Something has to change

[Berocka 2,186]

Something has to change

 

This season the Mississauga Hounds went 0-72-0 the worst record ever recorded by the VHL or VHLM. As someone who still has a soft spot for the Hounds as it was my first team, the first team I was an Assistant General Manager and the team I was the General Manager for the longest, this has really hit a nerve with me. I know that the VHLM has boom and bust cycles and your team isn’t always going to be a playoff team, but to not win a single game is a bit dismal.

 

Firstly I am going to look at the roster. For the Mississauga Hounds there is currently one player signed and that was in the last week of sims. The Hounds a VHLM team, which is meant to promote recruitment and retention has ONE PLAYER. The Hounds are 1 out of 10 teams in the VHLM and they for most of the season had 1 player. Sure they traded away 3 or 4 players but even if they kept them there would only be a max of 5 players. The average roster size of every other team is 13.22. Mississauga have 1 forward and that is it. There are on average per team (including Mississauga) 7.9 forwards per team, 2.7 defenders per team and 1.4 goalies per team.

 

I do not understand how in a league that is meant to promote retention is there 5 teams with Goalie tandems yet the Hounds have 0 goalies. Surely of those 5 people playing a back up role, one of them would prefer to play every game? Not only that but Mississauga traded away a goalie in the middle of the season to someone who already had a goalie. Sure maybe they requested a trade for some reason but the fact that there is an empty spot is astonishing to me.

 

So, you might be asking what is my opinion on what has to change? Here are my thoughts, firstly this is not a dig at a_ferk or any other managers in the VHLM. I have not paid attention to the VHLM since I was General Manager in S70 & S71. Which I might add were complete bust years for the hounds then both seasons we finished up with 52 losses in both those years, and I managed to do that with only 2 7^th round picks in S70 and nothing above a 3^rd round pick in S71. It isn’t hard to put together a team using waiver picks during the season. This is where I think the hounds were let down. When you are trying to recruit someone you need to sell the team and I don’t think the Hounds did that enough. All the recruitment message for the hounds was a giant picture with very little information. What worked for me was selling the ice time and giving players a choice over playing 20-30 mins a game with my team and missing playoffs or playing 3^rd line minutes with a contender. You would be surprised how many people chose the top line minutes.

 

Look I don’t really have many opinions and I don’t want to upset the management of the Hounds as I don’t know the full story but one thing for certain has to change. There needs to be something put in place so a team can’t go 0-72 and not have anyone on their roster. Also why the f*** does every recruitment post have a bloody hashtag in the post? Please @Spartan  & @Gustav can we ban that?

[leandrofg 1,018]

I have written about this in the past and I believe something will be done but the new commissioner's tandem. What happened with the Hounds was something to take note of and should be the start of an important conversation regarding roster sizes in the VHLM.

 

6 Forwards, 4 Defensemen, and 1 Goaltender (positionally). That should be the minimum on every team before they could increase further (unless the surplus of players was caused by drafted ones).

[Spartan 3,994]

11 minutes ago, Berocka said:

There needs to be something put in place so a team can’t go 0-72 and not have anyone on their roster.

Hopefully the rule changes we announced this season prevent this in the future since the goal is to ensure every team has bodies coming out of the draft. We obviously don't want this situation to occur, but there was very little we could do since we just became commissioners last offseason and Ferk inherited that team from the prior GM.

 

11 minutes ago, Berocka said:

Also why the f*** does every recruitment post have a bloody hashtag in the post? Please @Spartan  & @Gustav can we ban that?

Yes, consider it done. Super cringe.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Spartan

[Spartan 3,994]

1 minute ago, leandrofg said:

6 Forwards, 4 Defensemen, and 1 Goaltender (positionally). That should be the minimum on every team before they could increase further (unless the surplus of players was caused by drafted ones).

[BOOM 8,401]

#letsbanhashtags

[Gustav 6,092]

6 hours ago, Berocka said:

Something has to change

 

The huge boom-bust combined with the "no inactives" rule gave the Hounds just a couple players to work with at the start of the season. @a_Ferk wanted to sell, and because there was nothing else that could have been done to realistically put those players in a winning environment, we were fine with that--yes, the Hounds more or less ended up with a free pass for this season, but I personally would have considered it worse if we tried to make those players stick around in a place where they had no hope of winning. So yeah, it's not an ideal situation, but it wasn't Ferk's fault that he was hired into it and I'm excited to see what he can do next season with some assets to work with.

 

 

6 hours ago, Berocka said:

Also why the f*** does every recruitment post have a bloody hashtag in the post?

 

I also agree that this is stupid.

 

 

5 hours ago, leandrofg said:

6 Forwards, 4 Defensemen, and 1 Goaltender (positionally). That should be the minimum on every team before they could increase further (unless the surplus of players was caused by drafted ones).

 

This is sensible IN THEORY but imagine if we got to the point where there were only a couple teams left who could legally sign a player under that rule. What happens if a handful of members join and even one of the GMs left over is at work? Should we just not let those players go anywhere when they could be signed--and potentially just let them disappear in that time? As much as we expect from our GMs, real life is a thing too and super strict guidelines are fundamentally flawed.

 

I also don't think people who are good at signing players should effectively be punished for it. There will always be some who can pitch better and faster than others, and the fact that it's competitive is a good thing.

 

 

That doesn't mean that things aren't on the way that will make the VHLM a more fair place and prevent things like these from happening in the future...while still keeping it competitive! The new limits we put on draft picks this past season will already do a lot to prevent teams from tanking hard, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Now, more than arguably ever, there are things lined up that should fundamentally change the VHLM for the better--and I couldn't be more excited to roll them out. We just have to make sure those things are truly ready to be implemented first, but when they are, watch out 

[DreMin15 220]

Holy shit I didn’t believe it until I looked, that is an absolute embarrassment and makes the entire fucking forum look bad. I suppose the ultimate tank is to just not play anyone? Something definitely needs to be done so that nothing like it happens in the future.

Edited October 25, 2022 by DreMin15
Clarification on a point I was vague about

[Daniel Janser 1,975]

I am really sorry to have left @a_Ferk in the unenviable position he was put in. Having said that, I did genuinely not expect that things would be as dire as they turned out to be. I took over the Hounds in a similar position when I started as their GM (a literally empty roster and only late picks in the draft), but was lucky enough to get some waiver players, which were either kept or flipped for assets. The Hounds sold the future in S84, as we were always in the top two in the league and with a little more depth, we could make the push for the title (or so I thought). Which did not happen, of course. Serves me well for not sticking to my principle to not trade away picks.

[Victor 10,528]

11 hours ago, Berocka said:

Mississauga Hounds went 0-72-0

I'm not even mad that's impressive. 

[Dom 1,440]

Depends how you see it but it’s a perfect record

[jacobcarson877 2,066]

I mean I do want to say that ferk was out there pitching to every new player, but honestly who wants to join a team where you're the only player and you have no shot of winning? And so every player says that same thing, joins a contender in a bottom 6 role, and gets a fun environment and some wins. As the GM who had no players LAST season I was completely bailed out by an incredible and frankly quite lucky recruitment drive. Changes have been announced and for the most part they seem to fix some of your concerns. I personally think that ferk acted quite fairly, and the commissioner team was involved in the process of the selling of the few assets the Hounds had. As a GM I'd rather see my players get the chance to play on a good team than keep them to grind out like 3 wins.

I don't want to pile onto recruitment any more than people already do, but this season was much worse for waivers than the past couple seasons. Obviously you can't always find a gold-mine recruitment opportunity every season, so pairing the Hounds with 2 picks and a very small waiver class and the problem looks way worse than it was.

 

I would say this is the most competitive the VHLM has been for a long time. 9 teams were legitimately competitive. Take a couple pieces from each team and add them to the Hounds and that number drops to maybe 2-3. I'd rather 9 competitive teams than 2 contenders and 6 meh teams and 2 bad teams.

 

Also, I suppose we should be glad that MIS going 0-72 affects exactly 0 players. It is definitely more of an indicator of the draft class than anything else.

[a_Ferk 760]

I pitched to everyone I could (lost a good few because they created while I was at work). I do think an empty team isn't that appealing to new people.

[Grape 527]

On 10/24/2022 at 4:15 PM, leandrofg said:

6 Forwards, 4 Defensemen, and 1 Goaltender (positionally). That should be the minimum on every team before they could increase further (unless the surplus of players was caused by drafted ones).

Active league population couldn't facilitate that as of now. There's only enough defensemen for each team to have 3. A much more feasible minimum would be 3-2-1. Also blocking the ability to increase until the minimum is satisfied can cause issues in the draft (ex: 63 TP goalie forced to be taken over 180 TP forward). Would be better to set a punishment for teams not meeting the minimum requirements by the start of the season, still allowing for teams to draft freely.