pretty consistent in point totals since he entered the SHL, however there is one glaring spot on that chart that im sure caught everyone's eye, that -15 last season is not normal for Koening but it looks like that's going to stay as an outlier as he is back at +1 through 20 games this season. The worst part of this draft pick for Buffalo is that Koening hasn't submitted an updater since October 7 of 2018. The long term user Teztify whom has an impressive track record of SHL players winning five Challenge cups (seasons 7,13, 15, 16, 28) was thought to be a safe pick for Buffalo and had shown commitment to the site for quite some time. Im sure inactivity was not even a thought when they selected Koening first overall, but none the less, circumstances are unfortunate for their club.

The Dark Horse
My dark horse pick was selected 42nd overall by Toronto and has racked up an impressive 1121 TPE, Anders Christansen. the 42nd selection is made with the last pick in round number three, so its pretty safe to say that the cream of the crop has been picked over by then. Only 22 players were selected after Christansen and I think we can say, it was motivational to say the least. The stud 2-way center coming out of Norway has more than impressed his team, but shocked the SHL putting up 41 points in S43, Slight dip in S44 with 32 points, but put beside his +12 rating im sure Toronto is okay with the offensive dip. But Christansen is off to a good start in S45 on pace for another 40 point season. Needless to say, Anders Christansen has made his SHL presence known, rising to become one of the best players from the S39 draft.

The One We've All Been Waiting For...
Now we all know that one does not simply review the S39 draft class and not dedicate a section to our good friend "asspancakes". The star prospect for the Riot was earning TPE at insane paces, topping leader boards across the SMJHL. He was the golden boy who was going to lead this Riot franchise off into the sunset with the challenge cup high above his head. Only thing was, that "head" that was supposed to be under that cup got a little too large for his own good. "AP" as many refer to him now was a large personality, and at times that can get people fired up, and be a useful tool to have, but for some it's a handicap; so high on himself AP figured he could do no wrong. Until he took things a little too far, (and by "a little" I mean he royally fucked up). Racism mixed with homophobia mixed with bullying is a style very few can make look good, and by "very few" I mean no one... Not online, not in real life, and not in a game. Ap took things so far that before he knew it he had an entire community in front of him with nowhere to go, but into to fire; and to his credit he did just that. He faced the community and said he apologies, and after a short time of rebuilding burnt bridges it had seemed like pancakes has put all of this behind him, by now he was traded from Seattle and seemed ready to rebuild his image. Until the old Pancakes came back with vengeance. More racist, more homophobic than before AP had torn down every bridge he had worked to rebuild; he attacked people personally, decimated locker rooms, and eventually it became routine to log onto the SHL forum and read the latest AP apology thread, then hop over to the TD thread to see him in another argument that would foreshadow next weeks apology letter. Needless to say it was ugly, pancakes found himself in such a horrible position that he felt like he needed to take the heat off of him and he couldn't just wait until someone else did something infinitely more stupid. Thus came the birth of the one and only Mr.Shit, he came out guns blazing, racist the whole nine yards. AP was doing everything he could to bring the heat on a made up persona so he could get rid of the haters he brought on himself. The thing is, that it totally would have worked... IF pancakes didn't make it so blatantly obvious that Mr. Shit was in fact an ass pancakes multi. This circle of hate and harassment went on for a while until finally Ass Pancakes didn't have a contract. No one would sign him and to boot SHL HO hit him with a 25 game suspension upon contract signing or player recreation. Since then AP has been sitting in free agency limbo impending suspension and is likely never to see another SHL contract or a return to the league. Ass Pancakes has not logged on to the site since September 17th 2018 and likely will not return as he is well aware of the fire he faces when he arrives.

Conclusion
First of all if you are still reading this thank you, I have put a considerable amount of time into this article and I thoroughly hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did  writing it. Please keep in mind that these are my opinions, some of you may have different winners, losers, and best picks and they may not line up with yours. That being said, id love to hear your feedback, what would you like to see more of? Should I review more draft classes?

Grilled Twinkiez