Mid-season evolution occurred tonight in the EURO League and what that means in general is that the younger players and teams should do better in the second half and the older guys and teams (Paris, we’re looking at you) should have a more difficult time.
But there are some surprises too.
In theory, how much the team invested in Player Development should impact evolution. Let’s look at some of the highlights and lowlights grouping players by how much their OV rating went up or down today. We’ll start with the biggest droppers.
-3
This group is, well, one guy. Kris Letang, the 40-year-old defenseman for Paris went from a 77 to a 74 … just like that. The two strokes he suffered could have something to do with that.
-2
This group has a decidedly Irish accent. Five Dublin players went down 2 notches (Oliver Ekman-Larsson is the best of them) and Belfast had 4 players drop 2 points (Braden Holtby is the best of them). The youngest player to drop 2 was 30-year-old Zach Aston-Reese of the Bern organization.
The nine best players with the OV ratings of 80 or higher who fell 2 points are:
- Sergei Mozyakin, Helsinki
- Hampus Lindhom, Kosice
- Karri Ramo, Liverpool
- Braden Holtby, Belfast
- Jaccob Slavin, Bern
- Tyler Seguin, Helsinki
- Alexander Radulov, Kosice
- Jimmie Ericsson, Minsk
- John Tavares, Paris
-1
Here’s where the biggest surprises were. You are not supposed to deteriorate until you are 30 but 9 players under 30 did drop an OV point. The biggest name in that group is just the co-leader in scoring in the league, that’s all. Nico Hischier of Bern went from being an 88 OV player to an 87 at age 26. While his hockey sense and leadership qualities went up, his intensity and finesse dropped.
Other huge names that went down 1 OV point include three of the top players on the Minsk Hussars in Aaron Ekblad, Bo Horvat and Attila Adorjan.
Paris had 10 starters drop a point. So did the Belfast Giants. And excessive partying caught up to 9 Berlin Smurfs starters.
0
The oldest starting player who didn’t deteriorate at all was 37-year-old defensemen Erik Karlsson of Helsinki. He’s still a 77 OV player.
+1
A lot of players – mostly under 30 years of age – improved by a point of OV. One hundred fifty-eight starters, to be exact. Twelve of them are Zurich Lions, and 12 are Athens Philosophers – the teams with the most +1 players. Madrid and Liverpool were next with 10.
These 6 players who are 30 or older got 1 OV point stronger, which is unusual.
- Nico Hovinen, Munich
- Miks Indrasis, Belfast
- Scott Conway, Edinburgh
- Brandon Montour, Lisbon
- Robin Grossman, Bratislava
- Alex Trivellato, Madrid
+2
Milan center Aapeli Rasanen and his training routine is the story in this group. At age 29, Rasanen went from an 83 to an 85 OV rating. Rasanen is from Tampere, Finland, and is a graduate of Boston College. He said he has been eating Italian sausage and pasta every day since he’s been living in Milan and he tries to sleep 16 hours a day. He is currently third on Milan in scoring with 35 points in 40 games.
Only two other players older than 25 improved by 2 points: defensemen Erik Cernak of Kosice and Jacob Bryson of Munich.
Kosice had five +2 OV starters and Madrid was next in line with four players.
