S93 European Conference Draft (+Offseason) Grades!

[Spartan 4,531]

Part 1 - HERE

 

I already did the spiel about how this works in part one for the NA conference above. Check that out for any background details you might need.

 

European Conference

 

HC Davos Dynamo - @Alex 

 

Hey, look at that. Davos finally traded Lachlan Summers @kirbithan away! Oh wait, it was to WAR. Rip HOF chances. Davos is done with the contending phase and have now entered a full rebuild with fringe VHL players and David Jokinen @Ahma making up their roster. Due to a combination of Seattle rulebreaking and a little bit of fortune, Davos received the 1st overall selection in the S93 Draft where they selected Antonia Bucatini @CowboyinAmerica to become their new franchise cornerstone. Davos ended up with a total of 11 draft picks, with Forum Content @frescoelmo, Aleksanteri Kaskiniemi-Kekkonen @Snussu, Steve French @Seabass and Billy Joel @The goat of hockey as some of their most notable selections behind Bucatini. Another underrated move might be the inclusion of Sunset Moth @McWolf from Warsaw in the Summers trade, where Davos will hope to get the once highly touted defenseman back on track. Davos had some quality picks along with a lot of developmental prospect selections, so their future success will lie considerably in their ability to develop prospects.

Grade: A-

 

 

Helsinki Titans - @samx 

 

Helsinki's biggest concern entering the offseason was the status of rumored disgruntled young star, Grimgor Ironhide @FrostBeard. News broke midway through S92 that Ironhide had already expressed displeasure with the organization in his VHL rookie season, second season on his ELC, and had notified management that he would not re-sign with the organization. This prompted GM Mickey Dickson to explore the trade market around the S92 TDL, but a deal never got finalized as HSK pushed for the playoffs with their strong core. Finally on the first day of the new season, Ironhide was traded to Moscow in exchange for winger prospect Adi Dassler @BOOM, a prospect drafted one season after Ironhide and at the same position, with a pick swap as well. In the draft, HSK selected Tyler Lawson @Nyx, a prospect who slipped down draft boards due to inactivity fears close to the draft, but had been responsive during the scouting process to some GMs. Samuel Wazinski @samthemancubwas also selected in the 2nd round, as a potential future backup to superstar Fuukka Rask @Jubis or even potential future starter once Rask retires. While having a top young player ask out of the organization is a noted concern, a return of Dassler makes up for it a bit.

 

Grade: C+

 

 

London United - @jacobcarson877 

 

I'm not sure if it was by design, but London was content to simply take a nap through the offseason. Their most significant moves may have been to just re-sign Sjin @Sjin before he hit FA, and to pick up a mutual option on Leonard Triller @Triller. Beyond that, London made no trades and only had 2 draft picks this draft, both of which were in the 4th round. With those picks, London selected Jacob Longstreet @Dynamicmlb_42 and Owen two @do3bo1 to flesh out their fairly shallow prospect pool. After a narrow game 7 loss to miss out on the Continental Cup, London seems confident in their existing roster to run it back for another season. While it could pan out well for them, it's certainly interesting to see the team get older by another season and not attempt to replenish their roster in a deeper draft than usual. There's not much to say about a quiet offseason, but that'd be the one mild criticism as London will see 4 players retire this season, and another 2 next season including superstar goalie Jesse Teno @aimkin. London also still has $5 million in cap space to play around with, and I'd assume they look to add a 4th defenseman to the roster. Whether they'll be able to do that and add a quality defenseman might shape their offseason.

 

Grade: B-

 

 

Malmo Nighthawks - @KaleebtheMighty 

 

Malmo has been the team gatekeeping the EU for a few seasons now, but has never quite gotten over the hump and into the finals. They're facing some cap issues, running just 5 forwards so far as of the time of writing this with $3.5 million in cap space. Only one of their players, Philip Rave @tcookie, is still on their rookie contract, while the rest of their roster are on prime deals. Jacob Stone @scoop is in his literal prime, rising to fill the role of one of the top defensemen in the league, and the team has Ash Sparks facing retirement after S94. Interestingly enough, rising star defenseman Jebediah Big Ol Doinks in Amish @hylands  seemed to not want to stick around in Malmo, so a subpar trade was made for the pending UFA - with Malmo trading up just 4 picks in the draft from 11oa to 7oa while losing the defenseman. With 7oa, Malmo takes Jorgen Lovstrom @Pifferfish, who they hope will step in to be the starter of the future. Personally, I had a different goalie rated as the first one to go off the board, and I believe that there were concerns whether Lovstrom will be able to maintain his development arc over the course of a full career. Another draft/offseason recap, another question about a Malmo draft pick's activity .  I'm sure the Malmo crowd will be thrilled. Hopefully Lovstrom will be the goalie that makes it out of the Malmo prospect pool. I will say though, adding Eric Queefson @twists to replace Amish was a strong add, bringing in a fairly young defenseman for a well valued pick. And I really like the selection of Ocean Codoller @FreshOceanCod as well who flashes a lot of potential as a sleeper pick. It's a mixed bag here, having a player leave at the end of their ELC along with a sketchy top draft pick - but the team did bring in a replacement and still has a strong roster pending FA/trade for a final forward.

 

Grade: B

 

 

Moscow Menace - @Spartan  

 

Moscow had a couple of question marks heading into this offseason. First, how would they manage 7 VHL-eligible forwards with both George Richmond @badcolethetitan and Adi Dassler @BOOM ready to make the jump to the VHL, and how would they remain competitive after the retirement of their rental piece, Dogwood Maple @dogwoodmaple? The trades seemed to happen quickly at the start of the offseason - veteran winger Left Alone @okochastar was moved to Vancouver in exchange for 19th overall. Dassler was also flipped for Grimgor Ironhide @FrostBeard with Moscow upgrading a 3rd to a 2nd in S94, with the potential for both picks to jump up by a round pending Ironhide's contract status. Between Richmond and Ironhide, with both being over 600 TPA to start the season, the hope is that Moscow won't take a significant step backwards from their playoff appearance in S92. In the draft, Moscow was fairly happy to trade out of the draft entirely, with little glaring needs on their current roster outside of depth defense. With 9th overall, Moscow selected Benjamin Abenduct @Schnee, a very active and engaged first gen defenseman. 10th overall was promptly flipped over to Seattle for an S94 WAR 1 and a later 2nd in S93, and 19th overall was sent to D.C. earlier in the day for their S94 1st as well, increasing the Moscow future asset pool. Moscow's big question will be if they can keep taking steps towards remaining competitive and making playoff runs before their entire young core are off of their ELCs.

 

Grade: A-

 

 

Prague Phantoms - @Tetricide

 

Hey look! A brand new GM! Tetricide was hired to lead Prague just a week or so before the S93 Draft, and he had to move quickly to get up to speed with scouting and the state of the team. Prague is in a fairly uncomfortable spot, with stars Matt Murdock @Acydburn, Nikolas Kauppi @Tetricide and John Jameson @Frank all facing retirement after S93. It seems like Prague will be yet another team comfortable to let their aging stars retire in Prague without receiving any assets for them. As of the time of writing this, Prague also has an incomplete roster, sporting just 5 forwards and 3 defensemen with $12 million in cap space. Prague only acquired Pope Francis @nurx via trade with LA during their fire sale, and haven't had much success in FA so far. In the draft, Prague selected Ondrej Vencko @Mutti, potentially the highest ceiling goalie in the draft class. Prague made a couple of safe picks with Vanuza Kolesinska @chikn (who was promptly traded away) and Chuck E Cheese @a_Ferk, who should provide cheap depth for the future. However, Prague will definitely face tough times when their superstar trio retires with little other young talent on the roster outside of Spanish Moon Moth @Renomitsu. Dark days seem to lie ahead for Prague, but kudos to a new GM for respecting players' wishes to retire with their lifelong organization.

 

Grade: D

 

 

Riga Reign - @hedgehog337 

 

Riga also had a fairly quiet offseason when it comes to trades, choosing to continue letting their fairly young team continue to develop after their sales in prior seasons. Those moves left them with a fair amount of picks in the S93 Draft, including three first round picks. With 3oa, they went with Lucy Leitner @LucyXpher, the highest ranked first gen in the class who should look to lead their defense for seasons to come. With picks 15 and 16, Riga took a gamble on Yermolai Nabokov @fonziGG and Ray Stanton @horoscope, two players who have a lot of potential but may need a bit of help and motivation to reach that potential. Fonzi has had a shaky history with getting his players through a full career, and Stanton has had mixed developmental weeks with some concern of a recent slowdown. Their other selections in Elf Shoes @ELF_SH0ES, Isaak Robinson @isaak and French Fries @solyom will be much more developmental prospects, who will need a lot of time to make the VHL roster. Overall, Riga seemed content to let their developmental process continue, but luck was not on their side with 2 of their 3 1sts landing at the end of the first round, where talent was starting to fall off from the max earners or pension earners at prior selections. Riga will need to be hands on with development to make this offseason a true value add beyond just Leitner.

 

Grade: B

 

 

Warsaw Predators - @N0HBDY 

 

Ah, the final team to cover, with Cody Toland @ctoland102 as their sole pick in the top two rounds of the S93 Draft. Warsaw has made some interesting moves over the past couple seasons - they've gone in multiple times to build a competitive team around young talent Maxim Anisimov @McLovin and King Kisslinger @Kisslinger, while also adding an S91 top draft pick in Thor Reingaard @N0HBDY. But they struggled miserably in S92 and decided to try it again in S93, trading yet another 1st round pick away in exchange for Lachlan Summers @kirbithan. For some reason, by trading away Sunset Moth, they're now at only 3 defensemen. And there was no cap issue there, the Predators have a whopping 14.5 million in cap space right now, but no FA adds or trades made as of the time of writing this. They also only have 5 forwards on the VHL roster. Joseph Dubois @Dubois is ready for the VHL call up on defense, but the defense group looks extremely poor for a competitive team. Jacob Smith Jr @jacobaa19 could also complete their forward group, but they'd be leaving so much cap space on the table. If they don't end up making mid-season or late offseason trades, Warsaw would likely have just been better off to sell the young talent they have. So many teams we've covered today and yesterday in the NA conference have incomplete rosters and the cap space for solid players. It would have been a fantastic time for WAR to work the phones and get a very nice haul to replenish their subpar future asset pool and give their young talent in their large but low quality prospect pool some playing time and motivation. Warsaw is definitely not in as bad a situation as they were last season, but if there's no results to show for the aggressive spending, Warsaw will keep taking the heat.

 

Grade: C-

[Garsh 1,195]

Edited March 12 by Garsh

[Spartan 4,531]

6 minutes ago, Garsh said:

https://i.imgur.com/zgdU1Xd.jpg

It'll work one day for you, godspeed

[fonziGG 1,071]

1 hour ago, Garsh said:

https://i.imgur.com/zgdU1Xd.jpg

This sent me

[scoop 3,447]

Your analysis of cap space (at least with regards to Malmo) is incorrect, because it doesn't factor in the extra cap space we get for a backup goalie.

[Spartan 4,531]

36 minutes ago, scoop said:

Your analysis of cap space (at least with regards to Malmo) is incorrect, because it doesn't factor in the extra cap space we get for a backup goalie.

Damn guess I missed that 1.5 mil, thought I was doing well to cover it. Oh well. Wonder if the hole will get filled!

[Pifferfish 597]

@Spartan what do you mean by concerns? My last player was the best Dman in the league after I went IA lol. Also I feel like goalie is easier to get over the hump. Lampi was my first player and I didn't have a strong identity for him as a player so I kind of got bored, Lovstrom is different.

[Spartan 4,531]

2 minutes ago, Pifferfish said:

@Spartan what do you mean by concerns? My last player was the best Dman in the league after I went IA lol. Also I feel like goalie is easier to get over the hump. Lampi was my first player and I didn't have a strong identity for him as a player so I kind of got bored, Lovstrom is different.

Well you had 865 TPE total on Lampi....that's not really what you'd expect from a mid-high first round pick. But I do hope you have a good career and stick around the whole way through this go around, just thought one of the other goalies might be valued higher since you had gone IA last go around.

[Pifferfish 597]

3 minutes ago, Spartan said:

Well you had 865 TPE total on Lampi....that's not really what you'd expect from a mid-high first round pick. But I do hope you have a good career and stick around the whole way through this go around, just thought one of the other goalies might be valued higher since you had gone IA last go around.

I'm gonna be honest, there was management factors that led to me going IA more than my actual will to earn. The teams that interviewed me and asked about it got the Tea and understood. Except Alex clearly since he didn't draft me at 6 lol

[Spartan 4,531]

14 minutes ago, Pifferfish said:

I'm gonna be honest, there was management factors that led to me going IA more than my actual will to earn. The teams that interviewed me and asked about it got the Tea and understood. Except Alex clearly since he didn't draft me at 6 lol

Sure, but now its on you to prove yourself. Just taking note of the goalies in the class, what happened last go around in the public eye (and I don't think blame can fairly be entirely shifted elsewhere), and offering some commentary. Consider it motivation to prove me wrong!

[Pifferfish 597]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

Sure, but now its on you to prove yourself. Just taking note of the goalies in the class, what happened last go around in the public eye (and I don't think blame can fairly be entirely shifted elsewhere), and offering some commentary. Consider it motivation to prove me wrong!

Nah imma quit instead

[McWolf 3,116]

On 3/11/2024 at 8:07 PM, Spartan said:

once highly touted

How dare you