Triple Draft Recap - D.C. Dragons

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Yesterday marked my third VHL Entry Draft since being named GM of the North American expansion franchise the D.C. Dragons. Now that I've got a decent sample size down, I figured I would do some base level analysis on how my picks have looked thus far, starting with our inaugural draft in S68.

 

S68:

Round 1, 5th Overall: Luciano Valentino @Kekzkrieg

I used a S69 2nd round pick to trade my S68 12th overall pick to 5th overall because I had my eyes on some specific guys in the 3-6 area. I couldn't be happier that Valentino is who I went with in the end. He's been a great member of the leadership core of our young team, and he just signed himself a career contract to stay a Dragon through to retirement.

 

Round 2, 14th Overall: Kaspars Claude @Bruins10

A first gen member that I thought had a ton of potential because of the way his graphics were getting pumped up left and right, but life got in the way and he dipped out fairly early into his rookie campaign. I've heard that he's since returned to other leagues, but has not been active here in quite some time. This was really early for me to be landing my first major bust.

 

Round 2, 18th Overall: Ricky Johnson @Midnite

Johnson has done well for his draft position. As a SBA welfare member, I was afraid that the split would scare him off, but instead he's been just as active since then. Just recently, he put pen to paper on his first regular contract and he's in a position to be a solid #3 dman for quite some time.

 

Round 2, 25th Overall: Balentine Kidd @TukTukTheGreat

This was looking like a steal of a deal right after the draft and I thought I would be able to pull his max potential out of him due to us having ties from EHM leagues, but he quickly lost interest in the league shortly into his second VHLM season, and has gone entirely active since. Another bust for me.

 

Round 3, 31st Overall: Mac Hooper @MacH

I thought Mac would have an easier time than others would staying active due to how his articles and graphics were more inventive than what you would normally see from a first gen member in their draft year, and this proved to be true for the first year following the draft, but this didn't last for long. He has since fallen off the face of the earth, and due to how deep this draft class was, this marks another bust.

 

Round 3, 37th Overall: Liam Rooney @elrune1988

Same story as Kidd up there, but he was slightly less active in the lead up to the draft, hence his lower draft position. The third of the EHM league trinity, Telker @Telkster, was who I had pencilled in here, but @Victor had to go and yoink him earlier.

 

Round 4, 46th Overall: Block Buster @Banana2311

Buster was poised to be the steal of the draft when she restarted updating the day after picking her up in the 4th round. At this point nobody being taken had updated within the past week or two, so to even get a single update out of Buster would be considered a win. The young goaltender went even further, claiming ~10 TPE every week solidly for a couple seasons, even making some solid VHL starts to the tune of .908 SV%, but then she up and retired, citing a lack of time to visit the site.

 

Round 4, 49th Overall: Julian Blackthorn @LattimoreIsland

This is the first attempted steal of a pick based on affiliate members. Latti is a GM of mine in the EFL, so I knew I could drag him over here occasionally. He updated a bit following the draft, but has since fallen to inactivity once more. Can't call this one a steal nor a bust, more of a "eh".

 

Round 5, 61st Overall: Raleigh Ritchie @DangerGolding

Remember how I almost called Buster the steal of the draft? Forget that. This man returned from the coma that sidelined him for a full season before the draft and has now surpassed 300 TPE and will be starting on the second line of the Dragons for S70. I picked him based on recognizing the name from an active member in the SBA, so I knew that he could get some easy TPE every week should he be convinced to re-join the VHL. In a re-draft, you'd likely see Ritchie going somewhere in the 2nd round, making him not only the steal of the draft, but potentially one of the biggest draft steals of all time.

 

S69:

Round 1, 2nd Overall: Benny Graves @STZ

Pretty obvious choice at 2nd here, and he was who I had pegged at 1st overall anyways, so I was ecstatic when he fell into my lap. Since draft day he's already cemented himself as our 1C for the foreseeable future and has earned himself an A on his chest. 

 

Round 4, 47th Overall: Igor Trice @jakejohn17

45 entire picks later we finally hit our second and final pick of the draft. By this point everyone that had updated within the past several weeks had been off the board for at least 10 picks, so I picked someone based on name alone (Igor is fun). Much to my surprise, jakejohn is actually an active member of the SBA. I was able to contact him the day after the draft, but he wasn't interested in returning, such is life. As an aside, the person I was angling for at this slot was @LittleRiDog, but he went two slots earlier to Calgary. He's since retired and recreated, so there's a possibility I could have dragged him back with his OG player, who knows.

 

S70:

Round 2, 14th Overall: Derek Eriksson @DirtyDerek

After trading away our 3rd overall pick to add some firepower to our offense now (named @FrostBeard), we enter the draft early in the second round. I was always angling towards a forward at this slot (had @JDGraves in mind before he went to Helsinki at 10th) or goaltender (had @ROOKIE745 in mind before his unfortunate BPA to Davos at 9th), but Eriksson was on my short list of three from the beginning as well. He'll be easy to harass to update going forward because I can be at his door in 14 minutes or so, so he'd best turn into one of the best performers of the draft class or he'll answer to me.

 

Round 4, 42nd Overall: Crush Cile @Savoire Faire

Similar pick to Ritchie in S68 and Trice in S69, I picked Cile based on him belonging to an affiliate member, Savoire Faire is better known as KWally in other leagues, and I knew he was still active in these other leagues, so I shot him an invite to our LR this morning after drafting him late last night. He's since joined the LR, sent in a few updates, and has expressed a desire to stay active via affiliate welfare for the time being, if we were to re-draft this today, we'd likely put him somewhere in the late 2nd or early 3rd, making this mid 4th round pick an early contender for the steal of the night.

 

 

1,220 words, claiming for Kastelic for the weeks ending 1/19 and 1/26

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Claude was not a first gen, he was Roberto Martucci back in the mid 20s to early 30s, which is why there was a good bit of the hype around him that there was. People who remembered him also remembered how good he could be. Even more of a shame that he busted...