Thoughts about the future of VHL teams by an armchair expert. part 2

[hedgehog337 3,480]

The part two!

 

 

Mixed emotions.

 

 

GM: @Beaviss

 

Beaviss is a GM who likes to add players to his existing core and try to make a contender from it. And this season wasn't an exception. There are a couple of S66 draftees that could make a splash in the future: Shawnomir Jagr, Julius Freeman, Hans Gruber. Obligatory callup mention too: Hafkey and Sabertooth. With a couple notable S65 players it looks like this team has a healthy future, just like other team that does pretty much the same thing [*all fingers pointed at me now*]. So why mixed emotions and Vancouver are mentioned in the same sentence?

 

Here comes the problems! First of all, Beau Louth. He formed an real nice duo with Jake Davis, but all nice things has to come to and end. No, this is not his last season, but he isn't young either. The next big thing at center? No offence to Gruber, but I doubt he reach Louth's level before S69 and there is no other viable option from young guns. Rauno Palo is S62 so he would only have one season left after Beau. But if you think this is the biggest problem, hell na! At least there is some time to prepare before the one half of Vanocuver's main one-two puch hangs up the skates. The biggest problem of them all is a goalie. Roger Sterling will have two seasons left following S66. And given his inconsistency, I'm not sure if he will be a brick wall for his team in his swan seasons. Yes, he became a bit better when Draper updated him to 660+ TPE, but then he goes back to 500's next season. The worst part of this is a potential next starter Joe Nixon never managed to reach his full potential and went inactive on an early-May. So he's just in a backup level now. This is a postion that could bite the Wolves real soon if no big decision will be made soon.

 

To summarize this, Vancouver has a decent future. Just find a good goalie to replace Sterling and it all can be continued. Perhaps this is exactly what Beaviss is going to do in the S67 draft.

 

 

The peak.

 

 

GM: @Quik

 

Helsinki unsuccessfully was trying to claim a championship in last two seasons when they couldn't solve the Rubik's cube by Toronto. But this season is different. Their main core [Pepper - Borwinn - Bailey - Crosby - Wilson] are on prime and Kronos Bailey is the S64 player. They also added another superstar Thompson which made the Titans a cup favorite. It doesn't means that this peak will only last this season before they're fading down. This peak period may continue for the next or even two seasons. It's also encouraging to see that Quik didn't forget about some young players despite being on heavy contending mode. Jordan Tonn, Guillaume Fontenette, Rhys Chism and Bert Meyers could become this team's future at some point.

 

So uhmm...some negatives again? Well, I don't see glaring holes in their future. Maybe only something for the distant future, like the defence. Both main core defencemans are not earning TPE on Borwinn, Bailey or Pepper's pace so at some point they might not be so useful like they used to be. Montgomery is the S62 player and will be regressed soon and Bald Guy never became something more than a depth D. Also, not every single Titans' draftee managed to keep the motivation for practicing: Sederstrom was taken fairly high, but it turned out he will likely not be their future player. We also could talk about Thompson and Slade leaving this team as well, but I think they can be replaced, given that Quik will be lucky in FA.

 

So yeah, nothing really bad here. Some issues here, some issues there. But they should be a scary threat for a couple of seasons at least before their main core is aging.

 

 

A future? That's questionable.

 

 

GM: Dills Pic... @Spade18

 

We were just talking about this team in discord and how inactive it is. Well, this is not 100% truth about inactivity though. Dan Wilinsky, Leph Twinger and Esso Ylonen are still here and earning something. We also should mention Robert Malenko. Yes, he's not claiming any TPE now. But he's not inactive either. And even this team has a decent S66 youngster in Walter Clements. And after all, they made the playoffs. It's not like it's all darkness in the Big Apple.

 

But there are still more negatives though.

 

1. First of all, the real life job that is keeping Spade out of the VHL. Good for him, earning some big money (I guess, he doesn't even has the time to pop in into this site. He got to be working a lot). But for the Americans, it's really meh. Good thing he managed to name the AGM before it went ugly.

2. Robert Malenko. Perhaps he doesn't likes NY much. I don't know if he was just trolling or not, but his almost-everyday trade requests to Calgary went out of the hand. But what if he wasn't joking? He has the player option for the S67 so he may as well leave this team and indeed sign with the Wranglers. That could leave NY with only two defencemans left. And while one of them is almost 800 TPE McWolf, their D lineup would be still too barren.

3. Spade also isn't having the best luck at drafting people. Puigdemont once was considered as the best S65 draftee. Right now, he is inactive 2C that likely be in shadow's of Ylonen for his whole career. Taking the S66 Kirbsson is also nothing to be proud about either.

 

Just look at their current roster. Pre-much half of it is inacitve and the other half for some reason is underchieving and is not young anymore. Is there a future for this team? They might try for one more season while Kingfisher is on the roll, but then it will be hard to do something big without huge buyer deals. Just like I said in the discord: how to botch for two seasons in a row and turn this team status from the bright future to almost non-existing window of contention. What a shame.

 

 

Very uncertain future

 

 

GM: @Devise

 

Devise sold all of his team's draft picks in order to compete year after year. The outcome of it? Two championships, enough said. This mortgaging the future tactic was risky, but it definitely paid off.

 

However, this season appeared to be a painful one for the Legion crew. They missed the playoffs and that's after giving up yet more draft picks. But I feel like this is not even the worst part. What about the...future? They have so many players that will retire after this season. And I'm not even counting Hood. LPLL, The Charm and Lawson - these are notable names that helped this team to achieve the most recent two-peat. But...you guessed it right: all good things has to come to and end. You want to hear even more painful news for Toronto? Both The Charm and Lawson were centers. So the leaves this team with no faceoff taker. But hey, there's more. Arroyo will play his farewell season in S67. I'm also not sure about RSJ and his thoughts about missing the playoffs (since he never was re-signed yet). And what about Tzuyu - Fong likes to win and I'm sure he wasn't pleased with this season. So there are so much questions to answer with not much assets to sell (only S69 picks plus very minor S67 ones). Which is more interesting, Devise was even contemplating about the rebuild (!!!) at the trade deadline period so he definitely understands that the situation isn't easy for him.

 

You gotta be impressed how long Toronto managed to stay as the contender considering that they never had much draft pick assets once Devise stepped in. But can this last even longer? Luckily for them, I see a couple of potential good FA's coming in this off-season. Kovalchuk, Dragomir, maybe Ironside too. I even got a rumor that Diljodh could test FA, although I'm really unsure about that. Also, the uncertainity that surrounds NY could help this team as well. So yes, it's not all hopeless for the Legion. But they need to have a perfect off-season to keep them afloat.

 

 

 

Well, it's 3AM here and finally I finished this article. I'm kinda sure that botched some things at the end of this writing. That's obvious - I want to sleep already. And also, you can't expect something else from an armchair VHL expert who won less championships than...uhmm...Devise! Yeah, I know this was lame since nobody won more than him. But for now, I just want to hit 1500 words and claim three week for this underachiever Randoms. He really could fit in NY, maybe I should trade him to them.

 

That's it and I'm out.

 

6x3=18 TPE goes to Randoms

 

11.06 - 17.06

18.06 - 24.06

25.06 - 01.07

 

 

 

 

 

[Beaviss 4,953]

Your right we will need future C's and a goalie and with all the first round picks I have I'll address those needs.

[Matt_O 896]

54 minutes ago, hedgehog337 said:

Just like I said in the discord: how to botch for two seasons in a row and turn this team status from the bright future to almost non-existing window of contention. What a shame.

Laughs in Nighthawk

[eaglesfan036 4,593]

No mention of Gritty 

 

Also, is @Devise actually going to stick through with this rebuild, or is he just gonna peace out again? It would be kinda unfair to dump that on a new GM