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Nhamlet · 03-23-2020, 03:21 AM

Quote:About 6k words, depth charts, ready for grading

Hi there readers, I’m a little late to the party given that there are a couple other similar articles that touch on some aspects but hopefully I will be able to add some different points as well as give a little bit more of an encompassing view on each of the SMJHL teams, their roster depth in each position as well as a sense of where everybody stacks up against each other. All numbers were taken after this past weekend’s round of updating.

There are a few caveats that I will need to make early on, for those who may just skip ahead to the pretty pictures. For one, TPE that I have taken from players who aren’t rookies are based off their effective TPE values meaning that for a Mitchell van der Heijden with 713 total TPE, he’s capped at 425 regardless of how many more he’ll gain so for the purpose of looking at the SMJHL in a vacuum, that’s what he and other capped players will be rated as. Positions taken in an average will only count those who are expected to be dressed on the roster.

Another will be the player positions. I have broken it into Centres, Wingers, Defensemen and Goalie. Generally the position swaps between right and left wing or right and left D aren’t serious enough that a little bit of game time can’t fix. There aren’t many but some teams will inevitably have an extra centre covering on the 4th line wing, wingers turned centres based on their FHM build, and Kelowna even has a forward converting to a defenseman. Hopefully the research I’ve done is accurate enough.

In terms of roster lineups, that will inevitably up to the coaching staff of each team to look to make the most use of. It may very simply come down to stacking the highest TPE first and going from there, but with player roles becoming a significant factor, there will be questions of role chemistry as well as in season tinkering as the weeks go by. What will likely not change for the most part are the Emergency Back-up Goalies that teams are carrying. There are a number of teams who will have what appears to be TPE superior goalies sitting as the 3rd string. Generally those guys are inactive and it’ll be likely that these teams are hoping to give playing time instead to their new starters/backups to keep them engaged and active. As well, it’ll be necessary just in case their starter does get called up. On the note of goalies, while position-wise they have the smallest population size (averaging the TPE for a 425 guy and 155 guy doesn’t seem fair when the 425 will likely play as many games as possible), attempting to account for each team’s playing preference is impossible. Still you’re able to see the relatively strength of their tandem which is part of the purpose of this.

On to the real deal!

Starting off, we have the defending Four Star Cup Champions, the Anaheim Outlaws.

Anaheim Outlaws

Last Season’s Record: 27-17-6 (4th Place), Won Four Star Cup against St. Louis Scarecrows (4-1)

One of the significant strengths that Anaheim had last season especially in the playoffs was the combination of a lethal powerplay and impregnable defensive core that you had to get past before facing Strom Chamberlain who would often shut the door. However this is going to be very much not be the case this season as a handful of their senior defensemen have moved on to their respective SHL teams. Instead, Chamberlain will have to carry the bulk of the load with another season of experience under their belt and now being capped at 425. He will be afforded some relief as 2nd Round SHL Draftee Separa Borro continues to get better and looks to steal the job in the future. Petrenko will have to lead the incredibly young and raw core with rookies Emilia Bergman and AJ Patella looking to be the guys to potentially take that next step.
On the forward side of things, they have the best centre depth with C.T. Carragher holding the #1 spot and the sophomore tandem of Taylor Johansson and Rikard Hammarberg covering the middle 6 C spots, and inactive signing Grant Thurber as a 247 TPE 4th line coverage.The top 2 lines of wingers will most likely be Rhys Pritchard and Bale who could form a 425 capped top line, and another pair of S53 players with Tambo and Price. The rest is rounded out by Forfeit and Halloway until Etan Merauk and Adriano Ippolito improve their levels to take over on the 3rd line.

Growth Factor
Anaheim looks to be a team that could continue to be a potential contender especially given that their primary strengths only look to get better. Both Johansson and Hammarberg still have a little room to grow until they hit their 350 caps for this season so the best team down the middle still has room to get better and that’s a little scary to think about. Tambo and Price also similarly have room to grow to their 350 cap. Borro in the net will have time to grow and easily before the season is well underway, he’ll have the capability to be a better starter than almost half the teams in the league have. However, the defense only has one major gem in Bergman. Patella may pan out and at the very least pass the low bar of surpassing the three IFA’s in Stearf, Stacks and Riley.

Anchorage Armada

Last Season’s Record: 21-23-6 (9th Place), Lost in Round 1 to Newfoundland Berserkers (4-2)

So for whatever reason, this particular team seems to be extremely popular lately. However, that doesn’t change what they will be working with for this season and for the most part, it does look quite promising.

The Anchorage Armada’s previous season was about as disappointing as could be, being in the bottom tier of the standings and making an early exit losing to the Berserkers in the first round. Combine that with departures in every position from forward, defense and goaltending and you would think it would be another long year for them. Yet if anything, this is probably going to be an exciting year with them dressing 9 rookies (tied for 3rd most in the league). With that many newbies to throw out every night, they certainly aren’t going to be tested in a trial by fire. There are still veterans with van der Heijden, Stan Hanson and Ulrik Bergstrom to lead the rest of the relatively young crew. Their forward group rank 4th and 6th respectively which is average but still solid considering what else some teams have to work with. Their centres are all separated by a year with Heijden a S51, Vyskoc being S52, Santtu Rasanen S53 and newly drafted James Yzerman at S54. Wingers are also lined up in a similar way with their older players like Cvitkovich and Reeves taking top minutes.

Defense is no different but they have half their skaters being newly drafted members. Their future top 6 will be looking bright as these three guys, Matthew Sawful, Bork Lazer and Alexei Petrikov are 3 of the top 13 prospects measured by TPE.

Potvinov may look to be the natural starter due to TPE but they could very well go with Scoochie Stratton as a new and active goaltender of the future. Chances are Potvinov will take early reps while Stratton gets some more time to develop and quickly takes the starting reins.

Growth Factor
There are a couple teams that particularly will benefit from having serious growth on their team and Anchorage could be considered one of them. While their new draftees are not in top roles for the most part, many of them do appear to be active to start meaning that by the time we look back at this draft in a month or so, they could be seen as the most successful team from the S54 SMJHL draft. So between forward Yzerman, Gunnarson and Rigler, defensemen Sawful, Lazer, Petrikov and Stratton, their depth look to improve and one of the better ones in the league by the end of the season. The only other major improvements in sight would be Vyskoc and Rasanen looking to reach the top 350 as the middle 6 centres. Chris de Siren and possibly Braden Lowrie are capable of the same as well.

Carolina Kraken

Last Season’s Record: 29-18-3 (2nd* Place), Lost in Round 3 to Anaheim Outlaws (4-0)

The Kraken had a fairly successful season by most measures. Tied the first place team in points, reaching the semifinals and only losing to the eventual cup champions...unfortunately that will not be a wave for them to ride as momentum to this season as their forward depth, and top 6 in particular was absolutely decimated by callups. To make up for it, they went heavy on forward picks in the S54 SMJHL draft hoping to capture the S53 Detroit Falcon’s magic and having a dynamic offense that continues to get better.

It’s unlikely that will happen given that their new top guys are #1C Velveteen Dream and sophomore Jimmy Wagner being the only players to break even 205 TPE as a forward. Even though everybody else on the forward group is as green as they are, it makes sense that they’re ranked the worst group of wingers, yet somehow also 8th for their centre depth. Having a 425 TPE capped guy makes all the difference.

On defense things look a little bit better in that they have several picks from last season like Ambacas Cuddles, Michael Lee, Ben van Dijk and Erik Johansson who were drafted and are playing for their 2nd year with the Kraken. It may be considered league average in terms of talent but any good news is great for this team. Thankfully while Frans Eller is also capped out at 350 TPE this season, it’s enough to be considered an average tandem even with an IFA backup.

Growth Factor
It’s hard not to immediately say that Carolina is probably THE team to benefit from getting better as the season goes on and in a more significant fashion given that centre Bobby Bergen will hold down the 2nd line, wingers Dwight Knight, Vitek Vitecek, Stein Nilsen and possibly Panda Panico will be vying for the remaining top 6 spots. As they get better, their top 6 group will undoubtedly become significantly different by the end of the season. Defense may have some changes depending on Michael Lee and van Dijk’s activity but are more or less unchanged. What you see in goal is likely going to be set in stone for the entire season. Eller will get his 40+ games so hopefully his stamina is up to par. The start of the season will be a rough one so they’ll need to buckle in and weather it out.

Colorado Raptors

Last Season’s Record: 27-16-7 (3rd* Place) Lost in 1st Round to St Louis Scarecrows (4-2)

Colorado was the 2nd of the three teams tied for first in points but officially ranked 3rd based on other metrics. Like any team they were hit with a few call ups but still managed to keep a handful of their 425 TPE guys which make them an interesting team with how unbalanced they are. In a lot of ways they are like the Anaheim Outlaws who will be lead by their centremen and goaltending duo. They even share the same similarity of a relatively weak D and wingers with Colorado having slightly better depth in comparison to the Outlaw’s top end guys weighing the scale.

It might be interesting to see whether like the adage of needing to have centre depth will hold true because the Raptors have it in spades. Henrik Lundqvist Jr. and Simothy Drunkebird will be as good of a one-two punch that the league has to offer and former 1st overall SMJHL draft pick Chris Cerullo has stalled out a bit on his development but still settles in nicely as a 3rd line centre. They technically have two other centres with rookie Ragnarsson-Tremblay and IFA Tomas Grygera but it’s likely that Grygera will be the flex man, going onto the wing to cover for some of the weaker and potentially inactive draft picks like Kyle Browning.

Sophomores Sven Svenson, Hiroshi Ohira and Carlos Brown will all see top 6 time along with IFA Hariken Urawa which will hopefully give the likes of Ragnar Skallagrimsson and Randen Skog more time to develop.

On defense, the Calgary Dragon’s 1st round draft pick Bradley Barkov is now the new undisputed #1 defenseman of this young group that includes 3 rookies like Anchorage. Aumy Jr, Sheen Beckett and Mikael Stachowski have all entered the league so far with varying degrees of development.

For goalies, there is not a better duo in the league that anybody could ask for given their relative youth with Samat Beibitzhanov a S52 at the 425 cap, and S53 Jerry Huuveri shortly reaching that 350 TPE cap. Other than hoarding another 425 TPE goalie from somewhere, Colorado has a long-lasting peace of mind plan in net for the next several seasons. Something that quite a few teams can only dream of.

Growth Factor
I have already mentioned some former S53 picks like Cerullo, Ohira, Brown, Skallagrimsson and Huuveri. All of these guys still have lots of room to hit the 350 TPE cap but chances are that maybe only two of them do, with a couple continuing to make some headway at least. In terms of rookies, Colorado are looking like they might only have a few draftees who they can expect to be long-time contributers. Aumy Jr. is tied for 6th highest rookie defenseman TPE and Ragnarsson-Tremblay has been quite prolific as well. Skog and Beckett show promise but there won’t be too much pressure on them this season.

Detroit Falcons

Last Season’s Record: 29-18-3 (1st* Place) Lost in 3rd Round to St Louis Scarecrows (4-2)

The Falcon’s last season was comparable to a tidal wave of skree’s. What started off as a very young team with a lot of promise is transforming itself into a regular contender that looks to start off an unprecedented dynasty. Only losing 425 TPE capped winger would be a major blow to most teams but honestly it’s a small stone in the path of the Falcons who boast so much depth that they lack the playtime that each of these guys might normally deserve.

While we will talk about the youth movement in a moment, I think some recognition should go to the veterans who were by far doing more than their share to carry this team to a 1st place finish last season. Recently announced team Head Captain Cal Labovitch and Home Alternate Captain Jmac NCheese are two of the quartet of including #1C Luke McMcaster and top line winger Kaarlo Kekkonen. These guys combined for 80 goals and 129 assists. While McMaster and NCheese have more room for growth, they’ll continue to wreck havoc as one of the best forward groups.
From there, Centre Edward Williams and Reid Sutherland will have a rotation of wingers for their linemates, with offensive talent riches including the likes of Burlok Sulfurgold, Frederick Wanesly and Zoltan Topalo. The worst true winger would be Cassidy Lhotsky at 289 TPE although one of centre rookies Anders Svendsen and Wang Liqin will possibly split reps on the 4th line between centre and wing.

While there are 350 capped sophomore defensemen in both Magnus Liljestrom and Jack Kanoff, the quietly forgotten guys doing their jobs are the top defensemen of Guy O’Shea and Zbigniew Pokrywka. Toki Wartooth rounds out the group with their new first round pick Joseph Fantobens. Considering how their youngest and weakest defenseman is at 229 TPE and ranks as currently the highest TPE ranking S54 SMJHL, it’s not surprising that for all the praise Detroit gets about their forwards, some recognition should go to their scouting staff for yet again seemingly selecting another elite talent.

The only area that you could point to as a ‘weakness’ would be goaltending and that’s really only in comparison to the rest of their team. A Jobin took the starting job early in his rookie season last year and has continued to steadily improve. Thor Odinson is a rookie drafted to be the backup but not much growth has been seen yet, making the average of the two a significant 8th in the league.

Growth Factor
If there’s any team that knows about the growth factor it would be these guys taking a host of rookies all the way to the 3rd round of the playoffs. However, most of them are capped as are a few of their veterans. McMaster has shown some growth and continue to improve his game as the #1C. Wanesly and Topalo will undoubtedly continue to improve as will Fantobens in his first season. However the main source of improved success down the season is going to be the difference that Jobin will show. He might not grow to be the top goaltender of his class overnight but he can certainly give his team a chance to win every night without needing to steal games.

Kelowna Knights

Last Season’s Record: 25-18-7 (7th Place) Lost in 2nd Round to Carolina Kraken (4-3)

Kelowna has long been quietly amassing talent and last year was seriously boned by Simon despite the talent they had on their roster. Now with FHM, this might also be their season to seriously shine as they have had a couple recent Four Star Cup appearances but only coming back home with heartbreak. Not to mention, this will be the last season for 3 of their 6 (Tied for first most) 425 TPE capped players due to age eligibility.

For the most part this is an incredibly balanced team. Ranked 3rd, 3rd, 3rd and 4th respectively for Centres, Wingers, Defense and Goalies, they don’t have a weak spot to speak of, other than their bottom pairing and backup goalies. Honestly though, if that’s all you have to worry about, you’re pretty well off. Their Centre group is capped now at 350 between Rocco Berni and Ethan Duncan but have great coverage in the 3rd line with Morgan Forestier at 327 TPE. Daniel Laforest was one of many great selections at the draft who looks to augment what will be a solid group this year and definitely the best next year.

Wingers, Kelowna is benefitting from some variety of wealth with Gylfi Eriksson being an Active FA signing, Kaspertommevisnapuu a IFA who was never called up and Barbeshev II being a send down. Afterwards, Jaska Seppala is the main stand out on the next tier though fellow winger Theo Golury could make more of an impact as the year goes on. The rest of the group is filled with S54 draftees Simon Takshak, Justin Kheani and Rotticus Scott who all look to have bright futures. As mentioned, they look to lose the top three guys but depth wise, look to be in a fantastic position still.

While the Falcons rank at the top for defensive corps, the Knights are no slackers with a 425 capped pairing of Adam Scianna and Luciano Vessot. The depth isn’t quite there with only Noah Nystrom being of significant note. Ebenezer Virtanen was formerly a Centre but looks to be converted to playing Defense this year. We’ll see how well he handles the transition. Devin Williams is the lone rookie here with lots of standout teammates to learn from and could continue to be something important.

The Knights drafted Frankie Holtz in hopes of finding a goaltender for the future but already may seem to have missed the mark. At the very least, they’ll be happy to have Cillian Kavanagh for at least this season.

Growth Factor
For the Knights they’ll be dominant from day one. Any additional improvements will be felt by their bottom depth as that’s where the rookies Laforest, Takshak, Kheani, Scott and Williams are situated. They didn’t draft as many players as some other teams but their success rate is looking pretty good already.

Maine Timber

Last Season’s Record: 18-27-5 (10th Place) Lost in 1st Round to Kelowna Knights (4-2)

For their upcoming inaugural season as the Maine Timber, this might be the big fresh start they were hoping to have, moving cities and rebranding themselves. They came out of the SMJHL S54 draft with the 1st overall pick, selecting Mikkel Sondergard who has not disappointed as well as another 1st round pick in Konrad Danke.

One of Patrick Shepard, Alexander Roach or Konrad Danke will be given the opportunity to play big minutes on the top line despite the fact that two of them haven’t even played a single game in the J yet. Their overall TPE levels are so similar that it might come down to role, fit or who can continue to show that they want it. PeaKay Soupcan is an IFA who will do what they can on the bottom line.

Whoever does manage to play in the top role will be a lucky centre as they’ll have some combination of the S51 trio of two-way Al Kayhall, playmaker Thicc Cheezy or the shooter Indigo Trevino. These three will be the main key to success and their ability to swap amongst each other will provide a lot of different looks with the rotating centres. Lucas Hellquist and Marty Sertich round out the rest of the top 6 and will start to feel more pressure as the responsibility will still be on them to contribute given the overall lack of skill. Blake Sutton might have the potential to jump into that top 9 as the only other competition are a pair of IFA in Scarangella and Eagle.

On defense, this was going to be a key for the Timber coming into the draft and they’ve been able to address it for the most part. Kalashnikov will try to steady the group despite being capped at 350. The rest of the expectations lay on how Blake Feaux, Sondergard and Will Windsor take their next steps over the season. Feaux was a late re-create for S53 and the other two are rookies giving them lots of time to step into big roles they’ll hold for a while.

Behind them, Olli Saarinen Jr. will be taking the majority of the starts. Rookie Leo Bloomfield has taken some steps but is still otherwise very raw but having Saarinen alone is enough to propel them to the 5th ranked goaltending group.

Growth Factor
Maine is going to live or die by their growth because their top 3 wingers will only be able to do so much. Shepard, Danke, and Sondergard have been fantastic rookies and show unlimited potential. Sutton, Windsor and Bloomfield are capable and could be of more. There are also the other young players like Roach, Hellquist, Sertich and Feaux who are still capable of getting better. With the 10th ranked centre group, there isn’t really anywhere else to go but up. So far things trend to being very positive for them, very soon if things hold up.

Newfoundland Berserkers

Last Season’s Record: 24-21-5 (8th Place) Lost in 2nd Round to Detroit Falcons (4-0)

I think given the roster that the Berserkers were carrying, in some ways it made sense that they finished where they did but with so many of their top guys graduating, this youth team continues to look to add to its new core and build up to make some bigger noise in the coming seasons. At the very least, they don’t seem to be the bottom of the bunch so that’s got to count for something right?
Unfortunately the centre position is probably one of the many holes that this team has to deal with. The only major growth from last season to this is the addition of rookie Gavin Wallace. Wallace could easily become a top 6 guy in a matter of weeks given that everybody else in this position is an IFA and to speak of, not the greatest ones with Patey holding top dog credentials at a measly 273 TPE.

While I did mention that this team has holes, I think that they probably feel pretty good about their wingers situation. Their only 425 TPE capped player in Slatt Potts is now the go-to guy for the main offense, while they have a quadruplet of S53 players in S53 Draft 3rd overall Steve Harrington, 11th overall Ryuuji Minamino and The Andrei. Of course Patric Twist is in that equation though he has a lot to do to catch up to the rest of his classmates. Matias Birdstrom looks to be back for round 2 and will join Niccolo Livius and Red Arrow as the S54 class.

There seems to be an ongoing trend of S53 defensemen who only capped at 350 having to be the new #1 guy on their team. This is no different for Jukka Timonen. He may be asked to repeat performances that require almost 30 minutes of ice time as the primary contributors this season are expected to be the rookies in Tinke Jutila, PBJ Souppan and Jack Klompus. Vince Chalut and Brooks Wayne are IFAs and the latter could be dropped if a promising free agent could be found.

Steven Vassallo was the inactive goalie that had lead the Berserkers for the last couple seasons, but with Newfoundland investing a 2nd round pick on Cale Amundsen and a 5th round on Matvei Stevlaco, they look to shelf Vassallo as the emergency backup goalie and position their goalies to take the starting job from day one. With such youngers, you would imagine that they could be the worst ranked tandem in the league yet they are still only 9th.

Growth Factor
The Berserkers came into the draft with a lot of holes and at the same time have done fairly well for themselves to try and address most of them. They will see one of the most significant changes from the beginning of the season compared to the end in my opinion, given that so many of their players are in prominent roles. Gavin Wallace becoming stronger gives a little more depth down the middle. Tinke Jutila, PBJ Souppan and Klompus are likely to play top 4 minutes so they’ll get a chance to prove that they can make a difference with the massive ice time. And of course, having your goalies not only be rookies but having two of them does not bode for the best recipe of success but it also means that there is a lot to look forward to given their trajectory. Amundsen in particular looks like he is the real deal so far.

St. Louis Scarecrow

Last Season’s Record: 26-19-5 (6th Place) Lost in Four Star Cup Finals to Anaheim Outlaws (4-1)

For a team that had to deal with the shock of making and then losing in the Four Star Cup Final, they will be coming back this season with hunger and the talent along with it to make a fearsome team to face. There had been speculation that starter Elizabeth Doyle was likely to move onto the SHL with having been called up at one point last season but it is finalized that she will be returning for at least this season. And what a choice it might turn out to be as this group is still very much stacked in almost every position.

The one position that the Scarecrows might not feel overwhelming superiority in is their 7th ranked Center group. They still have star Danny Marston with another year of experience and being at 425 TPE capped to boot to lead the way. Trey Nets has slowed a little this past season but still lots of hope that he can make the strides that got him to be a 1st round pick in the S52 SHL draft. Alex Reyer and Grapefruit Lizard round out the rest. Reyer will have to work hard to keep that Lizard from taking his job because it’s getting closer and closer that this Lizard seems to understand and learn how to play hockey.

On the wings St Louis has both experience, skill and youth. There’s a strong top 3 grouping of Ruslan Zaporozhets, Sasha Dangelchek and Yamamoto Mitsuharu. Right after there’s the likes of Eric Hudson, Mega Tron and Kriss Darzins who will fight for the 2nd line spot. Beyond that the main player of note is rookie William Lockwood who has a lot of players in front of him but also very much in contention of eventually taking those jobs.

Defense will be lead by the ever quick Flash Gordon and perhaps the newly reformed Luc-Pierre Lespineau-Lebrunette. In STHS, he gained notoriety in his physicality as well as PIM collecting ability. When it comes to his FHM build, he doesn’t lack in that physicality any more….and the aggression sky high. So….maybe his reputation will continue. Or he’ll get suspended and won’t be able to collect as many penalties. We’ll see. The quieter sophomore duo of Axel Meszaros and Erben Kasius hold the middle pair steady as Trevor Johnson and rookie Elwulf Jericson will be sheltered on the bottom pair. For the 2nd best ranking defensive group, there is a lot of variety similar to the wingers. Maybe the key in the will be successfully drafting well year after year and stockpiling that talent.

As mentioned, Doyle will be the one to backstop this team hopefully to another Four Star Cup Finals. Richard Majors is a new member who will be taking advantage of the backseat in learning from one of the best.

Growth Factor
Relatively speaking, what you see with this Scarecrow team is more or less going to be what you’re going to get. Grapefruit Lizard, Lockwood, and Jericson might show that they’re ready for more earlier than later, but with the talent in front of them, they will likely have to wait until next season for increased responsibility and settle for battling it out with other depth players each night. Majors will be expected to take control of the net soon but not for at least another season.

Vancouver Whalers

Last Season’s Record: 24-16-10 (5th Place) Lost in 2nd Round to Anaheim Outlaws (4-2)

With this past draft, the Whalers were one of a few teams that were looking to remake about half the roster with a multitude of draft picks. While they didn’t quite come away with a massive haul in terms of quantity, it does seem that they did pick a couple players with varying degrees of quality. Ranked in the bottom 2 in three out of the four categories, this will be another year for Vancouver to continue to improve what they have and plan for the future draft. That being said there’s still an entire season of hockey to play and mayhaps FHM will bless their games.

The main highlight of this team is the centre group and some of that was unexpected. Stracimir Petrovic is a send down from the Toronto North Stars and has stalled in his progression. Still more than talented enough for the SMJHL. Marcus Ohlsson was a winger last season and has taken steps on the direction of their GMs to become the next #2 centreman. Lligma Broomstick has come back to life showing that he’s still capable of fulfilling the potential he had coming into Vancouver whereas Austin Powers is one of many IFAs to fill out the bottom.

Francois Breton and William Hartmann are most likely the top wingers. This will likely not be new for either guy as the next group of those behind them in Nicholas Corrigan, Dario Medici, and Miro Slapskinnen are primarily IFAs minus Corrigan and of suspect talent levels compared to the other groups the rest of the league have. There are three rookies with Jacob Rizzo, Bryce McMahon and Luffy Richard who could all find themselves fighting for the third line spot. At the moment it’s still up in the air which of these will make it out save for maybe Rizzo who is currently shining the most.

Sven Yxskaft isn’t a 350 TPE capped loner like so many are but he’ll have similar weighty responsibilities in carrying a young and inexperienced group. Like Newfoundland, Vancouver has Slimey Snail and Ryosuke Sato as being guys to step into the top 4 despite being rookies. Both of them are already being raved about in their development so it’s not all depressing news for Whalers fans. They do have three IFAs in James Brown, Tiberius Maximus and Tommy Outlaw so those remain to be holes that need to be patched sooner than later.
Speaking of hole, one big one that was hopefully covered is the topical addiction of Cal Covid. Some viewed it as a bit of a reach with Vancouver selecting him 5th overall in the recent SMJHL draft but it looks like a lock for Covid to practice his social distancing as he’ll likely hold onto the netminding job all by himself. Rob Blake was signed last minute as the backup but otherwise will not show much of note given his 4 seasons of SMJHL experience.

Growth Factor
For a team that has so many spots being taken up by rookies, it should go to stand that their change in their development from season start to end should also be significant right? To a degree that would be the case for those in prominent positions. Snail, Sato and Covid will be night and night out mainstays. As for the rest, a guy like Rizzo could improve the depth but otherwise there are a lot of other factors that still need to be addressed. If anything, it’ll still take more picks and more time before Vancouver can really reap the benefits of the guys that they have on the team right now.

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Having gone through the depth charts for the last several days, it seems that there are tiers of teams coming into this season. With how FHM supposedly making actual TPE amount significant compared to Simon, we may see a similar result based on TPE alone. Builds, tactics and all around luck at the end of the day will still make a difference. In no particular order...

Contenders
Detroit/Kelowna/St Louis
Falcons