The Devise Device

[Devise 4,475]

*Note this was posted for last weeks mag, so just posting this here for my point task from last week while the week is on a brief break. *

 

The Devise Device

 

Hey look, it's the 8th edition of this feature. I'm still surprised I got past three. This week I've got a pretty interesting talking point to cover so lets dig in. 

 

Talking Point: Healthy League Competition; What Is A Good Number of Teams?

Removing 2 VHLM teams has seemingly created even less competition than before; is this simply a fluke of a year where everyone piled onto one team, an issue in the way things were handled, or a sign of a fundamental flaw in the VHLM system as a whole? Beketov

 

I don't want to pile onto the whole remove the VHLM argument, because I think everyone knows there is a group of us who see that this is an inevitability with the way things have gone. Kyle also goes into it even more in his editorial. So instead of just making this about the VHLM as a whole, I think a big part of your question talks about how removing teams created less competition. Which is the exact opposite to what it did, and whether this is a "fluke" year or not. 

 

It doesn't if it is the VHLM or the VHL, it doesn't matter how many nice things we say about GM's or new members, players and GM's want to win. Period. End. You can't change that. Isn't it interesting that if you were to poll most members on here while a lot would say they would love a HoF player or individual success, winning the big team trophy in the playoffs is still such a big deal. The theory of reducing teams to increase competition always sounds great on paper. You take the total pool of players, see how many could fit on each team once the total numbers of teams go down, and that alone looks good. But it almost always fails in execution, unless you had too many teams. For example the VHL could probably be okay with 8 teams with it's current member pool, but I don't know for how many seasons. Given that players can stay eight seasons in the VHL you may get more super teams if we had 8 teams than if we had 10. 

 

A big reason for that is after you go through that theory, the idea consistently gets destroyed in execution. Regardless of how you execute it. The VHLM has a free agent system for recreates and new members. Even when you cap how many of these players a team can get, people are going to the teams that give them the best shot at winning. So if one team had a decent number of draft picks, or already has a solid built team, guess where those players are going to sign? This will continue to happen. Even when we limit draft picks. Too many GM's will see themselves on the outs so they will be looking to trade and get picks or players for the future, and the VHLM as constructed will never be more than 1-3 team league. Not unless we get a severe influx of new members or recreates in a single season. 

 

But as I mentioned above this would happen even if we reduced the VHL as well. A good healthy number of teams and determining what that number isn't just about looking at a total player pool. It's about how the landscape of a league looks currently. Look at our ten team structure in the VHL. Many people would say we have too many teams. Yet, of the four competing teams this season, how much cap space is there to spare? Not much. Yet there is still impact players sitting on lots of other teams than the competing teams. The VHL consistently undergoes ebbs and flows, like any healthy competitive market. It hasn't always been perfect, we have had recruitment and member issues. Yet we've never had one super team. Toronto won 3 cups in a row but barely did it, New York has a shot this season but barely did it. Both of those instances are about teams, GM's, and players performing great at peak times in very critical situations as well. And while the VHL may not be prefect parity, it maintains consistency by having just enough legitimate options for players when it comes to seriously considering having good seasons, and winning. The more options, the more spread out players will be because everyone doesn't think the same. But if it's clear that there are only a few good teams, guess what happens? Players flock to those good teams. It's not rocket science. 

 

Play devil's advocate: Why should we keep the VHLM? (Flyersfan aka Fire Hakstol)

 

This was a good question since I'm a big supporter of removing this, and I'm kinda happy this was the first thing drawn out of the pool. The VHLM has merit and value as an idea, I just think too much time has passed, too many changes have been made, and it doesn't really fit in with our current structure. So it's actually quite hard for me to play devils advocate here. Especially when unlike most I don't have that affinity for seeing the "juinor hockey" experience, or roleplaying that to a degree. I recognize though that, it is in fact a big deal for a lot of people. But that doesn't mean there isn't a system where the VHLM wouldn't work. But it needs to stop being a development league. We would need to lower the number of teams in both leagues and like the old days pair VHLM franchises back with VHL franchises. This would still give us a lower tier league where new members don't get destroyed, but then the salary cap, team size, and the like are the reason players stay down in the system. But at that point you begin tampering with careers season totals, players could wind up down when they want to stay up and that could force trades. All of that is new dynamics. 

 

That is the thing, the VHLM structured now as this CHL development league works in harsh contrast with the VHL, and they have constantly since my entire tenure in this league of Season 24 been two puzzles pieces that don't like to fit together. It's why we got separate sims. I just, I can't. I can't argue that we should keep the VHLM as is without any serious changes. The idea isn't bad, and I think people often see it as an attack on that idea when it's more trying to show people that it has been too long where we keep trying to look at new ways to fit these puzzle pieces together. To my analogy above, they both pivotal pieces of different puzzles. Something eventually has got to give. But I do think there is a world where the name VHLM where it's a minor league to the VHL is something that if people want to keep is worth exploring trying. But I don't think it's the CHL spend a year in the league equivalent we have now. 

 

Has the 2 player system been a success? (Flyersfan)

 

Another good tough question from Flyers here. First of all I still say it's too early to tell if the two player system has been a success. However I think the early grading reports on it are a bit of both. Good and bad. Which often happens with a lot of the ideas, even ones like this that we take time to implement. Look at welfare as another example. Two player wasn't just about adding more players to the pool it was about giving teams variety in terms of competition, because we would be adding variety to the player pool. That has happened. More teams have back up goalies because more prominent members are creating them, players are experimenting a bit more with player builds because they can create a second player. And in general the team make up of VHL is very unique. Helsinki built very much through more of a single draft class and some good trades. Their team make up in terms of age, positional strength, is much different than the other four competing teams this season. Basically you can look at Stockholm, New York, Helsinki and Quebec and see four very different built teams yet if any one of them were to win in the Finals this year would anyone be so shocked? Of course not. Sure it's not a world of parity where we have 6-8 competitive teams and some more races. But I mean we are building back up following some bad recruitment and overall member spells. A big goal of project two was to try to ensure every team has a chance to draft quality players, by increasing the levels of the draft pool. We've seen this the last few drafts. Sure there may not be 15 impact players, but the top 10-12 in a few drafts have looked promising, I mean Kendrick and myself have both fallen to 9/10 this past off-season right? Whether it's rebuilding, competing, or even teams that are rebuilding but trade for lower tier picks from competing teams you have more opportunity to get players out of a draft regardless of position. Especially in that first round. 

 

But the negative of project two has been in my opinion it's impact on the VHLM. I kind of expected to see more players try to stick around in the VHLM longer, but as is the case with a lot of prominent members here, the VHLM is an afterthought. Combine that with the lack of parity and decrease of teams in the VHLM, and you get high end members with carry over in some cases, sticking in the VHLM for a very limited window, and only caring about competing. Sure we added more impact players, to flock to a couple of teams. Honestly I wouldn't be against trying to impose some sort of "age" system if we wanted to try to keep players in the VHLM longer and treat that league more seriously. Then put restrictions on how many players you can have from a certain age bracket, that way you could always have a single player do what happens now. Jump out of the VHLM the moment they can, so basically a season and a half. Then with a second player, they'd have to create a player that has to follow different rules as it relates to the VHLM. But again, our career lengths impact all of these type of decisions, so it's a careful balance. 

 

The Current Question Pool: 10

 

There we are. I tried doing some gif tagging to get some questions, I'm happy to say as my pool went from 4 to 12 this past week I got some. I'm actually fresh out of talking points, although I could easily pull some from a few of the questions I have. I began this article this week not knowing the future of this feature, but I'll keep riding it out until the question pool and talking points are literally gone. So as usual if you have anything you want to send my way do so. Appreciate the feedback and questions from those who did send it though, seriously. Until next week....