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overdoo · 08-12-2020, 08:08 PM

*Completely unedited, probably gibberish*

No, I did not have a thought process. I only added to this after midnight.

"Carolina is known for that good D" - @Mazatt

Well, that may be a controversial statement to start off. Obviously, the Carolina Kraken were a team last season known for their offensive capabilities, and an absolute beast in net. Of course, when you took a peek at their D core last season, it was quite impressive. We're talking just before playoffs, when it counts. So maybe they were underrated, they were known for their offense, but was their defense a strength?

Yxskaft - Friedland
Cuddles - van Dijk
Foley - Hutton

Now that, boys and girls, that is some good D. You've got a guy in Yxskaft that is capped at 425 TPE, along with van Dijk, and Cuddles. Friedland was capped at 350 TPE, and then you've got two rookies on the bottom pair that are just above 300 TPE. That is something many teams would love to have, especially when making a run, but why would everyone think otherwise, could @Mazatt have a point?

One of the factors could be the offensive output of the backend. Of course them getting points only reinforces the fact that they make a difference, but if you are only looking at how many goals the Kraken score, it could be misleading. Especially when you have the leading defensive point-getter in Adam Friedland, who also managed to get into the top 10 of league scoring as a whole. So how good was Carolina's D in someone else's end? Well, of the 517 total points among all Carolina Kraken skaters, the Kraken D managed to get 149. That is 29% of the share, and you may be asking, is that good or bad? I don't know. So, after some debate over if I am motivated enough to put in some work, I calculated it for every other team as well to compare.

So now I can say with evidence to back it up, it isn't anything special. However, the Kraken's total point number is higher than every other team by a good amount, only challenged by the Berserkers who almost reached 500. Same thing can be said about Carolina's D points, although Kelowna can also enter the argument. While the Kraken D's point percentage is slightly above league average by %, that isn't the data I was expecting. Mostly just cause of Friedland. Could there be a chance that the Kraken D might just not get enough recognition from those who matter? This question, along with my longing for an increased word count, lead to me asking every SMJHL GM of last season one thing. The results are as follows:

@FuzzSHL, representing the Carolina Kraken

Myself - "When you look back at the Four Star Cup winning Carolina Kraken of last season, what aspect of their game do you think of first; their offense, defense, or perhaps goaltending with Eller?"

Fuzz - "This season it was honestly hard to tell. During the regular season, it was definitely their offense. Jimmy Wagner and Vitek Vitecek were always a threat to hit the back of the net, Dwight Knight and Panda Panico were throwing hits left and right, and Keith Lee was an absolute game changer for possession. The offense couldn't be stopped. In the playoffs, however, I think their defense is what truly shined. You may be surprised seeing as how Ben van Dijk and Adam Friedland were two of the top defenders in the regular season for points, but in the playoffs Sven Yxskaft was an animal. Eller had a down year but came in clutch when it mattered, but at the end of the day, I don't think we win the Cup this season without the strength of our defense."

Well, it looks like Fuzz might see how important the defense was this year in the playoffs. He is right, Yxskaft was huge for Carolina in the playoffs, and van Dijk and Friedland were equally great in the regular season. Also, love the long quote, might come back to you for another.

@notorioustig, representing the Detroit Falcons

Myself - "When looking back at last season’s Carolina Kraken, what aspect of their team stood out more, the offence, defence, or goaltending?"

Tig - "I think more than anything I noticed their depth offensively, they had a lot of players scoring at a high rate even from the back end."

Looks like while Tig had recognized the defensive scoring ability, he still went with their offense. Just goes to show that it was very possible the relative offensive output of the team overshadowed how necessary the defence, and goaltending was.

@Katth, representing the Kelowna Knights

Myself - "When looking back at last season’s Carolina Kraken, what aspect of their team stood out more, the offence, defence, or goaltending? Any reason why?"

Katth - "I think it was just their overall depth and adding a 425 defender at the deadline was huge. They flew a bit under the radar because Newfoundland was killing it, but they were never that far behind."

While not directly giving credit to the defence, Katth did recognize how big of an addition Yxskaft was at the deadline. Could very well be the closest to giving the Carolina defence the most credit.

@Citizen of Adraa, representing the Maine Timber

Myself - "When looking back at last season’s Carolina Kraken, what aspect of their team stood out more, the offence, defence, or goaltending? Any reason why?"

CoA - "I don't think there is an aspect of that team that stands out more than the other 2, simply because all 3 were really fucking good. That's how that simply goes, teams that have the best sum of their roster are often likely to win and I am not able to say Carolina had a strong part of the puzzle because all of them are amazing."

Seems like while the strong defence was recognized, it still was not a large factor over the other 2 for CoA. Which is completely fair, the Kraken had good players all over their roster, and it made a big difference.

@JNH, representing the Newfoundland Berserkers

Myself - "When looking back at last season’s Carolina Kraken, what aspect of their team stood out more, the offence, defence, or goaltending? Any reason why?"

JNH - "I'd say the part that stood out about Carolina the most was their smell. Repulsive, pungent, downright offensive at times. There's some things you just don't forget and that one may haunt me for the rest of my life."

Well JNH, seems like it worked in round 2, maybe this season is your year!

@Evok, representing the Quebec City Citadelles

Myself - "When looking back at last season’s Carolina Kraken, what aspect of their team stood out more, the offence, defence, or goaltending? Any reason why?"

Evok - "For me it's definitively their offense, led by Jimmy Wagner, they produced the most goals in the season. Pair this with a solid defense and goaltending and that's pretty much a lock."

Again, Evok gives credit here to the defense, but not solely. It is still the offense going strong, and Wagner, being an MVP, makes that a good case.

@Capt_Blitzkrieg, representing the St. Louis Scarecrows

Myself - "When looking back at last season’s Carolina Kraken, what aspect of their team stood out more, the offence, defence, or goaltending? Any reason why?"

Blitz - "All of it was tough. Carolina had a great team put together. It was somehow both like walking a tightrope and David versus Goliath. They had the better team across the board, for sure. We had eight rookies and a DFA. The pundits had good reasons to have us out by Game Five. Somehow, we kept believing and the games kept going our way, even though there was no physical or statistic reason for it. All of it had us on our toes. The margins for our wins were so slim, running the numbers. If I have to pick, though, it was probably their first and third forward lines that kept us on the very tips of our toes the most. Line matching against them was definitely a challenge. I'm trying not to be salty about that Game Six breakaway, but it's hard not to be even a little bit. When you get that close to the slipper fitting in your Cinderella story, it kinda hurts when it doesn't. So yeah, probably the top and third lines.

You know, I'll give a lot of credit to Blitz. When I first started this I did not expect ANA, NL, or STL to respond, let alone in a good manner. Blitz straight up let us know about the difficulties of the first round, and I respect him for it. While I will try to make this next part not sound snarky, it might fail.

Blitz did highlight two lines of the Kraken offense, and they played a big part in the playoffs for us. However, just know that a defenseman, Conner Hutton, ended up launching that breakaway pass to Wagner.

@dmills3, representing the Vancouver Whalers

Myself - "When looking back at last season’s Carolina Kraken, what aspect of their team stood out more, the offence, defence, or goaltending? Any reason why?

dmills - "A little bit of everything. Their offense always crushed us and Eller always stoned us. After we traded them Sven, their defense was great too. Carolina was definitely one of our harder matchups last season"

Always good to see some love for their former defender, Yxskaft had a ton of support from his team later in the season, so it is clear how important he was to that Whalers beforehand.

For the most part, it had looked like the General Managers were mentioning the Carolina offence, or a mix of the offense, defense, and sometimes even goaltending. Which is completely fair, there are teams for a reason, every position relies on the other to have success. Just goes to show that is was a real possibility that the defence went a little bit under the radar.

However, it was at this point that I realized @ Mazatt did not mean the Kraken defence themselves. He meant something.. else. So, I will still try to still analyse this compared to other teams of the SHL. Except, keeping it a little PG. Thankfully for CoA, I don't have to worry about fitting the one F-bomb allowed somewhere else in the article.

Now as everybody knows, foot and hand size are heavily related to the size of, well, it. So here we go.

I took the liberty of making up the shoe size for every team except for the Kraken. I just figured I did not care enough about my journalistic integrity, when in reality these guesses are probably pretty close. I also made sure to do some research, on incognito of course. I don't need anyone to know this is my fet-ahem, never mind.

Personally, that is a larger number than I was expecting for averages among the United States, and Canada. However, I also looked a little more into it, and the average across the world is 9-12, so they are actually average, and just below average. The average in the league ends up being just over that average at 10.8, which makes sense with most players originating from North America, or Europe. However you may notice one anomaly with the chart above, the Carolina Kraken are sitting at an average foot size of 17.72. I'll get to that in a moment, while addressing possibly another concern. With 6-7 defensemen on a roster, how did you get such precise measurements when shoe sizes increase by 0.5? It is because I did not pay attention to that.

I may receive even more criticism for that, however it is for good reason. As teams flew into Carolina for our games, I broke into each and every room. Interestingly enough, not a single player woke up while I was measuring their feet, and this allowed me to take measurements with the accuracy of two decimal points. I also did not limit myself to "standard" shoe sizing. That is for rookies. I am a sophomore. At least I think I am.

Coming back to that question about Carolina's shoe sizing results, some may think it is a bit skewed since I am a part of the Kraken organization. That is in fact not the reason. Believe it or not, the Kraken training camp is one of the best, but they are also a little, uh, specific. Of course consent is given, but it is pretty inventive. As a result, we have some statistics on average eyelash count, chest hair length, and obviously, foot size. Yes, I did ask @TheDangaZone why this was when I arrived. No, he did not give me an answer. Seemed like he took it more as a personal shot, never thought I should look more into it until now. Hm.

Now, this is yet another basic chart showing the sizing of each Carolina Kraken defender from last season.

Obviously, @TheDangaZone was very disappointed with the Kraken draft that season. I mean, you had 4th and 13th in the draft, you could pick almost anyone you want. Then you trade down to 10th and draft a kid with a shoe size only barely above Michael Phelps? I mean, don't get me wrong, Foley is an incredible player, but he and Hutton weigh down the average here. I can't say anything further about Hutton, that pick gets me all worked up. So stupid.

Now you may ask; Overdoo, what does foot sizes have to do with it? It is a strong stereotype but is there any correlation? I don't know, so I searched it up. Thank you incognito, my good friend. "Scientifically" there is no correlation, and I sort of agree. When I looked at the stats, because, you know, I am serious about this, the average was pretty sporadic as the shoe size grew. So maybe @FuzzSHL, @trella, and @sve7en already knew this when drafting, and didn't do too bad. Although I am just going to say, you're carrying at least a Subway $5 Footlong around with you if you've got a shoe size of 28. I'm just scared for that girl wearing size 13 Nike's, men's size 13 Nike's, poor thing.

What else could be used to determine someone's size? I mentioned hands earlier, but that is only because van Dijk's gloves look like a boxer's on the ice. I searched it up, and apparently height could very well be the biggest indication. Speaking in averages, again. I suspected this, and included heights in the chart above. There was a whole article, which I will link for those curious. I did not read it at all, I just skimmed for a sentence or two that could prove my point. So how does the Kraken team match up against others, and North America?

So if that just isn't enough to convince you, then maybe some words from teammates of the Kraken could help. Here are what some teammates had to say, from last season.

"Then I walk into the locker room after the shut out and I kid you not, there is Conner Hutton leaned over giving me the goat while making goat noises. Not gonna lie though, even soft the guy was dangling down past the goat. It had to be at least six inches soft." - Blunt Man, after his first career shutout. @Obsidian311

"Never looked, but I would imagine 6 to 9 inches" - Dwight Knight, after being asked about how hung Ben van Dijk is. @hockeyiscool

Now, if I weren't for the issues that Jimmy Wagner @sve7en had caused when he first arrived in Carolina, with uh.. some shower peeking, we would have been able to get more concrete numbers on every defender last season. So what else can I say to increase the word count prove my point? How about some of my famous rambling?

All I am saying is that Cuddles does not spend his time cuddling with the girls consistently leaving his hotel room at 3am. I'm just glad I'm not the teammate that has to sleep in either room beside his, because there is no way you're sleeping through that. When his past hook ups only have good things to say, I guess word gets around once Cuddles makes it back to your city on a road trip.

Of course, in Friedland's case, a nickname of "sex" only means one thing. He has a long schlo-, uh, personality. Yeah. Ever notice how Eller only got a girlfriend after he graduated from the SMJHL? There is no way a man like Eller would be able to hold a candle to Friedland, and it seems like he knew that. Sorry Eller, loved you on the Kraken, but it has to be said.

Ben van Dijk, man, you already know a man is hung when his (mispronounced) name is said like.. that. Plus the guy is a top defenseman this season. I cannot name a single puck bunny that doesn't jump on that.

What about Axel Foley? This kid is lean, mean, and Alberta grown. Did you know the best beef in the world is from Alberta? And did you know beef is the best meat out there? I did. So what is stopping us from saying that a kid from a province known for it's meat is probably packing some schmeat? Nothing.

Along the same line, sort of, Hutton is from Saskatchewan. What is there to do in Saskatchewan? Could you name anything? Of course not. So, what do people do when they are bored? I'm not saying he isn't big, but even if he wasn't you know it wouldn't be a problem.

And last but certainly not.. Well, possibly least, Sven Yxskaft! I mean, man came from the Whalers, and was keeping their averages up until he was traded, so how bad can he be? Not bad. He's good. Big boy.

So I guess @Mazatt was right.

"Carolina is known for that good D"

Don't worry, I hate myself for doing this as much as you hate me.

I am so sorry.

Code:
3053 words

ACapitalChicago · 08-12-2020, 08:12 PM

This is amazing and you should feel proud of it Kraken

S66 Damian Littleton

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trella · 08-12-2020, 08:19 PM

GOAT media

Thanks to @karey and @JSS for the sigs!

Former USA Fed Head, Carolina Kraken Co-GM, Tampa Bay Barracuda GM

peej2189 · 08-12-2020, 09:47 PM

This was amazing

***FuzzSHL*** · 08-12-2020, 09:50 PM

That was a beaut

Aleksi Kettu

***Mazatt*** · 08-13-2020, 02:26 AM

The 'Lina D got some shmeat out there, they prolly ain't gettin noticed by them GM's cause their massive meat slows em down. Cock/60 is off the charts.

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