GAMESPEAK FHL NEWSLETTER

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1 June 6, 2017 Vol. 7, No. 6 Join the Living FHL Experience and follow us on Twitter and Get Game updates Welcome to the June 6, 2017 Edition of Gamespeak - The FHL Conference Finals Edition. The FHL Playoff Bracket: 1

2 Table of Contents: P. 1 FHL Playoff Bracket (The Quest for the Crystal) P. 2 - Table of Contents. P. 2 FHL Crystal Playoff Predictions Conference Finals by Scott Kalman (Coach/GM Cleveland Barons) and Chad Pridemore (Coach/GM Detroit Bandits) P. 5 - FHL Lottery by Gamespeak Staff P. 6 From the Commissioner s Office History of California Zephyrs Part 1. FHL Crystal Playoff Prediction Republic Conference Finals by Scott Kalman Republic Conference: #2 Kansas City Ice Twisters vs. #6 Boston Whalers Ok, So I was WRONG on my last prediction as I predicted the Dolphins to easily defeat the Whalers. At least my bookie is happy about it as he made a killing off me. #2 Kansas City Ice Twisters Probably nobody in the league knows more about this team than me (Except Joshua of course) as I have been unsuccessfully trying to unseat them as the dominant force in the Mid-West Division since the leagues inception. It hasn t worked. Kansas City is without a doubt the best team to have never won the Chrystal Cup since the league started. Kansas City has a very well balanced attack and is led by John Tavares who is the team captain and heart and soul of the Ice Twisters. Tavares is surrounded on the first line by Johnny Gaudreau and the ageless Jaromir Jagr. The K.C. big line combined for 10 goals and 20 assists in 6 games in the Ice Twisters first round playoff win over Calgary. The Ice Twisters are not a one trick pony however, as they have plenty of depth throughout their top 9 forwards as each line can hurt you. On the Blue line the Ice Twisters do not have the superstar defensemen or the guys who are going to push the play offensively, but they are good stand up defenders and do their job well of keeping things clean for the K.C. goaltenders. In goal for K.C. Roberto Luongo has been getting the call so far in the playoffs and was not great as his.889 save percentage in the first round would attest, but he was playing the second highest 2

3 FHL Crystal Playoff Predictions Republic Conference Finals by Scott Kalman Defensively the Swords are strong and well balanced led by #6 Seed Boston Whalers Dustin Byfuglien who also exceeded his real-life points totals withlearned 25 goals 68 points. I can and attest to his deadliness as I have my and lesson with Boston, do not count the defending it felt like he scored all 25 against me. Depth on the blue line champions out as they refuse to give up their crown without a fight. an issue a long series. Theycould just be survived an in epic 7 game tilt with New York who was my pick to win In it goal all this year, and the Conference finals for the the Swords are now alsohead welltoanchored with Brian Elliott and second year in a row. I stated in my last article they would be a King Henrik so no weak spots in a long series with those two major upset in for net.them to defeat New York, but I feel the way they played did not look like an upset as they played like they were the favorites to Whalers have the Superstar forwards lineup win The thatboston series. For the Whalers to advance to the in Cuptheir finals they will studs and Patrick Kane willthe test the Cincinnati needaskane andlike BennBenn to continue to dominate offense, and for Corey defensetoall series long. 6 for the Whalers are on par Schneider stay hot in goalthe as top he has a.922 save percentage in 11 with anyone in the league, but do drop off a bit in their games foralmost the playoffs. third and fourth lines. Defensively the Whalers are equal or better than the Swords in My Series rating,analysis: but did not put up the offensive numbers that the Sword defenders did. The through Whalers the gavetop up 9less than the Offense: Pretty close for goals both teams, butswords I haveinto and that is with Boston playboston the givethe theregular edge toseason, the Whalers because of Kane andhaving Benn. to Edge: top two scoring teams in the league in New York and Calgary twice Almost each block. Defense: identical style blue-liners for both teams, too close to call. Edge: Even Goalies: Have to go with Schneider over Luongo as we all know as there is nothing better than haveing a hot playoff goalie. Edge: Boston Special Teams: Boston allowing the Dolphins news for Bean Town as on 38% of their power the Whalers, Stay out managed to survive the New York Series while a 40% success rate on the power play. More bad the Ice Twisters come into the series converting play opportunities against Calgary. My advice to of the box. Edge: Kansas City. This should be another great series that is almost too close to call, but as it is my job to call it, I will predict the Whalers in 7. I learned my lesson last series and won t bet against the defending champions. 3

4 FHL Crystal Playoff Prediction National Conference Finals by Chad Pridemore National Conference: #1 Seed Gatineau City Bulldogs vs. #3 seed Buffalo Sabres New rookie coach Terry Starbody s #2 Seed Chesapeake Bay Hawks were surprisingly swept by the Buffalo Sabres. They lost their two home games by 1 goal. Game #1 where they lost in a 5-4 sudden death overtime thriller. Either team could have won this game. But then Game #2 Chesapeake put forth an anemic effort with only 16 shots on goal to Buffalo s 28 in a 2-1 loss. Then they got blown out on the Sabres ice in game 3 by a 4-1 score where Wayne Simmonds got another Gordie Howe hat trick (1 goal, 1 assist, and 1 fight). Finally in game 4 Chesapeake put up good fight despite the Sabres #1 goal tender Ben Bishop being pulled after the first period after allowing 3 goals against 12 saves. Buffalo would rally from a 4-1 deficit to tie the game on back to back power play goals at the end of the 2 nd period and start of the 3 rd period. But Rick Nash would get the GWG at 7:15 in the 3 rd period for the 5-4 victory. So on advances the surprise underdog Buffalo Sabres to face the #1 seed and Federalist Award winning (most team points in FHL) Gatineau City Bulldogs. Forwards: The Buffalo Sabres (old Quebec Nordiques) has a tough forward line of Jonathan Toews, Taylor Hall, and Wayne Simmonds on the first line; Erik Zetterberg, Jiri Hudler, Eric Staal on the second line; and Eric Staal, Rick Nash, and David (Pasta) Pastrnak on the third line. These are tough lines that have gotten them into the playoffs for every season of their existence. The only problem is that the Gatineau City Bulldogs has gotten better forwards. Mark Scheifele, Anze Kopitar, and T.J. Oshie on the first line. Sean Monahan, Joe Thornton, and Mark Stone on the second line. Zach Parise, Patrick Marleau, Justin Williams on the third line. Even their fourth line is tough with Andrew Ladd, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and (downtown) Dustin Brown. All their forwards are tough defensively (4.0 or higher) except for Scheifele who is a 3.8. Buffalo s forwards are much weaker defensively. Moreover Gatineau has 9 players who score over 20 goals, while Buffalo only has 4. Finally the Bulldogs pulled off the big trade with McGregor getting the final piece to the puzzle Anze Kopitar to set up Scheifele and Oshie on the wings. Advantage Gatineau! Defense: The Sabres defense has long been the toast of the town with perennial FHL All Stars in Shea Weber, P.K. Subban, Duncan Keith, Dion Phaneuf, and Andrei Markov. And to top it off they even got rooke Colton Parayko. The only problem is Gatineau has built their defense up too. Drew Doughty, Matt Niskanen, Paul Martin, Zdeno Chara, Tyler Myers, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson! I never thought I would say this but I am going to have to call this even! Goaltending: The Sabres goaltending has to rely on Cam Talbot in net since their stalwart goalie Carey Price is GP limited for the series. Talbot is pretty good at 7.3 rating. The only problem is the Bulldogs goalie Braden Holtby is just a little bit better at 7.7 goalie rating. Prediction: David Luksch has had a good run this season and in the Crystal Playoffs. Unfortunately it will come to an end with Gatineau Bulldogs prevailing in 6 games. Dustin Brown whom I wrote about as The Most Traded Man in the FHL World will finally get his chance at the Crystal Finals. 4

5 FHL Draft Lottery Season By FHL Executive Group Please note that for the FHL Draft first round only the worst 4 teams will be entered into the FHL Draft Lottery. For details of the FHL Draft Lottery and how to apply the seed # please consult the FHL constitution on FHL Webpage. The FHL Lottery will be held during the second to the last day of the Crystal Finals on Saturday evening June 24, The Massachusetts Numbers game will be used to determine random seed #0-99 (the right most significant digits are used). Here is their website to review: The teams in the lottery are: Team A Columbia, B Florida, C Los Angeles, and D Detroit. Team A is worst record team. In a nutshell the lottery teams will have the following probabilities of getting the first pick in the draft choice overall. 1. Columbia 54% 2. Florida 27% 3. Los Angeles 13% 4. Detroit 6% The probability of each lottery team picking where they finished (in order from worst to best): 1. Columbia 54% 2. Florida 40% 3. Los Angeles 40% 4. Detroit 62% 5

6 From the Commissioner s Office: The second round is in the books and in case you didn t notice we just witnessed an end of a terrific run by the California Zephyrs. They have achieved a monumental feat of making it to the FHL Crystal Finals for 3 consecutive years. Although they did not win the Crystal Finals (falling twice to the New York Dolphins, and once to the Boston Whalers) they still made it in. They did this as basically an expansion team in ruins. j Granted they did have two-time Federalist Award winner (point race winner) Sidney Crosby but that was about it. They traded away in 2011 David Backes to Montreal for Mike Cammalleri and #1 pick; Mike Richards to Gatineau for their #1, and #2. They turned that into draft pick gold in 2011 with Tyler Seguin #1.3, Nino Niederreiter #1.13, Nick Leddy #1.14, Jacob Markstrom #2.3, Craig Adam #2.4, Jamie Morin #2.13, Jacob Josefson #2.18, Sergei Bobrovsky #3.3, Yannick Weber #4.3, and Vicktor Stalberg #4.12. Gamespeak Staff: Next issue of Gamespeak will be the Crystal Finals edition and will have the GP overages for all the teams and penalties that will be incurred in draft position as a result of this. They traded more players in 2/13/2012 of Jonas Hiller, Brooks Orpike, and Brandon Morrow to the New York Dolphin for Mikkel Boedker, Nazem Kadri, and Johan Hedberg, NY first round pick, NY fourth round pick. Then in the draft they turned that into Ryan Nugent-Hopkins #1.2, Adam Larsson #1.6, Ryan Johansen #1.9, Erik Gudbranson #1.10, Gustav Nyquist #3.3, Justin Braun #4.2, Kyle Clifford #6.6, and Akim Aliu #7.2. Then in 2013 they picked up Nail Yakupov and Jonas Brodin. Then their amazing run started in 2013 when they qualified for the playoffs with a 2nd place finish in the West Division when they made an amazing run in January with a 51-0 run when they beat division power houses Exton (current Calgary Tigers) 4-1; Gatineau City 4-1 and 3-2, and Quebec Nordiques (now Buffalo Sabres) 4-3 in OT. Tyler Seguin led the team at that time with 18 goals and 21 assists. Crosby was severely GP limited due to concussion symptoms. At the #3 seed they defeated Columbus Jaguars 4-3 having to rally from a 3-1 deficit in game 7. They then defeated power house Indianapolis Checkers 4-1, and defeated playoff favorite Quebec Nordiques 4-2. They lost the Crystal Finals to NY Dolphins 4-1. To be continued Special thanks goes to our contributing guests Scott Kalman (Cleveland Barons manager/coach) and Chad Pridemore (Asst. Commissioner and Detroit Bandits manager/coach) 6