s1 offseason:
Apr. 21. The Halifax Krakens (gretskysmullet) was the first GM to depart after just 1 year. They were replaced by Jokerit Kassel (Selanne13)
May 02. The Highland Scotch Hounds (seadawg) was the second GM to depart after season 1. They were replaced by Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick)
The dispersal draft is a decent way to take a GOOD team (Krakens, 4th/24) and a BAD team (Hounds 17th/24) and form two AVERAGE teams. I have also found that the odds of retaining a GM are higher if they are permitted to "select their own team".
Here was the first 20 (critical picks):
01 LVT - Jon Quick (LA)
02 JoK - Alex Ovechkin (WAS)
03 JoK - 2nd Overall Entry Pick 2016 (Patrick Laine)
04 LVT - Victor Hedman (TB)
05 LVT - Nicklas Backstrom (WAS)
06 JoK - Gabriel Landeskog (COL)
07 JoK - Blake Wheeler (WPG)
08 LVT - Shayne Gostisbehere (PHI)
09 LVT - Mitch Marner (TOR)
10 JoK - Sergei Bobrovsky (CBJ)
11 JoK - Sami Vatanen (ANA)
12 LVT - Brad Marchand (BOS)
13 LVT - Kyle Connor (WPG)
14 JoK - Derek Stepan (NYR)
15 JoK - Tomas Tatar (DET)
16 LVT - Alex Steen (STL)
17 LVT - Cam Atkinson (CBJ)
18 JoK - Loui Eriksson (BOS)
19 JoK - Kirill Kaprizov (MIN)
20 LVT - Paul Statsny (STL)
*This was a pretty good draft by both teams... but it bears wonderment how strong the Thunder might be right now (they are VERY strong) if they had passed on Jon Quick!
Of note, Season 2 finishes were: 9th-Jokerit Kassel, 15th-Lake Valley Thunder
May is Rules Discussion Month, here were the changes voted in for the upcoming s2.
+/- weight was lowered from -0.5per to -0.25per. Many GMs were unhappy with a -3 night being -1.5pts... the result that was a -3 night became -0.75... enough to be offset by a single assist (+1).
OTL point added for goalies. This made a lot of sense. A goalie might get his team to OT... but should not end up with less points, which happened if they gave up a goal on first shot of OT (-1). The OTL point gave that goalie +1 to counter a GA.
Salary cap remained at $100m, FOW remained at C-only, H2H remained 23 weeks so that we each played each other ONCE exactly.
Unfortunately, by late June, two more GMs had departed... and so we needed a 2nd dispersal draft for the teams of the CSKA Moscow (rainydrinkwater) & Hartford Whalers (Savvy1982).
Those teams had finished 5th and 22nd/24, respectively - so it was another good dispersal draft.
The new GMs would be:
Tampere Polar Bears (Juoko-Pouko, who many know as the Dobber Prospect guru), and
Toledo Walleye (goldendelicious)
Here was their first 20 picks (who made some trades to open the top 10 picks in different order):
01 TAM - Carey Price (MON)
02 TOL - Nathan MacKinnon (COL)
03 TOL - Filip Forsberg (NAS)
04 TOL - Tyson Barrie (COL)
05 TAM - Tuukka Rask (BOS)
06 TAM - 2016 #3 overall pick (Jesse Puljujarvi)
07 TAM - Dylan Strome (ARI)
08 TAM - William Nylander (TOR)
09 TOL - Robby Fabbri (STL)
10 TOL - Scott Wedgewood (NJ)
11 TOL - Malcom Subban (BOS)
12 TAM - Kyle Turris (OTT)
13 TAM - James Van Riemsdyk (TOR)
14 TOL - Cam Fowler (ANA)
15 TOL - Ryan Strome (NYI)
16 TAM - Jeff Carter (LA)
17 TAM - JT Miller (NYR)
18 TOL - Darcy Kuemper (MIN)
19 TOL - Scott Darling (CHI)
20 TAM - Matt Dumba (MIN)
*On re-visit, except for his 2/3/4 picks... this wasn't a good draft by the Walleye - spelling his own doom, to depart after s2's poor finish.
*It was a much better draft by Tampere... except that having two goalies (Price & Rask) from the Atlantic creates a lot of "same night" wasted points - if he had avoided that, this is probably a top 5 team in the WHL... and his team is actually STILL holding Price AND Rask to this day!!! The Puljujarvi pick hasn't panned out to this point... but I don't think that can be criticized too much as almost every draft prospect had JP as a consensus #3.
Of note, Season 2 finishes were: 7th-Tampere Polar Bears, 19th-Toledo Walleye
June1 also allows Trading to Re-Open.
Here were the most interesting trade of post-s1 June:
Alexander Steen Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) Markham Waxers (praba) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
Brandon Dubinsky Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) Markham Waxers (praba) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
Paul Stastny Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) Markham Waxers (praba) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
2016 Draft Pick, Round 7 (Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick)) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) Markham Waxers (praba) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
Mitch Vande Sompel Markham Waxers (praba) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
Jack Roslovic Markham Waxers (praba) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
Anthony Beauvillier Markham Waxers (praba) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
Jeremy Roy Markham Waxers (praba) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
Sean Monahan Markham Waxers (praba) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
P7 Analysis: Winner: Lake Valley Thunder 7/10. The Waxers will win the s2 WHL championship... so let's not doubt the moves they made for veterans. But the Thunder turned his team around by going in hard on prospects - and Monahan (bigtime) and Beauvillier & Roslovic are the best three players as of today.
2016 Draft Pick, Round 1 (Braham Pietasters (glorybe23)) Braham Pietasters (glorybe23) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
Jake DeBrusk Braham Pietasters (glorybe23) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
2016 Draft Pick, Round 1 (Markham Waxers (praba)) Braham Pietasters (glorybe23) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
2016 Draft Pick, Round 6 (Manitoba Moose (GinFizz)) Lake Valley Thunder (First Round Pick) Braham Pietasters (glorybe23) 0 Mon Jun 6, 2016, 3:00AM
P7 Analysis: Winner: Braham Pietasters 8/10. Although the Thunder got DeBrush AND used an entry pick to nab Jakub Chychrun, the big win was the Pies getting the #1 overall pro pick and using it to select Alexander Radulov in his return to Montreal of the NHL. This ended up being big points for Braham as he exceled to the cream of the league for S3/S4/S5. Getting the #1 pro pick to draft a Russian returning to the NHL worked out so well for Braham... he would do it again the following summer (Dadonov).
Ryan Johansen Manitoba Moose (GinFizz) Markham Waxers (praba) 0 Thu Jun 23, 2016, 3:00AM
Connor Hellebuyck Markham Waxers (praba) Manitoba Moose (GinFizz) 0 Thu Jun 23, 2016, 3:00AM
P7 Analysis: Winner: Manitoba Moose 6/10. Hard to peg this trade as these two teams had swapped RyJo during the regular season. RyJo would return to help the Waxers win s2, but the longterm win here was Hellebuyck on a Jets team ready to breakout.
Tomorrow - July 31 is nothing planned, so anybody with general Season 1 comments... can chime in on what they remember!!!
Stay tuned for Season 2 of the WHL to be covered in August 1st-15th... where we are chock full of imbalanced trades that turned the league on its head!