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wizard_literal · 11-20-2024, 12:10 AM

Well here we are, eight seasons into the league and Gato finds himself saying a heartfelt goodbye to Minnesota after spending the majority of his career there. Being a part of the S72 Carolina Kraken draft class, there were a lot of expectations for Gato. Given how loaded the entire S72 class was with star rookies like Alexandros Mograine, Westley Kirkpatrick, and Bernard Lodge among many others, it was surprising to see Gato land at pick 3rd overall to the Monarchs. There was a lot of excitement for me back then being new to the league and involved with Carolina combined with the comradery of a great draft class, and a lot has happened in the eight seasons since!

There was a brief period of time where my draft position was justified, but as time went on I became more busy across other sim leagues, and less involved here. Now sitting at 22nd in TPE for the class, a far cry from what you’d want for a 3OA pick! With regression around the corner, both sides felt that a move from Gato away from Minnesota would be beneficial. The old cat just wasn’t going to be able to skate with the roster of up and coming young players they have in the Twin Cities. In an effort to not be a completely inactive scrub, let’s try to look back at Gato’s career so far and earn some cash for the last stretch of Gato’s career, which very fittingly I would say the Lazer Cat gets to spend as a Panther!

The Early Days:
Lazer Gato was drafted with pick 7 of the S72 SMJHL draft by the Carolina Kraken, at the time GM’s Frenchie and S7even took a chance on a affiliate league user with such a high pick, perhaps they liked the guaranteed floor I could provide, perhaps I swayed frenchie with the promise of steamed dogs, or maybe they just knew somehow they could still land stud newcreates like Pyro and Slicer later in the draft. Either way, Gato’s career got off to a hot start as he made a name for himself as a Shot Blocker. Not the strongest or fastest player, but boy could this cat chase a puck down and get in the way. Finishing his career in Carolina as the all team lead by a nearly 300 shots blocked margin! Anyway, Gato’s path from the juniors to the major league would be quickly determined as the S72 SHL Entry Draft was quick to approach.

Moving up to the Twin Cities:
With the third overall pick in the S72 SHL Entry Draft, the Minnesota Monarchs select, Lazer Gato! My Juniors GMs kept telling me I’d be in the top 5, although I doubted them the entire way. Realistically I saw the great teammates I had in my same S72 class and was sure they’d be much more worthy of going ahead of a stinky affiliate league user. Overall Minnesota treated me really well and I enjoyed my time there. Big shout out to the GMs recognizing the twilight years of my player’s career could be better spent in sunny L.A. with a shot at getting that elusive title. Either way, back to the draft discussion. As the S72 class is nearing regression, I thought it’d be a fun exercise to take a look back at the draft positions and current TPE. See the risers and faller, and rightfully call myself out for being the draft bust I was destined to be.

Just going over the first round there are a lot of great users here. Special mention to Carolina teammates Alexandros Mograine and Westley Kirkpatrick. Now sitting at the respective 4th and 5th overall in TPE for the class, I wasn’t boasting about that Carolina Kraken team really being something special.

1. Manhattan Rage Rage

- Jaromír Jágrbomb
Current TPE: 1850 (2nd)
Draft Rise/Fall: -1
Starting off with the first overall pick, if I recall at the time Jaromír and Zedward were perceived to land here at the top, and the metrics fully support the speculation. With Jaromír’s bank sitting at a cool $176 million, enough that they likely don’t need to write media like a certain individual we’ll get to in a few picks. This was always set to be a sure fire pick.

2. Hamilton Steelhawks

- Zedward Zilliams
Current TPE: 1893 (1st)
Draft Rise/Fall: +1
Not too much to hash back over here, everything I said for Jaromír can be doubled for Zedward. Although at the time the S72 Draft Class server had a number of Zedward impersonators in its midst, it looks like the General Manager’s over in Hamilton found the right one.

3. Minnesota Monarchs

- Lazer Gato
Current TPE: 1460 (20th)
Draft Rise/Fall: -17
Lmao look at this absolute loser! Hey at least by the metrics I can still call myself barely worthy of staying in the top 20 of the first round and still barely scraping by as active by what the tracker says. Not sure how well I’ll be able to keep up, but let’s set a personal goal of getting this Draft Rise/Fall number down to somewhere around -15 by the end of the career.

4. Toronto North Stars Stars

- Westley Kirkpatrick
Current TPE: 1797 (5th)
Draft Rise/Fall: -1
Westley was my partner in crime on the defensive side of the puck in Carolina. It was no surprise to me seeing his draft position and ability to maintain a TPE total right on par with where he was taken in the draft. S+ grade on this one.

5. Tampa Bay Barracuda

- The Murray
Current TPE: 1644 (10th)
Draft Rise/Fall: -5
Moving into the early middle of the first, a lot of players are within a small margin of TPE so the rise/fall isn’t too much to look into. TBB had multiple first rounders in this draft and did quite well overall starting it off with “The” Murray.

6. Toronto North Stars Stars

- Billy Hill
Current TPE: 1565 (13th)
Draft Rise/Fall: -7
Another one of the many newcreates in S72 that moved up the draft boards with swift a flurry of activity. I think when you’re looking at new users you’re hoping their involvement outweighs any risk of a potential falloff in activity. Billy is a good example of that risk panning out for a team like Toronto.

7. Manhattan Rage Rage

- Austin Morley
Current TPE: 1515 (15th)
Draft Rise/Fall: -8
There’s a run on few users I know from their presence in the ISFL with Morley being the first off the board. Manhattan follows up their easy first overall pick with a rock of a user that they were able to rely on staying active and earning at a steady pace. As mentioned the slight dip in TPE to relative draft position is more or less common in the middle of the 1st here so an overall smart pick going with soevil who I think many had going top 5 in the mock drafts.

8. Hamilton Steelhawks

- Trevor Lahey
Current TPE: 1828 (3rd)
Draft Rise/Fall: +5
Another user I know from affiliate leagues! Although I believe the SHL was the first of the sim league addiction for Mr. Trevor Lahey. Digdoug(also known as Diglas) is a machine that turns out TPE tasks on the regular. Having risen all the way to 3rd in relative TPE this was a certified steal for Hamilton.

9. Hamilton Steelhawks

- Activity Check
Current TPE: 1656 (9th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +0
And coming in at 9th overall, the only player to leave the first with a net zero on rise/fall, we have Activity Check. Weaves is an awesome dude, and it couldn’t be more fitting that the player titled “Activity Check” was the most consistent with relative draft to TPE position.

10. Calgary Dragons Dragons

- Arthur Kaliyev
Current TPE: 1175 (24th)
Draft Rise/Fall: -14
Somewhat of a falloff here, although not nearly as much as that bust Gato who went in the top 3 picks. This is the part of the article where I want to clarify I with no intention am trying to call anyone a bad pick! Arthur looks to still be active which is a win in my book. Sometimes life gets in the way and you miss a few points tasks. Calgary being a team with a bevy of picks in this class was able to hit big on much later so it all evens out.

11. New Orleans Specters

- Bernard Lodge
Current TPE: 1762 (6th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +5
For those that know Uptown, you know the only reason we saw a fall like this was due to his choice of sticking to the Goalie position. As is clear by the Rise of an entire 5 spots in relative TPE, Bernard Lodge was a great pick tied to a fantastic user.

12. Calgary Dragons Dragons

- Jaden Tanner
Current TPE: 1442 (21st)
Draft Rise/Fall: -9
Calgary coming in with the second of three first round picks. Jaden Tanner has stayed dependable in the TPE category, and is part of a roster that’s in their peak nearly pushing their way into the 3rd round of the S79 Playoffs after beating the Panthers and seeing a close game 7 loss to San Francisco.

13. Toronto North Stars Stars

(via Panthers) - Remington Richardson III
Current TPE: 590 (29th)
Draft Rise/Fall: -16
A shame to see the decline here but sometimes a pick just isn’t meant to be.

14. Chicago Syndicate

- Alexandros Mograine
Current TPE: 1821 (4th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +10
And here we have what I’d self title the steal of the draft. Slicer was a bit of a late bloomer in the S72 class which I imagine was the only reason we saw him slip here to 14th overall. I think everyone from inside the Carolina Locker Room knew this had the chance of being the best pick of the draft. With Slicer having stepped up into a GM role there’s really not much more you could ask for out of this pick, but he went ahead anyway and shot up the TPE board to sit at 4th in the class.

15. Atlanta Inferno Inferno

- Dan Johnston
Current TPE: 1641 (11th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +4
Moving into the final stretch of the first round where we continue to see risers we have Dan Johnston, don’t know too much about the specifics on the user so we’ll keep it short and sweet. Atlanta has to be happy seeing a rise of 4 places on the TPE list for the value at 15 overall.

16. New England Wolfpack

- Rocky Orwell
Current TPE: 542 (31st)
Draft Rise/Fall: -15
Another unfortunate lost soul.

17. Tampa Bay Varracuda Barracuda

- Dan Craig
Current TPE: 1272 (22nd)
Draft Rise/Fall: -5
Slight dip in expected TPE but hey we’re getting to the point where there’s a large fall off in still active players though the class and 1272 TPE is no small feat!

18. Tampa Bay Barracuda

- RIP THUNDERDOME 2013-2023
Current TPE: 1725 (7th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +11
RIP Thunderdome indeed, but from the ashes rises a player who shot up the TPE leaderboards for S72 an entire 11 spots! I think Trella was a later recreate in this class so between that and teams aiming for new users that might explain why they slipped to 18 here.

19. Calgary Dragons Dragons

- Sven Holmberg
Current TPE: 1499 (17th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +2
Consistent as consistent can be, Sven moves up 2 spots on the leaderboard from their draft position expectations.

20. Buffalo Stampede

- Joseph Reed
Current TPE: N/A
Draft Rise/Fall: N/A
Strangely I cannot seem to find Mr. Joe Reed anywhere on the sites trackers. Maybe there was a name change? Comment and let me know if you can find Joseph Reed.

Honorable Mentions:
I was just going to review the first round, but with there seemingly only being 26 rostered players from the S72 Class, I figure we might as well be thorough and give some shout outs to those who managed to stay active even from the later rounds. Any active player is a good player after all!

23. Calgary Dragons Dragons

- Sunrise van der Schubbekutteveen
Current TPE: 1500 (16th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +7

26. Baltimore Platoon Platoon

- Beau Kavanagh
Current TPE: 1174 (25th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +1

28. Manhattan Rage Rage

- I-Stir MyPudding
Current TPE: 973 (26th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +2

29. Calgary Dragons Dragons

- Cheeks Klapanen
Current TPE: 1469 (19th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +10

38. San Francisco Pride pride

- Rowan O'Beirne
Current TPE: 1724 (8th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +30

46. Manhattan Rage Rage

- Wayne Holloway
Current TPE: 1338 (22nd)
Draft Rise/Fall: +24

59. Manhattan Rage Rage

- Arnošt Hlemýžď
Current TPE: 1498 (18th)
Draft Rise/Fall: +41

***sliceruser*** · 11-20-2024, 12:39 AM

:carspinny:

*Keven* · 11-20-2024, 02:40 AM

Looks like Joseph Reed played one season in Buffalo (S75) and retired with 772 TPE.

https://portal.simulationhockey.com/player/512

@wizard_literal

***Frenchie*** · 11-20-2024, 09:25 AM

My son! Careers have a life of their own and we're always stuck between wanting to max earn and what's really possible, i'm just glad you're still here to vibe and play with old man Derek as we ride out this amazing LAP window! Kraken

spidey · 11-20-2024, 10:34 AM

Fantastic article, love these where you look back at the draft and how they played out. I enjoyed reading about the history of yourself as well.

Thunfish · 11-22-2024, 08:14 PM

To be fair, my guy improving that much's probably more on Calgary than me. Damn shame that I couldn't skip past the second Manhattan pick for something a little funny.

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