VHL Lore: Unveiling Noob GM Trade Talks

[Spartan 4,437]

I honestly didn't think I'd write anything for theme week due to my job pay, but a flash of inspiration struck me this morning. I'd always thought it'd be cool to peel back the curtains on some aspect of being a GM, having seen what @FrostBeard had done after his initial stint as a GM through the FrostBeard Chronicles (I think that was what it was called). Granted, those chronicles ended up being fairly controversial and drawing a fair amount of hostile discussion. I don't plan on portraying anyone but myself in a negative light in this piece though. So no, the title is not clickbait, it's simply about me!

 

My VHL GM career started with receiving this message from @McWolf who was the London United GM at the time, and one of my closer friends in the VHL at the time:

 

Now how did we have 1oa? In the style that's become pretty familiar to people following Moscow trades, we traded for it of course! With the rules around GM players, the only way to secure a GM player is still to trade for them. While McWolf became an expansion GM for London, @Josh became the inaugural GM for the LA Stars as well. Moscow at the time had Roque Davis on the roster, one of the key pieces for Moscow's dominant regular season success in the mid-S70's. With @Victor announcing his intention to step away from Moscow at the conclusion of S76 and me serving as his unofficial AGM who was hoping to be selected as the next GM, Josh basically said "fuck Victor" and DM'd me directly to negotiate for his defenseman.

 

Looking back on it, I was hired on 3/8/2021, and Josh began negotiations on 1/21/2021. So it was pretty nice that this was a deal negotiated well in advance (although there was some tweaking to be done after the draft lottery), I don't think we see many trades lined up well in advance like this anymore. Josh made it clear that rory, esso and jigglygumballs were all unavailable in a trade, greatly reducing the possible returns from a player perspective. With that plus him mentioning a couple other players may be held up in trade talks, this is how the trade discussion went:

 

Ok.....he agreed pretty quickly. While I was pretty much celebrating the success at the time, I've learned now that someone accepting that quickly usually means you could have gotten more out of them. However, the big question mark was where that 1st would fall, and Josh had mentioned wanting to revisit the trade if by some miracle, LA ended up winning the S77 Draft Lottery.

 

 

 

Congrats @N0HBDY! You are a Menace! Funnily enough, the only way N0H is now an upstanding member of the community is because the LA Stars won the draft lottery in S77, pivoting the return from one defenseman to N0H's lower earning defenseman instead. You can find the final trade here.

 

But alright, I popped my VHL GM cherry, now I have McWolf going after 1oa that I just received, since LDN had 3oa already and two prospects in the S77 class - Duncan Idaho @OrbitingDeath  and Paul Atreides @Mr_Hatter had expressed a strong desire to play together. If LDN could receive 1oa, it was pretty much guaranteed that they'd be able to select both of those players. Just for the shoutout, both McWolf and I were certain that Davos was going to select @Ricer13's first gen player at 2oa. During our chats, McWolf mentioned various picks and packages that simply weren't providing enough value. He was trying to acquire 6oa from Toronto, but fortunately I stood my ground as a noob GM to say that the top 4/5 in the S77 class were simply better than the options that'd be available at 6oa. The initial offer from London looked like this:

 

After some discussions where I pumped up Lahtinen's perceived value (you're welcome @Beketov ), we came to agree that the offer was a bit underwhelming. Philip Stein was a pass first, lower earning LW, while Maxim Yakolevsky was an affiliate winger as well. Neither overly moved the needle when it came to making up the value between 6oa and 1oa. While the trade wasn't finalized this day, we came out of it with London still strongly wanting both 1oa and Mikko Lahtinen. After we'd agreed to think about our moves and see which of us wanted to negotiate with TOR for 6oa, another piece was added to the mix in Jordan Tonn, Moscow's star goalie.

 

So yet another pawn on the board as Moscow looked to enter a true rebuild. And then, the fated moment:

 

I was essentially noting that London was in a better position to compete already, and adding two of the top superstars in the league in Lahtinen and Tonn would definitely help LDN compete over the next couple seasons. Adding to the confusion, TOR decided not to trade 6oa at all, leaving our initial trade discussions where LDN would receive 1oa in the lurch. We had some three-way trade discussions where I wanted everything and wanted to give up nothing - typical noob GM discussions. I think Peace yelled at me a bit during that for being an idiot, which was valid. That fell through and I don't think I have that group chat anyways. So, sorry! Don't get to see me getting chewed out for being a dumbass. But McWolf and I pressed on ahead, negotiating into the wee hours of the night:

 

So there was some additional chatter here where the groundwork of the trade was being laid. McWolf was now strongly debating the ability to start competing immediately, because he was afraid of just being stuck as a mid-tier team. With TOR's complications, the assets that I would have wanted weren't available anymore and we both knew that one of us had to get both 1oa and 3oa or risk making a big impact in the VHL environment if either OD or Hatter wanted out after their ELCs expiring to go join the other for free. With some more time and discussion, more pieces of the trade came together:

 

Moscow somehow had 10oa, I don't remember how we got it or if it was our own pick, but frankly at this point I don't care enough to go figure out the details (edit: I got it from DCD for trading them Letang!). Another complication in the mix was that @MexicanCow123 started to mention a desire to retire after 1 season instead of 2 seasons to recreate with @Zetterberg. Now in the middle of trade talks that were complicated enough, I had to go persuade these two morons to not fuck up our trade. Fortunately it worked, I'll decline to share my methods . After all the complications, we finally had a deal we both agreed on:

 

And there it was, the megatrade of the offseason that took a hell of a lot more work than just what was shown through this media spot. It was definitely much more pleasant to have McWolf as the other side of these negotiations, we had a lot of filler chatting that helped a lot to keep the negotiations calm and relaxed. It's funny to see that my desire to get trades done as quickly as possible in the offseason, so that I have certainty over how the draft, FA, and my roster for the next season will look, hasn't changed at all through now.

 

Overall though, I hope that this piece gives folks some more knowledge about how VHL trades can go, and how quickly they can change as various circumstances and complications arise. I really do appreciate having McWolf as my trade partner here, I don't know how many times I've said it but I'd say it a lot more times too. He was a fantastic mentor when I first joined the EFL and VHL and really helped me figure out how everything worked and was one of the folks who calmed me down when I panicked a bit over how much there was to learn and do if I wanted to make successful players. I think London did make playoff runs over the next couple seasons but just couldn't take it all the way. Moscow never won a cup with Idaho or Atreides to my great disappointment, but Idaho did make the Hall of Fame and we had some fantastic seasons together.

 

Anyways that's all, cheers

 

[OrbitingDeath 3,204]

Another reminder of my only player without a cup so far :')

[N0HBDY 1,119]

Can’t imagine how much better of a person I’d be if I’d stayed a clicker in the LA prospect pool