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bana · 01-01-2019, 05:48 PM

Anaheim Outlaws: Pre-season Review Outlaws

This off-season was a very special one to which we got to see a very old and liked organization find it's way back into the SMJHL. The Anaheim Outlaws were one of the organizations revived from the depths of the SMJHL's dark, creepy and forever haunted basements of things to do when you need to do em. For a lot of people throughout the entire league, including myself, this immediately filled me with feelings of excitement, hope and nostalgia. With the addition of the new teams to the league, an expansion draft was obviously in order to get everyones rosters set out and get the ball rolling. For Anaheim, and for me, the draft wasn't bad and management really focused on team needs, depth and looking forward. However, it's a hefty challenge talking on an expansion club when there's already an entire league which has been going for 40 years and thinking you're immediately going to be making a similar impact as them. Unfortunately, with the nostalgia and sometimes lack of thought from some fans, this can be the case and possibly some false accusations and goals have been placed upon the Outlaws young organization. For me, if they can play even close to .500 hockey this season, that's a huge plus for me and what we seen in the pre-season, they can surprise us.

The First 25 Games

[7 W - 15 L - 3 OTL -- 17 pts/ 50pts]

Through the first 25 games of the season, you could really understand the pain that the Anaheim franchise was going through. For me, the team was lacking a lot of things but first of all, the team was lacking any form of consistency and experience. It's a new team - totally and 100% from the ground up, brand new. New GM, new players, new location, new ice surface, new teammates and people are placing heavy things on it. Okay, okay - Las Vegas Golden Knights in the NHL, but this is a totally different beast and I think the results that we got through the first 25 games were the organization playing at what they can do at average efforts and such. This, to me, is the teams pedigree right now. The team is a little bit weaker than most in a majority of the categories, whether it be defensive help, goaltending, lack of scoring power or the absence of equalizing depth to really have that needed secondary scoring and defensive game.

With 57 goals scored through the first 25 games, I'm going to safely argue that if you're averaging just over 2 goals per game in this league, you won't be winning an awful lot of games Now, I'm a lazy piece of shit, but using the full 50 games as an example, Montreal averaged 3.28 to be in 1st in the SMJHL's standings, with 5 other teams with a higher GFA behind them in the standings. The point behind this is, you need to score goals to win and right now, that's not happening. When you're not scoring these goals, you at least need to be keeping the puck out of the net. Unfortunately for the Outlaws, this was something they were unable to do. 86 Goals against through these 25 games has them giving up 3.44 goals per game on average, while only being able to put 2.28 in the net. This difference is too much for a team to sustain any form of consistent success to put up W's and for me, unless they figure out there offensive and defensive games, the rest of the season is going to be very long.

The Last 25 Games

[15 W - 9 L - 1 OTL -- 31 pts/ 50pts]

Now, you take a look at the standings, which can be found HERE, you will see that the team really turned their shit around. They finished the season with a 22-24-4 record, 48 points, 132 goals for and 152 against and a whole lot better of a case going for themselves. For me, I see a lot of things here so we're going to break them down for you just to show you that the Outlaws can be this team that really surprises everyone else.

1. Improvement - and when we say improvement, you would naturally think "okay, the team was REALLY bad, some now they must be just simply bad". Well, you think that and you're wrong. They did an exact 180 of their initial 25 games. They went from the worst to one of the better ones and I think shocked everyone through that final half-way stretch. Where we see the improvement is basically in every single category. They heightened their wins from 7 through 25 to 15 in 25 games, managed to lessen the losses by 6 and found themselves with 31 points earned of a possible 50 compared to a very disappointing and low 17. The team really rose to a new level and I think once a little time went by, you started to learn things - see things, and adapt lines and players accordingly.

2. Fujikawa - I hate to be the one to write this as it's me writing boasting about my own player, but from previous seasons to this one, Hiro Fujikawa has definitely been catching some attention. He underperformed to my expectations last season, even slightly. If not mistaken, he finished somewhere around the 12 its mark, but also was playing with much less time and skill, possibly. Through the pre-season, Fujikawa finished 2nd on the Anaheim Outlaws with 42 points and a team leading 23 goals (Angelo was 2nd with 12). It's crazy to think about but then it also really opens your eyes to how much Fujikawa contributes to scoring. For me personally, I think this season he's going to do and be better as a whole player. Better than the pre-season. He scored 23 goals, 42 points in 50 games and to me, the team only caught on after the 25th game. If they can find their balance and maintain success, you could see this guy have a very amazing season (and for anaheim, they really need him to).

3. Don't count out Angello - The eyes might be on Fujikawa to see what he's going to do, but no one should be counting out our friend Keegan Angello! He's the man down the middle on Fuji's line and without him, Fuji may not be having as many goals. Both are fairly close in TPE, but Fujikawa does have the lead to my knowledge. Angello finished the pre-season with 1 more point with 43 and netted 31 assists. Angello has always been a pass first kind of guy and for me, this is going to mean a couple things this season. The first being that he's going to be passing the puck and connecting with Fujikawa a lot this season. It's very clear that Keegan is a pass guy and Fujikawa is a shoot guy, so it's very possible these guys control the Outlaws offense. The next being that maybe this limits the Outlaws offense too. A pass first guy is always great but if my memory and experience taught me something, it's that SC is a very important stat. It creates offense, opportunities for such and so on. I'm actually very curious and excited to see how this potentially deadly duo perform together this season.

4. They're either going to be that team that plays poorly, but it was expected, or be that overachieving team that sees decent success that will make it at least an enjoyable playoff hunt if they don't actually make it into post-season puck. We seen this in the pre-season. I know it's pre-season and weird shit always happens in them, but for me, no. Dangles tested his shit, as did others and to me, I never treat pre-season any different. It's your practice for the finals, so make it count. In the pre-season, we seen absolute garbage hockey in the first 25, to excellent hockey in the final 25. This has been followed up by a 50% on the start to the regular season, so optimism must be a thing right now in the Outlaws Locker room.

Seasonal Prediction

[Image: tumblr_p5osnglzKo1v8i2wuo1_500.gif]

I'm going to make the fun, bold prediction that Anaheim finds their way through the season, piece by piece. There's going to be some big losses where they look completely foolish, then there's going to be games they surprise or really put the other teams on the burner. For me, I just got this feeling that Angello and Fujikawa are going to sound off at some point and really make a run for the money. I'm not saying first place, that's impossible - but I do see them making small noise and breathing on the necks of a playoff seeded team. Currently, the Outlaws sit 7th in the league (1 spot out of the playoff seeds), but technically is currently tied in 3rd with a record of 2-2-0, as six teams currently have 4 points in the SMJHL. Through those games, Angello and Fujikawa both have found point per game production and Hiro Fujikawa has 4 goals in 4 games this season. He currently sits 1st for goals and points, 3rd for most shots and has even found one of his goals short handed.

I feel like they're going to end the season near to the pre-seasons mark. Somewhere around the .500 range. Maybe slightly below, maybe slightly above. Fujikawa and Angello both find themselves 45+ points.

vbottas17 · 01-02-2019, 02:47 PM

Fujikawa gonna tear it up this season!

Panthers

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