Ironside Starts Hot [1/2]

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Ironside Hot Fiya

 

Torstein Ironside might as well be a blacksmith, because he has started out hot, or some kind of pun that makes sense. Over the past few seasons, and basically since the beginning of Torstein Ironside's career, he has only really been an average goaltender in the VHL. Sure, he won awards in the VHLM, but once he made his way to the big leagues, he never really put himself out there and shined like scouts felt he could. It not like he has been terrible either, with the Toronto Legion of course playing a more offensive game, and being a younger team as well. The Legion have never had the superstar defense up until this point, and now with Roman Sokolov turning heads over recent seasons, and Dexter Lane only getting better, Ironside's numbers have definitely improved. Not only that, but the Legion recently acquired soon to retire veteran Guntis Petenis. That will surely bolster their defense heading into the rest of the season in which we are about 1/3 through.

 

The main stat that Torstein Ironside has been great at is save percentage. He sits at a percentage of 93.5% over 25 games, which is actually best in the VHL right now. The next best save percentage in the league is veteran goaltender Rhett DeGrath's 93.1%, and he's playing for a rebuilding Davos Dynamo squad. Then after that comes Apollo Skye's 93.0%, who plays for the defending Continental Cup Champions, the Quebec City Meute. Those numbers pretty much expected of Skye at this point, so it's really great to see Ironside playing on par, if not better than Apollo, and even Rhett.

 

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In goals against average, Ironside is not the best in that statistic, but still up there. Marcus King leads the way for the Riga Reign with a 1.58GAA, but not to discredit the rest of the Reign team, considering King's record of 25-1-0. Obviously, that record and the team behind it have impacted his numbers, but that's also not to discredit Marcus King, who has more or less always been this good in the VHL. Holding down the #2 spot in GAA is Calgary Wranglers' Jacob, with a 1.67GAA. After him, in the 3rd spot is Apollo Skye's 1.77GAA. In 4th is where we find our topic of discussion, Torstein Ironside. Ironside has a VHL's 4th best 1.88GAA. That's not too shabby combined with his great save percentage. Torstein is above even Helsinki's Astrid Moon, who sits in 5th in GAA with 2.22, which is a considerable drop.

 

The underlying surprise here, however, it Torstein Ironside with 12 wins in 28 games. He has a record of 12-8-5, and that is accompanied by Toronto's rocky start. Ironside will have to continue the strong play, and the Legion will have to start scoring more and defending better if the want to win some more games. With 28 games played, you would think that Ironside might have a little more in the wins column. You can't exactly compare to Marcus King and his 25 wins in 28 games, since that's a big jump from the next best. Although, when you look at the others, namely Ike Arkander, Mist4ke, Astrid Moon, Apollo Skye, and Jacob, there is much to be desired from Ironside to get some wins for his team.

 

Over the next little while, it will be interesting to see how things play out for the Legion, especially with the arrival of Guntis Petenis on defense to hopefully help gel things more in the goals against area.

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REVIEW:

 

Guntis just made Ironside a this season's third best goalie tbh (I imagine STZ gonna bash me if he sees this). I think it's not his year to get a Shaw award, but the successful off-season moves may cement him as an elite goalie for multiple years. And dayum, how Jacob fell off throughout the season, he had a good start as well. 

 

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