Illuminati

Season 11
Team Profile
Illuminati

With wolf at the helm, DS seems to have been reborn. Well, not exactly. But Mal and Chrono have joined this short, yet effective roster. Eco/Linix will always keep you in any game, and Illuminati's offense will be better then ever. Now with such a short roster, it is possible they could lose some games if 1 or 2 players dont show up. While the roster isnt volitile, if a player like judge were to leave, it would demote their overall ability exponentially.
It would be hard for anyone to leave this team though, for any other team they would join, they would likely not have as good an oportunity. Anyways, Illuminati has always had a short roster, and it has been a good formula for regular season success. The problem is the playoffs, they have yet to be a proven playoff producer.
There is no doubt in my mind, Illum will make the playoffs as 1st or 2nd seed, perhaps 3rd if they are placed in the stacked conference. They will easily have the best numbers defensively. You could compare them to the Devils, and say they are boring. Yet, I think they can play like the Devils that had Mogilny and lead the league offensively, and yet lost to those high spending Avs, to let Ray Bourque win a Cup. While Illum wont lead the league offensively, they will put up better numbers then they did last season, and last season they actually put up some good numbers. It's against the other top teams that they dont seem to win games. They keep it close, but they dont close it out.

While CR sitting has become passe, Illum will still be effective at it. It will be the bread and butter of their game plan. If teams focus too much on how well Ill plays team defense, they could forget the fact that Illum has more veterans on their roster, with oodles of skill, then they did last season. Malstryx and chrono are a huge addition, Mal is a proven team go to guy, with years of experience, Chrono has been an offensive threat in every season he's played in.
Lets also not forget, they have kept the same core of players since last season. It will help, since they allready know the game plan, and the chemistry will be there. Judge69 wont have to lead the offense, and that will improve his output, as well as those around him. While he put up MVP like numbers last season, it was mainly due to the fact he was the only player on their offense, along with artofwar.

Illum's starting line will be pretty easy to predict:
Offense> Judge, Chrono, Art
Mid + D> Mal and Economiser
Goalie: Cylor

This is the only way I would get to mention Cylor, but yes, Linix is still on Illum, and Linix will start in net, a no brainer. If he died though, I think Cylor would be his backup, and might start a game. Linix and his bot will put up Brodeurian numbers for yet another season, and questions of if Linix would be a solid goalie without his Bot will never be put to rest. I dont really think he cares though. Ive seen him play plenty without Eco, and he has done perfectly well. I dont even think Eco is all that great at defense. He just communicates well with Linix, and thus I believe he is the one benefiting from Linix, rather then vice versa.
Mal's transitional game is superb. He will be this team's MVP, I think I've mentioned that before. Chrono will really help Art be a better player, by taking pressure off art's young back. By adding more weapons, Illum can spread the puck around, and get more chances, play more of a control game, and this will make their defense even better, and their offense as well. I just think they hit a wall against teams like IP, SL and BA because while they have a really good team, I still dont think they have the depth. They have a great solid starting line, but once you have to put in the other players on their roster, the bar drops. Not to say their other players are bad, but if they want to go the distance; I see them using only the 6 players I mentioned above in every period of every playoff game.

They've got a short roster, and a great starting 6, so once people miss games, their status slips from powerhouse to just the house. They are better this season, but so are the teams that rank above them. So it wont be easy this season, and I expect them to do well, they just either need more depth, or really need to have their best 6 show to every important game, which as we know from past experience, doesnt happen to often with any team.