I’ll be taking a look at everyone’s favorite deep dive subject, the Nevada Battleborn, and analyzing their start to the SMJHL season, their current state of affairs, and the prospective future of the franchise.

Founded in Season 55, the Nevada Battleborn have finished in last place twice in their previous five seasons (Seasons 55 and 59) with their best finish being 5th in Season 56. The SMJHL season has only just begun, but it’s looking like another last place finish for Nevada in Season 60. In fact, given their current statistical pace, it’s not completely unfounded to wonder if they will even win a game this season.

Speaking of statistics, they paint a grim picture for the Battleborn this season. After six games, Nevada has a whopping -21 goal differential having only scored six goals for (half of which came in a single game) while giving up 27. They are being outshot a mind boggling 322 to 113. On the surface, it might appear as though the defense and goaltending are the problem.

The Battleborn only have five true defensemen on their roster with a forward playing in the sixth spot. Two of those five are highly touted rookies Melvin Majestik-Moose and Doug Glatt. It can’t be all bad when you have a literal moose defending. A couple other defenders, Eero Makela and Rude Sniff, have the highest average overall game ratings on the team (take that for what it’s worth). As far as goaltending goes, it’s all about another rookie in Willie Miller. If not for this guy, things would look so much worse for Nevada. He’s second in the league in save percentage at 0.926 having stopped a league leading 213 shots (include 76(!!) in one single regulation game against Newfoundland) which is 21 more than Bloody Oath’s 192. Oath has started two more games than Miller. Even Nevada’s backup, a 155 TPE inactive named Harley Fank, 0.913 save percentage in his two games.

Defense and goaltending are clearly not the source of the Battleborn’s issues. Their offense is much more abysmal. Averaging only about 19 shots per game, propped up by one 35 shot effort in their last game, they’re obviously not getting the puck to the net enough to give the team a chance to win. How could this be, you ask? Out of the 13 forwards on the Nevada roster, 10 are rookies and one is playing defense. Of those rookie forwards, Peanut Butter has the high TPE as of the last update with 223. They are easily being outclassed by the more experienced teams in the SMJHL.

While that paints a clearer picture of their shortcomings, it’s not all gloom and doom for the Nevada Battleborn. Have you seen their new logo and uniforms? All jokes aside, with a roster full of rookies, the future is bright in the desert. Several of them are active and have hefty bank accounts. In fact, as of last update, the Battleborn have three of the top ten rookies in TPE. Seven have surpassed the 200 TPE threshold. Although they may have a couple inactives sprinkled in there, the 13 rookies on the Nevada Battleborn represent the extremely promising future. With solid management behind the team and another solid draft next season, the Nevada reign of terror could begin as early as next season. It will certainly be an intriguing storyline to follow in the coming seasons and I do not look forward to matching up against them over that period.

Seriously though, have you seen that logo and uniform? Although it would have been so much better without the wordmark, the logo is beautiful as are the uniforms. Especially that funky alternate.

Approved! +5 TPE @the5urreal