I Once Again Play Trade Matchmaker: S97 Edition

[Gustav 6,489]

The trade deadline is upon us! For many, it's time to retire and recreate--and for many teams, it's time to decide how to go about the rest of the season. It's true that lots of teams enter the season with one expectation or another in mind, but it's also true that this doesn't always line up with reality. Plus, holes in the roster can present themselves throughout the season, and the opportunity to disturb cap less as the season rolls on is also an opportunity to fix those issues. 

 

Deadline day in particular is interesting because teams trading for players only have to take on 50% of that player's cap hit, enabling moves that would have been impossible up to that point in the season. It's not necessarily a busy day in the VHL, but there's always the possibility that it will be for a few teams if they can get the right plans in place and agree to them with the right people.

 

Which is where I come in, of course. Deadline trades can be hard to coordinate, so I'll nudge some teams in the direction of each other as I've done in a few articles in the past. Have fun looking at a few deals that I think could make sense.

 

 

 receives:

Diego Machado

S99 TOR 2nd

 

 receives:

Maxim Anisimov

 

Here are two players of similar TPA, just separated by one season, who don't represent a straight buy or sell for either team but who could make sense either way. Looking at both rosters, it's evident that Toronto is going all-in for a win this season--they're out of picks in S100, and they have three S89 forwards who will be out after this season. They're on the bubble, but they're very locked in to continuing to compete because the idea that they might be able to bail out by selling is unrealistic with this little time. So, they keep the roster the same but make one of those top S89 forwards a S90 forward, carrying over a super important asset into next season and only suffering two big retirements up front. With this, it's realistic that Toronto could stay competitive next season as well--after all, the rest of the roster is serviceable and it might be sensible to not enter a rebuild until there is some amount of draft capital on the horizon. Plus, with the deal not having much of an effect on either team's current roster, the NA playoff race is kept tight.

 

 

 receives:

Ray Stanton

S99 RIG 1st

 

 receives:

YaBoi Oven

S99 CHI 3rd

 

Projecting Chicago to sell is a bit weird on the surface because they're currently 4th in the NA conference, riding a 3-game win streak and a goal differential a bit above third-place Seattle. All the thought that goes into this move comes from speculation from looking at the Phoenix roster--no players are signed yet for next season. I have positively no idea what this means. Of course, I'm aware that GM Cole is well-liked, so I wouldn't chalk this up to an inability to retain players. But if it's a sign of instability moving forward, it might be smart to cash in on that early. With Stanton, the Phoenix would get a younger player, and if longtime Phoenix player Oven is considered a tradeable commodity, Riga gets a #1 defenseman that could very well push them into the top levels of the league. Were this trade to happen, it's still very possible that Chicago could hang on for the rest of the season and sneak into the playoffs, and having a late 1st that they didn't before would be a decent reward for it.

 

 

 receives:

Celise Pereira

S98 DCD 3rd

 

 receives:

Jussi Jokinenegg

 

Vancouver has the top spot in the NA conference and $500,000 left in cap room for this season--meaning that they can take on $1 million in yearly salary. This move spends exactly that much to upgrade their weakest forward position by 200 TPE, moving an inactive, retiring player out of Vancouver for the sake of an active player from S90 who realistically wouldn't have the chance to contend for a Cup on Prague. The return is limited, especially given Vancouver's draft capital, but Prague's prospect pool is deep and they won't miss a player who won't exist anymore when they finally turn the corner to being highly competitive. This might make a little bit of a "being nice" factor on Prague's end to equalize the value, but there's benefit either way when seen through that lens.

 

 

We don't know what the trade deadline has in store for the VHL. Some teams are right up against the cap and couldn't make many sensible moves even if they wanted to--but some others are in surprisingly good shape. I don't anticipate a super active trade deadline, but lots of possibilities exist and it's easily the case that someone managing a team would have thought about that team much harder than I did for the purposes of this article. As far as I know, no one has ever taken my advice to heart when I write one of these articles, and I wouldn't be surprised if no one did here either. I guess we'll see what happens on Monday, and we'll see how that affects the rest of the season and the playoffs after that.

[rory 1,957]

Thank god you're on the sidelines

[OrbitingDeath 3,255]

Even @Gustav  can't bring us a center. All hope is lost