In season 56, the Vancouver Whalers won the Four Star Cup. This will surprise no one, as they had the best record in the league at 39 wins and 11 losses, with no overtime losses. This gave them an eye-watering 78 points, giving them a 16 point lead over Anchorage for the first seed in their conference, and a 14 point lead over the next best team, Carolina. 


Everyone loves analyzing the playoffs, but Vancouver deserves a deep dive on their incredible regular season run too.


Vancouver had a star-studded forward lineup last season, led by Center Daniil Nikiforov, who posted an incredible 23 goals and 31 assists for a total of 54 points, and a plus minus of 31 This was good for an average GR of 66 and a OGR of 69. Five of these goals came a man up, as did nine of his assists. It should be no surprise that Daniil led the league in points. Additionally, he was third in assists and second in goals. He also was second in plus minus. Vancouver also had some great contributors on the wings, with LW Rotticus Scott tallying 14 goals and 25 assists for 39 points, on a plus minus of 26. He posted the highest OGR on the team, with a score of 70, which is also good enough for fourth best in the league. Devin Basher, another LW, put up 15 goals and 21 assists, totaling 36 points with a slightly less impressive plus minus of 12. Despite this plus minus, he had the highest GR on Vancouver, coming in at 67, with 66 OGR and 67 DGR.


While Vancouver had an amazing attack this past season, their true strength was in their defense. Their 169 goals for was only good enough for third in the league, but their 101 goals against was first in the league by 35 goals! Just to hammer home that incredible goal differential, the top four players in plus minus are all Vancouver players, and they have six out of the top ten in that category as well.


Vancouver’s star defender was Zebulon Leavitt. In his 50 games last season, he scored seven goals and 15 assists, totaling 22 points, and had a league leading plus minus of 32. He also posted a crunching 101 hits last season, and had 71 blocked shots, with just 25 penalty minutes. This was good enough for a GR of 61, and OGR of 52, and a DGR of 69. Lonnie O’Donoghue had an equally impressive season, although he only had 15 points, he had a plus minus of 30.


Of course, the most important man on defense is the guy in all the pads with the weird stick. Vancouver was blessed with two excellent goalies last season, with both Name Redacted and Jon St. Ark in the top four for wins. They did this on much fewer games than a typical goalie plays, with Redacted having 27 games and St. Ark having 24 Games. Jon had the lowest GAA in the league by over .6 over teammate Name, who was .2 ahead of any other goalie with more than a handful of appearances. St. Ark also had the highest save percentage of any goalie who played regularly as well.


As you can see, Vancouver was a team that was stacked from the get-go and dominated in nearly every game they played last season.


Approved, +5 TPE @zeagle1