When looking at the St. Louis team in S62, it finished second last in the league with a 18-45-2 record, with the second worse stats for both goals for and goals against at 148GF and 270GA. Over this past off season, they decided to take their draft into 0 defensive players and added 2 players upfront and 1 in goal. Let us take a look at how that helped them over this past season.

As we look over the broad spectrum of the team, they overall finished worse in S63 with a 8-50-8 record and a marginally worse goal differential than mentioned above with 133 goals for and 342 goals against. How did the rookies directly correlate with this?

The Goalie
As we look into the teams overall stats, it's hard to really judge the goalie on a stat level since the team in front of him seemed to be terrible so finishing with a GAA of 5.11 was to be expected. Joshua did end up finishing with a 67 overall game rating which was 12th place overall for all goalies in the juniors out of 28, so even though they may have had some of the worst stats in the league, he is playing his hardest behind that team, I can tell you that for certain since they had 2651 shots against him over the entire regular season which was 549 more than any other goalie in the league throughout the entire season. When look at how Joshua is performing off the ice, he has been working hard for the team earning 266 TPE which is 18th in the class, not bad considering they were the 16th overall pick in the draft, pretty much holding up their side of where they were drafted.

The Forwards
Statistically, I do not think it could go any worse for these 2 new rookies on the front end, outdoor and Matt. They finished with overall game ratings of 53 and 56 respectively which were 8th and 12th amongst the team. On top of that, they finished with an overall plus minus of -78, which was also a middle of the pack stat considering the players on the team. When looking at what stat stuck out for each of them specifically, positively and negatively, for Matt Tress, it would be total points over the season with 11. As a center you expect more production, especially from a player that was a borderline second round pick, being picked early in the third. On the positive side, I would look at the +/- for takeaways and giveaway which was only a -6 with a total of 19 giveaways all season which would be near the top of the rookie class, especailly with the team they are on. When looking at outdoor truck, I would look at total points for, finishing with 24 in 66 games which was 8th on the team, only 5 points behind 3rd place. On the negative side, defensive game rating really needs to take a turn even for the slightest if this team wants to have an overall game. Below 50 game rating is not seen often but when you see it on the defensive side, yikes. 

Off the ice, it seems like Matt might have gone IA as I can not see any player update page and I also can not see anything in the player analyzer, disappointing for someone who was picked close to the top of the third. Looking at the other side of things, Outdoor truck has been absolutely killing it in the TPE department with 280, good for 6th in the class currently. A pick at the end of the first round is looking like a steal near the end of the year.

Looking at the overall draft, it seem like things definitely could have turned out better for St. Louis if Matt turned out to be active but two healthy earners so far will certainly help this team move things in the right direction for future seasons.

Words - 675

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+5 TPE @JohnnyPatey