Recapping Which VHL Team's Have Had An Interesting Off-Season

[MubbleFubbles 1,291]

 

The podcast where I discussed the reasons for thinking each team's off-season heading in being interesting/not interesting, is above for recap purposes.

 

Calgary Wranglers - Interesting

Original Prediction - Interesting

 

My main reason for Calgary's off-season potentially being interesting was to see whether they would stick with Merome Dilson this season in goal or try for a more veteran goalie and that's kind of gotten more interesting with the TPE ban Dilson picked up which might prevent them getting to around the 700 TPE mark by the playoffs. The actual bit that has wound up being the most interesting though is Calgary trading for not one but two first round selections in this Season 89 Draft, for the future but also perhaps partially to get players with healthy salaries for Season 90 after Janser leaves and Wolanin and Goncalves will be in their final two seasons.

 

Chicago Phoenix - Not Interesting

Original Prediction - Interesting

 

Chicago do usually leave their off-season activity late (you may remember last-seasons trade for Ryan Vidot and DB III late on in the previous off-season marked a huge improvement for Chicago's offense), but I guess I'm surprised they haven't made any earlier moves given that I'm not sure there is that much available at the minute if they are continuing to look to compete. Like maybe they will make a trade for somebody like a Preobazhensky from Riga to help fill the roster (especially given Riga is over cap) but I'd be surprised if there any stars like Vidot was available for the Phoenix. 

 

D.C. Dragons - Interesting

Original Prediction - Not Interesting (But Interesting During Draft)

 

I think D.C's moves during the draft qualify them being moved from a conditional "interesting" to a full-on interesting. They broke what had been a 1170 day wait for a defenseman to go first overall when they took Mark Calaway with that pick in the Season 88 Draft and they followed that up this season by spending both their second and sixth overall picks on Eric Queefson and Ben Laas, who are also defensemen. This subsequently led to the trading of Reinhard Von Kongming for a second and fourth, just two seasons after trading for Reinhard, giving up two seconds and a third in the process. So this makes things very interesting as I don't think I've ever seen a team focus quite this much on getting active high-earning defensive talent and I'll be interested to see how it plays out in the long run.

 

H.C. Davos Dynamo - Not Interesting, but left with an interesting situation

Original Prediction - Not Interesting

 

Although Davos have done some nice under-the-radar moves like signing Grizz Tazzo and Winston Dixon Jr (who are currently prospects in the E), they haven't made any moves that particularly standout. The interesting situation though is that they are still over the cap (they are listed as $2.5M over, but only get a $2M allowance for Thomas Price as their backup, so they are $500K over the cap) so I'm interested to see what the move is that gets them back under the cap. It may wind up being something very simple (I would not be surprised if we just saw Jack The Ripper traded away and Admir Bala called up in their place), but it's worth monitoring nonetheless.

 

Helsinki Titans - Not Interesting

Original Prediction - Interesting

 

It's not that Helsinki have had a bad or quiet off-season, I guess I was just expecting more. They did make a move for Chip Stone which helped improve their forward core and bringing back Malum Maellard will help keep a solid defense alongside Mo Probert and Kronchy Kardashian, but I guess I was anticipating them to make more of a competitive push than they have made thus far, given they've spent four consecutive seasons to this point out of the playoffs. They do still have cap room, so maybe there is still something left to acquire that will boost this team, but given that four of their six forward core currently have below 70 defense (whereas the vast majority of the EU conference has nearly all their forwards over 80), I wonder if they're going to struggle picking up rebounds. 

 

London United - Interesting if you're a fan of board games

Original Prediction - Not Interesting

 

At $6 Million, London spent more than anyone in history has ever spent on a board game and that is interesting. Like, why would you do that? Ok yes, The Board Game Clue On Skates entered Free Agency with a higher TPE count than any other player beforehand, but let's make things very clear. It's a board game. Not only that, it's a board game that is freely available in shops at a very reasonable cost that's in the double figures, not seven. London still have cap to work with, so it will be interesting to see how they go about filling out the rest of the roster as I can't see them leaving that much free money on the table given the quality of some of the players they have on the roster. 

 

Los Angeles Stars - Not Interesting

Original Prediction - Interesting if they didn't re-sign players

 

At the point where I made the podcast, LA had several high-profile players not under contract for Season 89 but any chances of a mass exodus in LA were put to rest with several of their stars resigning for Season 89, except for Scoish Velociraptor Maloish who LA did well to get a first for given they were set to enter Free Agency. However, their other two moves were fairly low-key as they traded a fourth for an inactive defenseman and, while Jens Lekman is a good solid defenseman and is a good pickup for Los Angeles, the Stars were arguably the least interesting of the three teams involved in the trade that saw them acquire Lekman. It is interesting though to see Los Angeles go with a full roster this season having experimented with 6-3 and even 6-2 in previous seasons.

 

Malmo Nighthawks - Interesting

Original Prediction - Interesting

 

I had Malmo down as interesting as I was interested to see what they would do with their gigantic roster and, as it turns out, they've trimmed it back down to a 6-4 having gone something like 12-6 the previous season, although there is still time for that to change given they have so much cap available. One interesting move they made was bringing in Ash Sparks to be, presumably, their starter for the future, which was very surprising given at one point this off-season the sixth overall pick of Season 86 actually declared their retirement, only to un-retire when they found out they would indeed be getting game time, and Malmo is a better fit for Sparks, as there is significantly less pressure on them to perform in this season, which is also their first full season as a starter. Malmo also made a nice move bringing in Ivan Retoslav fresh off of winning the Continental Cup with London and made significant strides to improving their forward core for the future by spending three first rounders on forwards, one of which was the first overall pick Viktor Jensen. 

 

Moscow Menace - Interesting

Original Prediction - Interesting

 

Moscow didn't actually do all that much in trades this off-season, but what was interesting was how they were able to basically solve their entire off-season in just one trade. With one fell swoop they swapped out Matt Murdock and Jason Argos with Clueless Wallob and Jason and also used the same trade to bring in Deron Nesbitt to replace AK92 Wit Da Hoodie who left the team in Free Agency. On top of that, they were somehow able to bring in Jack Jeckler in Free Agency which will be a great help down the line after Los Angeles bizarrely elected not to even offer a contract to their former ninth overall selection.

 

New York Americans – Not Interesting

Original Prediction – Interesting

 

New York was an interesting case heading into the off-season as I wasn’t entirely sure which direction this team was heading but based off of discussions it did look like they wanted to try to compete heading into this season. While I think they are on the right track to potentially break their VHL-record ten season run of missing the playoffs thanks in part to acquiring Biggie Cheese in Free Agency, it’s probably too early to put them down as competition. However, they do still have cap room and New York hasn’t actually made a trade yet this offseason so who knows, maybe there will be more to this team as we get further on into the season.

 

Prague Phantoms – Interesting (But maybe not as interesting as I’d thought it would be)

Original Prediction – Interesting

 

Prague managed to solve their salary cap problems last season with a massive 11 asset trade with Malmo that, as time moved on, went on to progressively look less and less in Prague’s favour (it ultimately wound up seeing Prague essentially trade six players and two thirds for a second rounder and a move down one pick in the 2^nd round of the Season 88 Draft where they took a VHLE lifer). This time solving their salary issues was significantly less explosive, but still relatively interesting as Prague were able to secure the services of their GM’s own player Matt Murdock in one trade but also had to give up arguably their best player Nico Pearce in another deal to get back below the cap. Prague still looks strong, but it will be interesting to see if trading Jason and Pearce leaves them with enough offensive strength to still be as competitive as they were last season.

 

Riga Reign – Interesting

Original Prediction – Not Interesting

 

There’s nothing like a sim league ethical quandary to garner more attention for your team than anyone had any reason to expect them to get. With their player entering Free Agency, Hedgehog didn’t look set to bring their own player to Riga given that there are rules against GM’s signing their own players in FA, but that didn’t stop them trying to get around this by signing for Warsaw and trading them for a solitary third round selection. Ultimately this was declined and, I guess AK92 is on Warsaw now? The thing that’s most surprising is that it seems to be the end of that. Given that Nico Pearce was just traded for two 2^nd rounders, I’m surprised Riga weren’t just willing to up their part of the trade to that since the only real problem that seemed to be brought up was the lack of value they were prepared to give up for AK92. Outside of that though, Riga have made a couple of good moves to boost the offense, bringing in two physical forwards in Larry Abass Jr. via a trade with Calgary and former first overall selection Vasile Lamb in Free Agency. Riga also continue to remain interesting by being $3 Million over the cap, but I can see that being fixed with a relatively simple cap-dump.

 

Seattle Bears – Interesting

Original Prediction - Interesting

 

I only thought that Seattle was going to be interesting primarily because of whether they would decide to stick with Ash Sparks, I was not at all expecting them to be a part of 41% of the league’s trades thus far this off-season! Not only did they address the goalie situation by bringing in Cole Pearce, but they also addressed the loss of Alessandro Nano to retirement and Kovalchuk’s move to Warsaw by bringing in Rex Wolffe Gregor and Scoish Velociraptor Maloish and, for an encore, brought in Daniel Weaver through Free Agency and Sax Justice with a trade to replace Vasile Lamb who departed in Free Agency and Chip Stone who was traded for good value to Helsinki. Congratulations to Seattle, I think they are definitely up there, if not top, in the race for the most interesting off-season!

 

Toronto Legion – Not Interesting

Original Prediction – Interesting

 

If Toronto did one thing good, they have managed to give long-term extensions to both Jimi Jaks and Mac Atlas, which is undoubtedly huge for this franchise as they need to keep those pieces around long-term and part of me wondered if they’d consider not re-signing if the Season 87 first and third overall selections didn’t make the playoffs for a third straight season. Outside of that though, there’s not been too much going on for Toronto outside of picking up a good defenseman in Jimmy MacElroy. I think this team is definitely going to put up a much stronger battle than it has in the last two seasons for playoff places, but I get the feeling they’re going to need one more move to give them the quality they need to make that a reality.

 

Vancouver Wolves – Interesting

Original Prediction – Not Interesting

 

When I thought about Vancouver’s off-season heading into it, I just thought it would be a few slight tinkers here and there, not acquiring two of the top ten players in TPA! The forward core for Vancouver in particular looks very deadly now that they’ve added Nico Pearce to a forward unit that already had two 1000+ TPA players in Dogwood Maple and Henry Eagles. Along with that, Warsaw legend Brian Payne will bring a very physical presence to this defense that already has Pierre Emile Bouchard and while the defense is maybe hurt by the fact it doesn’t have a full four defenseman, they’ve definitely got two of the best anchoring it in Bouchard and Payne. Coming off this off-season, I’d have to say Vancouver are the favourites to take the North American Conference.

 

Warsaw Predators – Interesting

Original Prediction – Interesting

 

I have no clue what is going on in Warsaw and I’m here for it. It looked like things were heading in the direction of a rebuild when they traded Cole Pearce to Seattle, but they replaced them in Free Agency with Ed Nu (who I thought was going to be a downgrade but looking at Pearce, I guess they’re preparing for the depreciation-to-end-all-depreciation with the amount of banked TPE they have and the pair are actually pretty equal). However they followed that up with trading for Mikhail Kovalchuk who had said they planned to retire their player, so I guess they’re back to competing and re-affirm that with signing AK92 Wit Da Hoodie only to try trading him to his GM’s team in Riga for just a third rounder only to then be able to keep one of the best defensemen in the league when commissioners refuse the trade. Wow, things are looking super good for Warsaw right now, what move is going to re-affirm their new-found competitive attitude? Trading their best ever defenseman Brian Payne to Vancouver for 2nds and 3rds and replacing them with Ryuji Sakamoto who, while being a much better player than people give him credit for, was traded five times last off-season and hasn’t really been close to competing with Payne as a defenseman thus far in his career. At the end of it all, they’ve acquired quite a few 2nds through this process (four in all) so I guess they’ve benefitted there, but yeah, I just still don’t really have an idea what’s going on here and like I said earlier, I’m here for it.

 

For Weeks Ending 18th, 25th, 2nd and 9th

Edited June 13, 2023 by MubbleFubbles

[Beketov 9,034]

15 minutes ago, MubbleFubbles said:

They broke what had been a 1170 day wait for a defenseman to go first overall when they took Mark Calaway with that pick in the Season 88 Draft

Neat, I actually did not know that.

[Daniel Janser 2,185]

7 hours ago, MubbleFubbles said:

Prague Phantoms – Interesting (But maybe not as interesting as I’d thought it would be)

Original Prediction – Interesting

 

Prague managed to solve their salary cap problems last season with a massive 11 asset trade with Malmo that, as time moved on, went on to progressively look less and less in Prague’s favour (it ultimately wound up seeing Prague essentially trade six players and two thirds for a second rounder and a move down one pick in the 2^nd round of the Season 88 Draft where they took a VHLE lifer). This time solving their salary issues was significantly less explosive, but still relatively interesting as Prague were able to secure the services of their GM’s own player Matt Murdock in one trade but also had to give up arguably their best player Nico Pearce in another deal to get back below the cap. Prague still looks strong, but it will be interesting to see if trading Jason and Pearce leaves them with enough offensive strength to still be as competitive as they were last season.

I am missing the FA acquisition of two-time cupwinning under-the-radar defenceman Marcel Janser... but I guess it is forgivable to miss out one information on that plethora of data... appreciate your efforts to give a comprehensible summary of the off-season activity for lazy bums like me.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Daniel Janser

[Gaikoku-hito 2,092]

13 hours ago, MubbleFubbles said:

The interesting situation though is that they are still over the cap (they are listed as $2.5M over, but only get a $2M allowance for Thomas Price as their backup, so they are $500K over the cap) so I'm interested to see what the move is that gets them back under the cap.

"Teams with two human goalies will be allowed to deduct up to 2.5M from the lower of the two goalies salaries when determining their total cap hit."

I thought it was 2M as well but it seems it has been bumped in the rules to 2.5M so they are cap compliant!!

[MubbleFubbles 1,291]

17 minutes ago, Gaikoku-hito said:

"Teams with two human goalies will be allowed to deduct up to 2.5M from the lower of the two goalies salaries when determining their total cap hit."

I thought it was 2M as well but it seems it has been bumped in the rules to 2.5M so they are cap compliant!!

But the problem is that Thomas Price is only on a $2M deal, so they can only take up to $2M off their salary cap. They can’t spend more than $44 Million on skaters+starting goalie, but they’re spending $44.5 Million on them currently. 
 

Edit: They’re spending $46 Million now with Dokis signing.

Edited June 13, 2023 by MubbleFubbles

[Gaikoku-hito 2,092]

14 hours ago, MubbleFubbles said:

I’d have to say Vancouver are the favorites to take the North American Conference.

[Gaikoku-hito 2,092]

6 minutes ago, MubbleFubbles said:

But the problem is that Thomas Price is only on a $2M deal, so they can only take up to $2M off their salary cap. They can’t spend more than $44 Million on skaters+starting goalie, but they’re spending $44.5 Million on them currently. 
 

Edit: They’re spending $46 Million now with Dokis signing.

Ah, I didn`t even look at Prices` contract being only 2M so yeah that would make more sense that they are still over. I just ass umed that he was signed for at least the goalie cap since it is free cash.

All the GM had to do than was pay Price a bonus of 0.5M and they would have been cap complaint; if that is allowed.

[Daniel Janser 2,185]

1 hour ago, Gaikoku-hito said:

Ah, I didn`t even look at Prices` contract being only 2M so yeah that would make more sense that they are still over. I just ass umed that he was signed for at least the goalie cap since it is free cash.

All the GM had to do than was pay Price a bonus of 0.5M and they would have been cap complaint; if that is allowed.

Maybe I am missing something here, but would not that bonus also count against the salary cap? Which would just reinstate the Status Quo of a 500k non compliance, just with a higher turnover?

[v.2 1,406]

Toronto locks up their future.  Nowhere to go but up now.

[Spartan 4,414]

31 minutes ago, Daniel Janser said:

Maybe I am missing something here, but would not that bonus also count against the salary cap? Which would just reinstate the Status Quo of a 500k non compliance, just with a higher turnover?

Giving the goalie a bonus doesn't take away from the rest of the team going over 42 million, correct.

[Alex 3,211]

19 hours ago, MubbleFubbles said:

H.C. Davos Dynamo - Not Interesting, but left with an interesting situation

Original Prediction - Not Interesting

 

Although Davos have done some nice under-the-radar moves like signing Grizz Tazzo and Winston Dixon Jr (who are currently prospects in the E), they haven't made any moves that particularly standout. The interesting situation though is that they are still over the cap (they are listed as $2.5M over, but only get a $2M allowance for Thomas Price as their backup, so they are $500K over the cap) so I'm interested to see what the move is that gets them back under the cap. It may wind up being something very simple (I would not be surprised if we just saw Jack The Ripper traded away and Admir Bala called up in their place), but it's worth monitoring nonetheless.

HA!

[Gaikoku-hito 2,092]

7 hours ago, Spartan said:

Giving the goalie a bonus doesn't take away from the rest of the team going over 42 million, correct.

But said bonus bring the contract up to 2.5M would allow for the goalie Bonus to be deducted at 2.5M? 

If that is the case than giving the bonus would have solved the problem for HC Davos until they hadn`t signed another player?

 

 

[Alex 3,211]

2 minutes ago, Gaikoku-hito said:

But said bonus bring the contract up to 2.5M would allow for the goalie Bonus to be deducted at 2.5M? 

If that is the case than giving the bonus would have solved the problem for HC Davos until they hadn`t signed another player?

Yes, giving a backup a bonus to bring their salary up to 2.5 mil would allow for the entire salary to be deducted. But, that amount would also raise the amount over the salary cap making the net difference still the same.

[Gaikoku-hito 2,092]

Ah, the oversight that I didn`t even think of!! Thanks Alex for the quick response.

My brain is working very well these past few days or was it ever working well!!

Edited June 14, 2023 by Gaikoku-hito

[AJW 2,161]

BEARZ

[N0HBDY 1,119]

On 6/12/2023 at 7:22 PM, MubbleFubbles said:

I have no clue what is going on in Warsaw

Me to Mubbles me too

[Banackock 8,067]

[BOOM 8,768]

LAs loss in Jeckler is definitely Moscows gain!