Flowers' Free Agency Plans

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What Lance Flowers Wants from FA

 

The New York Americans have important work to do. Currently sitting third in North America and first in its division, the Americans have singled out this season as the one to go for it all. A number of key contributors are actively regressing, after all, and two key contributors in Julius Freeman and A Red Guy will be retiring after the season. It’s now or never.

 

I couldn’t be more fully committed to the Americans season, and I’ll be making a longer post about my time on the Americans and my love for this team after the season. But with that said, I know that general managers are doing offseason planning earlier and earlier, especially with 16 GMs now in the league. So with that in mind, I wanted to make clear my next steps.

 

Lance Flowers will be entering free agency at the end of the season. I informed Esso of this earlier this season, and I think even if I stayed, I would be dealt for a rebuild anyway so I’d rather take matters into my own hands. It will be Flowers’ first time being on a team other than New York, and he’ll be looking for a team to finish the final two years of his career. Since I’m still active, have banked TPE, and a lot of cash for a full suite of depreciation fighters, I’m hoping there will be at least some market.

 

As I enter free agency for the first time with Flowers, and only my second time in the VHL in total (the first resulted in Hans Wingate signing with Toronto and getting the threepeat), there are some wants on my wish list. For any team thinking about me in their plans, I’m going to want at least two of the three criteria below. All three would be cool, but having two puts somebody into consideration.

 

Here’s what I’m looking at:

 

A Chance to Win Somewhere New: This was my main desire before entering the S68 Draft, and it hasn’t gone anyway—I like the idea of winning with a team where I haven’t won before, getting titles with as many franchises as possible. I’ve won previously with Calgary, Toronto, Seattle and Davos (and hopefully New York after this season). But now with expansion especially, there’s a lot of teams where I haven’t. Being on a team where I’ve won previously isn’t automatically a write-off, but it’d be a tougher sell to me.

 

Continuing to Play Defense: I created as a defenseman specially because I liked the idea of creating more of a defensively-minded player, and I think that’s played out with two Defensive Defenseman awards in six seasons. Especially since my only other created defenseman switched to forward before my six season, I’d really like to finish out my career at this position for the first time. But I will note, if the situation is perfect otherwise, I’m not 100% against switching to forward, and I have the cash for both that and depreciation fighters.

 

A Shot at the Playoffs: I don’t need to be on the single best team in the league; I’m not looking to team up with anybody KD-to-the-Warriors style. But with that said, with only two seasons left in this career, I’d like to have something to play for. A team with a legitimate chance to win a playoff series or two is important to me, especially because I think playoffs often tend to be crapshoots in STHS. Going to a rebuilding situation doesn’t interest me. I’m not ruling out expansion teams here, but I’d want to see a distinct plan to win by S75, which may be tough within three seasons.

 

So that’s that. I don’t plan to focus on free agency much more until after the Americans season is over, but wanted to make options known. I’m excited for both this season and Flowers’ future, and we’ll see where life and the benevolent god of STHS takes us from here.