The SMJHL regular season is now underway. We're two days into the season, with every team having played 5 or 6 games, and, if you were to take a look at the standings right now, you would notice one team at the bottom - the Nevada Battleborn. NBB, so far, are the only team to not only have 0 wins, but also 0 points on the board. Their stats look pretty grim, with the most notable being goal differential at a whopping -21. Ouch. That's 6 goals for and 27 against, meaning that the Battleborn, on average, concede 4.5 goals per game. Let's start with the goals against. What's the problem here? Why are they being scored on so much?

For goals against, the first place you always want to look are the goalies. Goalie is, arguably, the most important position in hockey, and if your goalie is conceding over 4 goals per night you can't reasonably expect to be winning games all that often. Looking at the goalies, their starter, Willie Miller, is a rookie, currently at 242 TPE. Their backup, Harley Fank, is a 155 TPE inactive. So is that it? Is it just inexperienced goalkeeping? Well... no. They may not have super high TPE numbers, but if you take a look at their stats, the Battleborn's goalies are doing well. Very well, in fact, especially Miller, who, with 4 games under his belt, is sitting at a very strong .926 SV%, the second highest in the league (excluding goalies with 1 game played) only behind Anaheim's Zhen Roza. Fank is doing alright as well, having had two starts and, despite a 4.05 GAA, keeping up a .913 SV%.

So if the goalies are not the problem, then it's time to look at the defense. And if you take a little look at Nevada's shots against, this confirms our theory. 332 total. That's across 6 games. Nevada's goalies have to deal with, on average, 53.66 shots per game. In fact, in a recent game Willie Miller had to face 76 shots. Somehow, he saved 73 of them. I don't know what the record is for saves made in a single game, but surely that has to be close to it at the very least.

Why does NBB's defense suck though? Well, two of them are rookies (Doug Glatt and Melvin Majestik-Moose) and one is an inactive center (Vladlen Sidorov, 286 TPE) who appears to be being played as a defenseman as the team only has 5 defensemen on its roster. But it actually isn't even the defense that I would say is their biggest sore point right now - that "award" definitely goes to their offense. Especially their centers.

The Nevada Battleborn have 12 forwards (excluding Sidorov) signed to their roster. Out of those 12... a whopping 10 ARE ROOKIES. It really shouldn't come as a surprise that the team is struggling, with an offense so inexperienced and low in TPE. As for why I mentioned the centers as their biggest weakness? Well, right now, all 4 of them are rookies. And not only are they all rookies, but the highest TPE center they have is Ahlo Kysoka. A player currently at 212 TPE. As for their other three centers? They haven't had a single update come in yet. Their 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines are all being centered by players who, in the sim, are at 155 TPE.

However, things aren't all bad in the Silver State. Not at all. The present looks grim, and this season, barring some sort of miracle run or Willie Miller somehow ascending even further into godhood, looks like a write-off, that's... honestly fine. Because, if these rookies remain active and keep updating, which many of them do appear to be doing, the Battleborn are set to become an absolute MENACE for a good few seasons. Not only that, but this upcoming draft is expected to be a Reddit draft - one larger than most other seasons, with an extra-deep talent pool to choose from. Even if this season does go terribly for them, that just means they get better picks for what is expected to be an absolute banger draft. Well, aside from the fact that they don't actually own their - or any team's, for that matter - 1st or 3rd for next season. The picks that they do have will be improved by their poor performance this year, though, and the Battleborn, in 1-2 seasons time, should be expected to be, at the absolute minimum, a cup contender.

Approved! +5 TPE @monochroma