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dankoa · 10-20-2020, 07:03 AM

The Biggest Trades I Made

(2x media bonus pls)

As I'm sure a lot of you know, I recently stepped down as the GM of the Texas Renegades after a very long time at the helm. During the 15 or so seasons in which I was running things in Texas I was responsible for making a lot of trades, some a lot better than others, but I wanted to do a recap of three in particular that I thought were very pivotal in putting together the team that we see now. These aren't necessarily the "best" trades in terms of value, there was maybe some others I made that looked more favourable, but these were the three that really stand out in my head as being pivotal in putting together the squad that we have now and that should hopefully be big factors in continuing our success down the road. Lets get into it.

Riot

Acquire:
Romualds Loks (50% Salary Retained)
S46 TEX 3rd
S47 TEX 2nd
S48 TEX 2nd

Renegades

Acquire:
Brett Kennedy
S45 SEA 1st

At the time this one was kind of weird to evaluate. I wanted Kennedy because we were in a win now mode at the time and he was a 1200 TPE player (although his build was total dogshit so probably not a great move to trade for him) but we'd also had Loks let us know that he wanted to try out a different fit after his current contract expired so decided to get out ahead of it and find a trade for him. The resulting deal got us Seattle's 1st in that upcoming draft and the higher TPE forward we wanted in return for a promising young forward, a 3rd and a couple of 2nds. The S46 3rd would end up being traded back to us down the road for another 2nd, which we used to pick Tyler Tougard. Tougard was the recreate of a longtime Renegade who had fallen hard in the draft so we decided to make a play and pick him up. he didn't have an awful career but was very much a third liner at best, capping out around 800 TPE I believe. The S47 2nd found its way to the New England Wolfpack somehow, and was used to select Joseph Laraque. Laraque never turned into much of anything, so I'm not counting that one has too big of a loss even though there were still some really good players taken after him. The S48 2nd would go on to also find its way back to us (in a trade I don't recall) and was used to select Patrick Niederreiter. Patrick has been a long time part of our roster, serving as our backup goalie and even came back yesterday to earn some additional TPE which was nice. I'm a big fan of the guy and considering what else was available at that pick, it wasn't awful.

So why is it that I consider this to be one of the most influential trades I made? Well it turns out that during S44, Seattle really weren't a very good team. They were so bad in fact that the 1st we got from them in a trade turned out to be the second overall pick in the S45 draft. I remember spending the season daring to dream that it might turn out to be the 1st overall pick that we received, because there was a prospect that I knew beyond all shadow of a doubt was going to be a world beater available in the draft. Andreas Kvalheim was the recreate of @raymond3000, who was fresh off the career of a pantheon great in Kristian Eriksson, and had been someone I'd enjoyed sharing a team with in Toronto many moons ago. I knew even then that he was going to be a franchise altering player, and I'm very glad that on that occasion I was totally right. When we got second overall I gave up a little bit of hope about us being able to acquire the guy I wanted, but when the Pride passed on him with the first overall pick I don't think I've ever been so quick to push out a draft pick. Kvalheim has since become in my opinion the greatest player to ever play for Texas. The impact he's had on the team has been imeasurable, and his willingness to stick with the program through the bad times was exactly what the team needed coming out of a rebuild. A true great and someone I was elated to bring into the fold, making this trade and being able to acquire him was something that certainly shaped the identity of the team for a generation.

The next trade I'm going to focus on took place a few days before the S50 draft. At the time, we had just committed to a rebuild and were basically selling off anyone who wasn't very young at that point. That meant having to make the painful move to sell off a franchise defenseman in Liam O'Callaghan. Dangles had been a huge part of our identity as a team for a very long time, so the decision to move him on wasn't taken lightly but ultimately had to be made. We received an offer from Winnipeg that stood out from the others I'd gotten because it included a pick in the S50 draft, which allowed us to bring in another prospect immediately and help expedite the rebuilding process somewhat. So with that consideration in mind, we accepted the following trade offer.

To Jets

Liam O’Callaghan
Renegades S53/54/55 4th*

To

S52 Specters 1st
S50 Wolfpack 2nd

O'Callaghan was at that time a very high quality piece and he really helped improve the Jets defensive outlook some, but it ultimately wasn't able to push the team to the kind of success they'd have hoped for and it wasn't long before they moved on. The S53 4th was used to draft Alex Reyer. Reyer was inactive at the time I believe and remains inactive to this day so not really the most impactful acquisition the Jets made from it. On the Texas side of the trade, I knew the S52 Specters 1st would likely be a late 1st in a non-Reddit draft so had an inherent level of risk attached to it, but when the S52 draft came around I was very happy to be able to pick up someone who I believed to be a top draft talent in Noah Nystrom. However, not long after drafting Nystrom I began to worry a little based on some weird interactions we had with him demanding we negotiate his contract with an agent, and it wasn't long before he went inactive. Busting hard on that pick was definitely a bummer, but the main piece of the trade had always been the S50 2nd.

Despite S50 being a Reddit draft, it wasn't really that deep. We'd picked 2nd overall and used it to take Ivan Maximus, a player who we looked at as being a franchise centre and leader of our franchise for a long time to come. We sat around and waited then until all the way down at 31st overall where New England's pick came in. We'd made a big board pre draft that we were using and as the second round ticked on, I noticed that the guy who I had at I think 7th on our board was continually getting passed over. Bjorn Leppanen was a defenseman for the Vancouver Whalers who had made the decision to create as an enforcer, which teams understandably didn't want to add because of the inherent limitations of the archetype in the sim. We got to a point where we decided that we were going to pick him if he was there due to the fact that we believed he was a far better prospect than anyone else we had scouted there, despite his archetype choice. I remember hoping that I might be able to convince him to switch to something that worked a little better down the line, and being thrilled that we were able to get someone who'd earned a lot of TPE and money all the way down at 31 overall. As it turned out, the pick couldn't really have worked out any better. The sim change to FHM meant that the enforcer issue was essentially a moot point, and Leppanen quickly evolved into one of our most valuable pieces as he continued his impressive earning. In S54, Leppanen's user started to show a flair and enthusiasm for working with the sim, which was something that we desperately needed, and the change in the team's fortunes from that point onward was unbelievable, going from a bottom feeder to playoff contender almost overnight. At that point I was pretty sure that he would be a future GM of the team, and I've since been proved right as he took the reigns after I made the decision to step down. While we traded away a player at the time who was a franchise defenseman, we were able to get a piece back who has exceeded all expectations and been unbelievable in terms of what he's brought to the table.

The last trade I'm going to look at came at the start of this year, in the days running up to the S53 SHL Draft. This one involves a lot of dumb luck to make happen, but it's one that certainly had a hugely positive impact in shaping the future of our team. After a torrid S52, we won the draft lottery to pick 1st overall in the S53 Draft, which being a Reddit draft featured a serious depth of options for us to take. I'd bounced back and forth on quite a few different names at the time, but the two players who had most often been looked at as potential 1st overall picks for us were Magnus Liljestrom, a defenseman, and Edward Williams, a forward, both of whom I had shared a team with in the SMJHL and believed to have very high potential. My war room was discussing things a lot and we were weighing up our options for a while, but the consensus was we weren't interested in trading down and intended to use the 1st overall pick to bring in a franchise player. Things changed when I received an offer from Winnipeg that really blew me away and I found impossible to say no to. It took a few minutes of consideration for us to accept this one.

To Jets

S53 Renegades 1st (1 OV)

To

S53 Chiefs 1st (4 OV)
S54/S55 Jets 1st

The crux of the deal was we were essentially moving back 3 spots to pick up a 1st in one of the next two seasons. The trade allowed us the flexibility of choosing which season we'd like to take Winnipeg's 1st in, and given that they were a team that wasn't really in a win now mode, it wasn't a stretch to assuming that we could be picking up a top 5 pick down the line. The trade allowed the Jets to pick Liljestrom first overall, which in fairness to them was a great move. He's a franchise defenseman who's going to be huge for the team for a very long time to come, and I honestly don't think this is a bad trade for them because he as a piece is definitely worth the sacrifice they made. The 4th overall pick allowed us to draft the guy who we'd been looking at with the 1st pick in Edward Williams. Williams has been a great add for us, being up there with the best earners in his class and having a beast of a rookie season in the SHL this season. I was thrilled at the time that we were able to get him where we were and he's certainly lived up to all of the expectations that I had of him since then. He's going to be a huge player for the team for a very long time.

Where this trade gets really interesting is the extra 1st that Winnipeg sent our way. Our S53 season was absolutely horrible, and we finished with the worst record in the Western Conference after the season was all done. A healthy combination of lack of sim knowledge and naivety had lead us to believe that we might be able to put a roster together in FHM that was capable of competing, so made a move that involved trading away our S54 1st. This left us in the unenviable position of having a terrible season and not owning our 1st, but the fact we had Winnipeg's pick definitely softened the blow a bit. The Jets missed the playoffs but were some way above us in the standings. Their S54 1st had the second worst lottery odds, translating to something like a 8.3% chance of being 1st overall, so it winning the lottery wasn't something that we'd considered at all to be totally honest, but we were happy that despite trading our own 1st away we'd be able to pick up a top 6 player still. I remember watching that draft lottery and being in absolute disbelief when the unthinkable then happened and Winnipeg's 1st somehow fought its way to the top and we were sat in position to pick 1st overall once again. To have that opportunity two seasons in a row was unreal, and luck really did smile on us to make that one happen. There was a lot of discussion about which direction we'd go with the pick when the draft came around, but the direction we ultimately decided to go in was picking defenseman Mikkel Asmus Sondergard from the Maine Timber. Sondergard had been the first overall pick in the SMJHL Draft a season earlier and was the recreate of the member behind one of the SHL's historically great defenseman, so it was a pick that for us made a lot of sense considering we had a clear need for another defenseman down the line based on our roster projections. Since the draft, Sondergard has been a huge part of the team, being a trusted voice in our management group, an extremely popular guy in our locker room and a great prospect on the ice, leading his class in TPE and putting together a very solid rookie season with the team.

Trading away 1st overall was a bold move, but it essentially allowed us to pick up two franchise players instead of one. Williams and Sondergard are two foundational pieces for the team for a long time to come, and this one was a real stroke of good fortune that allowed us to really ensure the success of the team for a long time to come. These guys and the other people we picked up in the S53 and S54 drafts (guys like Burlok Sulfurgold, Eric Hudson and Joseph Fantobens) represent a new generation of top tier talent for the Renegades, and make me very excited to be a part of this team down the line.

Hope you guys enjoyed me reminiscing about some of the trades I made back in the day. Being an SHL GM feels like a different life now, and I'm very happy that I made the decision to step away and let someone else take charge, but there's definitely some great memories of being able to make these kinds of deals and then seeing them pay dividends down the line. Thanks for checking this out anyway, maybe I can squeeze in an article on the worst deals I made before the media deadline ends.

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Rabidsponge21 · 10-20-2020, 09:00 AM

Always fun to go back and look at the trades you made as GM and laigh about the duds but still strut a bit about the successes. Thanks for the kind words! That draft year was nuts cause I honestly thought at one point I'd drop as far as 9 to EDM. Crazy! Glad to be a rene tho.

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