For all the talks of trades, there have only been 2 during the 17-18 MNL season. But let us not forget that there was actually a third trade this season – a blockbuster, in fact, before the season’s start – a bold move of bold strategy gambled by the GMs of the Ducks and the NStars.
“The NorthStars gave the Ducks what?!” many proclaimed when finding out they dealt their #1 pick to the Duckies – giving them what was assumed to be an impossible combination to assemble with Shugga & Pistol. Now the Ducks had scary firepower.
Angry at the Northstars, at first, for allowing this combo to happen, upon hearing the details of the trade – that the Northstars would have no late picks – it was interesting to see how this trade would play out. The Ducks were given a scary amount of firepower, but at the cost of having 2 last round picks. How would the lineup for the Ducks fare with both tremendous strength, and tremendous weakness on the ice?
Then on draft day, the Ducks ownership gave us yet again, an epic storyline twist. They decided to nullify their lineup’s double weakness by using their last overall pick to draft a goalie. Now rather than having two last round skaters on the ice playing for them at the same time, they actually turned out to have the highest pick in the last round be their lowest rated player! What an epic on ice reversal. Now what was supposed to be a double extra most worstest weakness on the ice, turned into a stacked roster who’s lowest picked skater was actually a higher pick than the last taken skater on all other MNL teams not named NStars.
So much for a lineup of that would have to deal with weaknesses. The Mighty Ducks had effectively set up a lineup capable of dominating gameplay and scoring in bunches; where their only true weakness would be their last overall pick being the man sitting between the pipes. But dominating gameplay is one thing; winning games outright is another. And could they do it with a team set up to have a glaring weakness in the crease? The extra most worstest goalie in the MNL tending to their pipes?
Well, long story short: no. It did not work.
-oh, you’re still reading?—why? the story is over—- or at least it should be-
–but then another twist–
Their roster of skaters did well, but they gambled on taking a goalie with their last pick and it hurt them. They fell to last place in the standings, due to the gamble they took having goaltending weakness. But then all of the sudden, they just started playing a different goalie. They start checking in this guy named Ryan Z. A guy that was brought in to sub for Jimmy Howard! So an adequate sub for a goalie taken in the top half of the draft! Hmm.. the Ducks acquire the #2 and #3 overall players in the draft… at the expense of having a very bad goalie… and then when he doesn’t play well, they sub in a mid round rated goalie!? A guy that puts up better goaltending stats than all other league starters, including JFlo, who the Whalers spent a 4th round pick on?
So much for that big blockbuster trade that went down b4 the beginning of the season. I was intrigued to see how “no-strength no-weakness” vs “high-strength high-weakness” would play out. But I guess the real implications of the trade are this: Ducks get a second 1st round player for free”.
And all this time, the Ducks have rising talent goalie Charles Machi sitting as an 11th man on their roster. But would he be worse than – who – Charles Machi? Their last round pick besides their goalie, who could be Charles Machi, is Charles Machi. Is Charles Machi worse than Charles Machi? Or is Charles Machi close enough to Charles Machi, to make a Charles Machi for a player worse than Charles Machi, albeit sacrificing a literal Charles Machi to acquire a literal Charles Machi a fair replacement so that they roll a Charles Machi?
Charles Machi is straight up drafted higher than the previous goalie tending for the Ducks. Just look at this guys stats on the K-falcs (this is not a Photoshop – taken straight from the Troy Sports website!) He’s a ridiculous 28 percentage points better than Jeremy Coan, who most MNLers consider to be MNL top quality talent. 
For quite some time now we have been calling “It’s Machi tiiimmmmee”! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbTk6N5kwM So maybe this might be the call for the Ducks. Y’all have a couple meaningless games coming up to give it a try-out. Kicking Ryan Z to the curb is the trendy thing to do anyway. So idk, Ducks, consider the thought. Seems like a good idea. I mean, unless y’all have some long-set bias against goalies that could be linked to Little Caesars references.
