Draft Day (shorter than usual)

[diamond_ace 3,114]

This year was no different than most in that I feel like my first rounder was pretty well telegraphed ahead of time. Most people who knew any insider draft info at all knew that barring one of a handful of guys inexplicably falling, Nathan Powers @JB123 was coming to Prague at 9th. TPE-wise he would arguably have been projected more toward the back end of the first round, rather than almost exactly in the middle, but honestly I have a bit of a type. The job of VHLM Commissioner gives me a leg up on guys like Powers, coming in and almost immediately getting the Ottawa AGM job (not to mention a Pro Am GM job, even though that's not directly affiliated with the league). It shows me he's already integrating into the community in a way that some with a higher pure TPE count might or might not be, and it makes him in my eyes a particularly certain bet to become good.

In the second, I'll admit to a bit more uncertainty. I actually didn't know a whole lot about Otto Numminen @Otto Numminen before the draft, but work was dead enough that I started looking a little down the list of draftees at around 13-14th pick at who was likely to still be around at that stage, to see if I could spot anyone that seemed under the radar, or at least more valuable than where their TPE put them. I had about 10 tabs open just among draftee portal pages, but Numminen's stood out to me over several others, plus as one of the few members in every VHLM discord, I can just take a quick look and check on them to see if a guy is around, which is a great tool to have on draft night. Basically at that point barring any fallers (and Miklavs went by then as expected, despite his fall earlier) Numminen was going to be the pick.

By the early 3rd, there were a lot of teams looking to trade out of the draft, in some cases due to this draft largely being considered less deep and a preference to maybe take a shot at a different season's pick, and in other cases simply a matter of the GM wanting to sleep or do other things at that stage. One of the guys I'd had a tab open for from earlier, Alexander Rivers @DrummerBoy15, was still around and @Domg5 was hyping him up some in the draft strats area of Prague discord as well. When you have a guy that both the GM and the AGM want, and the trade up value is decent, it's kind of a no brainer. We sent a later season 3rd to Riga and picked up Rivers at this stage which has so far looked like a fantastic decision.
 

The later 3rd was a bit more of a matter of taking anyone who was left and had updated recently, and by the time my pick came up (despite adding and removing different tabs as things went on) I was down to just three tabs with players I wanted. One of these was Deke Rike @JCV and he looked a little better than the other two (Bjorn Ceaf had missed a few later weeks, and Ron Gorgonzola had an unusual combo of press conference and practice facility but no welfare) so we went with Rike, and honestly much like the other two, he's looking like the right decision.

 

Normally these draft articles go longer than this, but when I sat down to start this I had 2 hours before the draft, and I've been pinged so many times in so many channels (with pre draft prep stuff mostly) that I haven't been able to put nearly that amount of time into actually writing the article. It's at 582 before this last explanation paragraph, so it's good enough for now, and I'll do up one for FA next week which should cover me for multiple weeks.

[thadthrasher 1,692]

As always, great pre-draft write up! I think you highlighted some great players here, and I know they appreciate that. This is a clear article, great spelling and punctuation, and there aren't any glaring errors! I appreciate you breaking down your first, second, and third discussion points into three various paragraphs! This was great! 10/10