DHL Week In Review - Week 2
Feb 1, 2021 10:26:38 GMT -5
Oslo Mastodon, Moscow Red Army, and 5 more like this
Post by Morweena Reimnoceri on Feb 1, 2021 10:26:38 GMT -5
DHL Weekly Review - Week 2
Matchups:
Morweena (0-1-0) v. St. Roch (1-0-0) - St. Roch wins 8 - 4
Melbourne (1-0-0) v. Haukiputaan (0-1-0) - Melbourne wins 9.5 - 2.5
Moscow (1-0-0) v. Tampa Bay (0-1-0) - Moscow wins 7 - 5
Oslo (1-0-0) v. Minnesota (0-1-0) - Oslo wins 7 - 5
Simi Valley (1-0-0) v. Nebraska (1-0-0) - Simi Valley wins 7 - 5
Vegas (0-1-0) v. Portland (0-1-0) - Vegas wins 7 - 5
Matchup of the Week: Moscow v. Tampa Bay
For the second week in a row newcomer Mikey and the Thunder find themselves on the wrong end of a close matchup. Just a single assist or win from tying the week up at 6 - get one more of each and it would have been a narrow victory. Too bad. But hey, head up Mike, GM Adam may have proclaimed that his team was undertaking a rebuild of sorts but it definitely doesn’t seem like it the way they’ve shot out of the gate. Also, the fact that the Red Army seems to still be fully stocked with high-end players contradicts that sentiment too. On that note, did Moscow ever say they were planning to have a down year, or did I make that up? Either way...good matchup.
Performance of the Week (offence): Oslo Mastodon (21 goals, 34 assists, +4, 156 shots, 21 STP, 60 hits, 45 blocks, 20:44 TOI)
What can I say, this was a great week of scoring from Oslo. Led by the Burnin’ German Leon Draisaitl (3 - 9 - 14) the Mastodon rubbed their wolly carcas all over the week offensively bringing them their second consecutive win. Now, Leon and his picking on the Senators Sunday night aside, this was an otherwise balanced effort from all players - even the boys from the Golden Knights chipped in before getting banned for a week. If I had to guess (which I don’t...but I will) I would say that Oslo will be one of a few teams who graces this area frequently this year. Good luck to us all.
Performance of the Week (goaltending): Melbourne Bushrangers (3 wins, 1.73 GAA, 107 saves, .939 SV%)
Well...it seems as though the Bushrangers, at least so far, are doing alright in the goaltending department. With Vasilevsky playing the bulk of the games for the Lightning (when they get to play, anyway) and Rinne playing just enough to help this is a decent tandem. But then Melbourne scooped up Kevin Lankinen and he comes in and plays well. Who knew?! Even if this is just a flash in the pan and Melbourne gets average goaltending out of these three moving forward, being 2-0 out of the gate of a short season will go a long way. So kudos.
Player of the Week: Thatcher Demko (3 GP, 3 wins, 1.00 GAA, 100 saves, .971 SV%)
Maybe it’s just because of the nature of my job, but I specifically remember hearing about how the Canucks fans were losing their shit about a bad start to the year. “Fire Benning (still somewhat warranted in my opinion but that’s for another day), trade everyone, Petterson is a bust. Booo! Burn the city to the ground,” is what they were all saying in eerie synchronicity. But nah, Thatcher comes in, locks it down. All is right. What a ridiculous fan base (I say unabashedly as a Leaf fan). And before you all come after me for this after Draisaitl and McDavid had the weeks they did - don’t. Putting those numbers up in a division featuring those two is HARD.
3 Stars:
Leon Draisaitl (3 goals, 9 assists, +5, 9 shots, 6 STP, 22:49 TOI)
Connor McDavid (4 goals, 8 assists, -2, 10 shots, 8 STP, 2 hits, 1 block, 21:21 TOI)
Philipp Grubauer (3 GP, 3 wins, 1.33 GAA, 67 saves, .944 SV%)
Other Notes:
Don’t be fooled by the rocks that he got, St. Roch put Alex Tuch on the block - After a hot start to the year, the Hawks threw Alex Tuch onto the trade block. Now, with a deal yet to have been posted, who is to say if/when a trade is happening, but with St. Roch having gone 2-0 to start the year, it’s tough to say exactly what caused the rift between Tuch and GM Doug. In either case, I hope that for the player’s sake we get a resolution soon.
It’s Reim-Time - That’s right! He’s back in Morweena (again). This time as an F.A.I.R. replacement player. With Blackwood being banished to COVID IR and Petr Mrazek going down Saturday night, Reimnoceri GM Alex turned to the team’s namesake for assistance. Now, will this be an audition for Reimer to land a full-time gig in the DHL for the rest of the season? Time will tell. But in the interim I’m sure he’s just happy to be able to provide for his fantasy family.
A Worm in the Big Apple - After what seemed like way too many chances Anthony DeAngelo was placed on waivers by the Rangers. Is anybody surprised about this? I mean, yes, but only in the sense that it took them this long to do something about it. In the world we are currently navigating the amount of cringey things that DeAngelo was producing (on the ice or otherwise) seems like way too high of a number for an NHL team to be associated with him. In any case, that seems to be on it’s way to being over. Or maybe not…
Belated DHL Playoff Update - The first round of the 2019/20 playoffs wrapped up last night. After an extremely extended opening round, Oslo and Nebraska moved onto the semi-finals after defeating Haukiputaan and Morweena respectively. While the Mastodon took the quarters quite handily by a score of 9-3 the other matchup was tied 6-6 and came down to the tie-breaker (season series - which Nebraska had 2-0). Oslo now moved on to face Simi Valley and Nebraska takes on Moscow. Check back in a few weeks to see who will advance to the final.
Morweena’s Mailbag:
Q: Rate Vegas's cut and re-sign, when all other owners had spent their money (and weren't planning on talking to Connor's agent for another year), to secure McDavid. How does this rate against the other sneaky good moves over the years?
A: I did some digging and the players I was able to come up with is the following list. If I missed anyone, forgive me. You get what you pay for.
Firstly, I developed a rating system so I can properly move forward with this question. I take into account the same stuff I do when I retroactively rate things, which is did they live up to their price tag, do I like them, and have I had enough coffee yet to not be overly negative. Now, in this case, since it's specific to a situation, I have named my scale the Entry Level Player Abolish & Sign Operation or the EL PASO scale. It's out of 7 because I can do what I want and I like to keep you guessing.
Connor McDavid ($70/5)
This was the most recent and arguably biggest of these moves in DHL history. Now, while Vegas could have almost certainly signed McDavid for much less, catching the entire league with their pants around their ankles, I believe that they opted to not do us as dirty as they could have, and in doing so, avoided a shit storm of frustration. But did Vegas overpay? In a way, yes. But also, no. McDavid would have certainly reached the $70 mark on the open market so all things considered I would say he got fair market value. Mix that in with the fact the Vegas has very familiar with navigating his roster round a player (or players) who have very expensive contracts (see Seguin, Benn) I think everything is going to work out fine.
I give this a 6 on the old EL PASO scale.
Frederik Andersen ($29/5)
This one *might* have been the first. Leave it to that snake of a GM in Morweena to expose this loophole. This one did not go as cleanly as it could have. It was met with a fierce bidding war and a flurry of GMs offering cash to others in order to drive up the price. Now, Freddy has been a very good goalie for the past couple of years but there have also been some great goalies on much cheaper contracts. Also great goalies on more expansive contracts. So I guess this has been a pretty average contract value…
I give this a 5 on the old EL PASO scale.
Matt Dumba ($20/4)
Such a promising young D man who was just beaten to the ground by an ancient Wild team. Even at the time he was signed I distinctly remember thinking he was overpaid but maybe it would work out. I guess it did for that one 50 point season, but boy is $20 a steep price for 20 points a year. Defencemen are hard in this league. Personally, I don’t like paying much for them, I’m much happier going after a forward to fill most of the stats on the sheet and find some cheap grunts to fill the blueline and just punish people. But also my D-core is in shambles right now, so what do I know?
I give this a 2 on the old EL PASO scale.
Rickard Rackell ($15/4)
Ol' Rik-Rak here has also been pretty consistently living in the high 40s range. He did have one 69 (nice) point season sprinkled in there, but was the only year he actually played a full 82. I suppose what we can take from this is that *IF* he can play a full campaign, he's pretty good. But in terms of points per game, I think this is good value if you have the roster flexibility to be able to stash him for 20+ games while he has his glass bones replaced with more glass bones.
I give this a 5 on the old EL PASO scale.
Jaden Schwartz ($9/3)
This may have been the best bang for your buck signing of this group. Aside from one outlier season Schwartz has been a pretty consistent 50+ point guy for the duration of this contract. I will fully admit that Schwartz is a guy who is almost never on my radar or I hear anything about, but when you play in the top 6 (I assume) on a team that’s been pretty good for the last 6+ years you’re bound to put up some pretty solid numbers. So, am I surprised? Yes. Should I be? Absolutely not - I should do more research.
I give this a 6 on the old EL PASO scale.
Reilly Smith ($12/4)
Another guy who lives in the 50 point range pretty consistently. I think we all remember Smith breaking out with Vegas in a huge way back in '17/'18 and since then he's dropped off slightly, but that's to be expected with better players being added to that roster every season. Guys like this are hard to rate based on value because honestly their value is mostly dedicated by the FA market they are in. And in this case, he wasn’t even in a free agent market. So, with that in mind….
I give this a 5 on the EL PASO scale
Honourable mention to Collusion Gate where there was a mass release of Silfverberg, Granlund, Panarin, and Schwartz at the trade deadline causing massive rift in the league, conspiracy theories, and rule changes before ultimately being reversed. This was a dark time in the DHL forcing our fearless leader to be "very disappointed" in a bunch of us and having to really lay down the law. In the end, I believe that we all came out with a stronger bond because of it. That or we just developed better poker faces. But let’s not dive back into THAT drama.