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***Frenchie*** · 11-11-2022, 04:34 PM

Parts 1 and 2 are ready to be graded, please reach out to me so I can provide the excel spreadsheet for grading as well)

The Hockey News

SHL S68 Power Rankings
by : Tukin Boutus

**Disclaimer I guess before people treat this too seriously that this is in no way based on a strong causal relationship between user balancers and team balances and success in the sim or not**

Growing with the league as a newcomer in sports journalism, its good time I take my talents to SHL coverage. After a succesful start in coverage of SMJHL events, I bring you my first ever in-depth piece on SHL matters in the form of pre-season SHL power rankings for the 68th season. As a new metric to judge talent and position teams, I have decided to use bank balances which provides insight in a players ability to properly develop and train which in turn provides valuable insight on how much they could potentially positively impact their teams performance on the ice. After shutting down any and all slander on PDO as a valuable stat, here I am bringing you all a fresh analytical perspective. This two part series will hopefully provide valuable insight on what's to come and what we can expect for the upcoming SHL season!

The above chart shows the declination of SHL teams and the average bank balances of their players in decreasing order. As such, we can safely assume that the top teams have top bank builders which makes earning for them easier and thus ensures a continuity in TPE earning and progression which will translate in better performances as the season goes. Variables such as regression and average age of the players are not considered in this demonstration, although important. The idea is that they very well must influence performance, and we will try and anticipate how valuable this data is in establishing league favorites. We will therefore go in order by lowest average balance to highest average balance and attempt to nuance these results and understand how and why averages are high.

20.

Montreal Patriotes - North East Division

In last place of average user banks, the Montreal Patriotes. I won't sugar coat it, its quite a mixed bag for the Quebec based franchise. Despite a surprising run in the S67 playoffs and despite most analysts finding them to have some of the best odds of hoisting the cup in the upcoming season, the Patriotes find themselves in somewhat of a predicament when it comes to maintaining this kind of success in the short, medium and long term. With the lowest recorded average of a few hundred thousands under the twenty million mark, this might be a sign of what's to come for them, more-so that their average seems very bloated by impresssive numbers from lilstifler and NJBadApple leading the way with respectively 147 and 84 million dollar balances. Remove them from the equation and the average drops to a hair over 10 million. Let's hope for them that all 17 other users can start pulling their weight and keep showing up for trainings to help Montreal who is looking to build on their ongoing momentum.

19.

Texas Renegades - Central Division

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As runners-up to the poorest SHL team, the Texas Renegades should not be too quick in rejoicing as only around 600k seperates the bottom two. To their credit, the Renegades have been going through a rebuild in the previous years, so it iss expected in their case that they find themselves at the bottom of these power rankings. They have quite a good amount of users near the team average, which indicates that the team is evenly in trouble as far as the prospect of sustained earning for most of these players around the 20 million mark, a number that just about enables them to max earn during the season. It will be important to keep up with their money making to see how well they can move up if they can provide assistance to bbjygm who iss clearly pulling the average as far up as he can without much success with near 148 million in the bank.

18. Platoon

Baltimore Platoon - Atlantic Division

Off the back of an expectedly bad season, the Baltimore Platoon were counting on the 68th SHL draft to kickstart their rebuild with 8 picks in the first two rounds. This shows in their average which, alike other teams, is being artificially kept relevant by an impresssive bank from trips (hhh81). Despite this, encouraging signs of whats to come with many of their recruits contributing great numbers, namely NYR73 and Ruggsy who are well above the average team balance and poised to make a lasting impact on their new home.

17.

Minnesota Monarchs - Central Division

The Minnesota Monarchs have been flirting with the bottom of the standings for a few seasons now, having finished 17th in 64, 20 in 65, 19 in 66 and 20 again this past season. This has set them up with high picks for their drafts and they have done a good job stocking up on prospects. All in all, 7 players heard their name called by the Monarchs in the 1st round of the previous four drafts. In essence, this causes the team average to be expectedly low around the 20 million mark with so many prospects looking to make their way into the Monarchs lineup in the upcoming seasons. To their credit, they are not dead last which adds to the hopeful atmosphere that currently reigns in Minnesota.

16.

New Orleans Specters - Central Division

Lousiana's finest hockey team is looking to keep pushing for a Challenge Cup win. They have good pieces among team, as showed their more than decent 6th place finish last season. They were able to get good pieces during the last draft that they hope contribute to a continued success of the team. This is why it was so surprising to see them at the 16th rank in our data analysis. After considering the results, the smaller locker room size as well as the big gaps between top money holders and the bottom ones kind of show that despite them being at 16th, they have a good amount users near the average, either above or below which hints to a better situation than this ranking proposes. That being said, the fact there are still a considerable amount of low balances poses question marks on whether or not the Specters can move forward as a contender for SHL honours.

15. Rage

Manhattan Rage - Atlantic Division

Alike the Montreal Patriotes which found themselves at the bottom of these rankings, the Manhattan Rage are hot off a finals appearance that saw them fold to the mighty Seattle Argonauts in seven games, just coming short of hoisting the Challenge Cup, what would have been a first title for the New-York team in quite a while. Also alike their northern counterpart, they find themselves in the bottom quarter of teams on this power ranking. That being said, 9 players above the average out of 19 players, which again shows that extremes hinder a solid average. Ceylon (or Shindigs) is looking to skyrocket earnings and contribute to elevating an already decent Manhattan side that could end up very high as the season progessses.

14.

Hamilton Steelhawks - North East Division

After an impressive run of form that saw them lift the Challeng Cup six times between season 51 and season 63, the Hamilton Steelhawks find themselves in a bit of a lull, a redifinition period where they'll try to find their way back to the top of the league and contend once more. Its tough to call or highlight specific monetary trends for this team, with many players hovering close but not close enough the average line with three leading the way and two doing better than the average. It seems to be a case of continuing growth for the Ontario based team that looks to keep developing their talent in hopes that they can aspire to be champions once more. Nonetheless, they find themselves far from the bottom with an average of just about 30 million, and in a position where they can believe to be on the up.

13.

Edmonton Blizzard - Pacific Division

The above graph can be deceptive with the scale starting at 50 million, but we quickly see that they have a fair amount of users hovering around the 40 million mark, which puts them in a comfortable enough position to where they can be allowed to expect a rise in form in the coming years. Having built from the draft, the Alberta based team can count on a fair amount of prospects on the rise, with Justice, MN_Moosey, SloppyPainter and Sopath among the group who are looking to have a good impact on the team. It is up to them now to put the effort in, earn their TPE through training and help raise their teams average to allow them to be confident about their ability to keep earning at a high level for seassons to come.

12. Inferno

Atlanta Inferno - Atlantic Division

The second most recent team to have won the Challeng Cup after last seasons Seattle Argonauts, the Atlanta Inferno have no intention to slow down in their conquest to once more be crownd SHL champions. Sitting at 12th in user balances, they are comfortably in the middle of the pack and can count on a very good amount of their users, 7 to be exact, whom find themselves sitting pretty above their teams average line established at 33.3 million. To add to that, they also have 3 more users who are poised to smash the average and keep their earning progresssion alive. It will be interesting to see how regresssion continues to affect them, with stars in the lineup living out their final moments in the league. At that point, prospects new and less new will have to start showing up to carry more of the earning load to keep the Inferno's hopes of another cup alive.

11.

Los Angeles Panthers - Pacific Division

The Los Angeles Panthers have gone on a fire sale in the recent years. After an impressive championship run that saw them claim the highest honours in season 65, the Californian franchise has started a rebuilding process after sending away some of their staple players, such as Luukas lilja and Jimmy Wagner who have gone on to win another cup last season with the Seattle Argonauts, and more recently Rock Strongo who took his talents to Toronto. This obviously impacted their average as they were all high earning users that would have contributed in potentially solidifying a top 10 presence for the Panthers. That being said, they hope to build off of their 3rd Overall selection, Derek Martin (ItsFrenchie) who sits at the 15 million mark after having expensed 9.5 million recently for training and expecting a big pay day for the previous season. Other than that, they can count on numerous other prospects such as JR95 and some vetern presence and high earners to keep their average high at just under 37

This is it for part one of this analysis. Although gross bank balance numbers were singled out in this analysis, context is put forward to try to explain and nuance rankings in a way that might make more sense. That being said, additional data sets and analysis of these teams, namely TPE cross examniation, will be presented in the conclusion of this dossier, part 2, which will be published shortly.

This was Tukin Boutus for The Hockey news and until next time, take care.

Shylo_Moxii · 11-11-2022, 05:01 PM

Oh don’t worry about Montreal I have 3 and almost 4 jobs about to a bunch of podcasting and media so I’ll get up to a 60 m range. G2019 also picked up a new job