Written by – Anon.
Anaheim Ducks:
Reaper and Kidmoney are one of SP’s long-time duos, and have a Cup to their name. However that championship is becoming a long distant memory, as since their Cup win, Reaper’s teams have more often than not floated around in pretender territory, having yet to even return to the finals since. This season I fear may not be much different. VeZzZy is arguably the best goaltender in the league, but I’m not sold on their D. DougCBJ and M1keal are known to be very aggressive defenseman, but in a Dustin Byfuglien kind of way rather than a Shea Weber kind of way. If they can’t help themselves from taking themselves out of position looking for hits, Vezzzy is gonna have a lot on his plate, and incredible as he is, he’s not impregnable. Snach and Kronwall as their #3 and #4 are completely uninspiring and won’t have much success cleaning up any mess left by Doug and M1k. However offensively, this team should be fairly strong, as Kid and Reap’s teams always are. Their third wheel this season will likely alternate between prodigytolegend (formerly known as No-Limit) and Loyalty_Caper. Skilled players, though they have their warts. They success of this team hinges on M1k and Doug playing less reckless defense. If they can get that under control, Anaheim will do some damage. If they can’t, well, they’ll still be doing damage, but it’ll be to themselves.
Offense: B/B+
Defense: B-
Goaltending: A
Calgary Flames:
Sportsgeek5 held on to the trusty, former Cup-winning duo of TrueLegend07 and redflag33 going into this season, but beyond those 2 re-signs, it doesn’t look like he made a ton of other notably good decisions. He took AAli-21 with his 1st round pick, who had an impressive although limited showing at D his last time out, but has moved to RW this season, and I’m not sure if he has the chops to meaningfully contribute to that top line. I don’t suspect he’ll be moving back to D as Calgary has a bevy of solid d-men at their disposal in ttommyboiii, PNCpark2k1 and most notably Dangles4days. I expect PNC and Dangles to be their top pair as tommy’s availability isn’t everything it could be this season. Though solid as they are, I’m not convinced either of them are guys you can build a D-core around. I think Dangles is fantastic though and very underrated and I would not be surprised if he made me eat copious amounts of crow on that last sentence. The crease will apparently be shared between sportsgeek himself (who is also a respectable d-man) and chicks-n-whips. Admittedly a goaltending tandem I don’t have an enormous amount of faith in. sportsgeek can be great, but he’s also very inconsistent, and chicks-n-whips hasn’t been particularly reliable up to now throughout his SP career. Dangles is gonna have to play Norris-caliber defense, or one of these goalies will need to have an epic coming-out party if this team is gonna keep their GA down to manageable levels. Beyond the established vets, I’m not seeing a ton of promise in the rookies, at least the ones I know of. Frody16 and xx_cinema_xx are decent but not enough to effectively augment Red and True, and I’ve heard rather unflattering things about Full_melt707. All in all, I think Calgary may struggle this season. True and red are excellent, but they can only do so much.
Offense: B
Defense: B
Goaltending: C/C+
Chicago Blackhawks:
FivepointOHHH returns as GM, though Fivestarcoock is the architect behind this team. Arguably the strongest team in the West, and one of the strongest in the league. Their starting 5 skaters are as good as any in the league, likely running Fishhure-ACK-stonerboy-Hartysauce up front with studword and Fivetstar himself at D. The only question mark is in net. Gamergod is a respectable goalie, but certainly not on par with the aforementioned 5 skaters, and though I know xTreeOfLife is quite highly touted in Chicago, his availability may keep him from emerging as this team’s starter. But regardless, with a starting 5 that strong, this team only needs average goaltending to dismantle their opposition, and Gamergod is more than capable of providing that.
Offense: A
Defense: B/B+
Goaltending: B-/B
Colorado Avalanche:
Eggman, Etthan and Ivan, the eternal menage a trois, return to Colorado this season with an interesting team absolutely brimming with potential. 5//11 players here are rookies, and I expect at least two of them to make a name for themselves, with one being an early Calder favourite. olPope and j_marz I would expect to be very important to this team, and I’m sure Egg is counting on j_marz to help catalyze their offense. Eggman will be anchoring the defense as per usual, but unless mikethenef or Fuzzy_Blues are a better D-man than he is, the Avs will be fairly middling in that respect. They do have Jhonny_Phonny backstopping them, a fantastic goalie in his own right who’ll surely be stealing a couple wins, but the defense in front of him may not be enough to help mitigate any off-nights he may have. Egg has been a very competent GM throughout his entire tenure in SP and almost never fails to ice a competitive team and this season will likely be no different. But to that same end, he has never won himself a cup as a GM either. His teams always look great on paper, but never deliver the goods. We’ll see if he can end the drought with this latest edition of the Avalanche.
Offense: B/B+
Defense: B-/B
Goaltending: B+
Dallas Stars:
Right off the bat Avng made a splash at the draft in trading the 3rd overall pick plus some later picks in exchange for reigning Vezina winning Holdfast308, thereby solidifying his goaltending. Or… so he thinks. This may be an unpopular opinion, but, suffice to say, but I think Holdfast quite notably overachieved last season (thanks in part to an extremely strong Florida Panthers, now NYR, team) and I don’t expect he has another Vezina-caliber season in him. There were better options available, especially considering the draft position and I think Avng would have been better off going for one of them (VeZzZy, aka Jatty, or Jhonny_Phonny to name two) and keeping the extra picks. Beyond that, Avng has assembled a nice collection of players, but no real game-breakers in my opinion. I don’t see a true #1 forward or a true #1 defenseman; I see a bunch of, albeit skilled, ultimately complementary players. To put it another way: there’s no one on Dallas I wouldn’t like to have on my team, but also no one I’d want to build my team around. This team has talent and lots of depth, but not the pieces to put them over the top. Don’t sleep on them, but don’t lose sleep over them either.
Offense: B
Defense: B-
Goaltending: B-/B
Los Angeles Kings:
LA is going to be very interesting to watch as they have a lot of question marks, but the potential is quite clearly there. YourMudder was one of the top goalies in SP last season, though in only 25 games. GM MrLOLChico and Sanke_-_Plisskin will comprise their top D-pair. Chico is an inconsistent d-man and Plisskin may end up having to do most of the heavy lifting here, but I feel he should be up to it. On offense, they have a number of skilled pieces. Their most notable name is u_1_2_b_me, who plays every forward position and plays them all well. Alongside him will be mclub326 (taken 12th overall, a very productive player in LG) and then a revolving door of Slivers311, Triggatrey and RickRage. Triggatrey made a name for himself on last season’s Florida Panthers playing D alongside Dangles4Days (and later Cuban1616). He didn’t put up great numbers on D, so it’ll be interesting to see how the offense translates to his new post at RW. RickRage has decent career numbers in SP but nothing to write home about. This team might be best served moving Trey back to D and playing him with Snake, thereby relegating Chico to the secondary duties. The name to watch here may be Slivers311, who is unknown in leagues as far as I know, but if I’m not mistaken is one of the top EASHL players in the world. Taken in the 3rd round, he may be LA’s secret weapon, so to speak. If Mclub and Slivers can be the players I believe they can be, the rest of the league may have their hands full lining up against them. There’s a lot of potential here. If they can develop chemistry, the Kings…. I was about to say “may get their crown” but I would never say something that stupid. They’ll be good, is the point.
Offense: B/B+
Defense: B-/B
Goaltending: B
St. Louis Blues
El_Rookie is staying in St. Louis for a second season in a row, and for a second season in a row he’ll probably be finding himself in last place come season’s end. The only players I find notable here are Al_Bundy, Redconcept (who was taken 1st overall), dsmitty and VinceT13. Though regarding Vince, I only know him as a (quite talented) forward, but he’s signed on to play RD here, and I can’t speak to his defensive capabilities. In any case, as good a goalie as Redconcept is (and he is very, very good, make no mistake), i think El made a significant misstep taking him 1st overall. This team has holes everywhere, except in net, which is a position Al_Bundy has played and done so with great success. In my opinion, he should’ve kept Bundy in net and taken pretty much anyone else with that pick. In fairness though, Bundy and dsmitty have played together a long time (real life friends as well if I’m not mistaken) and have excellent chemistry, so these 2 could take their opposition by surprise if they get complacent. Overall though, this team is basically just unremarkable depth pieces from top to bottom outside of a small handful of players – an issue compounded by strangely and needlessly having 15 players on the team when the minimum roster size in 10. Perhaps El is hoping for some kind of offense/defense-by-committee thing to unfold here, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Here’s to making a better 1st overall pick next draft.
Offense: C-
Defense: D
Goaltending: B+
Vegas Golden Knights:
Sergein and SA_Pliskin (otherwise known as our supreme overlord) are another one of SP’s iconic duos, but for as long as they’ve been together, they have nothing to show for it. This team looks similar to Dallas in that they have a lot of nice pieces but none to put them over the top, but with the important distinction that those pieces aren’t even as nice. This almost exact same offense struggled against a questionable San Jose (now Pittsburgh) team in the playoffs last season and, despite winning, went on to get crushed in the following round. The D is improved, likely running Way2Goal and OG_KJ as their top pairing, but I don’t think they’ll be enough to lift Vegas out of bubble territory. The one saving grace of this team could be if Pliskin moves back in net, as, in my opinion, he was unquestionably the best goalie in the SPNHL in his prime. If not, starting duties may fall squarely too XCapemysch–long, who has a nice stat-line in LG. Might not be enough to keep this team competitive, though. So unless they’re hiding a diamond among their rookie crop, I anticipate Vegas’ inaugural SP season will be about as productive as their real-life counterparts’.
Offense: B-
Defense: B
Goaltending: ? / total wild card at this point
———-
All in all, I think the west in Chicago’s to lose. But the order of the remaining 7 spots is anyone’s guess (unless they guess STL to finish anywhere but last, then they’ve guessed wrong). My guess is as follows:
1. Chicago Blackhawks
2. Colorado Avalanche
3. Anaheim Ducks
4. Los Angeles Kings
5. Dallas Stars
6. Calgary Flames
7. Vegas Golden Knights
8. St. Louis Blues