Tier 1 – Easy, Courteous, or Just Downright Delightful to Deal with

1-      Toby Cordell.   Toby: “Hey Dan, I want Hischier”  …Dan: “Okay, well I’ll need the 2^nd overall pick”  …Toby: “Okay, what else?”  …Dan: “I wouldn’t mind another 1^st and a 2^nd”  …Toby: “Okay, done!  I’ve got more to offer though!”  …Dan: “Hmmmm, I’ll take Tyson Foerester and a billion in BRHL Cash”  …Toby: “Say no more! I’ll submit it!”    Toby is both a sweetheart and a very generous negotiator when he wants a player he likes.  Bonus points if that player is a Jet, Leaf, Cane, or Devil under the age of 23.

2-      Greg A.   Complementing other men on their looks isn’t a necessary requirement when talking trade, but it never hurts.  Greg always begins his inquiries with plenty of flattery and either offers fair trades, or is understanding when you tell him his offer is one you have no interest in.

3-      Jared M.   The casualness Jared at least portrays when working on trades can be confusing.  Does he want to get a deal done? Or is he acting like he doesn’t care just to throw you off?  He’s not a big wheeler and dealer but seems to calculate the exact needs of his team and is fair in paying for those needs.

4-      Jesse V.  The GM that has probably offloaded the most assets this season has been Jesse.  He’s held out to get fair market value for each, but hasn’t tried to squeeze every last drop out of every deal (at least in the trades and trade talks we’ve had).  He had a surprising number of RWers available, my position of need earlier this season, so we spoke a lot.

5-      Larry L.   Larry will think long and hard about every trade offer; even with those offers I’ve made him that I believe should’ve been slam-dunk immediate “yes’s” from him.  He’ll usually politely say that he’s going to sleep on an offer, and then either confirm, reject, or counter with something that isn’t crazy outlandish.

6-      Sumit P.   I have to be kind to the guy who traded me Ullmark for only a 1^st, and also gave me a 1^st for Ilya Mikheyev.  T’was very generous of him.  Sumit is very, very to the point in talks.  Not scared to say what he wants.  Which makes things very easy when trying to put something together.  I’ve clearly lost, and clearly won trades with him.  Which I don’t mind doing with GMs who communicate well like he does.

7-      Devon C.  Devon is almost a hybrid of his brother and Sumit.  Will play favourites it seems with some of his favourite players and teams, and is a good communicator through the whole process.   He’s usually fair as I experienced in our 2023 prospect draft, paying the price (Luke Evangelista) that was probably fair for the prospect he wanted at that point in the draft.

8-      Kevin S.  Some similarities to Larry here, as Kevin seems to have been very methodical and patient, but courteous in all our trade chatter.   He’s always willing to wheel and deal whether it’s a swap of mid to late-round picks, as we’ve done, or bigger deals involving solid young NHLers, as we’ve also done.  Hopefully Dach and Doan, from our Eriksson Ek deal, pan out for him.

9-      Tyler R.  Rumpy and I have come up with some very creative ways to get trades done.  Some of which I think the league didn’t even allow.  I don’t remember the details, but one involved a Matt Murray trade.   He’s willing to go all out to win, or all out to lose, and will make sure trades get done to accomplish those goals, even if he doesn’t win all of them.

10-   Anthony C.   He can be a lot harder to trade with if you’re not giving up a Philadelphia Flyer with your offers, but in all seriousness, he will pay fair value for any player he’s interested in, and surprisingly was very courteous to me this season when I probably made him 12 different offers for Mo Seider.  Or was it closer to 20, I’m not sure.  None of which he obviously had interest in.

11-   Joel M.  I’ve only ever made a couple of trades with Joel.  And they were very insignificant too.  But he, like Anthony, has always been patient with me when I’ve targeted his young players in which he had no interest in moving.  Very willingly retained and helped me as a 3^rd party in a trade last season when he didn’t have to.

12-   Rob B.   Rob should probably fall into the “insufficient data” category, as I’ve only done one deal with him, and he still might actually just be Bryce.  But it was this season and it was a smooth transaction of Chris Kreider for a 2^nd in which he was delightful to deal with, and also politely declined moving Matt Boldy to the Wings in a disappointing twist.

13-   Steve V.   We’ve made a few small trades over the years.  I suppose neither of us wants to arm a division rival too much.  Spent a ton of time helping me understand the complicated Retro League Setup.  So, he’s obviously a good dude despite being brainwashed as a hockey fan.

14-   Tyler B.  I’m not sure how Tyler is in the negotiating Big-Name players department, as we’ve always randomly ended up just trading depth defensemen year after year.   He owned me in the Jake McCabe trade, I must admit, so I’ll have to be careful with him and his charming ways going forward.

Finally done with that awkward, cringy Tier 1 of telling middle-aged men I met on the internet how “nice” they are

Tier 2 – Insufficient Data, or Maybe GMs that are Just Very Conservative with Their Trades and Dreams

15-20

-Eric D.   Never made a trade with him.  Though he geared up for a Cup.  Won it.  Then had to scale back due to cap restraints (which he did successfully).  This shows enough GMs were making trades with him regularly though all that.  

-PJ J.   Never made a trade with PJ either.  I harassed him a lot though trying to trade half my team for Makar, who unfortunately is still a Ranger.  Lame.

-Ken H.  Made one trade with Ken.  It was insignificant and we haven’t had any chatter on anyone in recent memory.

-Tyler S.   Only the swapping of some super-depth pieces has been the trading that’s gone on between Sheds and I.

-Eric F.   Picks and depth pieces also are about everything that defines the trading history between Eric and I.

-Joe Bubanj.  Zero, yes zero trades are the total between Joe and me since I’ve joined. He politely declined a few Thomas Konecny pitches over the years though.

Tier 3 – Hard to Get Trades Done with Due to Claiming “Limited Knowledge” of What’s Being Offered

21- Al W.   I haven’t talked a lot of trade with Big Al.  So, he could’ve easily been slotted a tier higher.  I think the couple times we’ve spoken, I offered him solid players or prospects, to which he claimed he had no clue who some of them were… immediately killing the romance in the room.

22- Pat P.  Taking over for the defending Cup Champion is probably not easy.  I’ve spoken with Pat many times this season, but it seems he’s been gun-shy to mess up a good thing.  Hopefully that changes soon, but he has admitted he’s not the hockey buff some of the other GMs are.

Tier 4 – Friendly, but Seem to Greatly Overvalue Their Players

23- Doc H.  Did we ever work long and hard on the Marner trade.  I upped my offer a couple times from what I deemed fair… not even because Marner’s a Leaf… but because I thought I needed a high PA winger.  Which hasn’t even panned out for me so far.  Extremely enthusiastic, Doc is a breath of fresh air to the league, until you start negotiating with him and he takes you for all your worth.

24- Joe Bast.  Joe is definitely a GM who will hold out til the end of time to get his price for a player.  And that price is usually high.  He’s going to make sure he wins the trade before pulling the trigger.  Even if moving that player out quickly is what’s best for his team.

Tier 5 – The Grinders:  The Out of Touch with Their Player Values/Greedy Schmucks who are a Pain to Deal with and They’re Probably Proud of it

25-31

-Leon Y.  My “Welcome-to-the-League” moment was with Leon.  He took me for all that I was worth.  I traded him all my big-name stars for peanuts and retained on 3 of them, all while not knowing the league's rules of 3 retention spots max, and cash needing to be paid for retaining.  100% all my fault for jumping in so quickly, but I haven’t been able to engineer another trade with him.

-Rex L.  Maybe the credit goes to Rex here for squeezing so much out of me in trades for players that he was mainly targeting.  I felt like I overpaid in all 3 of our biggest deals, even though he approached me on 2 of them.   We have made several trades though.  More than maybe we should’ve, but with him being in the West, I feel less threatened if I lose the trade.  

-Richard C.  Uncle Rich used to be fun and lighthearted, often threatening to make big trades while feeling tipsy, but he’s held the saltiest of grudges with Simon T for at least a year now.   He is at the point where he surely needs to rebuild from the ground up, but shows little interest in doing so. 

-Steph V.  Just seeing a couple screenshots over the years of his trade talks tells me Steph pushes hard for max value.  We’ve put together a few trades, including no package being good enough for Draisaitl last season, til I offered up Robertson 1 for 1.  Wasn’t paying attention and missed the deadline, which I blamed for me missing out on Risto, though the price would’ve been high, I’m sure.

-Junya K.  I don’t believe I have ever been able to put together a trade with Junya.  So, potentially should be in the insufficient data tier.  But I’ve tried.  Even when I was willing to pay up for a declining Elias Lindholm (on a very declining BRHL Stars roster), I got nowhere.   And he’s also left me hanging without a response a few times on trade talks.  Which hey, the offer was obviously not that appealing apparently.

-Garrett H.  I think Garrett was pretty fair in our trade that involved us swapping picks at the top of our 2023 draft, but other than that he’s either made me overpay in our trades, or has just had some pretty wildly lopsided offers over the years.

-Dave Y.   We engineered a fairly even trade for Brayden McNabb, but he's milked me for all I'm worth in every other deal we've done.  Giving up prospects like Brisson and Evangelista for depth pro players was probably dumb on my part.  Dave might just have to go on the no-trade list for a while for me.