Trade throwback Ep. 1

[Blazzer 759]

CGY / TOR - Dec 15, 2018

Toronto acquires:	Calgary acquires:
Keaton Louth	Aksel McKnight
Norris Stopko	S64 HSK 1st (Mark Gebauer)
Oyorra Arroyo	S64 TOR 2nd (Brick Wahl)
	S66 TOR 3rd (Guillaume Fontenette)

 

This lovely trade happened probably right before the trade deadline of S64. There are some familiar names here from Keaton Louth to Brick Wahl. We will start off with the Toronto Legion.

 

Toronto acquired 2 retiring players in this trade as rental in hopes for a deep playoff run that did happen. They won the championship this very season. With 3 additional veterans on their team, they made good use of it. Arroyo led the team in points in the playoffs and 109 points in the regular season. This trade turned out great for Toronto for a number of seasons. The 2 rentals, Keaton and Stopko helped sealed the deal and bring home the cup for the team. What a way to end their career!

 

Stopko has been impressive all his career in the VHL with Stockholm, Calgary and Toronto. Every season he posted a SV% above 0.9, never missed out on a shutout and many other impressive stats for a goalie. Moreover, Stopko always shines in the playoffs.  With close to 4000 minutes of playoff games, he is definitely Mr.Playoffs. Stopko sealed the cup and sent it straight to Toronto.

 

Keaton Louth is another player by Beaviss. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the guy that texts new players on the forum when you create. A bot, some would say. Louth was no longer in his prime in S64 as he’s retiring. His breakout season came in his prime, as expected. But that doesn’t mean that Louth didn’t have a great final season. 83 points in the regular season and 10 points in the playoffs. Not too bad Keaton, hope you’re retiring well (with no egg salad)!

 

Their 3^rd player managed to get 4 seasons with Toronto before hanging up his skates. Oyorra Arroyo. He took 2 seasons to feel comfortable on the VHL ice and start racking points for his team. This can heavily improve his value. After S62, he always had more points than games played that season. His time in Toronto made him a very accessorised player too. With awards and cups to drink from all day.

 

Now onto Calgary. This trade was a complete bust for Calgary in every way. They never got back players or a player as good as Oyorra was. I can understand that they were selling that time to get picks for a rebuild or simply to just get prospects. However, all their players except for Brick Wahl were not amazing stars.

Their first round pick in S64 was Mark Gebauer. Mark only played 1 season with Calgary unfortunately. That’s one first round pick gone for Calgary. Second round pick, Brick Wahl managed to establish himself as a literal brick wall.

 

Wahl had amazing SV%, GAA never above 3.00 and shutouts every season but S65. However, Wahl was never amazing in the playoffs like Stopko. Wahl was the one pick that saved Calgary from making a full-on busted trade.

 

You might be wondering where Guillaume Fontenette is. Well, that pick got traded to the Helsinki Titans for Wlodzimierz Zajaczkowski. People had really weird names back then, creative. This is another busted trade with Zajaczkowski never being able to be the star that was expected of a 21^st overall pick. This trade looks extremely reasonable at first sight. A third-round pick for a bottom 6 forward. However, the 3^rd pick turned out to be a better player. S64 Calgary really didn’t have much luck in trades.

 

The other player that Calgary acquired is Aksel McKnight. A S58 player hence a veteran that Calgary acquired. You all know what that means. He is depreciating. Aksel spent 2 seasons with Calgary with stats that were expected of an average player that is depreciating.

 

This trade is just an unexpected flop for Calgary. They made reasonable and equal trades but things turned south rather quickly. All their trades that season didn’t turn out nice. Why?

 

1.They acquired picks which they subsequently traded away but you can say for good.

2.They acquired players that would later retire not long after being in Calgary or just be involved in another trade after just fitting into Calgary. The only exception is Brick Wahl.

 

I want to call this a complete fail but it really isn’t as well (saved by Wahl). I sort of understand the intention of this trade but it flopped for Calgary. Guess they wrangled themselves with this one (I’m sorry).

 

That’s trade throwback number one. A second one will be out soon as this only lasts me a week.

795 words.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Blazzer

[diacope 2 764]

I like throwback articles because it helps folks to learn about the VHL's history. The 20 in 20 and 40 in 40 articles in the VHL History section are amazing, I recommend them highly. I like the table at the top of the article and the use of colour. The only thing I noticed was the odd grammatical/spelling error, for example you called Toronto the Legions lol. Overall 9/10 article

[Blazzer 759]

29 minutes ago, a_Ferk said:

he only thing I noticed was the odd grammatical/spelling error, for example you called Toronto the Legions lol.

 Didn't even realise that... thanks

[diamond_ace 3,107]

Don't really know which side of this trade I want to favor, one has omg and one has blade