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Z0REM · 01-10-2023, 01:09 PM

Good day ladies and gentlemen. Today we have an expose on the New England Wolfpack 9th overall pick in the S69 SHL Entry Draft. With many promising prospects looking to get snatched up quickly, it could have been anyone dropping down to position 9 for the GM's to snap up.

A little background on this pick:
Pork Tenderloin joined the J's as a late entry back in S67 where he was picked up by a middle of the pack Colorado team. Along with 2 other DFA's, Pork would go on to net 5 points in 6 games and shooting 10% as a defenseman new to the league. These games did not help to boost his rating for the draft as much as he wanted. Falling all the way down to 27th, Pork was drafted by the Great Falls Grizzlies as their 4th pick in the draft.

Why do we think this happened? Pork is building a reputation as a pass first defensive minded player. Looking to be pretty average across the board, he wants to get into the thick of the pack and pass out pucks as a playmaker of sorts. Relying more on strength than finesse, he is not one to be sniping shots from the point.

In S68, Pork had a good showing in his rookie season with 3 goals and 17 assists. More notably, he racked up 220 blocks and 97 hits showing that this player was willing to take it to the body when it counts to help out the team. The 220 blocks was good enough to land him #4 on the charts of shots blocked overall where he was eclipsed by Great Falls teammate Chris Valentine, a sophomore player who is looking to be a strong contender for defensive awards this upcoming season. Although without any offensive minded play, it's hard to see if he has a plateau that Pork Tenderloin will be able to surpass.

Going into the draft, New England was looking at their needs coming down the line. With the veteran defensive core starting to wind down with age, it was time to look for some pieces that could help keep the team going for their playoffs push in a season or 2. Our offense has really solidified, and now we just need to keep goals outside of our zone. A defensive minded playmaker like S65 Seamus O'Slapahan will help round out our depth as we try and complement our high powered scorers. We have seen Pork's agent, Rankle, work wonders with some of his other players and we know quality is as quality does. As this player progresses we know that S73 will be a great spike for us. He sits at just 8th in his draft class, but the spread is only 20 points of development.

Now a quote from the New England GM, Luke, on what the game time decision was like:

“The decision to draft Pork Tenderloin came down to a couple reasons. Heading into the draft we had our internal top 9 draft picks, with Rankle being our 5th best prospect on the list. As the start of the draft progressed, and a lot of events unfolded we realized by top 6 that we will get someone from our top 5. Atlanta trades up to draft Ferda, Edmonton drafts Count Chocula, and we get Rankle. We had been fielding offers for 9 for about a week up to the draft, unsure if anyone that we really wanted would be there. But when it came to 9, we knew we couldn’t let this opportunity pass up. Rankle has been a great member of Tampa Bay, playing for them for a very long time. Now, he will show New England the same. We are very excited to have someone like him on this team and are looking forward to getting him into the shl”

Now if we talk about the user a little, Rankle joined on literally the same exact day as I did back in 2019. So definitely reddit recruited which is always fun. They currently sit at 30mil in the bank which will help continuously buy that personal coaching for max earning. In Tampa Bay he was a stud. He managed his all time best season with 70 points. Now that he has created a defender it looks like he wants to be less of the offensive unit and more of the support. Well he wont find a better place than New England to grow his talent as turn into a strong piece to be used for victory.

A quote from Rankle on the draft:
"Coming into the draft I wasn't sure what to expect really. I knew I was going to go in the first round but there was a slew of options as I'd had a lot of good talks with a lot of different teams. I knew I wanted to end up on a contender and I made that clear in all my pre-draft interviews. I wanted to end up on a team where I could contribute to winning it all. I was honestly surprised when San Francisco didn't take me at 6, and even more surprised when Edmonton didn't take me at 8. By the time New England was up I was sure I was about to find my home, and I was right."

I welcome him to our defensive core in the seasons to come.

Credit to Vulfzilla for the awesome render pic

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