The Unheralded One: Vyacheslav Onoprienko

In a championship series filled with younger stars getting top line minutes, some veterans were needed to fill holes for the depth of each team. For the Hamilton Steelhawks, one such man was Vyacheslav Onoprienko, an old defenceman who had seen sights, having entered the SHL back in the Season 4 Entry Draft as a third-round pick by the Toronto North Stars. Onoprienko didn't blow anyone away with his stats, but he has been a sound defensive presence over his career and still one in Season 11 for the Steelhawks.

Would the Pittsburgh Penguins have won the cup without Hal Gill? How important was Andrew Ference to the Boston Bruins or Rob Scuderi to both the Penguins and Los Angeles Kings. Onoprienko is a blue-liner just like those three and plays a game dedicated to manning the back end and letting the big names score the goals. After all, during Season 11 Onoprienko only had 9 assists in total, that's including one in the playoffs. He's no Matthew Ekblad or Daniel Carlsson, but he shut down the other teams' lines well throughout the whole season, helping Hamilton to a top four finish during the regular season and of course a Challenge Cup just a few days ago.

Where some players were minuses, Onoprienko was a solid +7 in the regular season and a +1 in the 15-game postseason run. He hit lots of people during the season, with 80 hits in 50 games of the season and then a bone-crushing 44 more in the playoffs. In terms of blocked shots, he was one of Hamilton's leader in both the regular season and the most important part of the season, with 40 and 9 respectively. He played a solid 17-18 minutes a game on the third pairing with another veteran Eoghan O'Donnell. Without him, there's a good chance Hamilton doesn't lose just three games during the whole playoffs, and a good possibility they don't win at all.

With the addition of Logan Valentine and Chris Partlow to start the off-season, the Steelhawks seem to have said goodbye, quite unceremoniously, to Vyacheslav Onoprienko. However, there is no doubt that with his set of skills acquired over a long SHL career, this defensive defenseman will find a home for himself in the league for several seasons to come.

350ish words I assume. Was 300 before the last paragraph