10 Seasons Back: A S69 Redraft

[Gustav 6,416]

I've done redraft articles in the past and enjoyed them--in fact, I've enjoyed draft-related articles quite a bit in general. My GM-ness kind of takes me out of the world of writing about the current draft or doing a mock, but redrafts are always an option and for that reason I'll be going 10 seasons back from the upcoming VHL entry draft and looking at Season 69.

 

I don't have the best memory of what VHL roster needs were back in the day, so I'll be making my best educated guesses based on my impressions of team rosters in the S69 index--not that that makes a huge difference in many cases. Off to the drafting--I hope you enjoy!

 

 

ROUND 1

 

 

1. Benny Graves 

347 TPE | C | @STZ | Original Draft Spot: 2

Original Pick: Cinnamon Block

 

Graves came into the draft as the highest-TPE player available, and many had him down as #1 in their mocks. As a team that was still new, Prague had needs just about everywhere, and though their decision to pick Block here probably would have held up in an argument had I chosen to confirm it here, I'm going with Graves based on personal preference. Both Graves and Block had spectacular careers in which they committed long-term to the team that picked them, with both surpassing 500 points (and Graves in fact reaching 598) and seeing themselves among the league's best at their respective positions. But with top-end forwards generally more in demand, I've decided to put Graves first...especially since Prague's roster in S69 suggests that they were still building from the ground up.

 

 

2. Cinnamon Block 

306 TPE | D | @omgitshim | Original Draft Spot: 1

Original Pick: Benny Graves

 

As one might gather from reading the description I gave Graves, it's fairly obvious that I would put Block in the #2 spot. Block had a somewhat underrated career, spending 7 seasons in Prague before moving to DC for his last. Had he started rather than finished in DC, though, the Dragons would have had themselves a defender who cracked 500 points, 1,500 hits, and 1,000 SB, finishing multiple seasons in contention for individual awards and setting them up with a top-tier player for the long term.

 

 

3. Kris Rice 

188 TPE | RW | @Ricer13 | Original Draft Spot: 11

Original Pick: Guy Sasakamoose

 

With the 11th pick in the draft, the Calgary Wranglers picked up Rice, then a pass-first winger out of Mississauga. Here, he moves up to #3 in the redraft, based on another underrated career blessed by consistently high-level play after a switch to a scoring build. Over seven seasons, Rice played for three teams, breaking point-per-game pace five times and even going above 100 twice. Had he begun his development at the deadline of S67, it's difficult to imagine anything less than this spot on the list, as he only really needed one big-league season to catch on and presumably could have gone up earlier and done more in a career that already had 543 points.

 

 

4. Patrik Tallinder 

201 TPE | LW | @Patrik Tallinder | Original Draft Spot: 10

Original Pick: Soren Jensen

 

Tallinder, another product of the Hounds, came into the big-league draft as a pure scoring winger, and stayed that way for his entire career. It's a bit of a tossup as to whether Rice or Tallinder ended up doing better in the VHL--though Rice had more of a consistent career and one more season that I'd classify as legitimately "good", Tallinder at his most highly productive (including a 127-point Szatkowski-winning S74 campaign) was dominant. I've got him one spot lower on this list because he took slightly longer to catch on, but outside of that it's hard to argue that one should be clearly above the other. All in all, Tallinder came up with 530 points for his career, 242 of which were goals. 

 

 

5. RJ Jubis 

212 TPE | LW | @Jubis | Original Draft Spot: 5

Original Pick: RJ Jubis

 

I learned a couple things about Jubis from his portal page. First, he had a dreadful first season, only seeing 11 points in what I assume was a rookie season with a crowded roster. Second, he switched to defense in his last season--which I do vaguely recall--and rerolled his build to a passing style. For these reasons, I have him above Guy Lesieur, who finished 20 points ahead in an otherwise similar career. Career highlights for Jubis include a 100-point season in S73 that marked the second of three consecutive 80-point campaigns and a full 8-season career with Calgary which saw his agent become the team's GM, all part of a 520-point career which put the Wranglers atop the standings twice.

 

 

6. Guy Lesieur 

208 TPE | RW | @KC15 | Original Draft Spot: 6

Original Pick: Guy Lesieur

 

I must admit that it's quite difficult to rationalize these rankings when so many players from this class put up similar numbers for their careers, and Lesieur is no exception. I'll also admit that I had no idea that his career numbers were on par with the likes of everyone else from 3-5--his career was just followed with less public hype than the rest, I suppose, because although I remember him being good, I don't remember any sort of big "wow" factor (even though it was just as deserved as it would have been for anyone else). A potential lack of such a thing is supported by his numbers being on the lower end for the first half of his career--as it took until S73 to break 60 points--but his last four seasons were great, with 90 being broken three times (in fact, 66% of his career points came in the second half of his career). He still finishes below players like Rice and Tallinder if career lengths are normalized to seven seasons, but there was quite a bit to like.

 

 

7. Guy Sasakamoose 

245 TPE | D | @Cxsquared | Original Draft Spot: 3

Original Pick: Ben Storm

 

Though we've seen some picks that perhaps could have been better, here's our first that was certainly one the GM would like to have back. Storm was a highly active and motivated player who disappeared clean off the face of VHL Earth shortly after the draft, while Sasakamoose--originally picked 3rd overall--falls here in the redraft after a strong career spent on Riga's blue line. Ironically, our first three Riga picks were all Riga picks in the actual draft, so nothing's changed yet--and from that we can safely assume that Sasakamoose would have had a career that shaped up in just about the same way--which is quite a good thing for anyone familiar with how it went. Starting off slower, as many careers do, his most dominant seasons were from S73-S75, where he topped 80 points twice and 70 points in all three. On top of this, his defensive play was solid as he broke 1,100 SB for his career, an underrated number that isn't brought up nearly enough among defenders. Overall, he finished with 462 points in a career mostly spent with Riga but including a productive stint in Malmo.

 

 

8. Jimmy Spyro 

111 TPE | G | @DarkSpyro | Original Draft Spot: 18

Original Pick: Erik Summers

 

At the time of the draft, Spyro was a mostly unknown player, but he would end up blossoming in activity and productivity in the seasons to come. Originally going in the second round to Vancouver, he would prove to be the only truly serviceable goalie in the class at a time when career Titan Alexander Pepper's career was starting to wind down. Though Spyro's career was somewhat limited by two seasons spent as a backup and one down in the minors, he still managed to compile a record of 186-116-33 throughout six seasons as a starter and lead the Wolves to a championship in S74. That's about all that could be asked of anyone in net, and as such, the Titans would have been very happy to select him here as a very solid future investment.

 

 

9. Erik Summers 

217 TPE | D | @Erik Summers | Original Draft Spot: 8

Original Pick: Hiroshi Okada

 

I remembered coming into this that Summers had a few very good seasons, and looking at his numbers, that would be a correct statement--he got off to one of the hottest starts out of anyone in the class, winning Top Rookie in S70 and even winning the Beketov in S71, where he put up 63 assists and a career high in SB. From there, he would go on to break 60 assists (and 80 points!) three times, both very impressive marks for a defender. Overall, he would finish his career with 448 points, and would very likely be higher up on this list had he stayed active--after a while, he ended up dropping off, and as a consequence was hit hard with depreciation and found himself unable to keep up with his early-career pace later on. Overall, he still had some very productive time in the VHL, and comes out as a first-rounder with some significance.

 

 

10. Soren Jensen 

337 TPE | LW | @Velevra   | Original Draft Spot: 4

Original Pick: Patrik Tallinder

 

STHS can work in curious ways, and Jensen is no exception to that rule. Coming in second in the class in TPE, and max earning for most of his career, Jensen consistently underperformed in relation to what was expected of him for most of his career. And, of course, by "underperformed" I do mean that he put up OK numbers...he just wasn't special. Part of Jensen's particular "player isn't simming well" curse came from a certain "team isn't simming well" curse that he also dealt with for just about his entire career, spent between New York and Davos. He would have two notable seasons in S74 and S75 with Davos, in one of which he would break 40 goals and 80 points, but he simply wasn't dominant in the way that he would have been expected to be at his skill level, playing a full 8 seasons up and having 462 points to show for it. All in all, not a bad player, but one which was fairly consistently outperformed by some others.

 

 

11. Hiroshi Okada 

253 TPE | C | @enigmatic | Original Draft Spot: 9

Original Pick: Kris Rice

 

The Wranglers were very forward-heavy in this draft, Okada included, albeit two spots ahead of this at #9. It's easy to imagine a more productive start to Okada's career elsewhere, as S69 to halfway through S71, where Okada was moved out to Helsinki, only had 63 points to talk about. Ironically, Okada's production picked up after eni's activity dropped off into mostly welfare territory, as S72-S75 with Helsinki saw just about point-per-game pace (including 79 in S73 and 80 in S74). While never a star, teams knew what they were getting with Okada, who proved to be a fairly consistent all-around player capable of generating solid numbers.

 

 

12. Griff Manzer 

93 TPE | D | @Garsh | Original Draft Spot: 23

Original Pick: David OQuinn

 

The last spot of the first round goes to someone who was originally almost the last pick of the second round in Manzer, who if I remember correctly had just joined the league Discord server around the time of the draft. He's since emerged as a consistent earner and one of the league's more active voices, so it's no surprise at all that he managed to climb up the rankings in our redraft. Spending 7 seasons up in the big leagues, his last four seasons (much like Okada's) were very much a mark of consistency as he finished between 63 and 68 points in each. Had he played one more season up, and produced at that level during it, he would have finished up his career just short of both 400 points and 1,000 SB, not bad numbers at all for a defenseman. In total, his 334 points, +73, and 1,056 hits finished him up as a respectable player worthy of any roster.

 

 

ROUND 2

 

 

13. Oskar Lagesson 

135 TPE | D | @fever95 | Original Draft Spot: 21

Original Pick: Will Clarke

 

Lagesson, whose agent is and was a noted sim league vet, came into the draft as a mostly-welfare defenseman and stayed that way for the grand majority of his career. That's not to say that he couldn't contribute, though--over a 7-season career, he broke 50 points three times and finished with over 1,300 hits. Though Lagesson would only break 60 points once, he put up respectable defensive numbers and provided valuable depth for Moscow for six seasons before finishing up his career in Riga and Malmo.

 

 

14. Markus Nygren 

137 TPE | LW | @Devise| Original Draft Spot: 15

Original Pick: Solomon Crawford

 

I wasn't quite sure where to put Nygren here. Towards the end of his career, he ended up being one of the more recognizable faces of the LA Stars, and he put up bigger numbers than players like Lagesson, totaling 319 points over 7 seasons (including 80 points in S73). He was even a very good physical player, becoming one of very few these days to break the 2,000-hit mark. A downside to all those hits, though, was a lot of penalty minutes--though he'd break 2,000 hits, Nygren would also break 1,000 PIM, including one season with 200. Here, he goes to Prague, who find themselves a respectable player who was an asset so long as he could stay out of the box.

 

 

15. David OQuinn 

192 TPE | D | @David O'Quinn | Original Draft Spot: 12

Original Pick: Markus Nygren

 

Coming into the draft, OQuinn looked like a very promising prospect as both a player and a member--for a brief time, he was one of the league's more active players and members, something which brought him onto New York at the end of the first round of the draft. After a while, though, he began to fall off into welfare territory as he was moved to Vancouver and then to Davos. While he didn't end up reaching the high ceiling he had coming in, he still managed to hold down a top-2 spot on the Davos roster for three seasons, with his most impressive season being his last in S74--which brought about 59 points and 170 SB.

 

16. Kristopher McDagg 

81 TPE | LW | @Wolverine | Original Draft Spot: 26

Original Pick: Shush Nyko

 

This pick annoyed me to write because I only came across McDagg's name when I was almost done with the draft...and then had to spend a little time figuring out where he'd fit in and rearranging some things to make it happen. Originally drafted by Davos, McDagg was moved out early on in his career and spent a couple seasons in the minors. His career was short, only spanning four seasons, but those four seasons were productive--he would break 50 points three times and 60 points twice as a steal for Toronto.

 

17. Fernando Jokinen 

164 TPE | D | @Ahma | Original Draft Spot: 17

Original Pick: Fernando Jokinen

 

The new and impressionable members among us might see Jokinen at 17 as a surprise--he clearly outperformed the career numbers of many others ahead of him, including players at his position like Lagesson and OQuinn. And, of course, that's correct, and were this article written purely based on numbers, this pick would be different. It is, however, difficult to ignore certain circumstances which led this pick to go this way in the first place--and which would very likely cause it to go the same in a true redraft.

 

18. Nicolas Fomba 

80 TPE | G | @efiug | Original Draft Spot: 28

Original Pick: Jimmy Spyro

 

In many cases in our redraft, I see the redrafted pick as an improvement--and I'd like to think others here would agree with that. Here it is most decidedly not that, but only because Spyro's career went the way it did after a bit of spectacular earning on his part. That's not to say Fomba isn't worthy of this spot, though--the Wolves were looking for a goaltender, and while they wouldn't have gotten one to save the franchise with this pick, they would have picked up a dependable earner who eventually became one of the league's premier backups, even making his way into the starting role for Warsaw's inaugural season. Overall, Fomba would go 33-46-8 for his career, with a SV% of .904--not terrible at all for a player who spent the majority of his starts on a new expansion franchise.

 

19. Gary Tarantino 

81 TPE | RW | @Garrett | Original Draft Spot: 27

Original Pick: Blacker Velvet

 

Though Tarantino would come into the draft as a relatively unknown welfare player, his selection 8 spots back of his placement in our redraft would turn out to be a steal. He would never quite pan out in Helsinki or Calgary, where on both teams he was buried on the roster to start his career in S71, but after being moved to Prague in S72, he would blossom as a player. His best season would be a 66-point effort in S73, something which would be considered very impressive for any third-rounder. These days, Gary Tarantino II is set to make his way up to the VHL in the system of the Vancouver Wolves, after a selection in the second round of S77.

 

 

20. Shush Nyko 

124 TPE | LW | @SDCore | Original Draft Spot: 16

Original Pick: Daldo

 

At this point in the draft, I'd say we start to move into lesser-known players, but Shush Nyko was, for obvious reasons, one of the more well-known names of the draft when he first came around. Originally drafted by Riga, Nyko would spend his entire career there. There's not much that could have been done to find the perfect player at this point in the redraft, but the well-named Shush Nyko is a good example of a player who was able to fill a depth role in his team nonetheless--from S71-75, Nyko (or is it Shush?) would put up 162 points in total, with a career-high 51 in S73.

 

 

21. Will Clarke 

173 TPE | D | @Will | Original Draft Spot: 13

Original Pick: Oskar Lagesson

 

Clarke came into the draft with reasonably high expectations--he was at the time a semi-consistent auto-12 with an agent who had done more for the league than most other members can even dream of doing. This wouldn't hold up in the long run, though, as his earning would prove to be spotty at best and Clarke lacked the ability to put up big numbers on either end of the ice. Surprisingly, this was not a reflection of his team's results, as he would play for Moscow, Seattle, and Malmo from S70-72 and win the Cup in each of them.

 

 

22. Solomon Crawford 

181 TPE | G | @AW13 | Original Draft Spot: 14

Original Pick: Richard Fitzwell

 

I feel that I'm underrating Crawford a bit here, but that's due in large part to the fact that I had Helsinki picking up Spyro earlier and Moscow was seeing the rise of future star Raymond Bernard at the time...so neither team really needed a goaler. There is a case to be made for Fomba and Crawford to be switched, too--Crawford reached a higher TPE level--but Fomba managed to start for one season while Crawford was at best a backup who was given some extra starts from time to time. Crawford's numbers were also slightly less impressive--30-53-15 with a .900--but he still earned 429 TPE in his career and spent parts of four seasons with Malmo and Prague appearing in 20 or more games. Though he wouldn't have been the solution to what was at the time an impending retirement for Kallis Kriketers, he would have likely helped Riga bridge the gap, and for that reason he ends up being a steal in this redraft.

 

 

23. Milos Slavik 

117 TPE | LW | @Frank | Original Draft Spot: 25

Original Pick: Griff Manzer

 

I was surprised to have Slavik move up from his original draft spot, as he would go inactive shortly after moving up to the VHL. With that said, he still managed to earn a good bit past the cutoff, and as such a player, was able to make his way around the league on a few rosters as a depth piece or a roster filler (back when teams wanted roster filler even a little bit). Slavik's career would span S70-74, moving around four different teams and reaching a career high of 47 points in S73 with Chicago.

 

 

24. Daldo 

151 TPE | D | @Harpskii | Original Draft Spot: 20

Original Pick: Kevin Reegsman

 

Though Daldo would break 500 TPE, they weren't a player who was able to make a lasting impact anywhere. After spending two seasons down, Daldo would end up playing three underachieving seasons in Helsinki before moving to Toronto for S74, where their best season (51 points) would manifest. It would seem that things were looking up at that point, but depreciation would hit a newly-inactive Daldo hard prior to S75 and their role would then be very limited across three teams over two seasons before retirement. Still, though, was Daldo worth it, and could Daldo filled a role when called upon? S74 was certainly a bright spot, and 7 power-play goals then as a defenseman was something to look at.

 

 

There are two rounds, and as you may have guessed...there's not really room for a third. Read this one, have fun reading it, then get yourself ready for the real draft on Sunday!

 

 

3,633 words

[STZ 5,360]

#forever2nd 

[Jubis 1,348]

If youre not 1st, 2nd 3rd or 4th youre last lol

 

Great read man  

[Baby Boomer 727]

10/10

It will always impress me how some people are able to write a big article with 3500+ words with a lot of research, effort and time spent. Your text is just incredible, it is very well written and easy to read. It is very fun to read every text and see how you see every player and why you think they should be higher or lower in the draft. Very nice article and hope that i can read more of article like that.

[Garsh 1,191]

Always enjoy reading these, great work as always.  Nice to see Griff get some love and moved up in the redraft.

 

[JB123 728]

Review: Great job, I enjoy these type of articles, especially as a newer member it gives me insight into the past of the VHL. Like how you included team logos, positions, actual picks and your redraft picks. Well done. 10/10

 

[DarkSpyro 939]

Aww respect, G!

[Gustav 6,416]

Week 2 time--claiming was interrupted by birthday week.

[Viper 530]

On 7/15/2021 at 11:17 PM, GustavMattias said:

16. Kristopher McDagg 

81 TPE | LW | @Wolverine | Original Draft Spot: 26

Original Pick: Shush Nyko

 

This pick annoyed me to write because I only came across McDagg's name when I was almost done with the draft...and then had to spend a little time figuring out where he'd fit in and rearranging some things to make it happen. Originally drafted by Davos, McDagg was moved out early on in his career and spent a couple seasons in the minors. His career was short, only spanning four seasons, but those four seasons were productive--he would break 50 points three times and 60 points twice as a steal for Toronto.

McDagg was very physical, and that physicality got him back to back to back Rocky awards, but cost him injury wise. He took too much of a beating and retired while on top.

[Gustav 6,416]

Week 3!

[Seabass 593]

I love these post draft articles. I feel you really went in depth with this one seeing how you not only went over the first rounders but the 2nd round as well. The article is nicely formatted and organized and I can read through it all with ease. I enjoyed the time you took to add all the teams logos and I like how you referred to how some teams were doing at that point in VHL history, not just the player.

 

10/10

[Xflexz 179]

There is nothing that makes me more excited than draft related articles. Especially articles that go back and review them. I can appreciate all the time you put into this and also making it look nice and easy to read. I really hope you continue to do this for each season like next season the s70 draft. I think we all enjoy your work! 10/10

[Gustav 6,416]

You're probably all tired of seeing this get bumped...but it's week 4 time. Using this one for all it's worth.