What if Paddywagon signed with the Seattle Bears?

[DMaximus 1,046]

in to the S68-69 offseason, Charlie Paddywagon had a decision to make. Should he re-sign with Davos or explore the opportunities in free agency?

 

Paddywagon felt gratitude toward @ShawnGlade, the GM of Davos at the time. In the S66 VHL draft Mr. Glade took a huge risk on Paddywagon, making him the first defenseman taken in the draft at 6^th overall. That meant a lot to Paddywagon. It made the decision of who to sign with pretty simple. Paddywagon told Mr. Glade he wished to re-sign with Davos, but because this was his agent’s first player in the VHL, he wanted to experience what being a free agent was like.

 

One the free agency window opened, the GM of Seattle, @Banackock, saw this as an opportunity to sign the highly touted prospect. He made a fantastic pitch to Paddywagon, asking him to join Seattle. The passion in Bana’s pitch made Paddywagon have 2^nd thoughts about committing to Davos. Paddywagon seriously considered signing with Seattle.

Let’s explore the universe where Paddywagon signs with Seattle in the S68-69 offseason. Does Seattle still win all those championships? If Paddywagon wins some championships with Seattle is he still in the conversation for worst 1400+ TPE player of all time?

 

Seattle started the offseason by trading for defenseman Leph Twinger @DollarAndADream . That happened prior to the free agency deadline, so Seattle still would add Twinger on defense.

 

During the season, the first trade Seattle made was with the New York Americans. They traded their lowest TPE defenseman, Kevin Low @Smarchand a 3^rd round pick for defenseman Guy LeGrande @Steve. This trade was a defenseman for a defenseman, and probably still would have happened, even if Paddywagon signed with Seattle in the offseason.

(On a side note, looking through that trade thread and seeing Elmebeck posting the beautiful Dire Straits song “Brothers in Arms” brought a tear to my eye (https://vhlforum.com/topic/73888-nyasea-s69/?do=findComment&comment=693651  Another, funnier side note, is check out the Paddywagon trade thread (https://vhlforum.com/topic/72332-cgydav-s68-off-season/?do=findComment&comment=685217 for an argument with Bana referring to Glade as inactive, then Bushito thinking Bana was calling him inactive and then both Glade and Bushito getting angry with Bana. Kind of funny now to look back and see that both Glade and Bushito were let go for inactivity not too long after that.)

 

 

Anyway, the trade for LeGrande still happens.

 

 

Which brings us to the position switch of Beroka Sundqvist @Berocka. Sundqvist started S69 on the 2^nd line forward as a Left Winger. Near the end of the season, Sundqvist changed from a forward to a defenseman. I don’t think there would be any chance of that happening because Seattle already has 5 quality defenseman, there would be no need to add a 6^th.

 

I think what is more likely to have happened is that Stark would make the position switch from defenseman to forward during the S69 season, rather than during the S70 season. That would have given Seattle 3 complete lines on offense and 2 complete defensive lines.

 

Forwards:

Ylonen – Burn – Wilinsky

Greene – Sundqvist – Frostbeard

Stark – Zoiderberg – Kovalchuk

 

Defenseman:

Hogan – Twinger

LeGrande – Paddywagon

 

That roster is pretty similar to the cup winning one of S69 Seattle. I think Seattle would have still won it and Paddywagon would have gotten at least 1 cup with Seattle.

 

There’s a lot of what ifs beyond that (would LeGrande have made the move to forward still? Would those same players be selected in the draft), so it’s tough to guess if Paddywagon and Seattle would have won cups together in S71 and S73. It definitely seems possible. In the real world, Hogan and Sundqvist made up the core of the defense for their next 2 cups. Would Paddywagon, LeGrande, and Hogan have been as strong as a D core? Would Sundqvist make as good as an offensive player as they were on defense? Lots of other alternate universe questions to ponder in the future.