With Regards - Polaris

[Spartan 4,150]

Hello, it's me again.

 

Fair bit has changed for Moscow since the last VHL.com. We've traded away Hammar Voss over to Helsinki in exchange for a 2nd and 1st round pick swap, we'll be receiving whichever 2 firsts are higher out of Moscow, Malmo and Helsinki's. The reasoning here was pretty much that Moscow was in a playoff spot while Helsinki wasn't, and both teams essentially wanted to switch spots. There was a risk that Helsinki and London would have been the EU lotto teams alongside Warsaw, so I wanted to guarantee that some of our picks were lottery instead. And we got to send Voss over to a playoff hopeful vs our rebuilding squad. The other trade is much more fresh, and was made today to send Babay Shrimp over to Seattle. Shrimp joined us last FA, and was likely heading back into FA again since we were just a stop to get some top minutes and have a chill season. Getting a future 1st and a high 2nd this draft will be very helpful for us.

 

From a player perspective, Syko is hanging in there as the "top" goalie in the M so far. He still remains the league leader in every goalie statistic, such as SV%, GAA, Wins and Shutouts. If he maintains this pace, he's a certain lock for awards which would be nice to start my career with. San Diego as a whole is also surging, playing exceptionally well and seems to be one of the championship favorites. The work has been put in and there's a lot of hope in the organization. Looking forward to seeing how it plays out!

 

On the M Commish/BoG side, there's a few different things that cross my mind in terms of potential ideas and changes to make in the future. There's older issues like rulebook splits for eras still wallowing around, while new thoughts circle around backup goalie utilization in the M and further ways to engage and develop new players beyond just welfare and practice facility. Gus and I have been fairly consistent in making changes to benefit the M as a whole, so now that we're in a generally healthy place with GM responsibility and time requirement and player experience, making further changes is a delicate balance to not end up going full circle to where the M was when we took over - a less than healthy situation.