Option 2

Since my current player Ylib Kove is very young in his career and hasn't necessarily experienced a drop from the top yet, I'll discuss the ups and downs of Kev Kevens' career instead. The San Francisco Pride in the early S60s was a team that developed a strong young core and slowly rose through the rankings with that same core remaining more or less intact. They rose to their highest playoff result of that era in S64 by making it to the conference finals and losing in 7 games and followed it up with their highest regular season result of that era at 3rd in the league. Kevens was at the peak of his career and the peak of SFP's window. He was at the top in every way except for an actual cup win. Then, after a slow and slight decline in S66 and S67 it felt like SFP's peak was officially over and there might not ever be another opportunity to succeed again. There was an eventual long road back to winning though after SFP dismantled the team and Kevens was traded to Chicago. After a few more seasons learning the ropes with the Syndicate, Kevens once again matched the level of success he had in SFP in S72 with a 3rd place regular season finish and an insane season on the ice nearly matching his previous career high.