This is a deep dive about how the S54 Carolina Kraken assembled their S54 Championship winning team. The Season 54 Carolina Kraken had a very good regular season finishing third in the league with thirty-two wins and sixty-nine total points finishing behind the tied for first place Newfoundland Berserkers and Kelowna Knights both having a solid season finishing with seventy-one points. This was the second season in the new system of Franchise Hockey Manager 6 and these were the only three teams with a positive goal differential. However to fully understand the Carolina Kraken's success we must look back to the S51 SMJHL draft, where the Carolina Kraken held the second overall pick from the Halifax raiders (Now the Maine Timber) and they selected Velveteen Dream...who would later change their name to Keith Lee. This would be the only player who Carolina Drafted in that class that would ultimately be on the team in S54.
     In the S52 SMJHL reddit draft the Carolina Kraken would acquire at sixth overall Jimmy Wagner or User Sve7en. Carolina would then select Ambacas Cuddles with their first pick (sixteenth overall) in the second round as Co-Gms are still selected at to this day. Carolina would then go on to selecting Frans Eller user: Ace with the twentieth overall pick and Frans Eller would act as a rock solid member of the team. Carolina's next pick would be at fifty-seventh and they would select Michael Lee. Michael Lee would end up being a very solid SMJHL defensemen.
      The Juniors league was slightly different in how you could claim players off of waivers. There use to be an undrafted free agency situation where if your player created between the SMJHL draft and the trade deadline your player would be come an undrafted free agent after twenty-four hours of a player being approved SMJHL teams would contact the free agent and ultimately sign them. Carolina would ultimately sign UDFAs Buster Cherry and Ben van Dijk. The defensive pair of Ben and Michael Lee were core to Carolina's success.
     Going into the s53 SMJHL Draft there was a need of 9 rookie players to be acquired through the draft and despite not having a draft pick in the first two round, Carolina got a solid group of guys. Carolina selected Dwight Knight  the user hockeyiscool at 21 Overall, Vítek Víteček or the user MegaSkuci was selected at 30th overall, Panda Panico-Peej2189 was selected thirty-ninth overall, Stein Nilsen the user: bordon23 would be selected 49th overall. This group of users would be a core of 350 TPE players when the time was right. Carolina would go on to also select Ryan Hunt, and Joey Gabo to try and round out the roster. However Ryan Hunt and Joey Gabo would not end up not staying with the team going into their championship season. With Carolina having plenty of vacancies Fuzz and Trella knew they would need to go hard to get post draft creates and hard they went.
        Carolina would start out with signing left wing Kwame Dakari (Zaitsev) and Bobby Bergen (nobody) both users became pillars of the Carolina team and community. There was no rest for Fuzz and Trella then signing the defensemen Adam Friedland -Bongo three hours later. This defensemen pick-up would ultimately turn into a phenom, acting instead of as another defensemen would act as a forward, having no points in positioning but plenty in fighting for a majority of his career would find himself sitting at center ice waiting for a worthy challenger or waiting for a pass to give him a breakaway. Paired with Friedland Carolina would sign Linus Grimstad, the user Turd Ferguson, Ferguson would be a keystone second center for Carolina's run. One day later, Carolina would then sign another UDFA in  Patricia Reichardt (moonlight) who would be an solid role player for Carolina in the next season and a half to come. 
          Carolina would then draft tenth overall one of their DFAs that was with them during the previous season; Selecting Axel Foley; the user mazatt. Carolina would then draft Conner Hutton thirteenth. Hutton and Foley as a defensive pair is a major reason why the Carolina Kraken won the s54 four-star cup. Both users max earned into oblivion and were amazing team players having the depth of them at defense was key. After these two picks Carolina drafted Zelma Zuntnere or the user Jogurta at thirty-third overall. Similarly to the two drafted ahead of them. Zelma was a big factor in Carolina's success. Max earning and contributing very well to this kraken roster after Zelma, Carolina would secure a solid back-up in Blunt Man (Obsidian311) who would ultimately be the starter once Frans Eller moved on to the New England Wolfpack.
        After the S54 SMJHL draft there was still a need for Carolina, they would once again go back to work wooing incoming rookies to join the roster. With success Carolina signed Moritz Muller (Brojoh456) five games into the season and he would be a solid depth option as the 4th line center.  Two weeks after signing Muller, Fuzz would snag another UDFA getting Vincent Wolfe (Durden) to be another depth contributor to the Kraken playing in just 26 of the 50 games. Fuzz then seeing the window that Carolina has took a swing at the trade deadline and knocked it out of the park. Fuzz made two significant trades. Carolina would trade with the Anchorage Armada for Stan Hanson for S57 Carolina 2rd. Hanson was clutch down the line in the playoffs and was a great physical presence! Carolina would trade for Kenvald's player Sven Yxskaft and a s57 Vancouver 4th* which Vancouver ended up keeping due to a condition of winning the 4-star cup. Vancouver received the season 55 Carolina 1st and Patricia Reichardt. This was an amazing move for Carolina. Sven was the premier defensemen in the SMJHL this season that happened to be on a Vancouver team that was just too young for Sven's window. Sven would then go on to have the performance of the playoffs. Some people argued that he should have been the recipient of s54 SMJHL playoff MVP and I couldn't agree more.

In hindsight it is very unlikely that this team would have been around and together in the current SMJHL waiver system considering that there are eight undrafted free agents that were crucial to the formation of this season 54 4-star cup winning roster.

S54 Carolina Kraken roster acquisition review:
Keith Lee (the artist formerly known as velveteen dream) -s51 smjhl draft
Jimmy Wagner -s52 smjhl draft
Ambacas Cuddles - s52 smjhl draft
Michael Lee -s52 smjhl draft
Ben van Dijk - UDFA
Dwight Knight - s53 smjhl draft
Vitek Vitecek - s53 smjhl draft
Panda Panico -s53 smjhl draft
Stein Nilsen - s53 smjhl draft
Bobby Bergen - UDFA
Kwame Dakari -UDFA
Adam Friedland -UDFA
Linus Grimstad - UDFA
Patricia Reichardt-UDFA
Axel Foley - s54 smjhl draft
Conner Hutton-s54 smjhl draft
Zelma Zuntnere - s54 smjhl draft
Bluntman-s54 smjhl draft
Moritz Muller-UDFA  
Vincent Wolfe -UDFA
Stan Hanson - Trade with Anchorage
Sven Yxskaft-Trade with Vancouver



[1100+ words]

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credit to Flappy, ToeDragon, and Carpy