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ec06aaj · 12-24-2023, 07:36 PM

"You come at the king, you best not miss."

As I write this, stuffed so full of turkey and roast potatoes that my body fat percentage is 112, we are in the 74th season of the SHL and as fans, are privileged enough to bear witness to arguably the best offensive talent the SMJHL has ever seen enough. There have been exceptional attacking players in the 73 seasons before now - the legendary Falcon Billy Herrington, for one, and the Battleborn pairing of Bender Junior and Alekss Ivanova that frankly should have been made illegal - but with 15 games to go in the regular season, all eyes are going to be focused on Quebec City and watching the last drive for greatness of Jeff Hunziker.

Picked by QCC in the second round of the S71 entry draft, 17th overall, the post-draft reactions were fairly bearish on Hunziker - even a re-draft done a year later only had him sneaking up to 10th, rather than the podium spots any sane person would surely have him sitting in were the same experiment to be redone today - and the following year's draft for the big leagues again had him slip out of the first altogether, falling to the Minnesota Monarchs at #24. Perhaps the snubs were taken personally by the then-undersized centre as, after two years of fine offensive performances with rancid plus/minus numbers, Hunziker dropped a furious 103 point and 52 goal season on the rest of the league. He's on pace to break those numbers this season as well, at 56 goals and 105 points if the torrid rate of scoring continues.

Right now, Hunziker has legitimate shots at setting three records. He's basically locked on to take the all-time SMJHL goalscoring record off Bender Junior, needing just three tallies to pick that one up. 11 powerplay points will push him above Tony Soprano's 142 to take the win there, which is a harder ask but by no means impossible. The third, and least likely, is the overall point-scoring mark - Hunziker sits at 331 and third in the list, behind Bender Junior's 351 and Alekss Ivanova on 360. By his current rate, he'll end second: 24 points would move him above Bender Junior but just not quite be enough to take the top spot. It seems highly unlikely the Citadelles would put individual success over the team like this, but when you have a genuine chance at something that would put you in the record books you have to wonder.

But Hunziker's achievements aren't what this is being written about. My question is: who's next? Who out there has the ability to chisel their name in the great stone tablets of SMJHL history? For the purposes of this, we're obviously going to be ignoring all of the players who, like Hunziker, are in their senior season. They've had four years to challenge the top dogs and unless Joseph Reed turns the difficulty on the league down to "rookie", he's not going to even make it onto the podium. Sorry folks, better luck next life.

THE FRESHMEN
OK, in fairness, this probably a bad place to start but I've got to keep some suspense going. It's more or less pointless to truly speculate because of the tiny sample size - nevertheless, a few players have hit the ice running (skating?). Cob O'Corn leads all rookies in goals scored with 23, points with 52* and is tied in assists with 29 along with Nevada's Literally Wizard, which is something of a surprise playing on a Kraken team that has otherwise been fairly moribund offensively; how much of that could be down to getting first-line minutes right from the word go is an exercise for the reader. Check in here in a couple of years time.

For comparison purposes, in his rookie year, Hunziker played all 66 games with a statline of 27 - 41 - 68. Cob isn't far off: at this rate, he'll finish with 30 goals, 37 assists and 67 points.

*The reason for the asterisk is Harry Sachs, who had an excellent rookie year with Newfoundland in season 72 and then seemed to drop off the face of the earth entirely before resurfacing a couple of weeks ago. What this means for his status as a rookie, sophomore or suchlike is for the league to decide and you and I to speculate wildly on Reddit about.

THE SOPHOMORES
Here's where things get a bit more interesting. For comparison, through his first two years, Hunziker's numbers sat at 63 goals (0.477 per game), 84 assists (0.636 per) and 132 points (1.114 per).

Leading the class in goal-scoring, Quebec City's Froya Solberg and Shadow Fenix of the balls firmly to the wall Colorado Raptors are tied with 64, and a handful of other players have broken past 50 - Langston Hardison-Lauren, Deep Thought and Sabage Cabage all in a good position to pick up the pace and prove the old saw about the third-year explosion true. Deep Thought has the potential to be the real gem of this class, however, with 91 assists and not even two full seasons done yet; he's currently averaging 0.739 assists per game more than Hunziker, over 100 games the computerised cruiser would pick up another 10 helpers.

In terms of points, three players are currently hitting for bigger numbers than the potential goat - Thought racking 146 (1.187 per game), Fenix with 137 (1.181 per, thanks to a handful of games Thought played with Anchorage before his draft year) and Hunziker's own teammate Celeste Desjardins on 140 (1.197 per). But what's more interesting is the usage - Fenix and Desjardins have done this with at least a year as one of their team's starting forwards, whereas Deep Thought has been utilised on the Armada's nominal second line. Is this a case of a player benefitting from not playing against opposing teams' top lines more, or is Thought outscoring the field in lesser time a product of sheer skill? Next year is going to be spicy on that front - Joseph Reed's time in the SMJHL will also be up, whereas Fenix could get another full year with Jussi Mutou and Xavier Beausoleil by his side.

THE JUNIORS
Now the potential killers. Again, for comparison, after his third season Hunziker's line read 115 goals (0.581 per game), 135 assists (0.682 per) for 250 points (1.263 per) - a definite uptick on his form from the previous two years because the third-year boost is an SMJHL phenomenon that we may not be able to explain but can't argue doesn't exist. Unfortunately, the same applies for everybody chasing his records.

The aforementioned Jussi Mutou ties with Aksel VINSen for goalscoring, both being the only third-year players to break the century so far, although Cameron Dallas (98) and Lily Jin Morrow (92) will potentially join them before the end of the year. This does mean all four of the snipers are going to have a lot of work to catch Hunziker, however - 14 goals for Mutou or VINSen isn't completely out of the question if unlikely, 17 for Dallas is stretching it and the 31 games Morrow missed in her first season is going to cost her dearly in the long run.

Assists is a different story. Another Citadelle shows up on the list but this time, the gap is wide - Ryland Murphy hasn't recorded less than 45 helpers since joining the league and his 158 (0.863 per game) is almost 30 ahead of nearest rival Xavier Beausoleil. At this clip, not only is he likely to beat Hunziker but the all-time assist record is looking extremely vulnerable as well - currently the number to beat there is 212, set by Mr. Gray T White, and Murphy needs 55 before he graduates to crack that nut. Losing Hunziker won't help that, but perhaps Desjardins and the two Solbergs will see him there? That's a race to watch, for sure.

Total points, unfortunately, is back to Hunziker all over. VINSen (225), Mutou (214) and Murphy (210) are all a fair way back already, and bear in mind they'd be going up against at least an 81-point year from Hunziker this season. Any of the three could post a three-figure final season, but making up that deficit and still keeping pace with the (relatively young) old dog this year seems like an extremely tall order.

IN SUMMARY
The fact I've written 1,500 words about the possibility of the SMJHL's players catching Hunziker and am about to conclude that the chances of any doing it are slim to none should cement his place as the best forward the league has ever seen, and certainly the best pure scorer. Watching Deep Thought and Shadow Fenix the rest of this season and into the next will be fun, though - if either of them really explode in their third year then it's entirely possible Hunziker's records will fall as quickly as he set them. There's plenty of ice in front of them to cover, though.

[1573 words]

***Jexter*** · 12-24-2023, 08:23 PM

Why have a third year goal explosion when you can have a second year goal explosion

ec06aaj · 12-24-2023, 08:58 PM

12-24-2023, 08:23 PMJexter Wrote: Why have a third year goal explosion when you can have a second year goal explosion

what if you have two explosions though

pioneer the third year nuclear test

ThisSeemsFishy · 12-24-2023, 10:58 PM

Every time I think Jussi Mutou is doing great, I look up in the rankings and see Jeff Hunziker and weep. I’m
Comin for ya! I promise.

credit to MuNk22 for the sig

***Jexter*** · 12-27-2023, 12:03 PM

12-24-2023, 08:58 PMec06aaj Wrote:
what if you have two explosions though

pioneer the third year nuclear test

Langston's Oppenheimer Arc

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