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*leviadan* · 12-08-2023, 02:07 PM

Born in S56, the Atlanta Inferno were an expansion team headed by former New England co-gm Hotdog and his player Eko Van Otter. Ten seasons later, the pride of Atlanta would bring home their first ever Challenge Cup, building from a team of plucky leftovers via the expansion draft, the Inferno quickly became a major contender and a top SHL team. Worth noting that not a single player from the original S56 Inferno would still be playing on the team at the time of their S66 cup win, indicating a very active manager that wasn't content to coast and hope for the best. The Inferno were clearly working hard to make their team better year over year by any means necessary, and as such I thought it would be a fun team to look at for a deep dive.

So who were the big pieces on the S66 team that won it all?

To start it off you gotta mention the teams top line of Anton Mihailov, Pablo Salvatici, and Salzberger Lillehammersson. These guys were all 1900+ TPE players anchoring the top line with big minutes, putting up a combined 280 points during the regular season, of which 109 were goals. You'd be hard pressed to find a more dynamic trio on an SHL team. That top line on it's own would be a monster for most teams to handle, but the Inferno had tons of depth scoring to back them up.

Cue, Sulfurgold, Jeziak, Binder, hell even defenders Michael Withecheck and Puddles O'Duck were putting up huge offensive numbers on this team. Withecheck and O'Duck had 107 points between the two of them, and they're the defense! It's also worth noting here that you often see teams that go on PDO benders with high shooting percentages and find themselves dominating the league almost on accident-- that was not this team. Despite these insane offensive numbers the team average PDO was 100.4, damn near bang on average. These guys weren't riding 30% shooting heaters, they were just playing good hockey.

They would finish the season 50-14-2 with 102 points and a President's Trophy win. Despite the curse of being the top regular season team, they looked like a juggernaut.

And in all honestly? The playoffs went more or less how you might predict it. At least on the Inferno's side. They swept round one agaisnt Hamilton 4-0, met some resistance in round two against Tampa Bay-- needing six games to triumph. But then managed to clear out Buffalo in the conference finals 4-1. All the players that you wanted to show up did. Mihailov, Salvatici, Lillehammersson-- all over a point per game in the playoffs. On top of that O'Duck and second line center Viktor Krunk also managed more than a PPG pace. Closely followed by several players with 17 to 19 points in 21 games. They simply would not quit.

The final series brought a lot of excitement as the Atlanta's fellow S56 expansion team the Seattle Argonauts found themselves champions of the Western conference, and as such someone was going home with their first cup in franchise history. It was a hard fought series with both teams desperately wanting to be the first S56 born squad to bring home a cup. Tempers flared and punches were thrown, but in the end the Inferno kept up their roll and brought the series home in six games. Ultimately I don't think there were a lot of hard feelings between these two expansion sisters, there was a ton of mutual respect and the league got to see a hell of a showdown.

Atlanta's super team got to raise the cup for the first time, and the very next season the Argonauts would make the finals again and take home their first ever cup over the Manhattan Rage.

Each expansion team got a taste of victory, but Atlanta got theirs first. Wink

chetib · 12-12-2023, 03:47 PM

Approved @leviadan @CptSquall

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