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JayWhy · 06-13-2021, 08:38 PM

A Team by Team Outlook Three Seasons Down the Line

A few seasons ago, I did a look through teams to see what their needs were heading for the S57 Draft and then reviewed their selections to determine how well they fit that need. Now, along the path of a lot of different articles, I am going to go back through and see what they looked like in S57 and how those past few seasons have gone, what happened in expansion that can affect what they need to do, and then a review of what they should be looking for at the draft. Finally, I’ll review what they did at the draft and if that looks to be within the needs that I had seen coming in.

To give a disclaimer, this was all written in parts. Before the expansion draft, I wrote up the reviews of the previous time I did this exercise. I also wrote a few of the expansion picks based on assumptions I had, and I got a few correct, luckily. The majority were written after the expansion draft, however, seeing what was taken and how that changed the team. I have no idea of picks traded leading into the draft since the day of the expansion draft at that point. I then of course write the review of the draft picks after the draft is completed.

Disclaimer number two, due to the new rules for double media, this has been broken out into a large number of articles. This introduction will be on each one, as I know how people are. You will be looking for your team and reading primarily about them. I agree with the new rules, and appreciate the graders who will be working through all of this media and just felt a need to make these disclaimers.

Another disclaimer before we get into it, I am in no way disparaging any general managers or teams here. While I give thoughts and opinions, they are wholly my own and as it was last time, I cannot see into the war rooms of these teams to know what the plan ultimately is. I may get some things correct, I may get a lot of things wrong. What I will give is my honest thoughts and opinions, and I do not intend to upset anybody with those.

Without further ado, let’s see how these teams did.

ATLANTA INFERNO

Players Originally in Danger of being replaced in the next 3 seasons: (S39) D - Brady McIntyre, (S39) D – DeMaricus Smyth, (S40) RW – Manuel Gotze, (S43) D – Maximillian Egger, (S44) LW – Rainbow Dash, (S44) LW – Nathan Explosion, (S52) C – CT Carragher
Prospects as of S57: (S55) C – Stan Q. Next, (S56) D – Max Goodman, (S56) D – Michael Withecheck, (S56) C – Josh Dolphin, (S56) RW – Kenji Sugimoto
Draft Picks in S57: C – Pablo Salvatici (11), D – Michael Scotch (22), D – Bjorn Thornsen (29), LW – Tres Sombreros (47)

Back in S57, I was seeing some issues at center and defense for this team. They needed to get some superstars down the middle and they had to be prepared for the inevitable demise of their three older defensemen. I loved the draft they had, with getting Salvatici at 11 and then Scotch and Thornsen in the second round to help prepare for the defense to fall off.

I was right in my prediction of who would need replaced soon. The announced retirements of Brady McIntyre, DeMaricus Smyth and Manuel Gotze heading into S60 means that all of the players I had estimated as needing replaced in the next three seasons will be out of the league or on other teams into S60. That was pretty much a given, I think. They had a solid turnaround on their prospects, as Stan Q. Next, Michael Withecheck and Josh Dolphin all made the team in S59 and are contributing pieces on a team that won the Atlantic Division. They’ve also gotten some luck in free agency, bringing in Dick Clapper recently. That’s all of the positives here, they had some great development out of about 60% of their prospects and they managed to bring in an absolute superstar to help guide the franchise to their first division win. Even past that, Pablo Salvatici has been great as the 5th ranked player in the S57 draft class in terms of TPE. So this was a fantastic pick at 11 and was the top center in the draft as I had predicted he would be. Bjorn Thornsen even now ranks as 26th in the draft class in TPE, so a little bit higher than the pick number he was at. He is a slower earner, but he hasn’t been a bad addition and should be good to fill a third pairing role for the team.

The problem for them is that Michael Scotch fell down the board, after being picked at 22nd overall in S57 he’s landed at 33rd in TPE in the class and has effectively stopped earning. They also saw no return out of Max Goodman, which means the three defensive spots they had opening only had two to fill them. They also at one point had Rex Kirkby join the team, another older defenseman. While he was extremely helpful to them, it became just another spot that will need replaced very soon and after moving Kirkby to receive Rintarou Okabe, they got slightly younger but still needing another piece on defense. All of this comes around to where expansion will take them.

Players Lost in Expansion: (S50) D – Rintarou Okabe, (S54) F – Simon Takshak

This is definitely interesting for Atlanta. Takshak is a solid young player, not anything really spectacular at 28th in his class in TPE, but somebody that can be a helpful depth piece. With the new update scale in effect, the human wrecking ball should be fairly decent at a defensive third line role and somebody that I think will be important for helping with Montreal’s cap while also giving them useful work from the lower lines to be competitive. Meanwhile, Okabe was a bit of a surprise pick from Philadelphia, but is a good leadership type of player. Well known around league circles, Okabe may not be somebody who is going to make a difference for a team – he's likely a third pairing guy who can play second pair in a pinch – he is going to be the type of player that hockey legends love to gush about. The tough guy that can rally the troops. Those intangibles are perfect for an expansion team, and does give a hit to Atlanta.

So where does this leave us now:

Players in Danger of being replaced in the next 3 seasons: (S45) D - Dominic Montgomery, (S46) F – Guy Zheng, (S46) F – Dick Clapper, (S47) F – Eko Van Otter, (S48) D – Simon LeBlanc
Prospects: (S58) F – Pavel Jeziak, (S58) F – Paul Binder, (S58) D – Puddles O’Duck, (S58) F – Leon Athanasios, (S59) G – Evgeni Petrov, (S59) D – Gino Lombardo, (S59) F – Jack Nishimori, (S59) D – Angus McFife XVIII, (S59) F – Salzberger Lillehammersson

After getting the addition of Anton Mihailov in the deal for Kirkby to Buffalo, the team looks pretty well aligned to bring up both Mihailov and Salvatici to replace their losses in expansion. At that point, they’re just looking at a hole on defense needing filled. That’s where these prospects come in handy.

Puddles O’Duck is 10th in TPE in the S58 class and somebody definitely in line for a call up. While teams typically have had their players down for longer terms in the SMJHL lately, expansion should be opening things up. O’Duck should be a great addition to a third pairing and may be able to really keep the team on the straight and narrow when it comes to their division winning squad. Angus McFife is a good longer term option, being the 12th ranked player in the S59 class as well. McFife should be in line to take over Dominic Montgomery’s spot in no time, and Lombardo may end up being something after all down the line. He’s a bit of a slower earner, but may take the spot of LeBlanc long term. I would think the team should be looking ahead at some defense to fill that spot.

The reason being that the team seems to be fine on forward. While I list Zheng, Clapper and Otter as their danger of being replaced, they don’t play like it and will likely go on for a much longer time honestly. Meanwhile they have Jeziak, Binder, Nishimori and Lillehammersson who will be in line to make their way up pretty quickly. I’d bet they hit a bit of a log jam at forward, honestly. But it is better to be safe than sorry.

Atlanta owns their own 1st round pick this season, which should be pick 13, and so I’d say keep an eye on them to target a defenseman at that pick. We’ll take a look back when the pick is made and see what they did.

Atlanta Selected: D – Philip Demitra (13), D – Alfred Yankovic (18), D – Tomas Kalnoky (52)

Looks like we were right on the money with this one, as Atlanta managed to come out of the draft with three defensemen, including two taken in the first round of Demitra and Yankovic. Ultimately, the spots that we identified as needing filled by these picks showed a couple of defensemen on the way out, but with Angus McFife in the system, it is definitely going to be a battle for this group now. However, Atlanta was perfect at identifying their needs and striking on them as quickly as possible. Demitra and Yankovic both rate out as players that will at the least be top-four contributors and are currently ranking in the top-15 of the class at the time of the draft. They’re incredible value pieces. This draft was nailed by Atlanta, easily. Expect that in about three seasons Demitra and Yankovic will be classified as their top pair of the future.

BALTIMORE PLATOON

Players Originally in Danger of being replaced in the next 3 seasons: (S44) RW – Brock Nuck, (S46) RW – Petr Mikulak, (S49) D – Cal Clucker, (S50) D – Daniel Kuster, (S51) C – Henrik Lundqvist Jr.
Prospects in S57: (S55) RW – Young Logo, (S55) D – Teddy Park, (S55) C – Hubert Andrews, (S56) D – Jimmy Dekens, (S56) LW – Lucas Johansson, (S56) D – Vili Afalava, (S56) D – Zebulon Leavitt, (S56) D – Tanjiro Kamado
Drafted in S57: C – Rob Wright (24), C – Victor Fedorov (38)

This is another one that was a success in terms of what I saw three seasons ago. They had no players from this group play even in S59 for the team. Their prospects had some good turnout, with Park, Johansson, Leavitt and Kamado all making it onto the roster by S59. Afalava was also a solid prospect ultimately, getting picked up off waivers by New Orleans. The team has definitely had a face lift since the last time we did this exercise, and has made the playoffs two seasons in a row now and appear on the way up.

This is one where back three seasons ago, I had some trouble seeing the vision from the outside. That isn’t exactly a bad thing, sometimes the vision just isn’t as clear to others but it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We could see they were on a track to get younger, back then they had eight players who were S53 or younger and so patience was really the big thing at that point. They had only two forwards over 1000 TPE back in S57, and now heading into S60 I believe should have an entire group of them. This is a team that just needed to let the process work, and it did.

I was also critical of the draft picks made, not because I thought they would be bad players but due to the users behind them. It didn’t seem to fit in my mind, it wasn’t really the needs they had at the time and at least one of the users was kind of volatile around that point. At this point, I can see where I was off. Wright has blossomed from being the 24th pick in the draft to the 9th in TPE in the class. That’s a major jump. Federov went from 38 to 20 on the list. Both have been a big return on investment in a lot of ways. This is a huge win for Baltimore, and I have to commend them for it.

Players Lost in Expansion: (S54) F – Patrick Shepherd, (S54) D – Adam Friedland

This team could be all over the place in some ways, really lined up to lose a forward and defenseman I would think. My best bet is seeing Shepherd and Friedland go, though Federov could make a good long-term piece. Both Shepherd and Friedland are a part of what I saw before as a part of the problem in Baltimore in that they didn’t have anybody really standing out, they’re both good pieces who I would think go probably middle of the expansion draft. Both could be contributors to a winning team eventually, but it will take some time to get there as they’re a bit of slower earners. In no way am I saying they’re bad players, just that they’re not going to be superstars essentially. In that case, I would expect to see a need for a spot on both ends of the ice, and thankfully they have Federov and Wright to be able to fill that void. The issue being, that’s two forwards to fill one forward spot and no defensemen on the team. (I’m leaving this as is because I feel good that I managed to call this.)

Players in Danger of being replaced in the next 3 seasons: (S45) F – Nat Emerson, (S50) F – Ivan Maximus, (S51) D – Luc-Pierre Lespineau-Lebrunette
Prospects: (S58) F - Roboute Guilliman, (S58) F – Mew Two, (S58) F – Noel Blanchet, (S59) D – Granny PanPan

That leaves us here, with of course them probably needing to fill a defense spot after expansion and looking at a player in LPLL who may make their way out of town in the next three seasons as well. He isn’t in regression yet, but being a lower earner, it will hit him a bit harder than others. If you looked without taking expansion into account, this is a great long-term outlook for this team. Mew Two and Noel Blanchet will be two superstar level players who can take over the spots Emerson and Maximus vacate easily, and PanPan is a good player to take the spot of LPLL. This leaves them with Guilliman on the outside, but with the expansion coming up they could still find a spot, though they do have a gluttony of forwards to pick from ultimately.

In this case, the team is looking good for the long-term and I would expect to see them continue to make the playoffs for the foreseeable future. Give it a few more seasons, around S62 to S65, they’re going to be a team making a run for the Eastern Conference Finals, and maybe contending for the Challenge Cup depending on finding the right combination at the right time. This will be a good team that doesn’t need a lot, but may look into picking up some defense coming up.

Baltimore has only one pick coming up in the draft, the Atlanta 2nd which should be 33rd overall. I’m going to expect to see them aim for defense, but I also know this is a draft with a more limited defenseman pool so we will see. They tend to go best player available, and they may find a better option here.

Baltimore Selected: F - Eric Tokke (20), F – Jimmy Larkin-Conway (27), F - Rene Pu (40)

Baltimore made some moves in this draft, making three trades to ultimately give themselves a few opportunities to get some great talents added in. They managed to get into the first round for a second in four seasons and a reddit third, which is great value, and got out of it Eric Tokke. They moved another reddit third with pick 33 to get up to 27, and moved a third next season to get the last pick of the second round as well. While they didn’t get what I saw as the weakpoint of the team in defense, I have to give them credit for identifying targets and making moves to get them. Ultimately, the team just needed to find the best player available more than anything and came out with three players that should be great additions to their locker room and should provide great value for where they were selected. The last time I did this, I questioned the strategy in the selections of this team for character purposes. This time, I think they swung the complete opposite way, and while these may not have been the best picks by TPE, this was a character move that added three great people to the locker room and that’s infinitely more valuable than anything else.

BUFFALO STAMPEDE

Players Originally in Danger of being replaced in the next 3 seasons: (S43) C - Hippo Passamus, (S44) D - Poopity Scoop, (S50) C – Rintarou Okabe
Prospects in S57: (S55) D – Kolja Kekkonen, (S55) D – Johnny Shuffleboard, (S56) RW – Eero Makinen Jr., (S56) G – Chimkin Tendy, (S56) RW – Walter Burke
Picks in S57: C – Anton Mihailov (17), LW – Mikhail Borisnoff (46)

This is a fun one to look at, really. Passamus is still on the team, but is the only one of them that I predicted who is still there. I wasn’t expecting him to go, because at the time Buffalo was far too stacked and Passamus and Scoop were both very high earning. At this point, Scoop moved on pretty quickly and Okabe was traded to Atlanta in the deal to bring in Kirkby that was mentioned earlier. They team has also moved Johnny Shuffleboard for essentially a pick move up, Kekkonen has retired and Tendy is the only player left from their prospect group at this time still in the organization. They built well, and they got some good pieces out of it for down the road though.

The Mihailov pick was one I touted as perfectly aligning for the team back then, but also may not have a spot considering how Passamus was doing. As he didn’t have a spot, he became a big piece in a trade for what is basically an expansion slot that guarantees the team sees minimal effect from the coming expansion draft. This team is run too smoothly, basically. They have high end players, they have big picks, they have everything. It’s wild to look at.

That is where expansion is going to be a big one for this team. Losing Mihailov to guarantee an expansion slot is a big price in some ways, as Mihailov would’ve been a nice piece to have to cover for any upcoming losses. However, if any team is well set to handle the losses, I would put a lot of money on Buffalo to manage this well.

Players Lost in Expansion: (S43) D – Rex Kirkby, (S46) F – Bobby Sharp

As I stated earlier, a big price was paid to guarantee one of their expansion slots and Kirkby makes his way to Philadelphia. That isn’t exactly an easy thing still. Kirkby was a high tpe defenseman, and a good contributor down the stretch in their run to the Challenge Cup Finals. However, as a S43, it’s definitely preferable to lose him. What hurts more is losing Bobby Sharp to an expansion team. Sharp is a big-time player, both in terms of TPE totals as he is a 2k player who maintains his high tpe value season to season, and in terms of on-ice play as someone who has put up 86 points in S58 and still 62 in S59. He’s going to be a face of the franchise for Montreal and that’s huge. This is where losing Mihailov to guarantee Kirkby is taken is a tough hit, as he would’ve been a perfect fit to take the spot of Sharp and keep Buffalo chugging along. However, they’ll have to move on without him and that’s where we come to what they have now.

Players in Danger of being replaced in the next 3 seasons: (S43) C - Hippo Passamus, (S45) D – Alexander Selich
Prospects: (S58) D – Billy Brooks, (S58) D – Bean Beanman, (S59) F – KEKW Kekkonen, (S59) F – Sanzhar Molochtovoi, (S59) F – Reidar Gronkjaer, (S59) F – Big Boss

Once again comes Hippo Passamus on the list, but this time it actually feels possible that in three seasons he could be gone. As a S43, he’ll be hitting 20 seasons at that point in his career and it just isn’t realistic to expect anybody to go over that mark. The team will definitely want to be prepared for that, and I think they may be already actually. Meanwhile, Alexander Selich has already announced that S60 will be his last, though the team is pretty well prepared for that.

Looking at this team, it’s not what you would expect once again of a top team like Buffalo. They have Brooks who was taken 16th in the S58 Draft, but is the 10th best prospect in terms of TPE. Bean Beanman is a little different, taken 7th overall and ranking 22nd in terms of TPE in the draft, but still a very good prospect who likely is going to be a high earner just as Buffalo often gets. While I don’t know that either are prepared to take the place for Kirkby this season, I think both are primed to step into the place of both Kirkby and Selich for S61 and so Buffalo shouldn’t really be panic buying like some other teams might when losing a player of Kirkby’s caliber. They’ll be fine long term, and so I’d expect to see them just looking for a stopgap to fill Kirkby’s spot for a season.

Meanwhile, the upcoming loss of Passamus is likely covered as is. In two seasons time, KEKW Kekkonen should be on the way up, and is 16th in the S59 draft class in TPE. That is a very good player, very high earner who I fully expect to see take Passamus’s spot long term and be a big contributor for Buffalo. And in true Buffalo fashion as well, they have a plethora of other prospects that they’ve taken in later parts of the draft to give them an opportunity. While it doesn’t look like Gronkjaer or Molochtovoi will be joining the club long term, Big Boss is a fine prospect who could easily find their way onto the team or at the least in a move that will get them onto a big league roster down the road.

This is where the team is ultimately tricky to predict. They have picks 19 and 39 after coming up short in the Cup Finals, and so realistically I expect to see them either trade out of the draft or just take whoever is the best player available and look to make them work when it comes time for them to come up. I’m not going to make any bets at this point.

Buffalo Selected: F - Greyson Cooper (8), F - Mikhail Novikov (36), F - Guy Fieri (44)

Here’s another team that made some moves. It started out at pick #8, where there was quite a delay going on. The Stampede gave their original pick at 19 and a S61 first round pick to Manhattan to move up to eighth in the draft and get Greyson Cooper. Rumors swirled early in the process that Cooper was considered for the top pick, and it was expected that Cooper would be going very high in the draft. To see them fall to eight was a shock, and ultimately yielded a lot of calls for Manhattan. Buffalo won the bid war and managed to bring in somebody that easily has the talent and potential of a top pick. Meanwhile, later in the draft, the team moved up to 36 and 44 to select a couple of players from Anchorage in Mikhail Novikov and Guy Fieri. Novikov is a great pick for the value of 36, somebody that is a good locker room contributor and has a history with the league. Fieri is probably the most interesting selection, however. He was a goaltender in S59 and just about an hour before the draft made the decision to switch to forward, and that looks to be a wise decision as goaltending spots in the league have dried up significantly. Looking at Buffalo as an example, Fieri never would have been selected by the team – especially not in a trade – considering the dominance Elizabeth Doyle has had at the goaltending position. Instead, they now have another forward prospect who could become a key piece for the team seasons down the line. That is incredible value, and a very wise move by Fieri.

In terms of the team’s process with the draft, I think this came out perfectly. They have a lot of assets to be able to move, and ultimately used them to their advantage to get a top earner in the class. Their only need in the draft is to identify the best players and pick them, and that’s what they did. This team is run smoothly, top to bottom, and this was no different.

Now for me to wrap it up. As I said at the start, this is going to be the same in each article I post. The goal being that people understand, this is entirely my own views. Again, I do not have access to the war rooms of any team other than my own. I do not know what they value, I do not know what they expect. I cannot guarantee that this is accurate at all, as the plans these teams have are likely going to be divergent. Likewise, in the next three seasons, a lot of things can change. A lot of these prospects could turn out to be diamonds or could be busts. A lot of the players I listed in danger, may still stick around, as you can see with my review here. None of this is set in stone, so don’t take it that way.

This is just meant to be a fun activity of looking through the teams and how they appear to be built for the long haul, and I give a lot of credit to these teams. Some teams I didn’t see the vision before, and now it’s laid bare. Some I saw the vision before, and the vision veered off track. It can be a bit of a battle when you’re a general manager, but this at least gives a way to see a snapshot for the moment.

Thank you to everybody who has read to this point, and I appreciate everybody who contributes to this league. I hope you all enjoy it.

Quote:Word Count: 4600

An old man's dream ended. A young man's vision of the future opened wide. Young men have visions, old men have dreams. But the place for old men to dream is beside the fire.

Thanks to Jackson, Copenhagen, and Harry Hans!

GOING DOWN IN STYLE. TOAST4LYFE

**Lime** · 06-13-2021, 09:02 PM

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