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*Otrebor13* · 03-23-2019, 06:04 PM

Welcome back once again to “Visiting the Office of…”! After the first edition got such good feedback from our fellow viewers, it’s time to bring you all the second edition of the series!

In our first edition we had current Whalers Co-GM Luke Thomason. In today’s edition we will be visiting the office of the current, and long-time GM of the Los Angeles Panthers: Niclas Wastlund, AKA Wasty.

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Welcome to the series Wasty! We have a little change of pace today as you have been around the SHL a very long time. While most people know who you are, why don’t we go back in time to when you joined the SHL. Tell us a little bit about how you stumbled upon the SHL and your thoughts when you joined.

Well it was 8 years ago and I had just started a new job where it was going to be extremely boring and so I was remembering awhile back ago I used to be in a couple short lived sim leagues and I went on HFBoards and looked at some of the threads, SHL stood out to me and so I joined as a skater, I happen to join during the SMJHL draft and a member messaged me saying if I changed my player to goalie that I would be drafted by him. I did and then he didn't draft me, I retired the goalie after one SMJHL season before the SHL draft and recreated as my first true player, Simon Aseplin who I don't think is even in the bojo box (edit: he is). He was short lived because the SHL had a Euro league (EEL) and my player there, Niclas Wastlund was a much better player and I decided to bring him to the SHL and retire Aseplin.

Aseplin did not last very long in the SHL (noticeably so)

You’ve had a plethora of players in the SHL throughout the years you’ve been here, each of them successful. What can you say has been the key to building such successful players?

I wish I had some successful players to tell you! (laughs) in all honesty I haven't truly had really successful players, I've built some good players but never any that were true superstars. They were really more on the brink of being them and then I'd foolishly retire them. Niclas Wastlund was retired too early but at the time we had all these maxed out players and I felt bored and needed a change. Marian Potoczny, my next player brought me to LAP and I retired him much too early as well but when I did it was to bring a top elite defenseman to the Panthers which we lacked, Fredrik Wastlund was also retired too early as evidence in his ghost/retirement season he won the Stevens and Khan (Facepalm) I brought Felix Herzog to the league and he was good but never elite. I am truly hoping Max Mauldin is my first successful player in the league with a long career.

While you have had plenty of players over the years, I’d like to focus on your GMing career. The Panthers were one of the first expansion teams, coming in to the SHL for Season 5. 10 seasons later you became the GM and have been the GM ever since. Tell us a little bit about your tenure as GM of LA and what you believe has been the key to managing the Panthers for this long.

Well it's been quite a roller coaster life as a GM for this long in this league, especially for LAP which before I became GM had like eight GMs in the first ten seasons and then one for thirty-two. When I took the job one of my goals was to bring a constant leadership role for LA who hadn’t had one so I guess I accomplished one goal during this time. I call it a roller coaster career because I've been to five dynasty cup finals and four single games have kept me from having five dynasty cups which people seem to truly care about in discussing GM's careers, but really in the game of chance it's just tough luck which I hope to break every season. I know the teams I've built have been talented and very, very good and we've always been the underdogs in this league, even this season I don't think there was more than a handful of people that predicted us to finish in the top 3 in the West. I think the key to being a GM this long is truly loving your team and a whole lots of insanity. It's extremely hard to be a GM in this league for so long and the ones that have done have deeply loved their teams and wanted them to succeed. I would do anything to go back and win a cup with some players that missed their chance and I feel not rewarding those truly loyal players is my biggest failure as a GM.

You broke the record for most wins as an SHL GM and have continued to pile on to that record by amassing over 830 wins. How did it feel to break that record?

It feels really good to have that record in a league like this, although it seems to be a bit of a forgotten part of the league is the history of GMs and their stats, so I feel the record isn't really cared about in the league but that's okay to me because I'm not done setting the record. Eight hundred or so wins is great and I think only Esa is close enough to overtake Leafs for number two and he still has hundred and fifty something more wins to surpass him. I'm looking forward to winning my thousandth game or fifteen hundredth win. I don't really see myself stepping down for at least another fifteen to twenty seasons so I'll be pushing the record to unattainable numbers because our team is really good now and we will be really good in ten, fifteen, twenty seasons.

Niclas Wastlund at a Panthers event after breaking the record for most wins as a GM in SHL history

In our first edition of VTOO we asked Luke about what he looks for when drafting in the SMJHL. I would like to ask you the same. You don’t win as many games as you do by accident. I’m sure our readers would love to know: What’s your secret?

Drafting is a bit of a crapshoot no matter what you do in the draft, you can feel 100% on a player but then they ghost a season later. On the flip side you'll find a second or third round pick that plays five hundred games and is loyal as fuck. I always look for people that I think would fit best in the locker room and that models what I want in players on my team. Player builds are great and sometimes we draft due to player position or build but we focus more on the person running the player and what they do and how they portray themselves. I have a soft spot for graphically inclined people as evidence of the 20's-30's seasons when we had every graphic god on the site and we have one hard rule that we follow when scouting players and we'll probably catch shit for it but we don't like to draft "joke player names" or something that just doesn't seem like a real person’s name. Like I said people will people say something about this but oh well, it's just personal preference.

I’d like to take a trip down memory lane and get your perspective on your tenure as a GM. Sticking on the topic of the draft, everyone evaluates teams and their picks. What do you think your best draft pick was?

Oh damn well I have a shit ton of drafts to choose from so how about I give you a rough top five? Goalies are always tough and we've drafted a couple good ones Jackson Weekes in S19 and Timo Haas in S31 were some legendary picks, S20 brought some great players to the team like Valterri Bottas. In S29 we drafted Sebastian Strange, S34 we grabbed a future LAP Hall of Famer, Matthew Auston who might be one the best S34 1st Round picks, The season after we got Sophia Bennett who needs no introduction, Yuri Boyka Jr in S36 was a massive steal and I didn't draft his dad but we traded for him. Joshua Woodcroft is proving to be another late first round steal, I've had some great luck with second round picks like Kaapo Kekkonen, Maurice Picard, James Johnson and Adrian Thomasz. We've even had some late round steals like Gvidas Kazlauskas and Jon Toner.

By my count that’s more than 5 players but we’ll let it slide…

What about this: Who do you believe was the biggest bust that you’ve ever drafted?

Jesus this list might be longer. Biggest bust that come to mind is Mariusz Kwik (which we don't utter that name around the LAP Arena) and Conall MacLeod come to my mind as the biggest busts we've drafted.

The warning signs for selecting Kwik were apparent, but the Panthers tested their luck

Let’s shift our attention to trades. What do you believe the best trade you’ve ever made was? Or perhaps the trade that stands out the most in your time as GM?

One of my best trades was a tough one to deal a champion Panther like Brandon Donini only to receive one of the best Panthers, previously talked about Yuri Boyka. I also remember the deal we got Jarmo Ruutu in and how he turned out to be such a steal and Panther legend playing the most games ever in LAP uniform.

And lastly, which trade do you regret the most?

I regret the trade with Texas that was made in S28 that was "The Trade that Broke the League" what a bad trade for us. The only good return in that was Wyatt Wollker.

Please note: While we strive to get behind the scenes answers for our readers, VTOO staff stayed away from including any Tesla related questions. While these questions are in our uncut version of the interview, we just do not have the time nor the staff to go through an interview of that length and edit it to bring our readers. If anyone would like to know more about Mr. Wastlund’s Telsa, the history of Tesla, or why Tesla is better than any other car brand currently on the market, we encourage you to message us and we can share the uncut version of the interview (1h35 run time, or 125 pages of script – Mr. Wastlund spoke exceptionally fast during the Tesla part of the interview and got in more words then we knew was humanly possible). We hope you all understand.

Here at VTOO we would like to thank @Wasty for taking the time to sit with us and answer our questions. We would also like to wish him and the Panthers the best of luck heading in to the playoffs.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, ends our second edition of VTOO. We hope you all enjoyed it. Til next time!

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Previous Edition: Visiting the Office of... Luke Thomason!

Word Count: 1850 Words
*Grader Note: Wasty has allowed me to keep 100% of the payout for this article.

Wasty · 03-23-2019, 08:29 PM

Happy to do this and great job Otrebor

#40 Niclas Wastlund - W - VANCOUVER WHALERS Whalers

/ MINNESOTA MONARCHS

***luke*** · 03-23-2019, 08:31 PM

damn, I got an interview before one of the longest tenured GM's. Honored

JSS · 03-23-2019, 08:41 PM

great articles man, really enjoy these

Kalakar · 03-23-2019, 09:29 PM

You should do one with @JSS next, I'd love to hear his thoughts on how to maximize a team's budget properly.

JSS · 03-23-2019, 09:37 PM

03-23-2019, 09:29 PMKalakar Wrote: You should do one with @JSS next, I'd love to hear his thoughts on how to maximize a team's budget properly.

monka christ

*Otrebor13* · 03-24-2019, 01:50 PM

03-23-2019, 09:29 PMKalakar Wrote: You should do one with @JSS next, I'd love to hear his thoughts on how to maximize a team's budget properly.

Ideally I'd like to get to everyone around the league (both SHL and SMJHL), but we'll see how that goes haha. If GMs want to volunteer to be up next, by all means they're more than welcome to reach out to me and let me know.

*slothfacekilla* · 03-25-2019, 12:11 PM

I'm really glad you're sticking with this, these are so cool. Great choice for your second interview too!

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