While many may say that the preseason doesn't matter, that's the furthest thing from Bubba Nuck's mind. While the skater was worried about how he would be received by the fans of the New England Wolfpack, his fears were quickly abated upon hitting the ice in the preseason, as he and the Wolfpack put forth a preseason they're going to be looking to remember.
The preseason started off extremely rough for the Pack, with only one win in their first ten games, with that win coming in the shootout. And it's not like the Wolfpack were picking up points in these games - only one of the games in this set, a 2-1 loss to the Minnesota Chiefs, saw the Wolfpack picking up a loser's point. It was an extremely difficult period for the team, as questions started to arise about where the problems could be coming from.
Rumours abounded. Some critics claimed that the team was struggling because of goaltender Earnest Ciarelli, who some said was skipping out on practice and refusing to train. Others claimed the issues were stemming from a lack of chemistry, and that a change to the lines might see a better performance out of the team. Yet others still believed that it could be the trade of the team's center, Dean Colt, to the Hamilton Steelhawks, which left the team missing their former alternate captain who was extremely vocal both in the locker room and on the ice.
Whatever the reason was, things would turn around at that point, roughly halfway through the preseason for New England. A shake-up of the lines (and a goaltender who decided to train) led to the team starting to put up points again, with a 7-2-3 record to end the preseason, with their only losses coming against the Manhattan Rage, West Kendall Platoon, and Calgary Dragons in the shootout and the Texas Renegades and the Winnipeg Jets in regulation, with the Jets game being a loss by only a single goal.
The standout performance of the preseason came not from the Wolfpack's top line, but instead from their second of Bubba Nuck, Patrikov Bure, and Jack Durden. The trio combined in the preseason for 43 points, with 37 of those points coming from the sticks of Nuck and Bure, both of whom find themselves in the top three on the Wolfpack in points.
Also notable for the Wolfpack in the preseason was the pairing of Jasper Clayton and Brandon Pomery, the team's second pairing who combined for 35 points (19 from Clayton and 16 from Pomery), as both find themselves in the top five of the Wolfpack in points in the preseason, as well as leading the team in plus/minus, each with a very impressive +9 performance. Clayton also found himself leading the team in assists with 16, while Pomery led New England with a deadly accurate 21.05% shooting percentage.
What's the come from the New England Wolfpack this season? Well, if the preseason is to be believed, expect nothing but good things out of New England this year. Obviously this won't be a team contending for the Challenge Cup, but you're going to see much better than the sweep in round one this past season to the Hamilton Steelhawks.
Now, how about we look at the top 3 winners and losers of the preseason?
Biggest Winners:
3. Elyk
The man with one name comes in as the first winner of the preseason we're naming tonight. With 21 assists, he led the league this preseason in the helpers category, and was a big part of the reason the Jets found themselves in second place in the West at the end of the regular season. He added 9 goals on top of that total to end the preseason with 30 points, which was good enough to be the second best player in the league in that regard during the preseason. His +17 and 1.35 points per game were also enough to put him in second in the SHL.
2. Adam Kylrad
How about Kylrad's performance this preseason? The Seattle Riot found themselves narrowly holding on to fourth place (managing to take the tie-breaker against the Texas Renegades), and Kylrad was a big part of the reason why. The team managed a +6 goal differential off the back of Kylrad's league leading 15 goals and 33 points. He also led the league in points per twenty, with an impressive 1.45 - almost a point and a half per 20 minutes of play. Kylrad is going to have to hope the rest of the Riot follow his lead during the regular season if the team wants to make the playoffs at the end of the year.
1. Toronto North Stars
What the hell is happening in Toronto right now? An 18-2-2 preseason was good enough for 38 points for the North Stars, and their +36 goal differential was not only the highest in the league, but it was the only positive goal differential in the entirety of the Eastern Conference. The team had six players on their roster with at least 20 points in the preseason (Barbashev, Cunningham, LaFlamme, Eriksson, Johnson, and Velevra) and really set the pace for the rest of the league to follow. If they can keep this up in the regular season, they're really going to be the team to beat in S27.
Biggest Losers:
3. West Kendall Platoon
It's hard to call a team that ended up in second in the Eastern Conference one of the "losers" of the preseason, but fuck you it's my article and I can do what I want. The Platoon were expected to have no problem leading the league this season following a season in which Colin Schmidt took the entire SHL by storm, and just missed out on taking home the Challenge Cup. Schmidt's still around, but for some reason the wins just aren't coming as quickly anymore for West Kendall, who found themselves dropping to sixth place in the preseason - a team many analysts had expected to have absolutely no problem taking home the President's Trophy this season. Of course it's worth noting that the Platoon had a similar trajectory to the Wolfpack, struggling early on in the preseason and finding their stride towards the end, but we were still hoping to see better from the Platoon. Hopefully we see the Platoon that showed up at the end of the preseason, and not the one that stepped on the ice to start the preseason.
2. Portland Admirals
It seemed like this team should just be a few pieces away from putting together a strong team, but so far that doesn't really seem to be the case. They struggled from the outset, and never really picked it up after that, ending the preseason in last place in the Western Conference with 19 points. While it's easy to place all of the blame on the shoulders of their extremely young goaltender, a closer look at the stats quickly reveals that this isn't the case. The team was far and away the absolute worst team in the league in goals for, as they were the only team unable to score at a rate of even 2 goals per game. This becomes even more apparent when you realize the team had the second worst powerplay in the league, while also managing the league's top penalty kill. Nobody on the team managed to score more than six goals in the preseason, which is really not what you want to see if you're trying to win hockey games. Hopefully the team's forwards figure out that they're supposed to shoot the puck on goal and not just hit people, because so far it seems like that's all their forwards are doing.
1. Buffalo Stampede
The Buffalo Stampede have really been the victims of bad luck. They lost two of their top players to retirement last season in Caboose and (Bryson) Thomaz, and really had nobody waiting in the wings to be able to replace them. It's hard to fault them for a bad preseason performance, but at the same time this kind of performance can't be ignored - the team finds themselves near the bottom of just about every single major category. Add on to that the fact that Thomaz is still on the roster for one final season and for some reason has been benched by the coach, and it's starting to look like the team might be setting up to try and tank for that first overall draft pick in the draft in the offseason. Unfortunately, even if they do manage to pick up that first overall pick at the end of the year it won't change anything if the team can't start holding on to their players from here on it - with the steady stream of players leaving the team both through retirement and through free agency, it's starting to look like people just can't wait to get out of Buffalo. Hopefully the team can turn things around after this season though, with minimal losses to the roster without getting anything back in return.
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