[NHL19] We them Dragons - Dragons of Houston

[Lumpjaw]

Quote: Originally Posted by PFellah

My big problem is sharing the PS4 with a teenage son. :P Good job so far, hope the youth movement pans out for you.

Luckily for me, I only have myself to share the PS4 with haha. My girlfriend just play mobile games or an occasional session of The Sims on the computer

Thank you, and I really hope so – if not, the Dragons may be in some seriours trouble :P

[Lumpjaw]

October recap
Record: 5-3-1 | Total record: 5-3-1

After a busy off season the Houston Dragons was looking forward to making strides forward compared to last season when the calender turned to October 14th and the first game of the season when the team travelled to Vegas for a rematch of last seasons opener, that ended in a horrible 9-1 loss for Houston. This years season opener would turn out much better for The Dragons. After domination possesion and peppering Marc-Andre Fleury with shots the Vegas defence could not hold the fort anymore and Tyler Seguin got a dream start to his tenure in Houston with two goals in the first period. Two goals were also scored from the stick of Filip Zadina where the second one was a dandy as he batted the puck in mid air to seal a 6-4 win.

Houston continued the first month of the season with another four straight games on the road which ended up with two losses, one win and one shootout win before heading home for the first home stand of the season when division rival Nashville came to town. A hard fought battled ended with a shoot out win after Zadina fooled Pekka Rinne with a low shot close to the post on Rinnes glove side. A 6-3 win over Detroit on the road led to a 1-0 loss at home in front of a disappointed crowd before we ended the first month of the season with another shoot out win, the third of the year in nine games, to earn a 5-3-1 record and a second place in the division going in to november.

The standout player was the star of the franchise, Tyler Seguin, who were a point per game player during october, close followe by Reid Boucher and Pavel Buchnevich at eigt points each in nine games. The rookie, Filip Zadina, had six points in nine games for a good start of his NHL career.

One transaction were made during october. We had a surplus of defensemen down on the farm in Alabama, a whopping total of 10 defensemen were under contract which was not optimal. We looked around to see if any of the guys outside the lineup could get us anything on the tradeblock and when Anaheim offered us a 7th rounder in 2020 for Alexandre Carrier, we accepted it. We try to raise the prize to a fifth rounder with no luck and the same with a sixth - we rolled with the seventh rounder.

October in pictures

Spoiler

Legend| V: Win, F: Loss, SLV: Shootout win, SLF: Shootout loss


Tyler Seguin made his debut for Houston in Vegas and scored two goals .


Filip Zadina made his NHL debut in the same game and did not want to be worse than Seguin so he also scored two goals, this one he batted out of the air.


Zadina scored the only goal in the shootout against Nashville that resulted in a win.

Houston Dragons October Player Statistics - 2019-20
Skaters	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	GW	PIM	SOG	SPCT
Tyler Seguin	9	6	3	9	0	0	4	43	14.0
Reid Boucher	9	3	5	8	-2	1	0	17	17.6
Pavel Buchnevich	9	2	6	8	0	1	2	23	8.7
Mattias Ekholm	9	1	6	7	1	0	2	13	7.7
Filip Zadina	9	3	3	6	3	0	2	30	10.0
Adam Henrique	9	2	4	6	0	0	2	18	11.1
Austin Czarnik	9	1	4	5	-1	0	0	10	10.0
Jesper Fast	9	2	2	4	-3	0	0	17	11.8
Alex Killorn	9	2	2	4	-1	0	4	14	14.3
Josh Manson	9	1	3	4	-1	0	14	14	7.1
Chandler Stephenson	9	1	3	4	-1	0	0	15	6.7
Taylor Leier	9	2	1	3	-2	0	0	11	18.2
Colton Sceviour	9	1	2	3	-2	0	4	14	7.1
Connor Murphy	9	0	2	2	3	0	8	9	0
Marc Staal	9	0	2	2	-4	0	10	13	0
Jimmy Hayes	9	1	0	1	-1	1	2	12	8.3
Gustav Forsling	9	0	1	1	2	0	0	14	0
Erik Gustafsson	9	0	0	0	-7	0	9	3	0
Goalies	GP	W	L	T	GAA	TOI	SV	SV%	SHO
Steve Mason	5	3	2	0	2.38	302	120	.909	0
Aaron Dell	4	2	1	1	3.36	249	111	.888	0

[Lumpjaw]

November recap
Record: 7-7-0 | Total record: 12-10-1

After a strong start to the season, November hit us with a real fifty-fifty when we look at the results. We started of nice with a solid win over Minnesota at home after controlling the game from the start. Aaron Dell held his first shut out of the season with a 22 save game, including a huge glove save in the dying seconds of the game. The win over Minnesota was the highlight of the month combined with fellow shut out wins over Boston and San Jose, the later one away from our home ice advantage. This shutout was held by Steve Mason, his first of the season.

Back to back losses against Montreal, who added both Varlamov and Jeff Skinner who we was in the bidding for during off season, and Tampa Bay were not what we hade planned for and the guys looked tired in the third period of the Tampa game and were not able to mount a comeback in the third period. All in all this showed that we are not perhaps really ready for a serious push in the playoffs, but we have for sure we are a team that should be over .500 and atleast should be in the race for playoffs.

Like in october, we made one deal involving a defenseman. This time it was Erik Gustafsson, who played all nine games in October who were dealt for a fifth round draft pick to Pittsburgh. Gustafsson was clear about his decision to not sign a new deal with us and we felt like we did not want him to move on for free and we managed to get a fifth rounder in the 2020 draft from Pens.

In the road win against Winnipeg, captain Mattias Ekholm tog a slapshot from Jacob Trouba on the foot and was ruled out for ten days. With Gustafsson already traded and his role as the sixth guy in the line up take by Mackenzie Weegar we decided to call up Henri Jokiharju from Alabama. Jokiharju played the five remaining games in the month while Ekholm was out with injury and posted an assist in his second game in the 4-1 loss against Anaheim. When Ekholm returned to full health on the 1st of December, Jokiharju was sent down to Alabama again.

November in pictures

Spoiler

Legend | V: Win, F: Loss, SLV: Shootout win, SLF: Shootout loss


Legend | SM: Games Played, PG: Points, V: Wins, L: Losses, ÖTF: OT Loss, VMF: Regulation plus Overtime Wins, P%: Points Percentage, GM: Goals For, GMPM: Goals For Per Game, IM: Goals Against, IMPM: Goals Against Per Game


Aarond Dell with a heck of a glove save with 40 seconds left of the game against Minnesota...


... just seconds later Filip Zadina flips the puck in to an open Minnesota net and secures a 3-0 win on home ice in the first game of the month and the first shutout of the season for Aaron Dell.


The players, together with mascot Sam The Dragon, thanks the fans after the win against Boston Bruins.


With captain Mattias Ekholm out, we called up Henrik Jokiharju before the Islanders game at home. This was his NHL debut.


In the Jokiharju debut game, we won a hard battle against Islanders after this one timer from Tyler Seguin who fired it home behind Thomas Greiss after a nice saucer from Zadina.

Houston Dragons November Player Statistics - 2019
Skaters	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	GW	PIM	SOG	SPCT
Tyler Seguin	23	12	7	19	4	1	10	101	11,9
Reid Boucher	23	9	7	16	0	2	0	55	16,4
Pavel Buchnevich	23	3	11	14	2	1	6	46	6,5
Filip Zadina	23	5	8	13	8	0	13	57	8,8
Adam Henrique	23	4	9	13	-2	1	4	54	7,4
Alex Killorn	23	5	5	10	-4	0	12	40	12,5
Jesper Fast	23	4	6	10	-5	0	4	52	7,7
Mattias Ekholm	18	3	7	10	2	1	12	27	11,1
Chandler Stephenson	23	2	6	8	1	1	4	40	5,0
Austin Czarnik	23	1	5	6	-3	0	0	24	4,2
Colton Sceviour	23	1	3	4	2	0	10	33	3,0
Taylor Leier	18	2	1	3	-4	0	2	15	13,3
Jimmy Hayes	23	2	1	3	-3	1	2	28	7,1
Connor Murphy	23	0	3	3	4	0	16	27	0
Marc Staal	23	0	3	3	-3	0	21	33	0
Gustav Forsling	23	1	1	2	1	1	2	37	2,7
Mackenzie Weegar	14	0	1	1	0	0	2	11	0
Henri Jokiharju	5	0	1	1	0	0	0	9	0
Sven Andrighetto	5	0	0	0	1	0	0	2	0
Goalies	GP	W	L	T	GAA	TOI	SV	SV%	SHO
Aaron Dell	14	6	7	1	2,52	833	385	91,7	2
Steve Mason	10	6	4	0	2,15	558	218	91,6	1

Next up: December recap

[m1a2lt]

You really took it to the Blues in that trade; if that was real life, I'd be hunting down Doug Armstrong and burning an effigy in his front yard.

Lines look promising but you have some real strength in the minors. To a good year!

[SeattleBattleCat]

Loving the uni designs of the team. I really like the goalies equipment.
Will be an interesting season to watch unfold, good luck.

[Lumpjaw]

Quote: Originally Posted by m1a2lt

You really took it to the Blues in that trade; if that was real life, I'd be hunting down Doug Armstrong and burning an effigy in his front yard. Lines look promising but you have some real strength in the minors. To a good year!

Haha, yeah. He said that he felt like they hade made a steal, and they won the cup so I guess he's still happy haha. But I won't complain as Kyrou is Alabamas top scorer this season and he's still getting better so I think he will turn out great for us. And I really hope Kim Renberg and Michael Vukojevic will be good for us going forward – but they are atleast 3 seasons away.

Quote: Originally Posted by SeattleBattleCat

Loving the uni designs of the team. I really like the goalies equipment. Will be an interesting season to watch unfold, good luck.

Thank you! Was very inspired by the Minnesota Golden Gophers and Arizona Sun Devils teams when going for the colors.

A december recap will follow this night – have not been able to play that much lately.

[Lumpjaw]

December recap
Record: 6-8-0 | Total record: 18-18-1

We keep playing every other game sort of. After a 7-7-0 November we followed it up by a 6-8-0 December and I´m not really sure of what kind of team we are. I was not expecting us to be a playoff team, but I thought we perhaps would be a bit more consistent, to the good side. We are maybe lacking a bit off secondary scoring, a good second defensive pairing and a good goalie, but other than that I can't find out what is biting us in the arse looking at the results.

However. On to the bright sides. After losing against Buffalo at home with 4–0 Steve Mason had some back spasms and was ruled out for 25 days. It was time to summon the Hart, Carter Hart. And he got off to a flying start as he won his first game in the NHL when we beat Florida 4–2 after a 21 save performance from Hart who was third star of the game. One of the saves was on a shoot out warly in the first. It was a tight game where Panthers took the lead in the first period, Tyler Seguin scored two quick ones in the second before Florida tied it with just six minutes to go in the third. But with 2.30 left to play Reid Boucher was cash in front of the net after Adam Henrique forced a turnover and Jesper Fast rounded it off with an empty netter.

Harts second game was the 5–1 loss against Coyores while his second win come in a 5–2 win over Canucks, after Mason had been hurt again while backstopping us to a 3-1 win over Carolina and Dell won us a game against Washington. Hart then got to play against St. Louis but let six pucks slip by him and with Mason back he was sent down to the AHL again. A promising showcase for the future.

Besides the double injuries to Mason we also lost Jesper Fast until the 7th of january after a hand injury that he got in the win over Vancouver, which means he will miss atleast five games.

We kept doing trades during December to try strengthen our team both for the future and right now. I felt we were lacking som speed in the third and fourth line and were looking for some speedy guys, atleast some guys with a bigger toolbox than some of our third and fourth liners. In Vegas, we found a partner who were willing to take on the last 1,5 year of Marc Staals contract with 5,75 million AAV. We had to include our third line center Chandler Stephenson, but given what we got back I feel it was really worth it even if we had to eat 1 million of Staals contract. We go defenseman Deryk Engelland who like Staal has 1,5 years left on his contract, but with an AAV of just over 2,2 million. We also got Cody Eakin who is a better third line center than Stephenson and also prospect Brendan Lemieux who will give us some skill and grit.

New Jersey Devils had Cedric Paquette on the tradeblock and when we offered Austin Czarnik, who had not done much good for us, straight up and they accepted we were happy to do the deal.

To bolster our defensive core we brought in pending UFA Mark Stone from Calgary in exchange for Chris Bigras, who were playing on the third paring in Alabama, and a third round pick in 2021.

December in pictures

Spoiler

Legend | V: Win, F: Loss, SLV: Shootout win, SLF: Shootout loss



Legend | SM: Games Played, PG: Points, V: Wins, L: Losses, ÖTF: OT Loss, VMF: Regulation plus Overtime Wins, P%: Points Percentage, GM: Goals For, GMPM: Goals For Per Game, IM: Goals Against, IMPM: Goals Against Per Game


Carter Hart made his NHL debut in the 4-2 win over Florida, after stopping a shoot out attempt.


Reid Boucher scored the GWG from close range in Harts debut after a turnover in the defensive zone by a Panthers player.


The last game of the month was a feisty division battle with Nashville. Adam Henrique thorw a late hit on Kevin Fiala who had to leave the game with an upper body injury in the first period.


Aaron Dell with a huge save on a two on nil for the Preds in the first period.


Deryk Engelland scored his first goal in the Houston jersey against Nashville with a slapshot from the point for the 2-1 lead.


However that was not enough as the Preds used a 5-on-3 late in the third to first tie the game and then used the following powerplay to get the game winner from Paul Statsny.

Houston Dragons December Player Statistics - 2019
Skaters	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	GW	PIM	SOG	SPCT
Tyler Seguin	37	23	13	36	8	3	10	149	15,4
Filip Zadina	37	9	18	27	12	0	13	95	9,5
Pavel Buchnevich	37	5	20	25	6	2	10	69	7,2
Reid Boucher	37	11	12	23	-3	3	0	84	13,1
Adam Henrique	37	6	13	19	-8	3	8	92	6,5
Alex Killorn	37	8	8	16	-9	0	18	72	11,1
Jesper Fast	35	6	8	14	-10	0	4	76	7,9
Mattias Ekholm	32	3	10	13	3	1	14	50	6,0
Josh Manson	37	3	6	9	0	0	32	67	4,5
Colton Sceviour	37	3	5	8	1	0	16	58	5,2
Mark Stone	30	1	6	4	-1	1	12	36	2,8
Connor Murphy	37	0	6	6	-3	0	18	44	0,0
Cody Eakin	14	2	3	5	-4	0	2	17	11,8
Jimmy Hayes	36	3	1	4	-9	1	8	43	7,0
Cedric Paquette	34	2	2	4	-6	0	10	24	8,3
Gustav Forsling	37	1	3	4	-7	1	4	53	1,9
Derek Engelland	14	1	0	1	-2	0	10	9	11,1
Brendan Lemieux	3	0	1	1	1	0	2	4	0,0
Sven Andrighetto	19	0	1	1	-4	0	4	16	0,0
Mackenzie Weegar	21	0	1	1	4	0	2	17	0,0
Goalies	GP	W	L	T	GAA	TOI	SV	SV%	SHO
Aaron Dell	25	10	13	1	2,77	1362	611	90,7	2
Steve Mason	12	7	5	0	2,26	638	252	91,3	1
Carter Hart	4	2	2	0	2,9	227	95	89,6	0

Next up: January recap

[Lumpjaw]

January recap
Record: 7-5-0 | Total record: 25-23-1

After a disappointing loss against Detroit we went on a four game winning streak which was a nice stretch of play. Wins over close conferences opponents in Edmonton and Minnesota were huge morale boosts for the guys that lost unsung hero Colton Sceviour in the win over Colorado with a hip injury that would make him miss the remaining games up untill the All Star break.

Shuttin out Montreal at home and following it up by beating Tampa Bay made the fans going nuts in Toyota Center, but when we hit the road we lost against Bruins just to win against Chicago in a thrilling shoot out. We did not have much going our way in the games against Flyers and the Pens, where their goalies were really good. Especially Semyon Varlamov for the Flyers who had built a brick wall infront of his net.

We finished of the month of January with two wins after shutting out Columbus on the road in the first game after the All Star break and then beating Winnipeg on home ice after shoot out. This puts us 9th in the West, tied with Wild for the last wild card spot which gives us some serious thinking to do heading into February - the month of the trading deadline. Will we buy? Sell? A play off push would be nice to bolster our reputation before the free agency - but we won't sacrifice the future for it.

The last place New Jersey Devils wanted to try to get things going before the All Star break when they offered us a 1st round pick in the 2021 draft (next year) and a 2nd rounder in this year which is looking to be a early 2nd rounder. We did however say no after some thinking due to our somewhat lack of center depth. We did not feel comfortable with running a Seguin, Eakin, Paquette trio with Dominik Simon called up from the minors.

We did however think for the future as we signed three pending RFA's in Jordan Kyrou, Henri Jokiharju and Oliver Kylington to new contracts. Kylington got a 2 year deal with a cap hit at $850k while Kyrou signed for three new years @ $925k. We firmly believe Henri Jokiharju will be a great piece for us going forward and signed him to a 5 year deal with a 2,5 million cap hit. We hope that it will turn out to be a great contract while we continue to establish ourselves in the league.

January in pictures

Spoiler

We face Philadelphia Flyers on the road and it became a battle between Semyon Varlamov, who we tried to sign before this season, and our forwards. Here he stuns Jesper Fast.


Varlamov followed up that blocker save with a high glove on a one timer from Alex Killorn late in the third.


Varlamovs last big save came with only 46 seconds left of the third and Flyers leading 1-0. Tyler Seguin feed Buchnevich a great saucer but he could not tuck it home from close range.


Instead, The Flyers won the face off and could advance it up the ice only for Ivan Provorov to find the open net with a bit over 26 seconds left.


After the All Star braek we squared off with Columbus on the road and this time it was our goalie who turned out to be a wall. Here is Steve Mason pulling of a double save from Dubinsky and Nick Foligno.



Our offense were led by our defensemen. Mattias Ekholm slinged a wrister top corner in a box play yo give us the lead.



Deryk Engelland was given way to much space after a face off and used it to gain some momentum for a hard slapper that flew past Korpisalo on his blocker side.


Cedric Paquette then rounded it off with an open net goal, his fourth goal of the season.

Schedule and standings

Spoiler

Legend | V: Win, F: Loss, SLV: Shootout win, SLF: Shootout loss






Legend | SM: Games Played, PG: Points, V: Wins, L: Losses, ÖTF: OT Loss, VMF: Regulation plus Overtime Wins, P%: Points Percentage, GM: Goals For, GMPM: Goals For Per Game, IM: Goals Against, IMPM: Goals Against Per Game

Houston Dragons Player Stats - 2019-20
Skaters	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	GW	PIM	SOG	SPCT
Tyler Seguin	49	31	24	55	12	5	12	195	15,9
Pavel Buchnevich	49	9	30	39	7	3	12	98	9,2
Filip Zadina	49	11	25	36	14	0	13	116	9,5
Reid Boucher	49	15	14	29	-6	3	0	110	13,6
Adam Henrique	49	9	15	24	-8	4	10	113	8,0
Alex Killorn	49	9	15	24	-8	0	22	103	8,7
Jesper Fast	44	8	10	18	-10	1	6	93	8,6
Mattias Ekholm	44	4	13	17	1	1	18	64	6,3
Josh Manson	49	4	7	11	-4	0	46	95	4,2
Mark Stone	42	1	9	10	-3	1	12	52	1,9
Colton Sceviour	41	3	5	8	0	0	16	62	4,8
Cody Eakin	26	2	5	7	-9	0	4	35	5,7
Connor Murphy	49	0	7	7	-5	0	22	56	0
Cedric Paquette	46	4	2	6	-8	0	10	36	11,1
Jimmy Hayes	39	3	2	5	-10	1	10	45	6,7
Gustav Forsling	49	1	3	4	-6	1	6	72	1,4
Deryk Engelland	26	2	1	3	-1	0	15	19	10,5
Sven Andrighetto	31	1	2	3	-11	0	8	37	2,7
Brandon Pirri	8	0	2	2	0	0	2	9	0
Brendan Lemieux	15	0	1	1	-3	0	8	17	0
Mackenzie Weegar	21	0	1	1	4	0	2	17	0
Goalies	GP	W	L	T	GAA	TOI	SV	SV%	SHO
Steve Mason	23	14	8	0	2,19	1285	534	91,9	3
Aaron Dell	27	10	15	1	2,49	1439	640	90,5	2

Next up: Trading deadline recap