This season was terrible for Ryosuke Sato. Becoming a veteran in the SMJHL, Sato had an all time low in points, hits, shots blocked, and takeaways. To add salt to the wound, he didn't even manage a single goal in the entire 50 games season. The only bright side to this season is that Sato woke up in the playoffs being half a point per game with 3 goals and 1 assist in 8 games played. Also in the 8 playoff games, he put up 11 hits and 11 shots blocked with and almost even takeaway to giveaway ratio. Extended to a full season, Sato would have had 25 points, 69 hits, and 69 shots blocked which is much better than the 8 points, 35 hits and 49 shots blocked that he actually got. With this disappointing season, I am hoping for a big bounce back next season for Sato. My hopes are at least 20 points on the season, 40 hits, 60 shots blocked, and a positive takeaway to giveaway ratio. This may seem hard to achieve, especially with how the season went this time around; however, the team around Sato is improving and hopefully he will get a little more puck luck going his way.
Atlanta Inferno: I think we did extremely well this expansion draft in picking up players that will not only benefit the team now, but our team in the future as well. This can be seen in our first pick were we picked up Keith Lee from the Toronto North Stars. Lee is a an excellent addition to our team and can bring leadership and locker room presence for this squad. Furthermore, our second pick in Guy O'Shea will help out our defensive core now and in the future as he continues to grow as a player. In the net we also were able to snag Samat Beibitzhanov who is going to be our starter and is continuing to grow as well. This is not to mention our other picks of Eko van Otter and Manuel Gotze who will round off the first line, and Geoff Moore who will round off the first defensive pairing. Then, we picked up some veteran leadership in DeMaricus Smyth and young talent in CT Carragher and Patric Twist. Overall, I think this expansion draft was exactly how we wanted it with solid picks to allow us to compete this season, as well as preparing the team for the future. I am excited to see this team perform this coming season.
I know I wanted a team in Guangzhou to be called the Guangzhou Dynasty, but to be completely objective and unbiased, I think tapping into other continents is not the best idea out there. There are still a number of cities in North America that I feel deserve a team such as Montreal and I think that there would be more people in favour for that over a team in another continent. I think a big part of this is because although the SHL has international users, I am unsure if that user base is greater than some in North American cities that would like their cities represented as well. However, if someone has an amazing proposal for an international team, I do not think that it should be turned down solely due to its team placement, especially in the SHL. I would value the concept, GM, and overall plan over the importance of the location because to be honest, the location is not that important as long as it gets support.

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Being completely biased, I think the Vancouver Whalers were really good this season and had a really good shot at the finals. The team had the goal scoring but their goaltending faltered in the face of the Carolina Kraken. 5 goals on 30 shots should not have been the average and yet it was. Being completely unbiased, I think that the best team to not make it to the finals is the Carolina Kraken. The Kraken pushed really hard against the Newfoundland Berserkers and I think their series against them was a tougher series for Newfoundland compared to their final series against the Maine Timber. This is nothing personal against the Timber; however, the Berserkers and the Kraken were on the top for the most part of this season and their series came down to the wire. The Kraken could score, defend, and be physical. They could do it all this season and if pucks bounced their way, maybe they could have even repeated.
Although Team World faltered the last 2 seasons, I think they have a really solid chance in surprising doubters that say that they can't make it past the 2nd round. In my first season of the WJC, Team World were lacking a bit up and down the team. The team was still young and was packed full of rookies. In my second season, the players improved; however, most of them were still capped at 350 TPE. The team was not dominate and failed to meet people's expectations. Things are different this season because there are new GMs in place and they are looking to hopefully shake things up. The team may have lost their goaltenders Redacted and Odinson; however, they also picked up Stratton who had an amazing season in the SMJHL. This is on top of all the rookies from 2 seasons ago that have progressed immensely. That is why I think that Team World will be able to turn some heads this season in the WJC.
a. Defensively, I think the New Orleans Specters have the advantage there. They have the likes of Rex Kirkby, Lyle Odelein III, and Kaspars Claude who are excellent two-way offensive defensemen in my opinion. The Buffalo Stampede also have excellent defenseman such as Cassius Darrow; however, I think the complete defensive lines for the Specters are better. (56 words)
Although Monkey D. Luffy had a monstrous series against the New Orleans Specters, leading the team in points. I would say that Michael Scarn also stepped up big for the Buffalo Stampede. Heading into the series, Scarn had 7 points if I'm not mistaken. Therefore, he put up 6 points in the series, almost doubling his number of points scored through the past rounds in the playoffs. In addition to points, Scarn led the team in hits throughout the playoffs and certainly left a physical presence on the series. This is not even mentioning his contributions on the powerplay. And so, while Luffy appears to be the clear vote for MVP of the series, I think Scarn has done just as much to get some recognition as well.

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Dex



16/16 TPE (plus 6 extra in case)