Looking back at Moscow's Expansion Draft

[Victor 10,844]

It's been six seasons now since the Moscow Menace entered the VHL and took part in the S65 expansion draft. Now that we won the Continental Cup featuring one of our original expansion draftees, with all of the players involved retired or moved on, it seems a good time to revisit that draft and consider whether there was anything that could been done differently and put Moscow in a better position early on.

 

From Calgary: Karl von Moltke + a 3rd round pick (Justin Cole)

Other options: Aksel McKnight, Johannes Vilhjalmsson

 

The Wranglers had the best situation for the expansion draft in that they could protect all their actives. They actually no longer have any of their protected players left – Brick Wahl lasted the longest – which shows how much they've had to adapt during their rebuild. However, that had little impact on me – I was just happy to get a draft pick along with an inactive player. The draft pick had big potential to be my starting goaltender – Justin Cole – but he fizzled away kicking off a line of failed Moscow goalies, now finally ended by Raymond Bernard, who really turned up the heat at the most important point of the playoffs in S70, against both Riga and Calgary.

 

The only thing that made my pick from Calgary a bit more interesting was that I had also traded for Mark Gebauer before the expansion draft, but Bushito had already locked in his protected list inclusive of Gebauer. It did ultimately have little impact on either Moscow or Calgary – the Wranglers used the pick I traded for Gebauer on Elasmobranch Fish, who turned out to be a better player, but I doubt I would have selected him or the other player from that section of the S65 draft who turned out decent (Denver Wolfe). Either way, although I would have ideally had an active Gebauer given he was still very recently Moscow's second-best all time scorer purely based on a solid build, I didn't miss out on any superstars in the draft who would have propelled the Menace build forward.

 

From New York: Ryan Zabby

Other options: Scott Shawinganen, Anton Edvin, Sven Hitz

 

The Americans' pick here is the biggest “what if” of this expansion draft – what if Spade didn't decide to last minute protect Matthew Materazo? In the end, he ended up losing him to Malmo a season later anyway, and New York's failed contending cycle broke up not long after that, so serves him right. But for me, I had to pick from some scraps of the Americans rebuild, with the best of the bunch being Ryan Zabby, a highly rated S64 prospect who was clearly coming off the boil but I had no one better to choose. Still, I expected a bit more mileage out of Zabby than him retiring the day after the expansion draft and never playing a game for Moscow.

 

From Seattle: Evgeni Komarov @Gooningitup

Other options: Mountain Thunderfist

 

This pick was set in stone pretty much as soon as I announced a team in Moscow – Komarov wanted to join straight away. Seattle was quite accommodating in leaving him available, although they also had eight better players to protect in the midst of their previous, less successful, cup run. Komarov was a good person to have around, although realistically he was never going to work build-wise with a contending Menace team. That wasn't an issue for the first two seasons though, and then he was happy to sit on the third pairing after that, without detrimenting the team much. After 4 seasons, he had to be moved on for cap reasons though and as his attention moved away from the VHL. Overall, I got what I expected with this one – a loyal servant as Moscow established itself. Win/win.

 

From Toronto: Lew Bronstein @stevo

Other options: Johnny Havenk Carison, Sebastian Ironside, Shawn Mendes

 

Toronto was a weird one – this was in between their S64 and S65 championships and they already had been affected by Devise selling the farm so had little to lose to expansion. Ironside was not eligible to be signed by any team that touched him before free agency because of the old GM player rules, so I couldn't pick him, and Mendes hadn't and never would hit 100 TPE. That left Carison, which was the other player alongside Materazo with whom Malmo had better luck with timing. A season later, Carison would be exposed again but on a contract, while after S64 he was a pending free agent. I decided to pass and hope to sign him in FA which I almost did until he signed in Toronto before I had a chance to make him an offer in the portal, directly contributing to Toronto winning the cup again. Regardless, Bronstein was the only option left and he was a good placeholder on defence for Moscow's first 2 seasons.

 

From Vancouver: Nathan N

Other options: Konstantin Mulligan, Toby Fitzgerald

 

Beaviss was the only GM who tried to swing a deal which would have forced me to draft Mulligan, but his build put me off him completely. Nathan N seemed to be a safer bet than any draft pick Vancouver could have offered, that is until he retired midway through S65. Of course, Beaviss and I had no idea that would happen hence the bit of initial wrangling, but in the long run it didn't matter at all.

 

From Davos: Dan Baillie @wcats

Other options: Connor McDavid, Jose Gonzalez

 

The first real success story and the only expansion draftees to survive until the S70 Continental Cup win. The Dynamo always were forced to expose some actives and Dan Baillie was the first talent they lost – now the Menace's second all-time leading scorer and alternate captain for the past several seasons. Baillie has developed how I hoped Nathan N, Zabby, and Gebauer also would, which makes you think what could have been, but even one quality, loyal top 6 forward is a good result from an expansion draft. Ultimately, getting Baillie a cup before he retired (or as it happened, had to be let go to free agency) was one of the feel-good stories of Moscow's cup run last season. The only other Davos player I was considering, Connor McDavid, I ended up getting later on as a cap dump anyway, although his impact in Moscow was significantly lower before he retired.

 

From Helsinki: Paolo Nano @leafsman

Other options: Joey Boucher, The Charm

 

In terms of what I was trying to build (a team made up of S64 and younger players), Helsinki didn't offer much, but they did offer an underrated defenceman when other than Komarov, I was almost exclusively drafting forwards. Gambling on Paolo Nano paid off big time, even with him initially wanting to test free agency and therefore being traded to New York during S65. Something in Moscow just made Nano put up great offensive numbers and he remained a top pairing defenceman for four seasons. We couldn't quite win a championship before Nano retired, which is a shame but he made a solid impact even in his waning years – one of the most underrated players of the decade for me.

 

One of the other options here was also solid – Boucher only just retired as a defenceman of similar quality to Nano, while The Charm was subject to the same restrictions as Ironside in Toronto, therefore wasn't a viable option for the Menace.

 

From Riga: Kyson Blake

Other options: Mikka Pajari, Kisshan Shan, Basaraba Moose, Curtis Gary, Bolt Vanderhuge, Dylan Nguyen, Anthony Dabarno

 

Riga at the end of S64 was the first contender with a massive prospect pool, meaning on paper they were going to expose the best player. They did, and in fact Kyson Blake's player build was as good as I expected it to be, culminating in him being named top rookie in Moscow's first season. Unfortunately, he stopped earning TPE very shortly after joining Moscow, therefore was let go pretty quickly. I can have few regrets about choosing Blake over the other options from Riga because no one on that list would have helped the Menace any more, but that does seem to be the overwhelming theme: despite making the right choice with every one of the 8 selections, almost all of them still weren't good enough.

 

Fortunately, a few other pieces fell the right way later on, like Jet Jaguar falling to tenth overall, or Mat Tocco and Dean Clarke being drafted ridiculously low in the same draft. That theme of steals making up the Moscow cup-winning roster became bigger with the addition of Nate Telker and Killy Foilen (S68) and Oskar Lagesson (S69). The goaltending situation was very shaky for a while, courtesy of Owen May's disappearing act, but came together just in time to convince the free agent duo of Smitty and Gritty to give Moscow a shot. And here we are, with perhaps my finest GM achievement, starting with a distinctly average expansion draft but ending in the euphoria of S70. Or, perhaps, just beginning...

[eaglesfan036 4,595]

@Beaviss correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Vancouver leave Gritty exposed for expansion

 

And vicky didn't take me

[Victor 10,844]

6 minutes ago, ContinentalCup036 said:

@Beaviss correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Vancouver leave Gritty exposed for expansion

 

And vicky didn't take me

Nah you weren't even drafted yet.

[eaglesfan036 4,595]

32 minutes ago, Victor said:

Nah you weren't even drafted yet.

must have been the future expansion drafts then

[Victor 10,844]

1 hour ago, ContinentalCup036 said:

must have been the future expansion drafts then

Malmo probably passed on you, they can't see talent if it slapped them in the face.

[diamond_ace 3,107]

4 hours ago, ContinentalCup036 said:

@Beaviss correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Vancouver leave Gritty exposed for expansion

 

And vicky didn't take me

There was originally talk that you'd be exposed for the Prague/DC expansion draft. You ultimately were protected, but originally people were saying you wouldn't be. Had you not been, you'd have looked awfully nice in purple the last few seasons...

(no comment on current or future seasons, as you are under contract elsewhere)

[McWolf 3,114]

1 hour ago, diamond_ace said:

(no comment on current or future seasons, as you are under contract elsewhere)

 

nice save

[diamond_ace 3,107]

3 minutes ago, McWolf said:

 

nice save

It wasn't a save at all - more of a clarification. It's perfectly fine to discuss events that have occurred in the past, or to speculate on those that might have. I knew people (like you right now) were going to come in and start joking about tampering though, and didn't want a newer person who might think you were serious to be concerned I was actually doing anything out of the ordinary

[Victor 10,844]

Week 2 of 3.

[Victor 10,844]

Week 3 of 3