Spartan

I aim to please

Portal's dead so I'm going to stir the pot on forums, woohoo! My uneducated and unresearched takes on each VHL team's future: CGY - Looking like a rebuilder with a 4-4-2, dunno if they forgot that we run 6 forwards in the VHL but that's not a great sign. Oven retiring this season, Reingaard in S99, Dassler in S100. Prospects don't seem exciting. Tall order for them to be competitive with VHLer, Sakic and Panda, fully expect a sell coming down in the next couple seasons. CHI - Straight ass, no defense, Victor von Doom in hell for the majority of his career it seems. Interesting choice to build a team from the goalie out, and CHI has no prospects to work with. Better hit on their S100 picks and pray they don't run into cap hell in S103 when those ELCs expire. DCD - Thinking like a contender by adding short term vets, while not quite yet being a rebuilder. Prospects should be able to pitch in from S99 onwards, but the team as of now looks largely uninspiring and most likely to be the best of the lotto teams this season. Maybe should have embraced the suck for another season and focused on prospect development. DAV - Prob the best positioned EU team to compete consistently for the next 2-3 seasons before everyone gets old as hell. 5/6F and 3/4D are pretty uninspiring right now, top guys will need to carry consistently. But they play in the EU so they're fine, Sheppard and Gingy will help justify moving out older forwards before they get too old. HSK - LDN - 3oa trade was questionable, the team hasn't quite developed as you'd hope by this point but the S96-S98's will have to really grind to get this team somewhere respectable. With the EU being as bad as it is, maybe the top guys of Carti/Bolivar/Groenvold can get them United into a consistent playoff bid, but their prospect pool just doesn't look like it'll offer much reinforcement. Don't even have a pick stockpile to work with. LAS - I've been outspoken about my thoughts on a 2 goalie tandem while you have other pressing needs, and I stand by it. I'm glad 2 people are having fun but there are 0 promising forwards on this team and 0 promising forward prospects either. Defense will be fine between LaFleur and Tuomala and welfare prospects, but man this forward unit just belongs in the M. MAL - Luckily had players that weren't retiring in S98 that could be traded for picks. Feels like they made a million trades, but only 3 1sts in the next 2 seasons and Bek as a prospect to show for it. Tottingham will be a fine 3rd winger, no one else on the roster really shows immense promise beyond maybe Middletoe or Shaw if they decide to step it up and not just be welfare earners on a tanking team. MOS - lol goodbye forward unit, probably selling after this season depending on the market, but no prospects ready to come up for S99. The players that remain after the S90's are talented but dunno if you can make up for an entire forward line just disappearing. NYA - Probably mid as usual, Richmond and WWWW can't compete with PIM machines on defense. Mantzz and Hughes were good picks, maybe STZ can get the decent looking prospect pool to develop into something useful down the line. They hold picks worth something so can try to restock a bit. PRG - Idk why they thought they needed Leitner, another team overfocusing on the back end while their forward unit needs help. Still, the team isn't all that old but some are on the cusp of depreciation. Where did all their picks go lol. Tough times ahead for PRG if they don't decide to sell off after S99 or S100 to recoup assets. RIG - Malmo pt 2, V.2 full sending it to give Gunner and Targaryen a chance before retirement and Blues taking too long to hire a GM when everyone else finished trading. No S99 picks, some S100's, 0 prospects whatsoever. Probably going to need to get good value for Raikkonen after this season, along with Shotzky and Robinson. Just a tough look, defense is really bad too. SEA - No picks no prospects Seattle wins the cup in S100 with 3 forwards and 4 defensemen TOR - I don't think they're wrong to full send it, but they seem like a lighter version of Moscow with half their forwards due to retire in the next 2 seasons and no replacements waiting. At least the timing of their sale won't line up with ours. Defense isn't bad, Dalkr is falling off a cliff. Need a new goalie badly. VAN - 4-3-1 LOL. Frank went MIA this offseason after clearing some cap. 3 mil to play with for 3 roster slots, might actually be GG for VAN unless they move some of their high earning folks. Don't know how no one saw what was going on here, but this is a team of 5 6mil players and only 7 total skaters. Guess we'll see if 5 max earners can beat other teams with full rosters? WAR -

too many defenders out here smh @Updater

Bold move bro has FO investment

Harrington will definitely have a bigger role this season

I wish @Will wasn't

Take your extra money and go home bozos

@qripll @InstantRockstar edit your offers, you guys offered a team option for S98 which is invalid. Add a value for S99 if you want that to be the option Also @Cartripp14 sign with Moscow, at least we're contending

Hello all! Short and sweet today! Thank you @jacobcarson877 for your time as Houston GM, you've been a great returnee to the VHLM GM role and it was a pleasure to have you back in the M to offer your wisdom and experience to new players. We'll miss you in the M, but wish you the very best in all your future endeavors both in the VHL and outside of it! With that, we're excited to bring in some fresh blood to the M in a person who's been extremely active and engaged in all aspects of the VHL and the VHLM. Please congratulate the new GM of the Houston Bulls - @SMYLS4! His podcasts and VSN work have propelled him to the forefront of our hiring discussions, along with his general involvement and awareness of the going-ons around the league. We're looking forward to working with our newest GM in the M! - @VHLM Commissioner

But anyways, parity wasn't the factor on my mind when I was discussing it and voting on it. We don't want to contract teams over a slight recruitment lull while folks are holding off on recreating for S100. We had no recruitment budget due to the holiday drive. Regardless of parity, we take issue when the cap is unjustifiably high as demonstrated by the amount of available cap around the league. I share concerns about the viability of late stage career players sticking with teams given their cost and TPE inflation over the seasons, but that's always a concern to a GM who wants to keep a competitive window open and a player approaching retirement. Those decisions will always have to be made regardless of the cap.

U right I didn't read that far after seeing the second plane hit S100 and raged internally

I don't know where the parity argument came from, but it wasn't mentioned in the announcement and it's not the primary driver. Simply put, there was too much cap available across the league given the players we have in the league, and we didn't see that immediately changing given the state of draft classes. Dropping the cap is a small change, it's 2 million. Whether the S100 drop happens or not will be re-evaluated next offseason. Depending on how S100, S101, etc go, we could fully see a raise again by S103 if we see stronger draft classes leading to the need for more cap. When the average cap hit for teams is more than 10 million under our cap, we're going to make a small tweak.

Correct

Cap floor will just lead to more inflated bonuses and even less trades bc players on rebuilders are overpaid

Considering the league wanted to eliminate bonuses entirely at some point, this is a significant compromise that still allows for bonuses to be given out. Rebuilders are typically the only ones I've seen hand out bonuses historically, with maybe one or two fringe cases in my 20 seasons as a VHL GM. My first experience with it as a GM has quite literally been this season

Bulls, I'm heading out to work and did this on my phone lol

Hi all, Sadly, @jacobcarson877 is stepping down from his role as GM of the Houston Bills as his time is needed in other aspects his life. A returner to the role of M GM, Jacob brought a combination of passion and knowledge to the role, and was a great resource and peer for the Bills community. We greatly appreciate his contributions in the role! However, we now need a new GM for Houston, so please comment below if you're interested. Non-applicants refrain from posting, we will remove the posts. We are hoping to make this hire relatively soon as the M draft needs to be scheduled soon. - @VHLM Commissioner

I'm getting a cat!!!!

1. Not really, I don't think there's much that shakes up the league. Most of these trades aren't for anyone necessarily jumping into a top contending spot. 2. I think Maverick was our best player this season, but Obuz could take home some defensemen awards. 3. Carolina, they're just always tough to play and I think Rantanen will find his stride soon enough. 4. Man ramen for sure from Japan, it's very quickly become my favorite food and super filling and tasty. 5. I'm curious who our helmet and jersey sponsors could be in Moscow. It'd probably just be state propaganda or something, but there could be something cool out there. 6. Either of the Penguins cup-winning games in 2016 or 2017 would be dope. Maybe in Nashville, I think enjoying the Nashville food between/after the game would be better than the Tampa Bay food though.

I make monthly playlists on spotify based off new releases, so usually that or a specific album if I'm particularly feeling one. Had been listening to a fair bit of Architects and While She Sleeps recently, but here's my February Playlist so far:

Sick, I submitted 4 questions so you can pick and choose a mix of proper history trivia and general forum navigation knowledge

Hm then I have a question for you @Corco, as I just submitted questions that are more oriented around navigating the forums. Are those still questions you'd consider? I think for a fair few folks, they'd be considered easy, but I've run across a lot of people who don't know these areas of the forums exist.

Tbh yea that's the pressure of a top pick. Being a top 5 pick in this age has never been so emphasized by teams, since it's pretty much the only place you can get some really high ceiling players with the classes we've generally had recently. It's stressful, but I think just sticking to your normal routine and focusing on the next little improvement goes a long way. As long as you don't poof out, you'll keep improving and help the team in the long run.

Tbh you pretty much echoed my thoughts when my first two players fell totally flat in terms of winning meaningful achievements. I wanted a cup, I got a few awards here and there on Letang and Pearce. HOF on Letang was nice, MVP on both were nice too. But I missed the cup both times and felt like we had some dominant teams along the way that just couldn't reach the end goal, and I felt like we would lose to lesser opponents who didn't put in a commensurate level of effort. It feels easy to give up after losing 5 finals, but I had to just aim for the 6th and for it to go differently. The real blessing has been the people I've gotten to be around. They're really the reason I stick around in the capacity that I do, and the ability to tie people together and give them a good experience. Mav's had 2 100 point seasons in his first 3 seasons, I think he'll have a phenomenal career regardless of how it all plays out in the end. We'll keep aiming for the cup in Moscow and enjoy the ride.