Claimed: Two player system is shait

[jRuutu 2,464]

 

 

It was roughly year ago when Higgins and league heads announced the Project Player 2, which basically means you can create a second player as long as there is at least three seasons between your first and second player. For example, first player was drafted on S51, you can create a second player for S54 or S55 draft class, I think.

 

Fairly simple rules in the end, but that is not what I´m going to talk about today. It´s been three seasons since the first set of second players was drafted, I thought I will take a quick look what is going on with some of the teams and league in general and share what kind of thoughts the whole second player project brings into my fragile mind.This is naturally done with as little research as possible.

 

If you ask me, the biggest goal for second players is to create even more competition between teams and hopefully some day we have really tight league, is that even possible is totally another thing, but It´s not been so tight lately, in s55, three teams collected under 50 points 72 games, in s54 four teams collected under 50 points in 72 games, so maybe we are going to the right direction? There has been two teams who finished last in their division during both s55 and s54, Express and Bears. Together they have won 46 games in two years, 46! So naturally these are the two teams who could perhaps use the ´help´ from active players who have created a 2nd player.

 

Lets see what their rosters look right now, Express has two active players, young Bastian Stolzschweiger who was just drafted and is a GM player. The second player is goalie Vernon Von Axelberry,  closing in to 400 TPE, so two solid blocks to build the team around, but in all reality, if they head to the year with the current roster, will be third year in row when they finish under 50 points.

 

Bears are looking a lot better in comparison, 4 active players, Mcallister the 1st overall pick in the latest draft already has over 300 TPE, then when you add Laflamme, you got two young and active wingers. Federov and Forsberg are both controller by the Bears GM, so in theory they have a nice first line in the making, only negative is the fact that their young goalie, Key Perought has not improved as a player that much as of late and of course the fact that Bears GM has to run the show and on top of that build two players. S56 looks a lot more promising for Bears than it does for Express, at least when looking at it now.

 

 

Question still is, is this the way this league will keep staying interesting? Next some funny user will come and comment how the league has survived for 55 seasons already, true, but you have also added the option to create second players, so you know.

 

Lets take Higgins and his first and second player for example. Black Velvet retired after S55 in Helsinki, hell of a career, but now Higgins wants to create a new player and keep playing in VHL again. In the past that would have meant Higgins and his new player would be drafted on s56 draft or s57? Either way, that new player would fairly surely be drafted high, ending into Express or Bears for example. BUT Higgins has already created the second player, even had him drafted in S53 draft by Helsinki, currently has bit under 500 TPE and plays in Calgary?!  So upcoming team like Calgary now gets to enjoy his services, but teams on the bottom of the standings miss out on having Higgins ´new´ player in his team.

 

How he ended up into Calgary? Well, Calgary and Helsinki made a deal where Higgins 2nd player joins Calgary and Theo Axelsson, Black Velvet and S54 1st round pick (3rd overall) from Calgary goes to Helsinki.  Look at that trade, just look at it.

 

Helsinki later traded the S54 Calgary 1st round pick (3rd overall) to Toronto for S54 1st round pick (1st overall), S54 Helsinki 2nd round pick and Jim Lahey. Now, who did Helsinki pick with the Toronto first overall pick? Hudson Abbot.

 

Hudson Abbot was traded to Stockholm due to getting the GM job there, who did Helsinki get in return? Conrad Jenkins and Tobias Klingberg.

 

I´m not much of a expert, but Higgins and the trade of his second player to Calgary allowed Helsinki to add huge pieces into their lineup, Black Velvet and Theo Axelsson, elite level players and on top of that the 1st round pick from Calgary. Chain event of pure shit is what I would like to call it.  I´m more than likely missing something here, but in the past trades like that would not have happened, why? Because there was no second players, GM of the team could not trade his young super promising player to another team and acquire older player of his, another elite player + an 1st round pick.

 

Helsinki won two cups, Velvet and Axelsson played big parts in that. Now Calgary is the upcoming team with promising players. Higgins gets to ´skip´ the hard part of perhaps playing in struggling Express for few seasons, instead he is already in playoff team. Higgins wins, league loses a lot.

 

I don´t know where I´m going with this to be honest, but feels really lame to see trades like the ones Helsinki and Calgary did. I´m sure there are more similar examples where GMs do trades to help their team by using their first or 2nd players as asset or dealing players from their team to the teams that have their 2nd or first player already in it.

 

That is all for today.

 

[eaglesfan036 4,603]

Theo, Velvet, and 3rd overall for a goalie was an absolutely terrible trade by Brovy. 2nd players created an abundance of goalies, with some every team having one and some teams having 2. That trade is a big reason why Helsinki won their finals, and why this CGY's rebuild is taking longer than I wanted

[Ahma 1,428]

Yeah, it's BS.

[eaglesfan036 4,603]

7 minutes ago, Ahma said:

Yeah, it's BS.

I'm glad you left the horrible place that is Helsinki

[scoop 3,432]

24 minutes ago, eaglesfan036 said:

Theo, Velvet, and 3rd overall for a goalie was an absolutely terrible trade by Brovy. 2nd players created an abundance of goalies, with some every team having one and some teams having 2. That trade is a big reason why Helsinki won their finals, and why this CGY's rebuild is taking longer than I wanted

I maintain that I was right in calling for that trade to be vetoed

[jRuutu 2,464]

9 minutes ago, eaglesfan036 said:

Theo, Velvet, and 3rd overall for a goalie was an absolutely terrible trade by Brovy. 2nd players created an abundance of goalies, with some every team having one and some teams having 2. That trade is a big reason why Helsinki won their finals, and why this CGY's rebuild is taking longer than I wanted

Looks even worse now for sure when there is a lot of goalies  

 

Also quite interesting to see how teams rebuild now, do it in a bad time for whatever reason and you might end up having to stay bottom of the league for who knows how long, at the right time and you could have someones 2nd player, which is almost guaranteed active player = worth a lot in every league. Was not that much easier in the past to rebuild, but at least teams had some power when they could calculate little bit if Player A is retiring and recreating soon, could go after that player. If Player A retires now, he could have 2nd player already that he uses and has been in the league for couple years already. What is the rebuilding team going to do now? Pick the next best option if there is one. Everybody knows how high some of these users will be drafted everytime they recreate, 2nd player project takes quite few options away from teams.

 

 

 

 

 

[jRuutu 2,464]

2 minutes ago, Strtlght said:

I maintain that I was right in calling for that trade to be vetoed

You were for sure, terrible deal.

[jRuutu 2,464]

24 minutes ago, Ahma said:

Yeah, it's BS.

Yep, things were better in the past Better option would have been just to drop couple teams instead of allow active users to try and fill teams with 2nd players.

[Beaviss 4,957]

Or instead of having second players they advertised the site a little more and or sent an email out to all old members with a free 10 TPE if they return...

[Devise 4,475]

1 hour ago, Beaviss said:

Or instead of having second players they advertised the site a little more and or sent an email out to all old members with a free 10 TPE if they return...

 

No offense but we've tried lots of ideas like this already. Project Two has added some balance to the teams in the league, it hasn't been perfect but nothing ever is. The worst part about this MS and I generally love you @jRuutu is that it's not really Project Two that caused the trades you referenced to happen. It's simply one good GM taking advantage of a not so good one. Sadly this type of thing has happened over the seasons well before Project Two was instituted. 

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

the vibe im feeling is fuck @Higgins and i think we can all get behind this because fuck that guy

[Kendrick 4,741]

I can just sense old man YEAH coming in here and grumbling.

[Devise 4,475]

4 minutes ago, Kendrick said:

I can just sense old man YEAH coming in here and grumbling.

 

TBF he was the one who brought up the idea of sending a video to all the members on this site. Also if your going to call him out do it properly @Tagger  

[Higgins 3,618]

Skipped the hard part? Jacob going into 4th season and has had a pretty bare bones roster in Calgary to play behind. I don't mind but it's not like I'm ripping it up with Calgary and winning awards. Sam Hinkle lookin motherfucker running this team.

[Tagger 2,722]

20 minutes ago, Kendrick said:

I can just sense old man YEAH coming in here and grumbling.

Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not sure what you were expecting me to bring to this thread? The only post I'd actually planned on making here was telling @jRuutu that his English/Media articles have improved a lot since he first joined after a discussion I had with @Gooningitup in our LR on how it must be really tough to do media spots in a second language. 

[Kyle 667]

I wouldn't blame the second player project for Brovy getting absolutely bent over in a trade. If we want more balance I think we are gonna have to cut back to 8 again and keep the 2 player project.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Kyle

[Kendrick 4,741]

1 hour ago, Tagger said:

Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not sure what you were expecting me to bring to this thread? The only post I'd actually planned on making here was telling @jRuutu that his English/Media articles have improved a lot since he first joined after a discussion I had with @Gooningitup in our LR on how it must be really tough to do media spots in a second language. 

It just seemed like something you'd come in and gripe at.

[Kendrick 4,741]

1 hour ago, Devise said:

 

TBF he was the one who brought up the idea of sending a video to all the members on this site. Also if your going to call him out do it properly @Tagger  

How am I supposed to know his name, he changes it every week.

[Megster 63]

Dang trade raaape

 

EDIT:sometimes I feel like I'm writing in a second language.....

Edited August 4, 2017 by Megster

[Gudnason 607]

2 hours ago, Devise said:

 

No offense but we've tried lots of ideas like this already. Project Two has added some balance to the teams in the league, it hasn't been perfect but nothing ever is. The worst part about this MS and I generally love you @jRuutu is that it's not really Project Two that caused the trades you referenced to happen. It's simply one good GM taking advantage of a not so good one. Sadly this type of thing has happened over the seasons well before Project Two was instituted. 

 

People are raping this inexperienced GM in Germany I heard

[Gudnason 607]

1 hour ago, Kyle said:

I wouldn't blame the second player project for Brovy getting absolutely bent over in a trade. If we want more balance I think we are gonna have to cut back to 8 again and keep the 2 player project.

 

Wouldn't necessarily be against folding Seattle and Cologne

[jRuutu 2,464]

2 hours ago, Devise said:

 

No offense but we've tried lots of ideas like this already. Project Two has added some balance to the teams in the league, it hasn't been perfect but nothing ever is. The worst part about this MS and I generally love you @jRuutu is that it's not really Project Two that caused the trades you referenced to happen. It's simply one good GM taking advantage of a not so good one. Sadly this type of thing has happened over the seasons well before Project Two was instituted. 

I understand that big part of that trade still falls under GM´s of both teams, but still going to say that if Higgins would have been controlling only one player, the trade would more than likely look a lot different and in result of that, we might not even have Helsinki winning the last two cups? We will never know that of course, but hopefully in the future when similar level of trades are published, league heads will step in and show this trade between Calgary and Helsinki.

[jRuutu 2,464]

2 hours ago, Higgins said:

Skipped the hard part? Jacob going into 4th season and has had a pretty bare bones roster in Calgary to play behind. I don't mind but it's not like I'm ripping it up with Calgary and winning awards. Sam Hinkle lookin motherfucker running this team.

No I mean in the past you would only now be drafted, more than likely high and joining some team in the league. Not an easy road in Calgary so far maybe, but at least now things are looking pretty nice

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

I'm not sure I'm following your logic @jRuutu. GMs can only get 1 player on their team from the "GM rule". The second player has to come naturally via draft or trade. How would it be different if Higgins drafted another player who was just as good as Jacob and sent him to Calgary?

[Devise 4,475]

4 minutes ago, jRuutu said:

I understand that big part of that trade still falls under GM´s of both teams, but still going to say that if Higgins would have been controlling only one player, the trade would more than likely look a lot different and in result of that, we might not even have Helsinki winning the last two cups? We will never know that of course, but hopefully in the future when similar level of trades are published, league heads will step in and show this trade between Calgary and Helsinki.

 

I think that is fair. I was on the side of this trade that felt that it probably should of been examined a bit more before being allowed to be. Mostly because Brovy claimed that Higgins had the leverage with Jacob, and simply gave up any negotiating power from that point on. He told me that himself when I questioned him on the deal. But it's not like @Higgins was doing anything really that shady, or not more so than any other GM has done at some point down the line. Even without two players, GM players, how they've gotten to teams, what teams have had to pay for them and just in general that whole system has been a constant work in progress. Because of that, GM's both good and bad have taken and been taken advantage of due to the rules/structures at the time.

It's tough for me to really put the blame on anything their other than circumstance. Because if we start vetoing trades because the GM makes a boneheaded move, aren't we basically preventing teams from doing what they are supposed to be doing? It's still competitive here. Bad GM mistakes are part of the process, and that defines the narrative as much as anything else imo. History has shown if you look at the franchise wins, who has the most finals appearances and Cups it's not just about quality teams as it is about quality GM's. And for that matter, luck, as several quality GM's have been on losing teams. But for the most part I'd say teams that are in bad circumstances for a more extended period of time are usually the result of an ultimately bad trade or draft decision. Or a combination. That is just how it works.