At this point in the season, my team, the Vancouver Whalers find themselves in dead last place in the standings. This is a far cry from where the team was last year but this was to be at least somewhat expected as the team lost quite a bit of talent to the big leagues in the offseason. Although expected, still jarring to go from champions to last place in the span of one season. Today we are going to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the team, where they lack the most, and some of the gaps they can hopefully fill in the off season.

With the loss of Daniil Nikiforov, who lead the league with 54  points last season, along with the loss of the rest of the top forwards on the team, there were some huge shoes to fill. Rikki Petrov, KnockedOut byOvechkin, and Valtterri Kauppinen are doing a more than adequate job of that. With more than 40 goals between the three of them thus far this season. They will be vital if the team is to be successful next season. 

When it comes to goalies, St. Ark is holding his own between the pipes. Sitting just above .900 save percentage, no one is going to shift the blame to him for the less than stellar season. No, the story of this season becomes very clear when looking at St. Arks stats. He leads the league with an impressive 1162 saves on an outrageous 1290 attempts. 

So why are so many shots allowed on net? Well when we move further down the lines we start to see where Vancouver is lacking. They have little to no depth.

Looking at the Vancouver roster, they have 9 players below 200 TPE, and only 4 players over the 500 mark. At least 5 of those players appear to be inactive at this point, and one of them, possibly the biggest, is the backup goalie. St. Ark is bearing the brunt of these losses as he’s the teams only real chance of stopping anything from going in net.

Taking a closer look at the stats, even some of the star players don’t perform very well defensively. Johnny Shuffleboard boasts and impressive 30 points at his left defender position, but a depressing -32 +/-. Sarah Burke, who likely will find their way to the big leagues next year, also has a discouraging -23 +/-. However, I’d argue that its not due to lack of skill that these numbers are so shocking, but lack of depth. Again, the first line is left out in the cold as they have very little assistance from the newer, less experienced players.

Not all is lost when it comes to the young players on the team, there are certainly a few rookie standouts. Although they may not be making as big of a difference as the team needs, many of them are playing exceptionally well considering it’s their first year in the leagues. A few notable names, Zayne Rotzbua, and Nikolaj Boyle seem to be at least playing adequately for their freshman year, but most importantly they appear to be active and progressing quite well. These two could very well prove to be the saving grace of the team next season if they continue to progress over the rest of the season and this coming offseason.

With the probability of loosing several key players again this year such as Johnny Shuffleboard, Devin Basher, and Sarah Burke, we look to the offseason and the draft to see where Vancouver can make moves to have a real chance in the coming years. 

It may be a wise move for Vancouver to make moves for a more experienced player than to rely on younger players to help with its lack of depth. As far as the draft goes, it appears obvious that Vancouver needs to grab a goalie that can support Ark next season. I for one am hopeful for a standout goalie that they can snag mid to late in the draft next season. 

The future is definitely bright for Vancouver as their team consists of many young players who appear to be steadily progressing well. That future just might be more distant than one would hope. This offseason will be critical for Vancouver’s management to make the right move to help support its star players if they have any hope of competing next season. 

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Approved, +5 TPE @Kettellkorn