Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvanfan
The problem is why would a bad team take a guy like him back unless you sweeten the pot for them? Derek Armstrong isn't a guy you can use in a rebuild. When teams are making upgrades I think they need to realize that the guy they're dumping if it's a Derek Armstrong has zero or negative value and is more or less there to balance the money out and that it's the other assets that will make the deal happen.
It's the same old thing. Good teams want to get upgrades for junk, and bad teams want top end prospects for mediocre veterans. Eventually someone cracks or teams are forced to meet in the middle.
No one has the guts to give away good prospects to get a veteran player for a playoff run anymore because they think it won't matter as the good teams are too good anyway. Or teams who have them are already so good...that other teams don't have anything they want that they'd trade a decent asset to get. I remember in 04-05 with a lockout, people would give youth for vets because vets had ratings. Those days are long gone, and so is a lot of the trading during the season.
There is a serious asset imbalance in this league too as about 6 teams have an pretty high number of the best assets and have no real need to trade them. Basically unless those teams are pretty much going to trade with each other because no one else has anything they need. As a result theres a few teams with very little and they're in a position where the only assets other teams want are the ones they really don't want to trade. We're a bit like the NHL where most of the moves are going to be offseason stuff to get back within cap now.
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With Armstrong specifically, he's a throw-in and I'd mainly be looking at a prospect/pick to upgrade. In general most teams need to have a CPHL guy going back their way as they are barely able to ice the minimum roster spots on forward or defense.
And I agree with you Chad, there are probably 6 or 7 teams that have the best assets and most often you'll see trades between those teams and very few between the poor and rich teams. I think that's why the teams without the assets are asking for so much more, because they are just trying to get to the point where they are competitive. As for what can be done about it, I don't know. There are a few leagues out there which only allow you to keep a certain number of players carrying over to the next year; ie) you'd only be able to re-sign one of your UFA's for the year, all others would go into the free agency pool. This would force asset-heavy teams to likely move their better UFA's either before the deadline or be forced to release them.
Two years ago I was able to move a lot of my older vets but it seems that has really changed; good teams want a lower asking price and lower teams don't want to budge because they want to get a decent asset back.