What's Going On In Malmo?

[AJW 2,192]

Been a while since I wrote a media, so much has been going on this season already and I finally have a bunch of content to talk about so I figured why not earn a couple extra TPE compared to my 5 for Welfare.

 

Bubbles LaFleur

 

After a good first season with the Marlins in the VHLM, Bubbles LaFleur is ready to make his return to San Diego for one more season in hopes for a Founder's Cup. I have personally never won a Founder's Cup before, my first player won a Continental Cup, my second player won a Renaissance Cup, so I am really hoping to hit the trifecta and win a VHLM title now. The S96 roster that San Diego had was sort of a rebuild squad, @Mysterious_Fish was able to draft myself and Ricky LaFleur @DarkSpyro with the main goal of us returning for S97 and being able to build around us. San Diego holds the 4th and 6th overall pick in this upcoming VHLM draft, so with players like Bubbles LaFleur, Ricky LaFleur, Blaze Thunderstrike @eaglesfan036, Dustin Moore @Maxx, and Victory Hockey League @TheHockey_pro all achieveing the 200+ milestone already, we have a great core to invite to fresh talented faces this season. San Diego goes into this draft with a 0-5-1 roster, so I really do think drafting some forwards and potentially signing some forwards as free agents and waivers will get us the roster we need for a good playoff run. Our defensive side of the puck will heavily be relied on, but with the way Ricky LaFleur played last season, especially throughout the playoffs, I don't think we will struggle too hard to keep the puck out of our net or even our own end. Bubbles is building towards a defensive defenseman build but he could be a dependable points man in S97!

 

The S97 VHL draft is going down tomorrow and my player Bubbles LaFleur is eligible to be drafted! The main goal with this draft is to land on the same team as his brother Ricky LaFleur. Through interviews and chats with GMs I have a good feeling our dream can become reality with the Los Angeles stars holding two 1st round picks in our target range. My first player ever created was drafted to LA, and traded away by @InstantRockstar to start a rebuild, so to be drafted back to the same organization and play a full career there would almost feel like a debt paid off and I love it. LA has four 1st round picks in this draft plus a view talented younger players already on the roster, so if Ricky and Bubbles were to be drafted here I think we would fit in perfectly. Obviously we cannot predict our futures but this is definitely the route I am leaning towards to be able to play with my friend.

 

New Malmo Management

 

It was announced recently that long time Malmo Nighthawks GM @KaleebtheMighty would be stepping down from his role and in pops a new face to the VHL GMing world, @LucyXpher. Lucy's dream team was and is the Malmo Nighthawks so I'm so happy for her to be able to GM this team. She has done wonders GMing Halifax in the VHLM and is an incredible member all throughout this forum. Lucy joined the S93 draft class and her first VHLM team was my Houston Bulls, she was amazing back then and is even more amazing to this day, so I really wanted to finally get the chance to work with her! She hired me on as Malmo's new AGM and we started clicking right away. We've been chatting daily about the team and making lots of moves so far to get Malmo to where we want it to be. With a handful of players retiring next season we knew we had to act fast, and so the madness began.

 

What's Going On In Malmo

 

So now we're here to present day with a bunch of stuff to talk about. As I said, three forwards on the Malmo roster are S89 players and will be going through retirement next season. Ronald Johnson MacWallace III @RJMW, Savaisk Tzesar @comrade cat, and Viktor Jensen @Advantage have all been extremely loyal to Malmo throughout their careers and so we didn't want to trade them away. With all the ups and downs they have already faced in Malmo, we really wanted to keep the trio for their remaining season and give them the chance at one more cup run before they left. Although at the same time, we did have some holes to fill, starting with S88 defenseman Jacob Stone @scoop retiring from the team and creating a massive hole. Luckily, Riga was looking to sell some players and Lucy's player was one of them, so we hopped on the train right away, trading our S97 1st + S98 1st and receiving her player + Riga's S98 2nd. This was a great trade in our eyes as Lucy Leitner fills the talent we lost with Jacob Stone. Our S97 1st was a late one, and if we plan to compete or even semi-compete in S97, which we do plan to do, our predictions are that our S98 1st will also be late. Next up was resigning players. Phillip Rave @tcookie has been blooming ever since stepping into the VHL and so we really wanted him back. It was awesome to resign him throughout the rest of his career as he is our top forward and will be our top forward for the next few seasons to come. We were also able to resign our two remaining defenders Vlad Von Carstein @Dom and Conference Prince-de-Galles @UnkemptCL4PTP in order to bring our defensemen total to 3 for this season and next. Lastly, reaching out to Martin Kemp @leafsman lead to another contract extension and we have the thrill of keeping him next season before he retires. With all these veterans resigned and our next two seasons somewhat planned out, we decided to start planning for the future for when the trio of forwards retire.

 

Which brings us to the trade. Last night the Helsinki Titans agreed to trade us four of their prospects for a bunch of draft picks in return. I noticed Helsinki had a lot of S98 picks as well as all these prospects, so Lucy and I figured they were the perfect target. Through some investigation, we found these four prospects were in great ties with Lucy through her Halifax GMing career and so we wanted them badly. Two prospects, Narnia Shaw @Dabnad and Bret Weier @Quanack were both past the 350 TPE mark, and with 3.5 million remaining in cap space plus a forward and defense spot to still fill this season, we wanted them this season to be able to call up. Once the trade is processed we will be calling the two up to fill our 6-4-1 roster for S97. The remaining two prospects, Ty Duke @TheDuke and Xhekajs middletoe @Xhekajsleftankle still have some time to develop, they are both in Lucy's good book of Halifax, and we truly trust in our development skills to get these players to the VHL and fill forward spots that will soon need to be filled. I'm really going to try to help a lot with trivia for these players as well as adding in a prospect questions section to our weekly press conference so that they have the ability to earn as much as they can as well as clicking their buttons. The price to pay for these four prospects was our S99 1st, two 2nds (S98 + S99), three 3rds (S97 + S98 + S99), and three 4ths (S97 + S98 + S99). While this may seem like a crazy amount of picks to give up, we aren't too worried about it. If S98 doesn't go well then we may have suffered giving up a potentially higher S99 1st. But, the 3rd and 4th round picks haven't proven useful since the S93 recruitment draft class, and the 2nd round picks lead us to believe that they will be in the lower half of the S98 2nd round. We instead give up the risk of these potentially lower picks to bring in four bright faces which Lucy has said she has great connections with, and I am 100% confident in Lucy's connections.

 

So here's to hoping for a good S97 so that our S89 players can have one last good run at a cup. Here's to hoping S98 goes well so that we can stay semi-competitive while also developing these new prospects. Here's to hoping for anything in S99, most likely a rebuild, but we can worry about that as it gets closer. I'm really happy about all the signings we made as well as the two trades, and I have high hopes for this franchise! It has been so much fun working with Lucy as her second in command. She keeps me in the loop of everything, we discuss every move before being made, and she even gives me the freedom of reaching out to players and other GMs. I've wanted to GM in the VHL for a little while but this position honestly feels like I am a Co-GM for the Nighthawks and I probably couldn't ask for more! I love my role, I really want to develop these younger players in anyway I can, and I really want to give our older players a great time in Malmo before either retiring or going in different directions. We may have rain checked the next three drafts, but maybe we didn't? Can't predict the future, can only live in the now and I'm loving it right now.

 

Spoiler

1500+ words

Week 1 Claim: Dec 22

Week 2 Claim: Dec 29

Week 3 Claim: Jan 5

 

Edited December 12 by AJW

[LucyXpher 1,572]

I’m super excited to work with you also, AJ!  I couldn’t think of anyone better for my first VHL job— and you’ve been an incredible asset to me and for the team so far!

[Advantage 2,899]

Y’all are so lame 

[Grape 738]

I am actively choosing to be a hater on BOTH of Lucy's trades. I think she overpaid greatly on both moves and will continue to voice my opinions despite them not being relevant!