Family Feudalism

[Gustav 6,418]

I'm going to preface this by saying that what I'm about to say is likely not as serious as it's going to be made out to be. I'm going to state what's going on, but I think it's more interesting than concerning.

 

TL;DR: 9-season careers are going to make the good teams good and the bad teams bad for longer. 

 

My first reason for this is that when a team blows up lately, they really blow up. We've seen some rebuilds start since the whole TPE thing went out the window (think New York, LA, Vancouver, and the like), and we've also had some rebuilds sort of finish up over the past couple seasons (namely Helsinki, who should have been a playoff team but wasn't). In the past, a rebuilding team could at least ice a 6-4-2 lineup, or something close to it, if they tried (as I did twice as Davos GM). Whether it's for lack of trying, or lack of players, or the presence of the VHLE (I'd put my money on the latter), teams just aren't putting players on the ice in the same way they used to. LA ran 5-1-1 this season, New York 5-2-1, and Davos 4-3-1, and it's going to be hard to fill all of those spots (and more, to compensate for inactives, barely-actives, and old players) with contributing, active members. And though we can try to deny this all we want, the VHLE being another hurdle in a prospect's development will hurt prospect development on some level. 

 

Second (and probably more important and relevant) is the fact that a player with one more season will be valuable for that one more season. 

 

"But Gustav," you might say, "no shit!"

 

Let's think about this for a second. Under the 8-season format, a max-earning player would usually take about 4 full seasons to cap out a build, stopping at around the begging of their fifth season and bringing a complete build to the ice for their last 4. Now? A max-earning player who stops at the beginning of their fifth season will have a complete build for 5 seasons, and even if the new strategy becomes banking at the start of the sixth, that's a pretty darn good (and close to capped out) build in the fifth season and still a complete one moving forward. Thus, the potential worth of a player is greater. Good teams who already have players that can do this for them are in a great spot--if they have to sell off a player to meet the cap or to keep competing or whatever, that could end up being a big return (which, in turn, would mean that teams trying to be good have to spend more to get there). Potentially, the market will adjust itself, but I can see "yeah, he's going into his 7th season, but now that means he has 3 left" being part of a lot of trade talks in the near future. And if the GMs of good teams feel like being assholes? Who knows, they could end up controlling the trade market for some time. That's not even mentioning the fact that a player the team chooses to keep will now have one more good season from that player to work with.

 

Do I actually think we're going to be trapped in an endless cycle of Moscow and Seattle dominating the standings? No. What I do think, though, is that rebuilds are going to be a little harder than they used to be--and a team that does it well deserves credit.

[Lemorse7 1,015]

Harder idk I was a agm for 1 meta season so I can’t really tell the difference and that what it’s nice to be a new member you don’t need to compare to the old and just focus on the now

[Spartan 4,403]

1 hour ago, Gustav said:

Do I actually think we're going to be trapped in an endless cycle of Moscow dominating the league? Yes.

FTFY

 

[Banackock 8,049]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

FTFY