Introduction: 

My second deep dive of the season is going to be on the Vancouver Whalers. After a year in which they only finished with 30 points, and were dead last in the entire league, Vancouver had the biggest swing in the standings this year, all the way up to third in the league with 93 points, a 63 point swing! How did they do it?

TPE Cappers: 

My first point is how well their players timed their cap hits. Miroslav Ketil, Benjamin Surkhi-Ze’ev, Capy Bara, and Aleksandr Iskandrov all jumped up to over 400 tpe this season, with the first two hitting their tpe cap, Bara with 1 tpe away from cap, and Iskandrov with 408. These guys were good last season, but they turned into star players, especially Iskandrov, who finished tied for the lead league in points. He went from 46 to 88! That’s a huge swing. Surkhi-Ze’ev also jumped from 50 points last season, a team lead, to 83 this season. These guys hitting their potential helped sky rocket this team into contenders. 

Sophomore Cappers:

With the main four talked about a bit, let’s talk about the guys who are gonna try to be capped next season. Benson Fiorentini, Pyotr Gallen, and Edge Rocks. These guys, not even at the SMJHL cap, had massive seasons, with Gallen and Rocks each getting 74 points, that’s over a point per game and they still have not reached their full potential, this Vancouver team is primed for a couple real shots at a cup if everything goes to plan.

The Rookies:

Vancouver hit big with their first and second round picks, Meta Knight and Antonio Flusso. Meta Knight had a solid first season, 51 points in 66 games, and was a good source of secondary scoring on a surprisingly stacked Vancouver offense, but I want to talk about The Flow. If Paul Peterson didn’t exist, he probably would have been rookie of the year. As a rookie defenseman, he had 43 points in 66 games, held key power play minutes, and had a DGR of 73, tied for third on his team, with only Iskandrov and Capy Bara ahead of him, who are about 150 TPE ahead of him at the time of writing this post. Having guys come straight out of the draft and contribute to playoff bound season is icing on an already tasty cake for Vancouver.

Playoffs:

Vancouver has the making of a contender this year, but do I believe they win? The answer is….I have no clue, I think they could? They are very well balanced, and I think they have an even better shot next season, but with how well Nevada and Colorado have played, the teams ahead of them in the standings, I just don’t know if they can do it yet. They definitely have the core built, one season from today I expect them to be the favorites to win it all. So far they have surpassed expectations, or should we have expected this from them all along?

Signature by @enigmatic

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@erikvm APPROVED! +5 TPE

Vlastislav Malik || LW || NOLA
Name: Vlastislav Malik
Birthplace: Brno, Czech Republic
Transferred to: Ireland
Height: 6'5"
Weight: 227 lbs
Number: 9

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SHL - NOLA:
We're just getting started!
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SMJHL - KEL:

Four Star Cups: S59

Reg Szn Stats:

S56 | 50GP | 4G | 8A | 12P | -17 | 0PPP | 6.7% | 90H | 54GR

S57 | 66GP | 14G | 19A | 33P | +8 | 7PPP | 11.1% | 87H | 61GR

S58 | 66GP | 24G | 27A | 51P | +25 | 9PPP | 15.1% | 109H | 64GR

S59 | 66GP | 20G | 34A | 54P | +32 | 17PPP | 11.2% | 119H | 65GR

Playoffs Stats:

S56 | 11GP | 1G | 1A | 2P | -10 | 0PPP | 7.1% | 12H | 57GR
S57 | 7GP | 0G | 2A | 2P | -1 | 0PPP | 0.0% | 9H | 61GR
S58 | 12GP | 3G | 3A | 6P | -2 | 0PPP | 11.5% | 18H | 62GR
S59 | 17GP | 8G | 10A | 18P | +15 | 2PPP | 14.3% | 32H | 67GR