Claimed:Memoirs of a General Manager, Part 2

[Victor 11,009]

Memoirs of a General Manager



Please find below the second part of a rather lengthy recap of my stint as HC Davos Dynamo GM from Season 34 to Season 38.

Season 35: A Flurry of Trades

The Skinny

A terrible Season 34 for Davos and a great one for Alexander Chershenko was all supposed to be a reasonable price to pay for future success thanks to the plethora of S35 and S36 draft picks I had assembled in my first week or so on the job. Of course, as we learned from the first part of these memoirs, most of the draft picks didn't exactly pan out and fortunately I didn't keep them around having had a painful drafting experience with New York back in Seasons 16 and 17. So, having scouted the market during the playoffs, I decided to make some pretty shocking trades and started pulling the trigger the very morning (very late night for the GMs I was working with) the Helsinki Titans won the Continental Cup in Chershenko's last game in the VHL.

The Trades

To
S36 QUE 1st (D David Januzaj)
S35 CGY 2nd (RW Carter Deaton)
S36 DAV 2nd (D Herman Mudgett)
S37 DAV 2nd (C Kez Kincaid)

To
(S33) RW - Thomas Landry

The first of the two trades made that morning/night was one I was very confident in from the start. Although the price increased exponentially from the start of negotiations with one of the toughest negotiators around in Chris Miller and many saw an overpayment in giving up so many second-round picks, it was still very much worthwhile for the one and only Thomas Landry. A rookie among a veteran crew in New York, he was the only piece I was interested in from the Americans firesale and has stuck around to this day having signed a five-season contract extension immediately upon arrival. That commitment coupled with a superb locker room presence made Landry an instant leader for the Dynamo and he has been captain for three seasons out of the four he's been here and counting.

As for the picks that were given up, as you can see for yourselves they have been nothing to write home about. Much like most of the selections I acquired in my firesale, lots of New York's picks haven't panned out either, which hasn't stopped either team from being a winning one. All of the four draftees have yet to enter the VHL though Januzaj and Kincaid have a good chance (Kincaid of course being a Cologne prospect) and all in all, I'd have to say that's a steal for a great two-way forward, a two-time Grimm Jonsson Trophy winner and a scorer in our 2-1 Cup-winning game in Season 36. Plus, Landry isn't quite done yet.

To
(S33) C - Keiji Toriyama
(S33) RW - Jarkko Olsen
(S34) D - Shane Baker

To
(S30) G - Rock Star
(S33) G - Zach Fucale
S35 QUE 1st (C Frédérik Ernst)
S36 DAV 1st (RW Robert Gow III)
S35 DAV 2nd (LW Vincenzo Valentini)
S36 CGY 2nd (LW Johan Hallstrom)

The second trade was significantly harder to make and not just for me but also for Mike, who took a lot of convincing to make the deal before he went to sleep. I'm sure in the end he doesn't feel he made a mistake and he got two great prospects as a result in Gow III and Hallstrom. It could have been more but it was a risk I was willing to take in part because I wasn't and still am not confident in my drafting (for instance, I doubt I would have managed to unearth Hallstrom if I had that pick) and in part because I was desperate to get precisely these players of these TPE levels and age. Considering Toriyama and Olsen were inactive at the time, the concept may be difficult to explain.

I knew what I was getting with Baker because I wanted to draft him the previous season and he has delivered exactly that – a dependable presence gaining TPE from welfare and being one of two core defencemen with Matt Bentley. A TPE whore in myself and a cap-friendly but productive partner is all that is necessary, in my eyes, for a solid VHL defence. Toriyama and Olsen were meant to be depth pieces up front, again cap-friendly but more than decent and with lots of years left ahead of them. It didn't quite work out with Toriyama because he came back straight away, considered going to free agency, causing me to panic and offer him a $7 million deal (which could have been disastrous but was luckily averted as you'll see below), but the plan was for him to play a similar role to Olsen in S36, when I was hoping to be a cup contender.

In the end, it worked out well enough. Both sides got good players and I was lucky that Toriyama wasn't on Davos' cap roll in S36 and that Olsen came back and even replaced me as GM, but I'd like to think I made my own lucky by making these trades. Hallstrom didn't make the VHL in our cup-winning year in S36 while Gow III was just a rookie and thus less talented than Olsen. It's important to consider that apart from these three, the only S33s and S34s to change teams from S35 to the end of S36 have been Odin Tordahl and Davey Jones, both of whom made moves to Davos as well. With all that in mind, you have to say this trade was at least a fair one for the Dynamo.

To
S36 QUE 2nd (RW Tihon Kalstad)

To
(S30) D - Mario Linguini
S36 TOR 3rd (Pass)

After that lengthy (and probably still confusing) explanation, it's good to have a straightforward trade to cover. Toronto needed to make a cap dump, I was willing to accommodate as I knew Spangle (Linguini's agent) would get some TPE to fight off depreciation by being contacted on SHL. Linguini also added much needed depth behind Bentley and Baker and in the end helped Davos beat Toronto in the S36 finals. Ironically, following another defensive cap dump in Nikita Lebedev from Toronto to Davos before S37, and after Linguini added his saved up TPE for his final season, it was the Legion that avenged the S36 loss and swept us in the finals. The VHL is a queer beast at times.

To
(S31) C - Sergey Brovalenko
S38 SEA 3rd (RW David Sharp)

To
(S31) C - Steven Stamkos
(S33) C - Keiji Toriyama
(S33) C - Chris McZehrl
(S33) G - Vladimir Bodnar
S36 DAV 3rd (Pass)
S36 TOR 3rd (Pass)

Following that off-season activity, I finished it by making Terence Fong our coach (someone who submitted lines for me in the sim), thus increasing locker room presence and just doing something new for a season which wasn't really about winning as the roster was mainly filled with rookies and inactives, including goaltender and first overall pick Lennox Moher. Fong did well, leading us to a secure playoff spot over Vasteras (and we ultimately stole a game off Cologne in round one before going out in five) by the trade deadline when I decided that the Dynamo desperately needed an injection of more activity with pending free agent Sergey Brovalenko.

It's not a move I would have made if Brovalenko was just a rental but after getting permission from Seattle to talk to him, I found out he was actually more than happy to re-sign straight away. In admittedly a bit of a low-ball move, I kept quiet about that and as Seattle was losing him anyway and no one else was interested (cap reasons and Brovalenko's reputation were the primary reasons), Brovalenko joined Davos for ridiculously cheap, even with the addition of the second part which involved the semi-active Steven Stamkos. I'm actually quite surprised no one's called me out for being an absolute prick in this process (cue numerous posts related to the subject) and even Greg aimed the blame at Brovalenko and not me after the contract extension was made public. In any case, it's not really fair to assess this trade as a win or a loss, but obviously the Dynamo do make out like bandits with the best player going their way for next to nothing and a much-needed cap dump in Toriyama.

[Victor 11,009]

A few hours late, send all complaints to Sokratis Papastathopoulos.

[Baozi 1,662]

Fong for the Jack Adams.

[Guest Svoboda_3]

Content: 3/3

1,407 words. I didn't get a chance to read Part 1, but this was excellent and included a lot of material depicting some of the trades you made in your initial tenure. When you are a great writer like you are, this was expected to flow flawlessly and it did.

Grammar: 2/2

I didn't see anything significant.

Appearance: 1/1

Center alignment, team logos etc.

Overall: 6/6

[Frank 5,245]

Claimed