Devise: An Unintentional Masterclass.

[diamond_ace 3,106]

There are no more polarizing figures among the VHL GM ranks than the enigma known as @Devise. The man has a well publicized aversion to picks, and only Tzuyu from the current Toronto roster was drafted by the actual team. Some find this to be an unusual strategy and unlikely to bear fruit, while others have adopted a more positive outlook given the facts at hand - Devise has had far more success with this Toronto roster than he's had any right to have, and one way or another, whatever you think of the no-pick policy, it's clearly worked out well for him.

 

This isn't about that.

 

This isn't about the things Devise does intentionally to benefit his team - this isn't a move he made, or a draft pick he forgot to sell off. This is about how ridiculously expansion-proof the Toronto roster is. There are only 11 total players on the Toronto roster, in a league that's had a rush of new players and most other teams are being stuck putting players on the 3rd and 4th lines. In terms of pure value, having more active players can't be a bad thing, but in terms of expansion, having such a limited roster is a bonus in disguise (not to mention infuriating for the expansion GMs).

Presumably, paring down the roster and selling off the depth is a by product of acquiring top tier talent via trades - with 11 players, the only way Toronto is winning anything is if most of those 11 players are top tier guys, and so much of the depth has been sold off in order to get opposing GMs accept deals of 2-3 good pieces for 1 great piece. Given that the Toronto roster was thin before expansion was even announced, it can't be said that he skimmed it down in anticipation of expansion, but rather that in this particular way, fortune has favored him. He got a bit lucky (and @Enorama and I got unlucky in the same way). However, luck does have a way of falling in with the crowd that prepares most for it, so it's hard to argue he didn't deserve it here.

Still not going to make me any happier to finish off the expansion draft with Bolt god damn Vanderhuge...

[gorlab 4,321]

Absolute unit and his early S50s NYA GM run was better than this Toronto run, believe it or not.

[Devise 4,475]

10 hours ago, gorlab said:

Absolute unit and his early S50s NYA GM run was better than this Toronto run, believe it or not.

 

That is my fav GM run in history I think, and it'll be hard to top it for me, regardless of what happens. I just really dug the group of members we had during that run tbh. Plus it felt like @Tagger was just building up assets/picks waiting to give me the reigns so I could do what I do. Ergo, draft one or two players and trade the farm.  One of the most underrated and unheralded aspects of good GM's, is how well they prepare their team for the person next, and in a lot of cases good GM's will find the right person to take over given the team situation. It's a big reason why some franchises can go on such long and successful runs. Look at Helsinki, when is the last time they had a bad GM or a bad run? Tons of smart GM turnover there with a mind for the vision of the franchise with every GM who has taken over. 

 

Anyway, thanks for the kind words my dude. 

[Devise 4,475]

Also @diamond_ace to address your "expansion proof" comments. Haha, none of that wound up being intentional. The VHL was undergoing a shift where more and more teams were attempting to ice larger rosters. 9 forwards slowly becoming the norm, stocking multiple good D. While we did go the multiple D approach, in general I still wound up overloading with the more traditional 6/4 format. We did wind up having some depth inactives in seasons to push us to like 7/5. Realistically though with my very guns out approach to team building there was no way I would be able to eventually recoup assets/draft picks down the road, and get starpower and get depth. So I just figured with the league growing, players everywhere, and the possibility of expansion not leaning as hard into the norm of a larger roster made far more sense for where we were at. 

 

It's tough though because I think I'm on the camp that as the league grows it's an inevitability that we are going to stop slowly pushing in a direction where most teams are just 9/6/2, and wind up in a situation where all teams are. I feel like the odd holdout move that I was doing can only really be swung as hard in that transitional period, because eventually the quality of second and third line players will improve to such a degree that it's a burden to sacrifice it in favor of more starpower. 

[diamond_ace 3,106]

2 minutes ago, Devise said:

Also @diamond_ace to address your "expansion proof" comments. Haha, none of that wound up being intentional.

 

Hence the title of the article

 

2 minutes ago, Devise said:

 

The VHL was undergoing a shift where more and more teams were attempting to ice larger rosters. 9 forwards slowly becoming the norm, stocking multiple good D. While we did go the multiple D approach, in general I still wound up overloading with the more traditional 6/4 format. We did wind up having some depth inactives in seasons to push us to like 7/5. Realistically though with my very guns out approach to team building there was no way I would be able to eventually recoup assets/draft picks down the road, and get starpower and get depth. So I just figured with the league growing, players everywhere, and the possibility of expansion not leaning as hard into the norm of a larger roster made far more sense for where we were at. 

 

It's tough though because I think I'm on the camp that as the league grows it's an inevitability that we are going to stop slowly pushing in a direction where most teams are just 9/6/2, and wind up in a situation where all teams are. I feel like the odd holdout move that I was doing can only really be swung as hard in that transitional period, because eventually the quality of second and third line players will improve to such a degree that it's a burden to sacrifice it in favor of more starpower. 

 

Yeah I'm still a bit torn on the whole 9/6/2 thing, on one hand having more people stick around long enough to get into the bigs can never be a bad thing, on the other hand 6/4/1-2 has been the league's identity for so long that it seems a bit un VHL-like. Realistically, we were never going to have so many expansions as to keep the old format, because there would be fears of what would happen when the talent dried up, which it may or may not even do

[Devise 4,475]

5 minutes ago, diamond_ace said:

Yeah I'm still a bit torn on the whole 9/6/2 thing, on one hand having more people stick around long enough to get into the bigs can never be a bad thing, on the other hand 6/4/1-2 has been the league's identity for so long that it seems a bit un VHL-like. Realistically, we were never going to have so many expansions as to keep the old format, because there would be fears of what would happen when the talent dried up, which it may or may not even do

 

Yeah I agree here. I think that just because it's a reality that we will see the league push towards that size of rosters doesn't mean it'll stay there. It's unlikely that we push so far past into a tier where 4th lines become standard, so I kind of foresee a good wave of seasons where we have a 9/6/2 standard that has the possibility of dipping and pushing back to the 6/4/1 format based on the recruitment waves, how long members wind up sticking around, who flames out etc. If anything though I feel like we probably have shown the push to see roster sizes occasionally go back and forth from those two states based on the current state of members/earning in the league. So you could argue we have increased the overall "base core" of VHL members to allow that level of sustainability. 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Devise

[Advantage 2,769]

@diamond_ace why wouldnt you take a 3rd over Vanderhuge? Last I checked he didnt expose an active 

[diamond_ace 3,106]

11 minutes ago, Advantage said:

@diamond_ace why wouldnt you take a 3rd over Vanderhuge? Last I checked he didnt expose an active 

It's vanderhuge AND a 3rd. If no actives are exposed, it's an inactive and a 3rd