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Matteo · 10-24-2020, 07:54 PM

Today marks the end of the Quebec City Citadelles' second regular season. While there is still room for improvement, nobody can say that the Citadelles are not trending in the right direction, as they finished the season with 50 points in 50 games - a 15 point improvement over their inaugural season. It will be interesting to see how the Citadelles do in their third season, but for now all we can do is look at what they did in season 56.

Quebec City started their season on a little bit of a sour note with a five game losing streak. In game 6 they must have decided that they had enough, as they defeated the Anaheim Outlaws in a big way, 6-1. Things started to look up a little bit for the next few games, as they reached 13 games, the one quarter mark of the season, with 10 points. If you want to read more about this portion of the season you can here.

[url=https://simulationhockey.com/showthread.php?tid=110872][/url]I had planned on writing another recap at the halfway point of the season as well, but things largely did not change and so there wasn't too much to say. With 25 games played, the Citadelles had 20 points, about the same pace as they had been going at previously.

At the three quarters mark of the season, things were starting to look up for Quebec City, as they had recorded 14 points in 13 games, getting them 34 points total in 38 games. They still weren't .500 yet, but they were closing the gap.

If you've been paying attention at home, the Citadelles did in fact finish at .500, as mentioned at the beginning of this post. In their last 12 games, the Citadelles won 8 games for a total of 16 points. I'm gonna go off on a tangent here, because things got really interesting in the last 5 or so games, as the Citadelles had closed the gap between themselves and the Maine Timber, last season's Four-Star Cup finalists, to just 3 points. Each team got two total points out of their 5th and 4th last games, so with three games left, the gap was still 3 points. The 3rd to last game was huge though, MET vs. QCC. It was extremely close, QCC would score then MET would score a few seconds later. In the 3rd period, Quebec City pulled ahead and managed to defeat Maine 5-3, which meant that the Timber was only ahead by one point with two games to go. Quebec City won their 2nd to last game in a close 5-4 victory against the Detroit Falcons, while Maine lost their second to last game in a shootout against the Anaheim Outlaws. One game left to go, and the two teams were tied. Quebec City knew at this point that in a tiebreaker situation, they came out ahead since they had more regulation and overtime wins. Maine ended up winning their final game in a close 3-2 victory against the Kelowna Knights. This meant that the Citadelles had to win their final game in order to pass them in the standings, but who are they against? The defending Four-Star Cup champions, the Newfoundland Berserkers. Newfoundland dominated this game early, getting five goals before Quebec even scored one. Going into the 3rd, the score was 6-1, and unfortunately this proved to be too big of a hill to climb. The Citadelles did manage to make the loss more respectable, scoring three more goals, and ending the game at 6-4. This means that instead of facing the 10th seeded St. Louis Scarecrows, who finished the season with 39 points, in the 1st round of the playoffs, they will be against the Colorado Raptors, who finished the season tied with Quebec City, 50 points.

Now let's look at some players individually. Incredibly, nearly all of the players who are wearing the blue and, uh, darker blue put up better numbers than they did last year. Going in alphabetical order:

Defenseman Boris Petrov sacrificed much of his physical game in order to improve his all around game a little bit more. He finished the season with 6 goals and 12 assists for a total of 18 points, a big improvement over his 3 goals and 10 assists for 13 points from last season. He also didn't give up the puck nearly as much, going from 32 giveaways to 15. All this isn't to say that he didn't use his body at all though, he nearly quadrupled his blocked shots total with 41, and still did manage to throw 164 hits, which was good for 3rd in the league. His 13 fights and 11 wins were also both 1st in the league, and while he didn't get in as many fights as he did last season, he did win more.

Defenseman and captain Jasper Maximov plays her position slightly different than Boris does, as an offensive defenseman. She broke out this season in a big way, totaling 11 goals and 16 assists for 27 total points from the blue line, much more than 6 goals and 12 assists for 18 points last season. This increase in goals can definitely be attributed to her nearly doubling her shot total from last season with 127, just over 2.5 per game. Speaking of doubling, Maximov also had two times more blocked shots this season, with 52.

Forward Jonas Caspari spent season 55 as a centre, and made the switch to right wing this season. This seemed to suit him, as he more than doubled both his goal and assist total, with 5 and 12, respectively, for 17 points on the year. He also had over two times more hits, with 41.

Centre Jst Maro improved upon nearly all his numbers this season, getting 9 goals and 24 assists for 33 points, compared to his 5 goals and 12 assists for 17 points last season. His defensive numbers also improved, as his giveaways went down from 22 to 15, and his takeaways went up from 9 to 14.

Left winger Kev Kevens increased both his goals and assists, but he seemed to find his scoring touch most of all. He finished this season with 10 goals, 7 more than the season before. His assist total went from 11 in season 55 to 18 this past season, which means that his point total went from 14 up to 28. To increase his goal total so much, Kevens did get 21 more shots this season, however he must have also began to shoot from better places as his shooting percent increased from 4.62% to 11.63%.

Goaltender Mat Smith did decently well for his first full season as starter. He went from a .905 save percentage to a .911; a 3.91 goals against average to a 2.90, and a 6-13-0 record to a 14-20-3. He also recorded his first shutout this season, then got four more on top of that, tying for 2nd most in the league.

Left winger Ryan Rieley also found his goal scoring touch, becoming the pure sniper that this team needed. This season, he was top 10 in the league in goals with 20, compared to last season when he got 12. Like Kevens and everyone before, his assist total also rose, from 7 last season up to 13 in this one. This means that Rieley's point total went from 19 to 33. It also means that Rieley broke Alexander Roach's franchise goal record in a season by 3 goals.

Centre Stan Q. Next is the first of two players who broke Alexander Roach's single season point record this year. He went from 6 goals and 14 assists for 20 points to 11 goals and 27 assists for 38 points, also setting a new franchise points record. Not only this, Next improved all of his defensive and physical numbers, going from 17 giveaways, 14 takeaways, 41 blocked shots, 37 hits, and no fights to 16 giveaways, 25 takeaways, 61 blocked shots, 54 hits, and two fights, including 1 fight won.

Defenseman Teylora Petrov, though being known more for his defense and spending nearly three minutes per game on the penalty kill, improved most notably in the offensive numbers. He went from 3 goals and 11 assists for 14 total points to 5 goals and 23 assists for 28 total points, the most among Quebec City's defensemen.

Right winger William Salming is another player who became much more complete. The offense of course increased, going from 6 goals and 12 assists for 18 points up to 11 goals and 16 assists for 27 points. Salming also learned to throw his body around much more, going from 34 hits to 60. He also went from 12 takeaways to an impressive 26.

Defenseman Yuuto Kira Cloudera, Jr. saw a large bump in power play time this season by two minutes, and his point totals increased from 15 to 23. Interestingly though, Cloudera's powerplay point totals decreased from 4 to 2.

Forward and season 55 SMJHL 1st round pick Zdenko Beranek is another player who switched postions this season, going from the right wing to centre. This seemed to be a much better fit for Beranek, as he is the other player on this list to beat Alexander Roach's franchise single season points record, with 10 goals and 27 assists for 37 points. In his rookie season, Beranek had 6 goals and 15 assists for 21 points.

This list also wouldn't be complete without recognizing a few Quebec City inaugural seasons from certain players:

Defenseman Emilia Bergman was a stabilizing presence on the blue line. The 5 goals and 8 assists for 13 points isn't the most glamourous, but she wasn't picked up to score points. By the end of the season, Bergman finished with 104 blocked shots and 110 hits. So maybe not stabilizing for the other team.

Right winger Igor Petrov had an extremely impressive rookie season, getting 10 goals and 10 assists for 20 points. In season 55, this would have been good for tied for 5th on the team.

Defenseman Jari Heikkenen was picked up as a defensive defender, but this season matched Igor Petrov's point total of 20, with 7 goals and 13 assists.

Goaltender Tyler Ward had an incredible rookie season, especially as an undrafted free agent. He put up a .923 save percentage, good for 2nd in the league, a 2.28 goals against average, good for 3rd in the league, and had a record of 9-3-1, including two shutouts.

All in all, it was an excellent sophomore season for the Quebec City Citadelles. They are in a good position going into the playoffs with home ice advantage against the Colorado Raptors. The one thing that the Citadelles should be weary about is that they have been extremely streaky this season. 14 of their wins and 16 of their losses have come in streaks of 3 or more games, or 30 total games, 60% of their season. This can be useful to help them win a series, but any longer than that and it could be their undoing, especially if they let many losses pile on. As mentioned earlier, they lost the final game of the season, so hopefully that isn't the beginning of their next streak. Using the last quarter of their season as an indicator though, the Citadelles seem to have found a combination of lines that works well for them. We'll have to wait and see how the playoffs go, because anything can happen.

Beyond the playoffs, if the players in Quebec City can keep improving and playing the way they have been, the rest of the league should be worried, since the Citadelles will be looking scary.

Word count: 2020

*Keven* · 10-24-2020, 09:49 PM

Matteo · 10-24-2020, 10:21 PM

10-24-2020, 09:49 PMKeven Wrote:

***Hordle*** · 10-24-2020, 11:18 PM

QCC FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP

storm · 10-25-2020, 02:06 AM

awesome write up matty

Allegiant · 10-25-2020, 11:12 AM

Nice article!

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