Transaction Chronicles: The Advantage Timeline (Edition 12)

[Advantage 2,769]

To New York:

C - Nicolas Caprivi

RW - Godavari Yumalatopinto

RW - Alistar Graves

S45 COL 1st Round Pick (Lucas Zhukenov)

 

 To Cologne:

LW - Christoph Klose

RW - Xin Xie Xiao

 

After one final run at Continental Cup glory, I decided to pack it up and try to rebuild.  I moved my long-time star forward, Xin Xie Xiao, and prime forward Christoph Klose, who ultimately was the biggest piece of this deal.  Klose would go on to have some more fantastic years while Xiao would retire constantly reminding me that he wanted to break the all-time NYA goals record.

 

In return, I acquired Nicolas Caprivi, who was essentially a younger version of Klose that played center and a first round pick that figured to be a high one due to multiple Express players having their careers end before Season 44.  The way I looked at it, this was a likely lottery pick and a young star for a prime star and a one season rental.  I also had to take back the other two for cap reasons and while Yumalatopinto had an unreal year, he really wasn’t a major part of the deal.

 

The first round pick would actually later be traded off after it became clear that Cologne was still going to be able to be fairly competitive and that the pick wasn’t going to be a lottery pick.  Caprivi was solid, but ultimately didn’t end up to his full potential as he retired early, finishing with 423 points in 432 games.  Zhukenov, who was selected with the first round pick, had a decent career as a depth forward but ultimately couldn’t live up to his first round potential, finishing with 228 points in 432 games.

 

This was one of my biggest trades as a General Manager, and while it was probably more of a miss, I do think at the time it was clearly the best trade on the table.  That first round pick should have been higher but due to some shrewd moves, ended up being not as good as expected (not that NY kept it).  Caprivi too ended up drifting a bit away from the league a little after the trade which was unfortunate, but really the only major thing NY gave up was Klose, and while he was the best player in this trade that wasn’t a rental, I don’t think the return was all that bad.  Not as good as it should have been, but I’m okay with it in hindsight.

 

This became a defining trade for me in what was a bit of a lacklustre start to the rebuild with a couple of the biggest trades I ever made as a GM.  I find myself sitting here reviewing them, and sorta thinking that if I were to do a drafting review, I would be a lot less happy with my performance as a General Manager.  I managed my way through issues but there were a lot of missed opportunities and this trade is one of the most obvious ones.  This could have been a dominant Americans rebuild had this trade and the next one I’ll talk about in the next edition, had worked out.

[Victor 10,534]

1 hour ago, Advantage said:

I find myself sitting here reviewing them, and sorta thinking that if I were to do a drafting review, I would be a lot less happy with my performance as a General Manager.

Think this will be true for the vast majority of GMs. Devise's model is the safest bet in the VHL prior to the current deep draft streak.

[Advantage 2,769]

53 minutes ago, Victor said:

Think this will be true for the vast majority of GMs. Devise's model is the safest bet in the VHL prior to the current deep draft streak.

Yeah I was generally better at making trades and acquiring Free Agents.  Albeit I always managed to have a good team.

[diamond_ace 3,106]

On 1/30/2019 at 7:06 PM, Advantage said:

Yeah I was generally better at making trades and acquiring Free Agents.  Albeit I always managed to have a good team.

I was the opposite - except for the one draft where I got Boom's multi and that obviously sucked, I was much more of a drafter and less of a trader. Probably why I prefer VHLM GM to VHL GM, the draft is a bigger part of it, so killing the draft typically means I'm set up for contention.