Before the First Puck
The stories that introduced Season One, preserved as the league moves into official play.
Twenty cities. One founding season.
Archived preseason introduction
Ice After Dark
New identities. A star draft. Three games a night. The XHL begins its own chapter in the ASN Universe.
Each club keeps its 24 printed XHL players and adds its drafted free agents. The founding calendar gives every team 30 games, with 15 at home and 15 away, beginning January 2, 1900.
The original setup used two geographic conferences, with paired rivals receiving two extra meetings. Four divisions now organize the standings within those conferences.
The founding star draft
Archived preseason draft report
Voodoo wins the first pick — Panarin heads to New Orleans
The random order puts Southern California second and Cleveland third. New Orleans selects Artemi Panarin, the Undertow adds David Pastrnák, and the Ironclads bring Nikita Kucherov to Cleveland. Milwaukee lands Nathan MacKinnon at pick five.
All 20 teams pick in round one. Round two reverses that same order and runs for the final 12 players. That gives 12 clubs two additions and eight clubs one.
Draft method and reproducibility
The team order was randomized once. Picks use a fixed card-based best-available board, rather than real-world rankings. The printed SHOT, ASST and quality ratings determine the skater board; goalie save ratings determine the goalie board. The board is an ASN drafting convention, not a new gameplay rating.
The full policy, original order and all picks are recorded in the league setup JSON.
| Pick | Round | Team | Player | Position |
|---|