My thoughts on Toronto's trade deadline.

[Peace 1,518]

Well the trade deadline has come and gone. 

Toronto isn't the same team anymore, yet still features a strong core of forwards and two top end defensemen.

We say goodbye to Gunnar Odinsson, Erik Killinger, and Nicholas Sunderbruch as the Legion find themselves too far from a playoff position to really make buying a viable option. Odinsson was testing free agency, Killinger was retiring, and Sunderbruch's team option wasn't going to be picked up. Odinsson and Killinger were the obvious assets to trade, but Sunderbruch might have scratched some heads. Good depth piece and a team option yet we still decided to make the trade... there must be a backstory!  

It's kinda simple really. Toronto's season has drained any motivation the roster had by the end of our 1-17-0 or whatever it was slide. You win only one game in eighteen and... yeah, you're already done with the season and everything related to it. As a player I didn't even look at the box scores anymore, and as a GM I totally stopped updating the games area on the Legions' Discord. I was done, this season has me feeling really burnt out and honestly just void of any emotions from the sim side. I'm no longer angry a team like Toronto is being shit on when we should have been competing with Chicago and Seattle; Beketov said it best, I suppose. He doesn't know what STHS hates about our roster, but it's hating something. 

Juice had the concern it was a top heavy blue line, and I agreed with that. The numbers at the time showed we were the second or third best team in limiting shots against Klamasteris, yet we couldn't convert on the shots we were taking and the offense dried up shortly after an awesome 10-3-0 start to the season. Working alongside Smarch and Juice (on and off) we found a potential diamond in McLaren, but obviously that didn't quite turn out like any party involved anticipated. @tcookieis starting to warm up now -- which is great to see -- after playing four games for the Legion without a point. Fourteen games with the Legion now and McLaren has ten points, which means he's scored a point per game in his last ten.

 

Something is clicking there. I hope it continues. 

I know that trade was a little bit before the trade deadline but it was still involved with the preliminary plans for today.

Now the actual trade deadline day... well I was actually unavailable.

 

My aunt had a surgery today that toyed with the wrong side of 'coincidence'. See my Uncle had the same surgery on the same day and later died due to complications, so when we learned that my aunt was having post-surgery complications and the hospital needed to keep her for observations you could imagine how we all felt. 

So with me unavailable for the majority of the day@Smarch had to take over for Toronto in a true assistant GM fashion. He joked about traded everyone he never had permission to trade, yeah I saw that, but I really need to acknowledge his work today. He wasn't working from home, he was in the office and hiding (I assume) just to check his Discord DMs to keep the trade negotiations flowing. Not only was he at work physically, but he was also training throughout the work day. I really appreciate the work he did today, and I appreciate the time and effort he's given me as the AGM of Toronto. 

 

Throughout the day he kept me in the loop but the grunt work was all him. Negotiations, portal movement, discussion with players and everything else he needed to handle in order to make the day work best for Toronto... he did it all! We had a goal to acquire as many picks as possible and Smarch set out and potentially netted us four second round draft picks, Kate Upton (who is inactive) and a steady earning Lambert. Now I may have had some work in the negotiations between Calgary, but the final approval was entirely out of my control. 

Smarch... you did a fantastic job. 

Sure we would have liked more for Odinsson, but Lambert and a second -- alongside the conditional second -- was the best offer we were going to get, so we had to trade him before we lost him for nothing. Smarch worked with what he had and made a deal work that suited both teams, and then did it again with Killinger and Sunderbruch. Personally I think Toronto hasn't degraded too much from these transactions, we've got young and prime players on the roster that emulate Toronto at the start of last season... for the most part. 

 

[Smarch 3,112]

I appreciate the kind words. I am a little bummed I put @Rayzor_7 in a awkward position with the incorrect 4th rounder and @McWolf asking if he wanted Killinger, forgetting the trade back rule. Overall I still got my five files for work reviewed and got the new employee finished on two of her files, so win win for VHL and my workplace 

[McWolf 3,115]

49 minutes ago, Smarch said:

I appreciate the kind words. I am a little bummed I put @Rayzor_7 in a awkward position with the incorrect 4th rounder and @McWolf asking if he wanted Killinger, forgetting the trade back rule. Overall I still got my five files for work reviewed and got the new employee finished on two of her files, so win win for VHL and my workplace 

that rule sucks, all my homies hate that rule

[McWolf 3,115]

Just now, McWolf said:

that rule sucks, all my homies hate that rule

no honestly, it makes sense, we're all good