For Your Consideration: A Deep Look at the Season 75 David Knight Trophy Race

[.sniffuM 1,741]

The 75th VHL season was one of the most competitive and interesting in the league’s history. With the majority of the teams from the most recent round of expansion entering the throes of legitimate playoff contention, the races were incredibly exciting this season. As such, the main focus for this article is something many will care nothing about but that others have been gunning for all year: the league’s top executive trophy, the David Knight.

 

As per usual, there can only be one Knight Trophy winner (well, there have been five instances in league history where the award was co-won by multiple GMs, but that hasn’t happened in 20 seasons). I personally always find the debate for an award like this very interesting because everyone has their own feelings on what should weigh more towards this than others; some believe this award should only take the regular season into account (myself included) while others believe postseason performance should factor in (hi @Victor). Then there are questions of personal philosophy; would you rather a candidate that didn’t make a ton of moves to add players, but saw their roster improve on its own to the top of the league, or would you rather a candidate whose team finished lower in the standings, but that made more recent wholesale changes to get there?

 

Because the debates surrounding this topic can be subjective to what a person values, I wanted to give people some insight into my views on this current crop of Knight Trophy candidates, but primarily I wanted to spark some discussion on this. So if you give this a read and feel strongly enough about the topic, feel free to let me know: do you agree? Do you disagree? What aspects am I maybe overlooking or taking too deeply into consideration?

 

I will wrap up this long ass intro by saying this: yes, I am, as the General Manager of the Warsaw Predators, a candidate for this award. I believe I can look at this pool of candidates and objectively judge the efficacy of my performance against my peers, but anyone would say that. I assure you my position does not sway my view towards myself or any of my fellow GMs, but take that for what it is.

 

The Candidates

 

Just to start with a quick note here, I’m sure most would agree with me that a GM that misses the playoffs should not be considered for the top executive award except for in exceptional circumstances. While Toronto’s season-long flirtation with a playoff spot was impressive, and Davos and Prague deserve credit for keeping the EU a 7-team race all year, I don’t believe any of these fill the criteria for exceptional circumstances, and thus will only be looking at the playoff GMs as legitimate candidates.

 

Ryan Jubis, Calgary Wranglers: On a surface level, Calgary’s Jubis looks like a strong candidate considering the fact his team just had the most points in the league. While that will certainly factor positively, it’s hard to overlook that this Calgary team has been a force in the S70s, then experienced a small decline last season that resulted in their worst record of the decade before finding their way back among the ranks of the elite. Does Jubis get positive credit for re-tooling the team or does his candidacy take a hit for the fact the team has had a strong baseline for years and then slightly underachieved last season, allowing them the breathing room to vault back up the standings in the first place?

 

Certainly working in Jubis’s favor is that Moscow’s Victor Alfredsson had no trouble winning the award last season under similar circumstances, even though his top-seeded Menace lost their only playoff series.

 

Keaton Louth, Vancouver Wolves: Louth was a strong candidate last season, finishing his re-tooling by owning seemingly every S74 draft pick and seeing immediate dividends by earning the top seed in the NA (and an eventual cup win, but as I said before I don’t consider postseason for this award). Vancouver improved their record slightly this season, but this core has largely been built in seasons that have already been considered for this award.

 

Eno Rama, D.C. Dragons: A couple weeks before the season ended it had looked like DC was in shambles. The team was struggling to consistently win games and found themselves neck-and-neck with Toronto for the NA’s final playoff spot. Then, Stone Wolski went off, DC went on a run that has them among the scariest teams to face in the playoffs, and the team finally was able to generate some positive momentum. Still, this wasn’t a huge comeup for DC, a steady playoff contender, and the core of this roster was largely established prior to current consideration.

 

Blake Campbell, Seattle Bears: Campbell looked to have this award wrapped up early as the Seattle Bears began life without the last remaining remnants of their previous cup core on fire. They went 15-4-1 through their first 20 games, and 22-10-4 in the first half of the season, but a tough 17-15-4 second half of the season saw the team fall from strong contender for the top seed in the NA to playing in the wild card round of the postseason as one of the conference’s bottom two playoff teams. I still believe Seattle is a well-built team but the team’s very ordinary second half of the season holds Campbell back some from contention for this award.

 

Jeff Dee, Chicago Phoenix: The 3 expansion teams under consideration here all pique my interest because they took very different 3-year paths to get here. In the case of Jeff in Chicago, he has probably built his team the most organically of the expansion squads that are playoff-bound, with JaredN, Aleelee Kiak and Jeff Downey serving as the only players the team brought in from elsewhere to feature on this season’s squad. The team also gets a bonus for being able to turn their upcoming, non-lottery 1st rounder into the 4th overall pick in last year's draft, where they selected L.

 

Chicago had some issues finishing out the season, going just 7-9-4 over their last 20. All things told, it was a great season for the Phoenix, but it’s more likely Jeff Dee wins a Knight in the future for how he operates around the retirement of Downey rather than for what his team has done this season.

 

Julian Borwinn, Helsinki Titans: Now onto the EU side. Borwinn won the award in S73, as Helsinki vaulted to the top of the EU in what was their second consecutive playoff berth, before dipping a bit last regular season as they re-tooled and ultimately catching fire at the right time, representing their conference in the Continental Cup Finals. The team was able to build on that momentum, topping the EU this year and finishing second in the league in points. Borwinn is a noted strategist when it comes to his lines, something that no-doubt helped Helsinki navigate this successful re-tooling.

 

Damien Walec, Warsaw Predators: Oh hey, it’s me! A lot of the seeds for this season’s success in Warsaw were sewn in the past, with Dagmar Havlova and Jeffrenomitsu the 3rd being the only major non-draft acquisitions this past offseason. However, as I hinted at in the Chicago section, I think that it’s fair to consider a wider body of work for the expansion teams since we’ve built from the bottom for three seasons to get here.

 

Out of the three expansion teams, I’d rank us 2nd in terms of aggressiveness to get our rosters to this point; the deal to bring in Latrell Mitchell would be the best example of this for the Preds. Still, we’ve been fairly measured in our aggression, and in my opinion got where we got largely because of the foundation we were able to establish around the more aggressive moves we’ve made.

 

John Frostbeard, Malmo Nighthawks: Frostbeard was another strong candidate for last season’s award. He turned Malmo from the league’s worst team in S72, to making the playoffs in S73, to finishing second in the EU last season, and won a playoff series both times his team has made it. Now in the playoffs a third consecutive season, however, Malmo’s core of players is largely the same group that has been there for them, with the only real major change being swapping Lewis Dawson for Warsaw alum Arthur Dayne (and paying a pretty hefty price in the process). Frostbeard’s a great GM, and there’s no faulting a team that feels they have their group together already standing pat, but that makes it hard to consider Frostbeard for the Knight in my opinion considering the Nighthawks struggled out of the gate and didn’t really light the world on fire in general this season.

 

Victor Alfredsson, Moscow Menace: The defending Knight Trophy recipient, it’s unlikely that Alfredsson makes it 4 Knights in 9 seasons this time ‘round. That isn’t to say that he hasn’t built a strong team; Moscow may have finished in a spot that will see them playing in the wildcard round, but they only finished 3 points behind 2nd in a very tight EU conference.

 

I also believe Alfredsson will be in steady contention for this award in the near future. He did great to add a talented defenseman in Roque Davis, but will still likely need to re-tool this roster more if he wants to make a push through the end of Mikko Lahtinen’s career rather than rebuilding, a job that will be difficult with the retirement of franchise icon Raymond Bernard. If I know Alfredsson’s style, expect some splash acquisitions that keep his name in this conversation next year.

 

Roger McWolf III, London United: The 3rd and final expansion team on this list, London was the darling of this offseason after trading away a boatload of picks to bring in Chad Magnum, Erik Killinger, and Hugh Jass. That goes without mentioning the strong baseline of young talent the team was already able to establish; the big moves had London looking like a threat for the very top of the EU.

 

Some might look at them being the last team in the EU playoffs as a bit of a disappointment considering the moves they made. But again, things were incredibly close in the conference, as they finished only 5 points behind Warsaw for 2nd.

 

Now that I’ve introduced the candidates and given a bit of insight as to where I feel they stand, I’ll narrow this down to who I consider the top 5 candidates and the positives and negatives that I see in their case.

 

Ryan Jubis

S75 Team Point Total: 100

S74 Team Point Total: 78

 

As I mentioned in the preview for Jubis, a lot of his candidacy comes down to determining how much of the team’s 22-point jump this season stems from the team underperforming last season. Despite this, Jubis did make some significant moves to improve his roster; chief among them was the team’s move for Lewis Dawson. I love Arthur Dayne as a player and as a member, but the team was able to get a player in Dawson that is better right now, fitting their current situation better, and they also picked up a future 1st from Malmo in the deal.

 

Much more eye-opening however was Calgary’s trade in the offseason for Patrik Tallinder and DeFenz Mann. The team brought in two legit players in that deal, as well as Riga’s S76 1st (which is in the lottery) and 3rd round picks, but it cost the Wranglers a whopping 8 picks in the S75 superdraft (including a 1st and 2 2nds), and their S76 1st as well. Moving up in S76 is great and all, but that’s a ton of legitimate prospects to give up for 2 players, even with the team pressing hard to get the most out of their roster this year.

 

Still, it’s hard to argue with results. Calgary was stingy all season and finished the regular season with the most points in the league. I think Jubis overall has a very strong chance to win this, even if the long-term merits of the Tallinder can easily be questioned.

 

Positives: Re-tooled the team after a disappointing S74, finished atop the league

Negatives: Potential future ramifications of the Tallinder deal

 

Eno Rama

S75 Team Point Total: 89

S74 Team Point Total: 79

 

Eno won this award in S70, and interestingly enough, 4 key players from that S70 squad (Benny Graves, Guy Lesieur, Luciano Valentino, and Ricky Johnson) still find themselves in very important roles in the S75 version of the Dragons. The team’s late surge, going a mind-boggling 16-1-3 in their last 20 games, was largely spurred on by breakout performances from two of the highest-profile players they have added since S70: Groovy Dood and Stone Wolski. It has been a long time coming for Wolski, but he played as well as any goalie in the league down the stretch, and vaulted himself into the Shaw conversation and possibly the Funk as well.

 

I don’t want to discredit Eno by any stretch, but I feel the fact that this team is largely built on a prior foundation, and the fact that their improvement was primarily brought on by the development of players that have been in the organization for some time rather than through any moves the organization made, makes it tough to say he deserves this year’s Knight. Although I do believe that this award should judge just the regular season, I’d say that DC’s dominant late surge is justification enough to re-consider Eno’s position here if they remain hot and make noise in the playoffs.

 

Positives: Best team in the league down the stretch

Negatives: Built around the same group of players for a while now

 

Julian Borwinn

S75 Team Point Total: 97

S74 Team Point Total: 81

 

I am always impressed by the job Borwinn does to get the most out of his roster. In my humble opinion, Helsinki is very talented, but probably not 10 points better than the rest of the field in the EU, so I’d say the team’s performance is a testament to Borwinn’s strategizing. He didn’t make any major short-term upgrades to his roster from last year (although he did do a good amount of tinkering during the previous season that impacted this roster, trading away Oh Sens and Jim Bob and bringing in Ola Vikingstad), but being able to go from Gabriel Akerstrom to Emi Rune, both defensemen from the S74 class, could be a very underrated move for the future of this team’s defense.

 

The part that makes it hard for me to elevate Borwinn is the fact that he won the award in S73. He did that after elevating his squad from rebuilding, to postseason, to top of the conference, but then the team experienced a dip last regular season before making it to the Finals anyways. That makes it each of the last two seasons that have to be strongly compared against. As such, it doesn’t feel right to give out a Knight Trophy essentially for remaining a cup contender for a third year. I still feel like this shouldn’t take too much away from Helsinki’s season and Borwinn’s candidacy.

 

Positives: Top team in the EU, steady for most of the season

Negatives: This era of Helsinki has already been up for consideration for the award multiple times and won in S73

 

Damien Walec

S75 Team Point Total: 87

S74 Team Point Total: 62

 

Hello, it’s me again. Obviously when someone is talking about their own candidacy, there is the fear of bias slipping in. I will hopefully try to look at everything here as objectively as possible, if I do a bad job of that let me know.

 

Warsaw has been able to steadily climb up the standings by establishing key franchise players early and getting a small helping of lottery luck. We were 3rd among expansion teams in points in our first season, S73, then 2nd last season, and now 1st this time around with 89 points. Victor Alfredsson won the award in S67, Moscow’s 3rd season, for having them 2nd in the EU at 86 points. Similarly, Chris Miller won the award in S68 for the 3rd season of Malmo’s history, although in that case Malmo won the Victory Cup with 98 points so that was definitely a no-brainer.

 

The only major moves the team made this offseason were for Jeffrenomitsu the 3rd and Dagmar Havlova. Although Havlova ended up being dominant this season, at the end of the day he was still a 550 TPE player with only 2 seasons left that we paid a 2nd for. This could be seen as an overpayment, and it was one that was forced by me being a bit too slow to move on numerous other centers we were looking to pursue. JR3 came in for a draft pick that we got in the Latrell Mitchell deal, and ended up being very impactful in the middle third of the season for us. Although the Mitchell deal went down last season, I believe it’s a fair acquisition to bring up when discussing Warsaw’s growth this season.

 

All things told, I’m conflicted about how to look at my candidacy. The historical examples from Moscow and Malmo in their 3rd seasons makes me feel good as, having not looked deeper into those seasons for more context, I feel like our season at least matches Moscow’s from S67, if not slightly surpassing it. On the other hand, there are a ton of strong candidates this year and it’s not like every move I made was unquestionably strong.

 

Positives: Best team from the S73 expansion, compares favorably to other GMs who have won the Knight in their teams’ 3rd seasons

Negatives: Much of our core players have already been in the organization for some time, Warsaw struggled some against the worst teams in the league

 

Roger McWolf III

S75 Team Point Total: 82

S74 Team Point Total: 60

 

I could write about Jeff as well as a legitimate candidate, but I’ll cut it here at McWolf as this article is already getting a little unwieldy. Wolfie was able to create a ton of buzz around his team following his offseason moves to immediately supplement the young talent on his team with high-end veterans. In my opinion both deals were very smart moves; London had 3 years to build up young talent, so they picked a good time to bet on themselves and even picked up a 2nd S77 1st from Toronto.

 

Although I’m not even remotely sour on the job I’ve done running my team so far, I had something of a blueprint for how I wanted to approach building Warsaw in the VHL and London was arguably able to execute on a similar blueprint better than I did. We both ended up achieving our goal of becoming playoff squads, and it’s weird to think that 5 points in the standings would mean the difference between myself and McWolf in this race when you consider he did more to immediately improve his team recently than I have. As such, McWolf’s candidacy is getting just as much consideration from me as anyone else’s.

 

Positives: Strong 3rd season for an expansion team, improved their roster more than any of the other teams here this past offseason

Negatives: Finished as the final seed in the EU, 5 points behind a fellow expansion team

 

My Ballot

 

Spoiler

 

1: Ryan Jubis

2: Damien Walec

3: Ryan McWolf III

4: Julian Borwinn

5: Eno Rama

 

 

Despite questions surrounding the future impact of the Tallinder deal, I’d have to say Jubis did enough in re-tooling Calgary back to the front of the pack in S75, and the Knight Trophy isn’t meant to look into the future anyways. I waffled a lot in the debate between myself and McWolf, and ultimately just decided it felt too close so I just went with the higher point total. I ultimately felt that Helsinki’s time as an established contender and Borwinn having already won the award earlier in this era of Titans hockey was enough to bump him down to a very close 4th, and although I respect the job Eno has done in DC, their late surge served to do little more for me than bump Jeff down from the 5th spot.

 

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So what do you think? Did I get it right? Am I full of shit? Discuss below!

 

3,425 words, or 3,204 words factoring out the 221 words in the paragraphs I claimed as a VHL.com

Edited December 24, 2020 by .sniffuM

[Enorama 2,038]

What about me trading a playoff pick last year for a lottery pick this year

[.sniffuM 1,741]

4 minutes ago, Enorama said:

What about me trading a playoff pick last year for a lottery pick this year

 

truuu, although the person that I gave credit for a similar move got bumped to 6th by you anyways

[bigAL 2,176]

holy hell, that's a well-researched and well-written deep dive muff. Now that we know what you're capable of, I can't wait to read one of these every four weeks for the rest of my life!

[Garsh 1,190]

I agree to NEVER liquify a human or purchase shungite

[.sniffuM 1,741]

6 minutes ago, bigAL said:

holy hell, that's a well-researched and well-written deep dive muff. Now that we know what you're capable of, I can't wait to read one of these every four weeks for the rest of my life!

 

[ThePerfectNut 563]

Our future finna be gucciiii.
Got enough picks to draft heavily on forwards + Patrik Tallinder as a great scout
Askarov future is looking amazing and our d-core that is very good is still VERY young  (s72, s72 and a s73)

Once tallinder, jubis and encarnacion retires will hurt, but it's just prob gonna be a retool year and anything can happen from there 

[.sniffuM 1,741]

4 minutes ago, Jtv123 said:

Our future finna be gucciiii.
Got enough picks to draft heavily on forwards + Patrik Tallinder as a great scout
Askarov future is looking amazing and our d-core that is very good is still VERY young  (s72, s72 and a s73)

Once tallinder, jubis and encarnacion retires will hurt, but it's just prob gonna be a retool year and anything can happen from there 

 

I meant more from the standpoint of allowing Riga to load up on good prospects, it'll allow them to rebuild quick and gives them insane amounts of ammo immediately after they finish a league-record playoff streak. Admittedly, I feel that more than Calgary does because Riga's in my conference.

[Jubis 1,348]

Wow honestly kind of surprised.  Thanks for the kind words. Its awesome to be mentioned among all these great GMs 

[Victor 10,940]

Trade splashes are my middle name