For the sake of making this more interesting, I’m going to be limiting the decision on each of the teams to either buy/sell with no choice to choose to do nothing. Even though the right decision might be to do nothing, and inevitably most teams will choose to do nothing, everybody here will have to buy or sell in some form. Also I want to give some sort of fake incentive (I kinda want this to be a real thing too but I doubt that HO would ever go for it) and say that there is a cash bonus to each of the players depending on how far they’re able to get. If you make the playoffs, everybody gets $1m, eacn successive round win is an additional 500k. Does that actually move the needle? No but it’s something that I do wish the SHL had was some sort of slightly tangible reason to have middling success in the playoffs beyond the pass/fail state of either winning the cup or not.



BUY. For the stronger expansion team of the two, they’ve been able to put themselves in a solid position to make the playoffs in their inaugural season. Part of it you can argue is that from a divisional sense, they were the luckier teamin having both Baltimore and Tampa Bay be in the midst of their rebuild, and only needing to be better than either of those teams in order to make it where they are. However, they’ve done more than that and are at, and possibly above the level of New England with the level of higher end talent they have in comparison. The Inferno should be looking to add a third line C who might be capable of playing up the lineup is necessarily. Another Nathan Explosion type player to help solidify the very young 3rd line and give a more dependable presence that could prove to be all too necessarily in a tight playoff series.


SELL. Seems obvious enough for a team that’s continuing to rebuild that they’ll want to keep adding a few more pieces. The ideal would be asking for a prospect or somebody that’s a little bit further along in their development, but given some of the pieces they have to offer in around the 1k TPE range, it might not be quite enough to garner a long term piece that’s closer to being ready. It’s certainly an impossible situation to imagine them being able to move an inactive guy for somebody who’s likely to grow into a useable player in the nearish future, but still worth seeing if it’s possible one way or another with how there are going to be more and more teams who are saturated with talent and pushing heavily against the cap.


BUY. Not exactly a hard choice with a team like this and a few others in the Great Lakes division. I was actually trying to consider if there was a scenario where they could sell off some side pieces to a hungrier buyer and get value in the long term the same way that Hamilton did wth San Francisco moving multiple picks for a starting goalie in Geezus Kryyst. It’d be hard to see them pulling off a similar Eko van Otter move like they did to seal their cup run last season with not a lot of 2K TPE forwards who need to be moved. Plus their lowest TPE forwards are all going to be foundational pieces of the future so they wouldn’t want to move on from those. Defense might be an area where they might be able to talk themselves into making a deal but it’s not the same kind of demand to do so when their roster already has the potential as it is to repeat.


BUY. This is probably one of the teams who have the toughest decisions of making the big investment this season if it comes to it. On one hand they’re having one of their best seasons in the FHM era with everything starting to come together and all of their players at or just leaving their peak TPE totals. The West looks wide open from Edmonton and New Orleans taking major steps back with significant departures and introduction of a lot of youth. They probably have the most prototypical TPE spread in having an elite top line, a decent second line, and an okay third line with their defensive pairings following a lot of the same metrics though maybe a half step back in comparison. The area of greatest return might be on defense where another top 3 or top 4 guy could make a significant difference considering the relative minute spread but it’ll be a huge premium to pay for a team that hasn’t made many moves to add to their team right now in recent memory.


BUY. One of the highest TPE groups in the league generally mean that there’s few areas to improve on and while they were able to achieve that in areas like their defense and lethal forward group, there are clear spots that could make a significant difference if a deal were to come up. For one, their current 3rd centre Kit Smeb has been enjoying a lot of time between some of the top wingers on the team and has performed admirably as the defensive minded man of that trio, but for somebody who could add a little more firepower on a regular basis might be the kind of deal that could push them over the edge much like how Buffalo did last season. However the trouble ends up being what kind of assets they still have in the bank, given the season after season of purchases they made, most recently being the Disisde Dayudie just prior to the start of the season for a couple 1sts. Is there a team who would be interested in more developed prospects in exchange for a great but aging player? That could be the only scenario I see happening.


SELL. Again, considering selling just because they have a group that will only get better with seasons to come despite the aging of stars like Tokolosh and Pepperoni. A lot of those 2nd line and 2nd pairing guys still have more to give, on top of the growth of a lot of rookies that they have. Plus while they’ve been able manage the IFA defensemen pairing blackhole, I can’t imagine them doing as well against the top opponents while carrying the same liabilities. While as attractive as it’d be to bring a new pair in next season, give it another shot while the likes of Calgary and New Orleans age out even more severely, the West is still open right now...Honestly out of all the teams that I’ve done so far this is probably the one that I want to say “hold” for the most part despite what I said I would do.


BUY. I say buy Hamilton has already long done a lot of their player acquisition long before the deadline. You have two top UFAs being added for zero cost besides cap space, the moves to bring in players like Guy O'Shea,Ray Bork, Chico Smeb to fill out the bottom trio defensemen with competent grunts and a little potential while the rest of the top end shine. I say that but O’Shea has been dynamite in picking up points all season so it’s been a fantastic pickup by them to find a player who not only has performed well this season but can continue to keep up that performance or at least improve his consistency. For such a tight team, it’s unlikely they’ll move on long time favorites such as Phelps for the sake of improving the roster by a few hundred TPE. However if a deal came along to pickup a goalie for just this playoff run at a reasonable cost...it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a backup choice to the current #1 choice in Jobin.



BUY. Sell is what I originally had in mind for this team that is continue to find their identity after an offseason full of changes and turnover but with the recent addition of Jimmy Slothface, that’s suddenly created even more of a demand to take advantage of the older forwards that they have on the team. The biggest need they have is finding some defensemen that fit into their timeline (AKA the now) and those will be a bit of a premium. There’s a couple prospects that will look to take jobs over the next couple seasons so there aren’t as many long term holes that need to be filled but finding somebody that can grow and compete with this team will narrow down what kind of purchase they’re looking to make. Adding but with the near future in mind rather than the immediate.


BUY. Like the Hamilton Steelhawks, the Rage have already done a lot of their player additions earlier on so there’s not too much in the way that needs to be addressed. Especially with the last season or two in adding players like Wagstrom through trade and a couple UFAs in Czerkawski and Cleary, this team is in their waning window to win another cup before curtain call. There’s some room to add to the 3rd line in replacing one of their lower TPE forwards, but any move won’t seriously move the needle unless they add a star as the rest of the forwards all are capable of contributing at worst. They do have one bum sophomore defenseman in Timonen who is barely getting 10 minutes of ice time a night so he’s probably just trade fodder that they’ll toss in anyways.


BUY. Crazy thought I think going against the common thread grain that maybe most would say for this team. They’re showing about what their expectations had put them at, being just outside of playoff contention this season, as well as fighting to not be the last in their division. The general consensus should be that they should sell and start everything over. At this point, either you commit to one way or another and since they’ve been adding to their team with the addition of Mayfield, I do see them being a playoff team with a few more pieces. The biggest issue plaguing them is the number of sub replacement level players. If those get changed out to even being average impact SHL players then who knows how good they could potentially be.


SELL. Kind of a strange thing for a team to make the playoffs to do, but when the qualification in that division is to be better than Tampa and Baltimore are right now, it’s not a particularly difficult thing to do. They’ve got a steadily growing collection of S53+ age players who will line up nicely in a window to put themselves as contenders sooner than their divisional rivals, and any assets going towards that push will be better for them in the long run.


SELL. I’ve listed so many teams to be buyers, there has to be a team who might be inclined to sell and in my opinion the Specters are the team. They’ve already had a major exodus of players who have left since the last couple seasons, including Keith Lee, Mika Mayfield, Boris Poroshenko, Michael Fox and most recently, Jimmy Slothface. At this point, calling it quits and getting an early start to a scorched earth approach might be one of the more potentially big boom/bust options for them as they have a lot of attractive assets that multiple contending teams could use.


SELL. As the longer term outlook expansion team, they focused a lot of their picks on relatively younger players so there’s going to be some interesting things this team will be capable of in about 3 seasons. The question is what they can do with the value they have on their current roster in terms of aiding the version of themselves in 3 seasons’ team. They’ve already moved a few of their expansion selections for other assets and most pieces at this point look like long term assets so any move might be a smaller one at this point.


SELL. I don’t really think there needs to be much more said than this. To their credit, they’ve just about dismantled the entire roster and there’s not really a lot left. Have to imagine their goalie situation is something they might have been able to get SOMETHING for but who knows.


BUY. Crazy opinion but it’s obvious that right now the Tampa Bay Barracuda and their school of prospects is starting to reach a breaking point where there’s going to be more and more castoffs being traded away if they don’t secure the dwindling number of spots. Whether it’s using futures or some of the less for sure prospects, manipulating their quantity into a quality player might be an interesting move to do in order to turn their drafting successes into success on the ice.


BUY. Do I actually think that? Of course not, this Texas team is probably close to what their contending form will look like. Not necessarily that they’re going to compete as is, but a lot of these names on the current roster will likely make up the contending version in the future, should things continue to improve linearly. At least if they chose to buy, then it might mean an additional piece that helps them sooner rather than later, but selling seems even crazier when they have all the pieces in place and just need time.


BUY. Like a slightly more advanced version of the Barracuda, the Stars have built up their prospect pool, in this case, graduated quite a few over the last couple seasons and look like they’re running out of spots on the roster to carry forward over the next couple seasons. Shipping out some of those later picks and prospects might be enough to get a solid piece to help them nudge into a spot. But let’s be honest, do we see a Stars over any of the top 3 in the Great Lakes for the next season or two? Tough spot to be in.


SELL. I like this iteration of this Winnipeg Jets team. I just don’t think it’s quite their time and that if they were to do what I had suggested about the Blizzard, giving it a quick retool and coming back next season with a slightly better version of themselves even at the cost of regression to their top players, they would come out to a net positive for their potential at competing next season.