11-20-2020, 02:51 AMCapt_Blitzkrieg Wrote: 1) Longer J careers mean that as a J GM, I don't have to draft more than 50% of my team each season. For what you're proposing, 2nd season players and some 1st season players are leaving every season. That's more likely to be a larger percentage of my team. That means A) it's more of a crapshoot to do well in the J, B) it's harder to get people invested in what I'm spending time on with building a team and locker room.

3) For some GMs at the SHL level, it's easier to plan on the roster with a longer pipeline. It gives players more time to think through retirement and Free Agency when there's 2 or 3 seasons from the draft instead of 1 season at most, which also gives their GMs more time to figure out what they'll need. Planning cap is also affected by longer prospect times.

I am not fully sure I agree with point 1. I think the point of the SMJHL is to get users acclimated to the league and understanding everything. I think it's less about winning and more about building people into SHL players. I think you can ABSOLUTELY build a locker room and a team with alumni as well. I think the SMJHL should be a building ground, not somewhere you spend about 1/3 of your regression time in.

To this second point, I would think GMs are drafting based off a plan. I would think they have a reason to drafting your player with some sort of timeline in mind. I think if GMs are drafting and then trying to "figure it out", I think that is a sign of a bad idea and what will turn into a disaster.