A Look into Moscow for S95

[Grape 739]

Euron Leonidas (@Spartan ) has put together a true contender in the Moscow Menace after a short rebuild period, and will look to extend the window for many seasons to come. After three rebuilding seasons, bringing in future stars, following two seasons of showcased improvement, S94 seemed to be the season where the Menace proved they were a top team. While the regular season did not show the Menace to have improved much from last season, the real damage is in the playoffs, as they have been a true dominating force throughout, and now sit in the finals against the top team in the regular season, the Toronto Legion, and putting on quite the show so far. While Moscow is battling it out in the finals against Toronto, the real fight will be in the offseason. There are multiple points of interest surrounding the Menace that will need to be addressed before this team suits up for S95.

Change in Administration

The Moscow GM has been quite vocal about his plans regarding the outcome of this finals series. He has led multiple Moscow teams ever so close to the promise land, but has fallen short each and every time. This series will be a final hurrah of sorts, as if Moscow fails to achieve victory once again, Leonidas will step down and allow for a successor to take his place, and hopefully achieve what he could not. If Moscow is successful, however, there will still be some change in the front office. During the season, the AGM of Moscow stepped down from his role, and Moscow has been operating without one since then. One of the offseason tasks will most likely be to fill that role, to help take some of the administrative burden off Leonidas.

 

Two Out and Two In

The Moscow Menace have two top prospects ready to make the jump next season, in Maverick Goncalves (@leandrofg) and Jillian Woods (@jacobcarson877). At the start of the season, two moves would have had to be made this offseason in order to open up a spot for each of them. Close to the deadline, Leonidas made the move to acquire Winston Dixon jr (@Rjdixon01), who is set to retire this offseason, creating a path for Jillian Woods to man the blue line next season. While a move at forward would have been needed, the unexpected retirement of Jeff Lewis (@nerji) alleviated that need, and now Moscow will be able to give their two budding stars the ice time they need.

 

The Cap Crunch

Building a contender is hard, but keeping the team together is the difficult part. Moscow is staring into the eyes of a massive cap crunch, with two players needing to be re-signed, in Jarmo Ruutu (@jRuutu) and George Richmond (@badcolethetitan). If everyone was to be brought back, the salary breakdown would be estimated to look like this:
 

Axle Gunner	$6,000,000
David Rashford	$5,000,000
George Richmond	$5,000,000
Jarmo Ruutu	$6,000,000
Steve Lattimer	$5,000,000
Maverick Goncalves	$2,500,000
Benjamin Abenduct	$2,000,000
Leif Reingaard	$5,000,000
Obuz Schneider Canet du Bocage	$6,000,000
Jillian Woods	$2,500,000
Olober Syko	$5,500,000
Joseph Reed	$2,500,000
Cap Space	-$6,500,000

 

Moves are going to have to be made, and the team will likely take a bit of a step back come next season, with subtractions of arguably great players, but such is the life of the VHL. There are two players in which I feel a trade will most likely come for, and one move that is a bit questionable:

 

Steve Lattimer (@pugsood)

Lattimer has been outstanding this playoff run and has played admirably this season with Moscow. The issue is that he is one season away from retirement, and will likely regress a fair bit, reducing his production coming into next season. Having gone IA as well, although has been on the forum every now and again, Lattimer is only going to get worse. Even if they were to come back, that regression is going to be a hard hit. Moving on from him seems like a sure thing

 

Leif Reingaard (@Zetterberg)

One of Moscow’s top flight defensemen, it would have been hard to imagine the Menace moving on from him just a season ago. He and Bocage appeared to be neck and neck for quite some time in both production and earning, but as Obuz continued to climb, Reingaard began to slow down and stagnate. While active on the forum, his earnings have tapered off quite a bit. With the selection of Jillian Woods, Moscow would have likely needed to move out one of Bocage or Reingaard, as there was no way they could afford three top defensemen down the stretch, which is why they moved on from Eric Queefson (@twists) a few seasons ago. Still a very good defenseman with multiple more seasons ahead of him, the return for Leif will likely be very fruitful, but the move will likely need to be made, either this offseason or next.

 

Axle Gunner (@Steve)/Jarmo Ruutu

Who doesn’t like a blockbuster? Moscow has two extremely good centers in Gunner and Ruutu, with one under contract for another season, and the other in need of one. The question is, do they need both? While each of them have performed extremely well with the team, there is a case to be made that one could be moved. Richmond is a center and could take up 2nd line duties if more TPE is allocated to faceoffs. While Gunner is definitely the better player over Ruutu, I would guess that, if a move is made, Leonidas would want something instead of nothing. So unless a sign and trade is made for Ruutu, Gunner would be the one to be moved, and the haul would be significant. 

 

If all three of these moves are made, it would give Moscow $9.5M in cap space for three holes to fill. The returns for each of the trades could very well fill the holes they make. There are also a fair amount of free agents out there as well that would fit in admirably. Given Euron’s track record, his magic will be done in the draft, and we’ll continue to look at Moscow and wonder how they continue to nab up all these great prospects and keep the pipeline flowing. For now, however, the focus is on the now. Moscow is one win away from achieving something they haven’t done since S70. Until that series closes, the offseason plans stay on the backburner.

(1104 words, go Moscow )

[Frank 5,259]

@Spartan  now is the time to move @Grape's rights. 

[twists 413]

Spartan always trades my players confirmed

[Steve 1,951]

Gunner will go for sure.

[pugsood 97]

fairly disappointing to have said i've gone IA given i made it clear i would do anything wanted if messaged and have done so

hope we win the whole thing but yea that's not great

[Grape 739]

23 minutes ago, pugsood said:

fairly disappointing to have said i've gone IA given i made it clear i would do anything wanted if messaged and have done so

hope we win the whole thing but yea that's not great

Meant no offense by my comment. Simply examining it from an outside perspective, and seeing that you haven't made any claims in a month, that's where my claim comes from.

[Spartan 4,531]

oi stop fighting there's a game 6 tonight

[Grape 739]

Claiming 2nd week