The Seattle Metropolitan Express "Year Three"

[Jon-Seattle]

1^st Round Draft Day Edition:

 

The Seattle Metropolitans had three picks in the first round of the GHL entry draft this year after what was a disappointing season. Initially thinking the team was not going to be in contention Seattle sold off grizzled vets on UFA contracts and devoted themselves to the continuation of their rebuild. The team rebounded shortly thereafter led by a young core of players pushing for playing time. Seattle never did make it back into the playoff hunt and instead focused efforts on this year’s draft. 

After the end of the season the team went into lockdown mode while they debated on placement of prospects onto the draft board, none more difficult than this year’s first round where high-end prospects were likely just out of reach and with a good number of prospects nearly evenly graded throughout the early to middle sections of the draft. Once the draft was underway the Metropolitans and third year GM Jon Hagen could only watch as the first elite prospects came off the board. "It’s always hard with those first few picks, you know that there is not much of a chance that any of those guys slip but it doesn't make it any easier. But we had to stick to our guns and just wait to see who feel to us basically." And wait they did, all the way to pick #11.

"Once we got to our first pick it was quite obvious what our choice was. We heard a lot of mumbling around tables about a guy we had rated as the number one defenseman in this draft, we knew teams were looking really hard at Liljegren and we couldn't wait on him to fall any farther. There was a big debate with the scouts about Liljegren vs. our next top forward and we just couldn't say no to the top-rated defenseman."

On the way up to the podium GM Jon was handed what looked to be a small package by a man well known to Metropolitan fans, Aleksander Barkov. Once on stage the crowd waited with baited breath to hear who the #11 pick would be. Jon unwrapped the package as he announced that Barkov would be introducing two things to Metropolitan fans that night. Barkov was handed one half of the package and unrolled it to reveal the metropolitans new Home uniform:

Barkov showed off the sweater before being the first to be able to dawn the jersey. After which he announced in his thick Finnish accent, “The number 11 pick made by Seattle Metropolitans, Timothy Liljegren”.

Liljegren was quick to make his way to the stage where GM Jon handed him the second jersey.  Liljegren would be the first draft pick selected by Seattle to be bathed in emerald green that day but he wouldn’t be the last.

“Once we had Liljegren we had to quickly get back on task, that was really hard to get everyone back down to prepare for 14 soon after. Once we got there though there was no question this time on who we were taking.” Apparently the choice at 11 had come down to a decision between defenseman Liljegren and right winger Martin Necas. “We were positive that we wouldn’t get another chance at Necas but we were really lucky. There are a ton of guys with top 15 potential this year and its really a pick your flavor kind of deal, where teams have prospects rated evenly and got the guy that fit their style best. In our case that meant Necas was able to fall to 14 and there was no hesitation making that pick.

3 Picks later Seattle would go back to the well by picking another defenseman, their fifth 1^st round defenseman in the last 4 drafts. “We believe you have to play good defense in this league to get ahead. Right now we have a stable of young offensively minded defenseman and Cal Foote just continues to add to that, I think he’s a little stronger defensively than people give him credit for and he’ll be an amazing addition to this franchise
and this D corps for years to come. He was also the highest guy left on our board and when you can say you picked the best guy available I don’t think you can ever go wrong.” Said GM Jon when asked why he chose another defenseman. 

With news that Aaron Ekblad would be signing an extension the Seattle Defensive corps looks to be amazing talented with room to grow over the next several years. Now the only thing to find out is can they continue this rebuilding success on the offensive side of the puck.

stay tuned for a full recap of the Metropolitans draft shortly after the conclusion of the draft.

Attachments:

[Jon-Seattle]

State of the Metropolitans.
The Metropolitan franchise is enjoying an unusual run of playoff level hockey. For the last several years the franchise has been a bottom dwelling team, but the recent move to the Pacific Northwest appears to have invigorated the once beleaguered franchise. Today Seattle sits first in the Patrick division and expects to make a run in the playoffs with new additions Brook Orpiks pushing out Samuel Girard on the back end and Brian Gibbons shoring up the bottom 6.

When asked about Seattle’s recent moves GM Jon was reluctant to say whether or not this was a permanent change in philosophy. “We’re really excited how the guys are playing and know anything can happen once you make it in (to the playoffs), but that doesn’t mean we’re done building this team. We have a lot of young guys coming up we really believe in, guys we expect to elevate this team to a legitimate contender year in and year out.”

When directly asked whether or not Seattle was interested in making any more moves the GM was reluctant to answer but is quoted as saying, “not at this time”.

Based on these comments don’t expect the Metropolitans to be involved in to many more deals, at least nothing flashy. News will be slow for the next few weeks on a hockey front as Seattle plays out the rest of the season so we’ll be looking at Seattle’s prospects in the next few installments for your reading pleasure.

[Jon-Seattle]

Three years ago the Ottawa Spartans were abysmal, coming off a season in which they had chosen Aaron Ekblad with the #1 overall pick, the team was searching for its future GM and the team appeared rudderless. The team eventually found their GM, was moved, and rebranded as the Seattle metropolitan. They are currently leading the abysmal Patrick division, but leading nonetheless. The turnaround was spurred by the arrival of new GM Jon Hagen. Jon quickly got down to business and worked the phones to pull off a trade with Colorado to offload picks he knew his team wouldn’t be prepared to use as they had a late start in the scouting process. Despite moving their second and third the Metropolitans picked up two great players in the draft while adding additional picks for the following year.

The first round pick was a top tier talent in Zach Werenski, “it was a real surprise to have Zach fall in to our laps. We saw a huge talent gap between him and the rest of the available prospects and despite just having drafted Ekblad a year earlier we figured a team could never have enough great defensemen, especially offensive style defenseman who can play 22-23 minutes a night.” The pick has so far been highly regarded and he is currently sharing first pairing duties with the aforementioned Ekblad. Werenski currently sits first in goals for all of the Metropolitan defensemen with 11, in addition to 25 helpers while manning his first pairing defensive position.

Jon’s second pick had to wait until the 4th round to be called due to the previous trade. Jon went with a high risk/high reward pick in Daniel Zaar. Zaar was a half point per game player in the AHL but never made the transition to the NHL and is now playing in the SHL, way out of sight and unlikely to return to the league the pick was a look into how late round picks would be viewed by this administration.

Jon’s 5th round pick was a diamond in the rough and netted himself Ondrej Kase. Currently the undersized RW is on LTIR in the NHL but is a top 6 cornerstone when healthy, having netted 11 goals and 9 assists in just 30 games due to concussions and a shoulder injury that requires surgery but expect him to be a mainstay in Seattle for some time as they develop players from within. At the time of publishing Kase has 46 points (24G, 22A) in 62 games for the Metropolitans and far exceeding the expectations of his draft status.

While the first draft wasn’t much to write home about it did lay the groundwork for a rebuild in which the Metropolitans would bet on talent to win out and build from the blue line out. It also highlighted the types of player Seattle would target.

After Jon’s first draft the team underwent a number of additional changes, particularly unloading older veterans while bringing in picks and youth to create the basis for what is believed to be an eventual perennial contender. We’ll look at the moves in Jons first full season in the next installment of the metropolitan express.

[Jon-Seattle]

Jons year two in review

After GM Jon took over the future Metropolitans and the first draft was in the rear view mirror the real work began. It was a long season for the Ottawa Spartans as they shipped out one of the best players in Cammaleri but it was obvious to those at the top that his talents were being wasted in Ottawa and he was shipped out to the eventual champions, Hartford. In exchange Jon netted himself his third 1st round pick for the next years draft, which would eventual turn into two 2nd round picks. A number of smaller moves were made including offloading Jake Muzzin and a few other aging veterans for prospects and lower picks. The Spartans would end up picking 14th and moving to Seattle in the off-season, hoping for a new start out west. Unfortunately mixups would eventually prevent them from unveiling new uniforms for nearly a year but that years draft still put a youthful look to the rebranded franchise.

With Seattle’s natural pick (14) in Jons second draft the Metropolitans would add Mikhail Sergachev, another offensive blue liner to add to the combo of Ekblad and Werenski. A theme was beginning to develop and it began to be clear what Jon was focusing on to reinvigorate his new look franchise. “I still believe you have to build from your defense out. We got some offensive, puck moving defenders and I think they play the brand of hockey we want to play. We also believe we picked up the best player available every time.” It didn’t hurt that Seattle had managed to draft first line center Aleksander Barkov along with center Ryan Johansen and other offensive role players such as Tanner Pearson, Melker Karlsson, and the since traded Charlie Coyle in the drafts just prior to Jon taking over the team. “I also feel like defenders seem to be a little undervalued in our league today. Guys fear that they’ll take too long to develop or just won’t pan out but I’m a firm believer that you have to take those chances.” Quipped Jon, “if you don’t then you’ll miss out on a lot of talent.” Sergachev currently sits fourth for Seattle defensemen with 25 points but a -15 as he was paired with rookie Samuel Girard on Seattle’s 3rd pairing. “Ya we shouldn’t have put them together so early. I think they both needed a little veteran presence and some seasoning but we’ll work that out. We still believe that the sky is the limit for those two guys.”

With Seattle’s second 1st round pick (#25) in the 2017 draft the Metropolitans selected Evgeny Svechnikov. While his GHL career has yet to be imagined it is mostly due to injuries and not talent, as well as the fact that Detroit seems to like to bring their prospects along slowly. Currently with the Red Wings in the NHL the young player has been kept in the AHL for almost the entirety of the last two seasons and had to undergo ACL surgery before the start of this season. Due to his surgery it is unlikely he sees meaningful ice time at any point this year but the talent is still there.

Seattle’s third 1st round pick of the year was traded to Suffolk, thought to be traded as a result of the aforementioned Suffolk picking up Thatcher Demko just prior to the pick. Seattle was able to grab two 2nd round picks in the trade (one in 2017 and 1 in 2018). With the 2017 second rounder Seattle acquired goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic who appears to be progressing nicely in Carolina. He got his first taste of NHL action over the last few weeks but may be the future franchise netminder for the Hurricanes as well as our favorite GHL franchise, the Metropolitans

Jons 3rd round pick was used on an undersized playmaking defenseman who turned heads early on, Samuel Girard. He’s a tiny little guy at 5’10 but puts on a hell of a show. He can dance around with the puck on his stick but lacks a strong defensive presence but appears to be progressing well. He was recently taken off of Seattle’s 3rd pairing due to an abysmal -21 rating but as has been the case with a number of offensive defenseman sometimes their skill set doesn’t translate well to the GHL, at least not early on. He projects to become a solid 2nd pairing guy if he can shore up his defense.

The rest of the draft wrapped up well with another three prospects picked in the 4th round. All three picks were high upside offensive picks with legitimate shots at the NHL in the near future. The first of the three picks was Dmitry Sokolov. Currently still a prospect Dmitry is finally getting a shot to show what he can do in the AHL and is playing at a half point per game pace. Unfortunately there have been knocks on Dmitrys work ethic but with the right coaching the hope is that he turns out to be a solid middle 6 style contributor.

The second of the three picks was Nicholas Caamano, he made a late push to make the Stars this year but they made the decision to transition him slowly and is currently slogging along in the AHL and appears to be cooling off but hopefully not for long. He appears to be another guy with a chance at middle 6 minutes down the road.

The last of Seattle’s picks was Matthew Phillips. He’s an offensive dynamo in a 5’7” body. Fortunately he’s playing at a half point per game pace in the AHL and if he’s not literally overlooked may become a nice goal scorer in the G.

The following season Seattle was on the cusp of becoming a playoff contender but management realized that a rebuild wasn’t completely realized just yet. They brought on David Savard and then shipped him back out midway through the season. The good news was that the maneuver managed to upgrade Seattle’s second round pick to a first. Charlie Coyle was also shipped out for a first round pick and prospects Dennis Yan and Givani Smith, possible bottom 6 contributors. Lundqvist, Ferland, and D. Sedin were also picked up in separate transactions leading to a middling season with room to improve.

[Jon-Seattle]

The metropolitans have evened the first round playoff series at 2-2.

The big news coming out of Pittsburgh this week was the benching of franchise goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. Henrik went 0-2 in the first two games which were played on home ice, allowing 9 total goals. “I wasn’t playing my best hockey, I feel like I really let our team down. Giving up that many goals is unacceptable and I need to play better. I’m gunna get my head on straight and come back ready to go.” Henrik said when asked about the two game benching after tonight’s game.

On the other side of the ledger Marek Langhammer was given the last two starts, putting in quality efforts and keeping Pittsburgh down to 6 goals (4 in the first game, 2 in the second) on their own ice. It was enough of an improvement to allow Seattle’s potent offense to flourish. Langhammer, who is only 24 years old, is an amazing 9-2-1 when filling in for Lundqvist this year much to everyone’s surprise.

Langhammer was asked after the game what he attributes his success to. “I’m just trying to hang in there, we have a great team. We have great puck moving defenseman and a potent offense. I know these guys have my back and the guys play some great games in front of me. In the end though I know I’m just keeping the crease warm for Henrik, I fully trust he’s coming back and fully believe he can keep us going through this series and beyond.”

To date the Metropolitans are down one of their top 2 defenseman, Zach Werenski while Pittsburgh is without number 1 goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Deadline acquisition and third pairing center-man Brian Gibbons has 3 goals in the series, Barkov has two more, and Daniel Sedin has chipped in another three despite rumors of an impending retirement.

GM Jon was asked about the split series to date. “We’re an offensively minded team, we really needed to get the guys scoring and I think it took a little adversity to get the guys fired up with a sense of urgency. Goaltending was a secondary issue but I really feel like we have a handle on it. We’ve leaned on Lundqvist all year and I think he knows we’re confident in him but taking a breather isn’t a bad thing, and Langhammer has really been clutch. Werenski is day to day and should be back soon. Hopefully we can take the next step and get him back in here. Davidson will be in for now in his place.”

The series picks up back in Seattle on the 18th and if game 7 is required will be back on the 22nd.

[Lance-Pittsburgh]

What a Game Five for Kase!

[Jon-Seattle]

Ya he finally picked it up, my first line is doing well, if only I could keep them out all game lol. Gibbons is looking like a good pickup too. Now if only I could stop RNH, and two years ago he was on the verge of becoming a bust, damn.

[Lance-Pittsburgh]

Kudos on the series win, Jon! Go get ‘em!

[Jon-Seattle]

Thanks Lance, that was one hell of a series. I’ve been absolutely dreading the last few games. RNH had my number and destroyed my goalies. Sub.900 save %s. Hell I started “Czech league” Langhammer 3 times because you kept destroying Lundqvist, who was 1-3 in the series. Keep up the great work.

[Jon-Seattle]

Seattle Metropolitans fall to Mustangs, GM nowhere to be found during series.

Seattle loses series to Mustangs 4-1. Seattle appeared frustrated throughout the series taking uncharacteristic penalties in nearly every game. In fact Detroit doubled up on PPs 13-26 throughout the series. On top of that Henriq Lundqvist and Marek Langhammer posted nearly identical 5.00 GAA as the Mustangs blew through what had been otherwise solid goaltending throughout the regular season. UFA Lundqvist will definitely have some questions to answer over the summer as he prepares to test the free agency waters, particularly why his backup outperformed him on a stacked team in a weak conference. Depending on those answers we’ll see if Lundqvist can land a lucrative deal or if he’ll be a scapegoat for an otherwise successful, if not championship caliber season.

One of the strangest highlights of the last series for Seattle was the notable absence of GM Jon Hagen. It was reported midway through the series that he requested time off for family matters and to reassess his situation as Seattle’s front office manager. It is reported however that Jon was apart of a crucial call to allow Langhammer to start game four despite falling behind 2-1 in the series despite an early win in game one. The move didn’t work out like it had in the past when Langhammer had come in and stole 2 games from Pittsburgh earlier in the playoffs.

GM Jon was finally located today on an incoming flight to Seattle, a red eye from Hawaii, and mobbed by reporters as he stepped off the plane into the gloomy mists. When finally reached for comment the GM had this to say: “I understand there are a lot of rumors floating around and people playing the blame game around here. That’s not what I’m about, and frankly if your looking for someone to blame then you can point those fingers my direction if you can manage to pull them away from your damn phones. What I was doing this week was noones business but my own but I know how you vultures like to talk so here you go. I took a leave of absence to reassess where I stand for this franchise, as ill timed as it may be it needed to happen and gave me a good idea on what I need to do. I did some soul searching and know we are on the right track and even though I wasn’t in the rink watching guys doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention. We can be a championship franchise but we’re not there yet. We made some amazing strides, even won our division, but I want this team to be even better. We’re gunna sit down and make some hard choices this year, lots of UFAs moving on, retirees, and I’ll say it right now we’re gunna look to trade some guys. It’s time to finish what we started three years ago and build a champion. Playoffs seemed to be good enough this year but no more, even if we take a step back next year I don’t give a damn, we’re gunna get this thing right. Oh and Congrats to Detroit, they dismantled our D and Goalies, they exposed a true weakness and I can tell you it will be f***ing fixed this off-season. Good luck the rest of the way because next season we’re coming back even stronger.”

When asked by the local media what plans were brewing in the off-season Jon wouldn’t elaborate but noted there would be word soon on the direction the Metropolitans would soon take. We also know GM Jon is no stranger to selling off players in their prime. Early rumors out of the front office is that many players could be on the trade block including Ekblad and Johansen. In Ekblads case it could be a matter of having so many offensive defenseman that his role is redundant despite having been the #1 defenseman all year for Seattle.