I think the biggest surprise through the one third mark of the season is the Toronto North Stars being a top three team in the league and challenging Hamilton for first in the eastern conference. I know it seems like every user has stated this as the surprise but it has to be said. I did not expect them to be outperforming the Chicago Syndicate or Buffalo but there they are almost 10 points clear of Chicago. With a 10 game win streak to open the season which might be one of the best season opening streaks in SHL history. Worst part is I thought about taking their leading goal scorer in Bobby Lane for fantasy but chose someone different. Lane is a big surprise with 48 points and 22 goals on the season and has led the scoring at one point and could still lead in the end.The crazy thing is he only has 7 power play points.
The biggest story of this season in the whole of the SHL has come out of the SMJHL. More specifically the colorado raptors with Ruggs McOoooh, Once the elitist of elite defensive prospects, this season he has been playing like stinky doo doo. Somehow seemingly underperforming his second season Ruggs has been extremely unnoteworthy except as a scuba instructor for the team. Whether it be because of the distractions that come with a corona virus filled world or maybe it he is under some kind of italian wizard curse. It’s hard to say anymore in this day and age. The future looks hopeful though as the team fit Ruggs McOoooh’s house with the highest tech training equipment. Allowing Ruggs to be practicing at all times. Even at night Ruggs listens to french hockey books to subliminally try and learn french and hockey at the same time. Such an abysmal season will surely go down in the anals of hockey history.
I mean, of course the story of the season so far has to be the red hot start for the Toronto North Stars. They've been building toward having a great team for a while, but have in recent seasons been completely suppressed by the Thunderdome division that is the Great Lakes. Not too much had changed in that division leading up to Season 58, with the S57 league champions and runners-up still keeping most of their players and only really aging slightly. So it was quite the feat to see the Toronto North Stars jump out to a white hot 10 game win streak to start the season, easily dismantling divisional rivals and taking down many other high caliber teams. It will be very interesting to see how the other Great Lakes teams will respond over the next few seasons now that Toronto is showing flashes of its final form. Streaks like that are going to become more and more regular.
I think the biggest storyline of the year so far has to be the Texas Renegades' utter domination thus far. With 32 wins in 36 games, they've established themselves as the clear best team in the league and it isn't particularly close. And unlike some other elite teams, they aren't just being carried by one side of the ice. Both their offense and their defense have been absolutely incredible through one-third of the season. They've only allowed 71 goals, which is the best figure by a wide margin, and boast perhaps the best overall defensive unit in the game. That side of the ice is anchored by the two-headed monster of White Goodman and Cillian Kavanagh in goal. They're the clear #1 combo in the SHL and are giving up 1.74 and 2.14 goals per game, respectively. But on offense, they've even better. They lead the league in goals with an 18 goal advantage over second place. They have three players with 44+ points and an eye-popping seven with 30+ points. The trio of Kaarlo Kekkonen, Andreas Kvalheim, and Edward Williams are as good as any three forwards on any team in the league and give Texas one of the most dynamic attacks in hockey. They may not win it all this year, but what the Renegades have been able to accomplish so far is nothing less than miraculous. Incredible job by their players and their staff for putting forward one of the best early runs of any team in recent memory.
The season is quickly passing by and there's been a ton of exciting events that have occurred so far. With that said, I think it's safe to say that the biggest story line of the season to date is the lack of production coming from Ethan Price. The man is coming off a monster sophomore season when he more than doubled his production from his first. It appears as though he's falling into a little bit of a slump this season, simply a shadow of his prior self. Hopefully spending more time training and working out some of the kinks in his game, he'll be able to quick return to his past performance. Odds are it won't be occurring this season, it seems as if it's almost a wash. With the New England Wolfpack quickly developing, he'll have some great players to surround himself with over the next couple of seasons and should easily be-able to distinguish himself as one of the stars in the league.
02-28-2021, 11:21 PM(This post was last modified: 02-28-2021, 11:22 PM by RedCapeDiver.)
So the biggest storyline of this season so far has to be Texas, and how undeserving they are of their current 1st place in the league. How dare they think a non Great Lakes team is allowed to lead the league in points, goals for, and goals against while having played up to 4 games less than the other top teams. Dont they know that not being in the Great Lakes division automatically means their wins mean nothing because they have to play the all mighty Great Lakes teams less often. Ignore the fact that the Great Lakes teams are losing more games to non Great Lakes teams than Texas is. HO should just suspend their players and GM's already for this blasphemy and return the league to the rightful order it belongs in. Texas will rue the day that they thought they could stand up to the might of the Great Lakes
The biggest storyline has to be who the loser of the Great Lakes is. Given the hot start of Toronto, the up and down of Buffalo and the consistently inconsistent Chicago, any one of these teams could be seen to miss out on the playoffs with a roster that is capable of challenging for the cup. For the first time in a while, the regular season matters with every point making a difference considering how close things are right now. Currently Chicago sits in the 4th spot and out of a playoff spot by 5 points which is slowly growing into a significant deficit with losses to Baltimore, Atlanta and other teams they should and would normally beat but have tripped over. Games between Great Lake teams have typically been a preview of a potential finals series, or for the race to the President’s Trophy. However this season, any game between any of the 4 teams has each of them praying for a way to have 2 losers. It’s slowly looking like Chicago is falling out of the playoff picture and fewer doubters over the Toronto start as each day passes but each team is all too good and this season too wacky to make any bets with absolute certainty at this point.
At the risk of repeating what I assume is the most common answer in this thread, I think the most compelling story line this season is the Great Lakes division in general, but most specifically the Toronto North Stars. It's no secret that the Great Lakes has been the best division in the SHL since the switch over to FHM, with the last 3 cup winners belonging to the division, and 4 of the 5 cup winners in total since the switch. But this season is different, in that TOR has emerged as one of the best teams in the league as well, making the bloodbath division four team strong instead of just 3. The Stars have officially ended their rebuild and have instantly started contending, and following the division to watch the race for the top 3 will easily be the most exciting division watch in the league. Can TOR maintain their position at the top of the division, or will any of the last 3 cup winners resume form and overtake them? The unfortunate part is that we're almost guaranteed to be looking at a scenario where the 5th best team in the league misses playoffs due to the FHM structure. Other storylines that have been notable to follow are (in a related fashion) the fact that BAP is somehow this juggernaut division killer, as well as TEX puling away with the league's best record.
The biggest storyline so far this season is the toronto maple leafs i mean toronto north stars having an incredibly hot start to the season and currently sitting comfortably in a playoff position. With the Great Lakes division holding 3 of the top cup contenders from last season, many predicted Toronto to remain unfortunately at the bottom of the division even though they boasted a roster full of talent that likely would challenge to win the division if they were in any other one. The north stars have so far disagreed with this assessment from others, riding a very hot start to the season where they in fact led the entire Eastern Conference for quite some time. The north stars currently sit in 2nd place, tied with Hamilton on points and a full 9 points ahead of the defending cup champion Syndicate. Will the North Stars be able to hang on? It seems their talent and coaching has finally put them in a position to succeed.
I think that the biggest storyline of the season so far is that Victor Fedorov is really making a mark in the juniors this season and the Platoon got a steal in the draft. Fedorov slipped until the third round in the season fifty seven shl draft and the platoon could not be any happier to get him. He is really forcing the hands of his big league team to bring him up and he could jump in right away and help push them deeper down the center ice position where they are already so deep. That is also another issue at the same time; with the amount of center deep it will be interesting to see what they can do and how they handle this going forward. We will have to see if Fedorov can keep playing like this in the juniors and if it even transfer to the next level.
As a personal storyline, it has been a culmination of all the work I've done over my career and setting the San Francisco Pride franchise scoring record. There have been lots of ups and downs through the seasons here's with a couple deep runs, and many years missing playoffs, but at least in some sort of way I was managed to leave my mark on this team.
While I may be getting into the twilight years of my career, it's nice to see that I can still make an impact on the score sheet and be a valued member of the team.
I'm lucky enough that even though I'm slowing down, I have a ton of talented young players who. An help feed me the puck and help me get points. There's a ton of potential on this team and I am expecting bright things from them in the future.
This season was something I had been working to for seasons, and the countdown has been on for a while. It's nice to see it finally have come to pass.
Buster Awards Committee
S15, S16, S22 Challenge Cup Champion
Posts:10,026 Threads: 294 Joined: May 2012 Reputation:77
Pronouns: Undisclosed
I think this season's biggest storyline is absolutely watching the power shifting in the league. For the entire FHM era, the main powerhouses have more or less been the same. Each season has seen the Buffalo Stampede, Hamilton Steelhawks, Chicago Syndicate, Manhattan Rage and Calgary Dragons on top. On the other hand, we've see the Tampa Bay Barracuda, Baltimore Platoon, Toronto North Stars and Minnesota Monarchs struggle to even fight for the playoffs. This season has been a major shift. Most had Buffalo, Chicago and Hamilton making the playoffs this season in the Great Lakes but the North Stars have absolutely been crushing the league and are currently tied with Hamilton for first. This leaves the defending cup champs in Chicago looking out. Same in the other East division is happening with the Tampa Bay Barracuda taking the playoff spot usually held by New England. Minnesota is on their own run in the West. We are finally starting to see the rebuilding teams take that next step while the older teams start to fall apart.
I think the biggest storyline of the season, specifically the season 58 simulation hockey league season, is that Aron hernadivic is an absolute waste of two thousand tpe, and would be better served retiring immediately so that buffalo can use his cap space elsewhere. Aron hernadivic is complete trash, utterly useless, and like tig murphy, should be sent upstate to live out the rest of his days on a farm.
On a more serious note, I think the biggest storyline of the season is the complete trash of a playoff system we currently have, and the fact head office seems content to let the fifth best team in the entire league miss the playoffs. Shoutout Chicago/Hamilton/Toronto/buffalo, it’s unfair one of us misses the playoffs, but in the wise words of slappy doodle, if you want to make the playoffs, build consistently and look for ways to improve on the margins, draft better etc. Honestly, it’s pretty simple. Not sure why other teams haven’t thought of this.
LarksTongue![[Image: shepard.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342098647334256643/546832131331063819/shepard.png)
![[Image: giphy.gif]](https://media.giphy.com/media/KwGGxKZwm4Qjm/giphy.gif)
![[Image: TFOzBaZ.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/TFOzBaZ.gif)
![[Image: ln8XmUj.png]](http://i.imgur.com/ln8XmUj.png)
![[Image: HuqtOb2.png]](http://i.imgur.com/HuqtOb2.png)
![[Image: Z8yXihx.png]](https://i.imgur.com/Z8yXihx.png)
![[Image: x7WZYBT.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/x7WZYBT.gif)
![[Image: hTAHbeC.png]](https://i.imgur.com/hTAHbeC.png)
| ![[Image: OaCJVMI.png]](https://i.imgur.com/OaCJVMI.png)
| ![[Image: pMYriGC.png]](https://i.imgur.com/pMYriGC.png)
![[Image: pkHEmu9.png]](https://i.imgur.com/pkHEmu9.png)
![[Image: 60133_s.gif]](https://signavatar.com/60133_s.gif)
![[Image: W3cWGCN.png]](https://i.imgur.com/W3cWGCN.png)
![[Image: 3XEVZeB.png]](https://i.imgur.com/3XEVZeB.png)
![[Image: 1rdovVs.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/1rdovVs.gif)
![[Image: X6NDpNM.png]](https://i.imgur.com/X6NDpNM.png)
![[Image: 6eXcLdf.png]](https://i.imgur.com/6eXcLdf.png)
![[Image: smalinowski7.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/smalinowski7.gif)
![[Image: 0XJkcN5.png]](https://i.imgur.com/0XJkcN5.png)
![[Image: scarn.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/702346925059604542/831196309213020160/scarn.png)
![[Image: m59RPb7.png]](https://i.imgur.com/m59RPb7.png)
![[Image: czechup.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/537644128066994197/593618761756704779/czechup.png)
![[Image: giphy.gif]](https://media.giphy.com/media/wrKbZmYC2IQ92/giphy.gif)
![[Image: giphy.gif]](https://media.giphy.com/media/KuiLw1hXiL04/giphy.gif)
![[Image: QwTZD8C.png]](https://i.imgur.com/QwTZD8C.png)
![[Image: uJXrVDL.png]](https://i.imgur.com/uJXrVDL.png)
![[Image: iemKOIk.png]](https://i.imgur.com/iemKOIk.png)
![[Image: ecaJZ6D.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/ecaJZ6D.jpg)
![[Image: flowseidon.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/flowseidon.gif)
![[Image: PRedauw.png]](https://i.imgur.com/PRedauw.png)
![[Image: theziegs.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/theziegs.gif)
![[Image: buster.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/buster.gif)
![[Image: fishyshl.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/fishyshl.gif)
![[Image: czechpp.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/537644128066994197/593617273575440433/czechpp.png)
![[Image: sdcore.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/sdcore.gif)
![[Image: berserkers.png]](https://simulationhockey.com/images/smilies/berserkers.png)
![[Image: syndicate2.png]](https://simulationhockey.com/images/smilies/syndicate2.png)
![[Image: sgu3vVP.png]](https://i.imgur.com/sgu3vVP.png)
![[Image: 9vq7IEu.png]](https://i.imgur.com/9vq7IEu.png)
