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The
2018-2019 WHL season saw the Oyster Bay
Liberty continue their league domination
with their second championship in a row,
and their 4th in only 7 WHL seasons.
The Liberty
won by having an incredible seven
players having career years, Mackinnon
41, Atkinson 41, Point 41, Couturier 33,
Horvat 27, DeBrusk 27 and Coleman 22
goals. Steven Stamkos also rebounded
with 41 goals after 2 sub-par seasons.
The Liberty took over first place by
winning the November Team of the Month
with 87 goals and led the league from
that point on. This is now 5 seasons in
a row that the Oyster Bay Liberty finish
in the money standings, tying the
Reservoir Dogs for 2nd most ever.
Liberty only failed one time to finish
in the money standings and that was in
the 2002-2003 campaign, when they
finished in eighth place. Also the
Liberty become only the second team to
win back to back championships besides
the Bada Bing, who did it twice. Oytser
Bay Liberty is now tied with the Sudbury
Wolves with 4 WHL championships, the
second best behind Bada Bing's five.
Next season Liberty can attempt to tie
Bada Bing's league record of 3
consecutive championships and five
overall. With this win the Oyster Bay
Liberty move up to 3rd overall in the
Prize Money Rankings of all time.
Coming in second place, their highest finish ever, was Winter is Coming with 411 goals. WIC powered to a second place finish by making wise selections in the entry draft (despite a somewhat weak 1st round selection, Lee 28 goals) like their 5th round pick DeBrincat 41 goals and 3rd round pick Guentzel 40 goals. If you thought Liberty's 7 players having career years was impressive, Winter is Coming bested that with an astounding eight players having career years. DeBrincat, Guentzel, Pastrnak, Scheifele, Hertl, Arvidsson, Gallagher, and Meier had career years and if defenseman Dumba did not get injured he would have had a career year too. Winter is Coming started the season strong by winning the October Team of the Month award with 76 goals. With this 2nd place finish Winter is Coming moved up to the 15th overall place for total winnings.
Big Three wanted one more month added to the season for a chance at first place, but had to settle for third place. The hard charging Big Three won the final two Team of the Months to climb in the standings, blowing past four team that were ahead of him at the start of February. Led by the leagues 2nd best scorer Leon Draisaitl's 50 goals and John Tavare's 47 goals Big Three made it into the money standings for the fourth straight season and the eighth time in ten seasons. Big Three is now in 6th place in the overall money winnings, not bad for a team only participating in 10 of the 21 seasons of the WHL.
Rounding out the money winners were the two original members and only members to participate in every season of the WHL, the Sudbury Wolves and Helmut. The Sudbury Wolves limped into fourth place by collapsing in the final month after being in second place the majority of the season. When the final month of the season started the Wolves were solidly in second place, 5 goals ahead of Winter is Coming and 21 goals ahead of Big Three. Both of those teams out scored the Wolves by 26 and 30 goals respectively in the final month of March. Although the Wolves had the rookie of the year, Pettersson 28 goals and defenseman of the year Rielly 20 goals, they were lucky to hang on to fourth place. Despite the collapse the Sudbury Wolves captured a league record 15th year in the money standings and remains second overall in total money winnings.
Also having a poor final month of the season Helmut was unable to take advantage of the Wolves collapse, but still managed to hold onto the final money spot with 378 goals. Helmut was able to hold off Son of Rudy and the Flyers for the final money position with top scorers Patrick Kane 44 goals and Gaudreau 36 goals. By winning the January Team of the Month, Helmut was able to capture an 11th season in the money standings and fourth overall in total winnings all time.
The remaining teams of Son of Rudy, Flyers, Bada Bing, Blackhawks, Reservoir Dogs and Vandelay Industries will need to wait for next season to chase the dream of being the WHL champions!
Individual Player Awards for the 2018-209 WHL
Season
Most Valuable Player: Alex Ovechkin 51
goals - Vandelay Industries
Rookie of the Year: Elias Pettersson 28
goals - Sudbury Wolves
Defenseman of the Year: Morgan Rielly 20
goals - Sudbury Wolves
Other interesting notes of this past season;
1. Oyster Bay Liberty is the only team to have
scored more goals with their originally drafted team
than their final roster with trades and re-entry
draft picks.
2. The Sudbury Wolves made eight trades
involving 23 players, added two players from the
re-entry draft and still scored the exact amount of
goals as his original drafted team would have had
with 382.
The standings from the original drafted teams, no
re-entry, no trades.
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