Trade Contest - Who and what got traded

[rainmaker]

Team B has gotta be sending a RW

[fantasyhockeygeek]

Doh. Dean Youngblood already posted the prediction of 10th and 13th waiver pick for Halak.

I'm not convinced that would be enough for Team A anyway. I'd like to retract that guess and go with another goaltender. I'm having a tough time here, but without one of Halak/Price moving, it makes Shoeless' clue less brilliant, and I'd like to continue under the assumption that it's delicious wordplay.

I just can't see why Team A would move one of Halak or Price for any two of Team B's waiver picks. As I wrote that a few bells went off in my head... I'm going to make my final guess and then be at peace with my contri utions to the thread and hope someone else can see what I'm missing. I really look forward to the big unveiling!

I'm making two guesses:

10th overall waiver and Team B's first prospect pick for Dipietro

or

10th waiver and Team B's first prospect pick for Halak.

I could see Team A making the first trade (it being an offer he couldn't refuse) but it doesn't satisfy my desire for the clue to be multi-level genius. The 2nd trade just doesn't seem like enough coming back for Team A.

[GMGates]

this contest seems near impossible.
I think Team moved one of Price or Halak so I will go with
Team B Sends Halak for Team Bs WD 10th and 13th

Doh. Dean Youngblood already posted the prediction of 10th and 13th waiver pick for Halak.

So he did.

Well like Youngblood said, this contest does seem near impossible!

I used up my three guesses. Can't wait to see what the trade was.

[PC_269_]

Team B trades the 22nd prospect and 10th waiver to Team A for Jose Theodore?

[Shoeless]

And finally the lemmings threw away the clues and rushed over the cliff and into the sea.

But at the same time the seasonal rain began, it was a warm rain out of the east and the king in his counting house (where he was when this all began) looked out the window and wondered if the rain might swing to the north, for he knew that rain would be hot.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

Shoeless, quite unfairly, gave me a hint via PM.

In your analysis, you never counted keepers.

I suppose that's my reward for having shared the process I went through to try and figure out what went down? I'm out of guesses, but here's how the rest of it plays out to me -- and if I'm disqualified, so be it! This was fun!

Geek made one error and that is along the path he tripped over a log and he kept looking at the path when he should have looked at the log.

So who's the best non-Kane winger that Team B could send to Team A to get a pick? My guess here is that Team B sent MPS and the 22nd prospect pick to Team A for the 1st overall prospect pick. This "splits" the two Edmonton LW young guns? No, that doesn't make sense from Team B's perspective.

Thinking about keepers, I think the log was the first sentence here and the rest of this was the path I was stuck on.

Team A has a few sure-fire keepers, but a whole bunch of marginal ones.
Team B has at least 20 players that I would have a hard time tossing back into the draft.

Still tripping over "split", though. Then, a ton of bricks fell on my head. Hudler split for the KHL last year. Now he's back. Thank god my gut was right -- the clue WAS genius!

Team B sent Hudler and 13th overall to Team A for the 1st overall waiver pick.

Team A couldn't possibly say no to Hudler + 13th overall for the 1st overall pick -- a reticent trader.

That pick is, in essence, an extra keeper spot for Team B. Team B now gets to keep 18 of his 19 keeper-level players (20 minus Hudler) instead of 17 of his 20.

If, for whatever reason, there is a goalie on FA that lands as a starter in the offseason, Team B has the option to pick them up and thus solve the goaltending issue.

Team A solves their winger problem. Team B gets a pick for a player they were going to lose for nothing anyway. That pick can be used to grab Team B's 18th keeper (Frolik?) or a goalie, if there's a good one available. Who knows what other players might be sitting there on FA.

Needs solved for everyone.
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I still could be wrong, but Shoeless' last cryptic message sure pointed to all of us lemmings going the wrong way!

[Shoeless]

And the warm wind/rain continued to blow out of the east.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

Shoeless, I freakin' love it. You're a sneaky, clever man.

But at the same time the seasonal rain began, it was a warm rain out of the east and the king in his counting house (where he was when this all began) looked out the window and wondered if the rain might swing to the north, for he knew that rain would be hot.

East = warm
North = hot

Looking to the northeast, then? Like, say, Buffalo? So Team B swung Thomas Vanek and the 13th waiver pick to Team A for the 1st overall waiver pick?

Clearly Team B has faith in the Yahoo Position Gods to recognize Frolik as a LW!

Hard for Team A to say no to that, given the weakness of Team A's LW.

Great work on this, Shoeless. Love the hints!

[Shoeless]

Team B is me and no I don't have faith that Frolik will get LW status - I trust no external sources to make my team better and that includes have Pavelski remain a dual RW - which is gold in this league with FOW.

I will wrap this contest up later today (it's morning for me here and work is calling) but let me lay down a few things to see if anyone can nail the final disposition.

The 1st waiver pick is the target that Team B acquired for reasons HPG has expressed.

Team A (Smack) likes his RW fine enough to risk letting that pick go that could end up as a goalie of value if someone punts as keepers are set.

So the obvious trade of a RW for the pick gets shot down as the initial offer (it was actually Brown who has substantial value in this league with SOG and PIM's as cats.) Another RW might have got the job done but he didn't seem much interested.

Team B ratchets up the offer so that Team A can't resist (as HPG also suggests). Team B splits two assets with a lot in common as a practical matter.

In the end Team A gets a good keeper (better than the 1st will likely produce) and Team B gets to keep a different player and holds the first pick in the waiver draft, which in worst case will result in him picking up his last drop but could result in a more needs fulfilling pick (so cumulatively increasing Team B's assets as it were). Win - win, but a case of giving to get.

The most astute observers will figure out that Team B has already traded his first round prospect pick to Team A in a previous trade - so you can infer that he isn't after prospects or prospect picks.

The more obtuse clues involve geocentric proclivities of North Americans - assign a direction to a position.

[rjfisher83]

Derek Roy and 13th waiver pick for 1st overall waiver pick.

[Shoeless]

Derek Roy and 13th waiver pick for 1st overall waiver pick.

Come on RJ - I'm not quite that generous. But you have 2 of the 3 pieces right.

[rainmaker]

really interested to see what the trade was! I thought I had it ha

[little_boyes_semin]

Guess 1: Roy + 22nd Waiver for 1st Waiver
Guess 2: Roy + 34th Waiver for 1st Waiver
Guess 3: withheld lol

[Shoeless]

Guess 2: Roy + 34th Waiver for 1st Waiver

This was indeed the trade.

Now for the postmortem. (I will get to the prize(s))

Smack1919 is Team A and knows his stuff and has a plan, so if I am going to benefit from a trade with him, I am going to have to deliver something good to him.

As HPG has so well defined - my team has a small surplus of keepers for this particular league. Perhaps more to the point I have some of my keepers in the wrong spots.

I had determined that my for sure keepers were:

C: Sedin, Stastny, Roy and Pavleski (Connolly worthwhile bubble guy)
LW: Vanek, Eriksson and J. Jokinen (Kariya might sub in for JJ if things go well in the summer for him otherwise drop material) LW is not an easy position to gain quality depth in so I decide to protect 3 here - I had tried to trade a RW for a LW upgrade to no avail, guys are hanging tough.
RW: Kane, Okposo, Hudler, Frolik and Brown (definite keepers in this league, all young and comers - but 1 too many for sure.)
D: Doughty, EJ, Lidstrom (Liles, Timo and Suter are worthwhile roster players but not good enough to keep especially with Karlson ready to be promoted - I think I can draft 2 D guys - I only ever carry the 6 unless there is an injury)
G: Lehtonen (obviously my position of weakness but if Turco lands a starting gig then he immediately becomes a keeper and I am smiling from ear to ear - buying a goalie in this league is an expensive proposition and I will wait for Bernier if I have to, rather than set back my O - I was a very strong 3rd with this team and would have beaten any team in the final the way it turned out)

So 16 keepers for sure - I believe Connolly to be keeper worthy, Kariya and Turco might become keeper worthy and I actually like Liles as a keeper - Timo and Suter are worthwhile in the 5th and 6th D slots if I have room.

And of course my farm which I rather like - good LW potential in MPS, great goalie coming up and Karlson who everyone knows here and MacLean and Grabner are looking good for the near future. Ericsson is a plug at the moment and I would happily dump him - draft mistake last year.

Going into the height of training season I ciphered that I better get some value from my bubble keepers if I could or lose them for nothing and redraft them if it seemed appropriate. - I was 1 over at C - this league sets-up for 4 C keepers and no more because they are easy enough to come by in the draft to plug in a reserve C (I always play 4 C - 1 in the utility position to pick up FOW).

So what am I looking for? Well I am looking for the achievable and I have ruled out goaltending as economically unattainable, and don't really need much at the other positions - so if I have assets to move they need to be for picks. I don't think I need prospects or at least the prospects I could use are priced too high to keep my team as competitive as it is. Any skater upgrades would come at a price and there really isn't a team in the league but one that can stand up well to my offense so why bother? So waiver picks would be the route that might best top up the tank.

So if you are going for waiver picks why not go for the best - numero uno.

I first decide (as Rainmaker is so adamant about) that RW is the place to give. Smack has pretty good RW depth and I think he could stand to get younger but I know him a little and he won't see the value in that enough to give up that first pick. I think he is a little softer at C so I float Connolly and that #34 pick at him, but I also mention that he might be more interested in getting younger at RW. He is rightly chill on Connolly but does say he is interested in Brown (who is a very good contributor in our league). But he also says he doesn't think he is all that interested in moving that pick. We go back and forth a little and it is dying and now is the time to go big or go home. He is weary of rebutting offers without countering and I think he is prime. I go back to the idea of a C - I think the gap between Roy and Connolly isn't as great as the value that pick will bring so I whack him with Roy and #34 for the pick (he comes back asking for Stastny - and I scold him - good try Smack) but he is cooked - a deal he can hardly refuse (a deal the commish is even investigating for a possible veto, the perception is that Roy is that much more valuable than what came back for him).

At the end of the day I think I had 4 players that might have been moved in this deal - Hudler, Brown, Connolly and Roy. I believe I moved the guy closest to his upside with little room to get better but he is the one guy who needed to be offered to get the job done. My take might be wrong in player evaluation but I live by the sword and die by the sword.

Now I didn't go into this completely oblivious to what is going to be available in the waiver draft - there will be some decent quality forwards dropped, maybe a goalie of value because a couple of guys have hoarded them and they are choking their team and interestingly enough, Subban is floating the wire and eligible for the waiver draft because he got into 2 regular season games this year. Carcillo, Lupul and >>Greiss<< are there too.

So at a minimum, I got Connolly and Subban for Roy if nothing else of interest gets dumped in the FA pool. I now own 4 of the top 22 picks in the waiver draft - with 6 slots to fill. I am still relatively balanced and I can treat Subban as a prospect if I wish and drop him to the farm.

So did I gain or lose on the deal? Go take a look at Roy and Connolly's numbers from last year and come back and tell me.

How do you think Smack feels about getting a guy like Roy in our league with a 1st waiver pick? Can't speak for him, but I think like the cat that swallowed a canary. He upgrades his team more than he could with that pick (unless someone does something stupid with their protections which I doubt)

So does anyone think I still have to consider moving a RW before the draft? How about Hudler or Brown for the #2 waiver pick?

That took a long time and I need to eat. I will be back with the announcement of prizes, in a bit.

[STONE.]

Fun thread Shoeless! Your breakdown is one that can be learned from -- which is the point of these boards. You scored yourself a nice overview/audit of your team for your effort!