Challenge 18: Baie-Comeau Drakkar (Discussion Thread)

Beukeboom · Post by **Beukeboom** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 10:59 pm

Wow, just won back to back games against eastern 1st placed Screaming Eagles and had the offensive AND defensive player of the week. Who would have guessed that haha.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:13 pm

Just because at work I cannot upload a screenshot. My April 1st Board Confidence Update:

"The Baie-Comeau Drakkar directors are satisfied with your overall performanceas General Manager, but are becoming increasingly concerned about our pool league performance.

Please ignore those fans who have been calling for your resignation.

You have our total confidence and support.

The player payroll seems to be under control."

I'm surpirsed I lasted the entire season without getting fired.

Beukeboom · Post by **Beukeboom** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:34 am

Ouch, i missed the 9th spot by goal difference.

Caron is my top assist given evne when he was out for more than 2 months + day to day.

kuulapaa · Post by **kuulapaa** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 8:42 am

Your discussion (read whining

) made me so curious I decided to give this Challenge a try myself. Now I can whi... discuss about it too. And yeah, they sure look like a sore bunch!

Here are my first experiences of Drakkar team:

- no staff and no-one willing to take a chance - not even for money!!! (boy, this is not real - or realistic, offering an assistant coach 100 k bucks and he says no because he just joined a team that is paying him two thousands for the season! That's what I call dedication!)
- new Drakkar Head Coach has evently been chosen (out of two suckers... - *tadaa*) - Art Degenhardt, a 48 year old American with no preferred style of play and a general coaching style (he's the best I could get... so welcome Art, I'm sure you can do miracles... actually I'm counting on it )
- three exhibition games played, two to go - scores are 1-4 against Saint John at home, 3-4 against Rimouski away and an shootout win 3-2 against Montréal in an away game! This team tends to give the lead away in the last minutes, they led 3-2 against Rimouski only four and half minutes before the end and blew it and in Montréal game they lost the lead 19 seconds before the end.
- Baie-Comeau was ranked 17th in the Season Preview, Acadie-Bathurst were on the bottom (those losers!!! )
- there were four players (Olsson, Chevenert, Laperriere, Fiset) struggling in the Training camp and two (Richer and Cliche) who were disappointing (miracles, mr. Degenhardt, miracles...)

It seems I'm going in the season with somewhat incomplete roster, I couldn't sign my unsigned prospects as they had already signed deals somewhere else. And to be honest, there were some "prospects" I didn't even want to offer a deal haha...

Well, season is about to start, so what else can I do than close my eyes and jump! (Let's go Art, give me your hand...)

Marsac · Post by **Marsac** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:43 am

Oh wow, we just beat Cape Breton 5-0 for our fourth win (in 27 games) of the season! My Dunnett has a consistency of 2, I guess that means he isn't consistently terrible atleast.

Post by **McQwak** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 10:33 am

Brilliant post, kuulapaa!

kuulapaa wrote:- three exhibition games played, two to go - scores are 1-4 against Saint John at home, 3-4 against Rimouski away and an shootout win 3-2 against Montréal in an away game! This team tends to give the lead away in the last minutes, they led 3-2 against Rimouski only four and half minutes before the end and blew it and in Montréal game they lost the lead 19 seconds before the end.

This is my case, too. Drakkar team can lose 3 goals lead in final 5 minutes, no problem. You'll see

It happened to me many times during the first 50 games :thdwn: On the other hand, I won 6 shootouts while loosing just one.

kuulapaa · Post by **kuulapaa** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 1:32 pm

McQwak wrote:Brilliant post, kuulapaa!

Thx, McQwak, nice you liked it! I'm trying to keep on pushing them here now that I joined the Challenge again.

And here's the news flash:
Holly Mamolly! This team ain't so bad they told me - or my best buddy Artie is already doing his little miracles! We won our last two friendly games. First we owned Cape Breton 4-0 at home (Giroux 35 saves and first start of the game), then we continued at home and defeated Drummondville 6-3. But actually that's really nothing - as Drakkar is now five games in the season and their record is 4-1-0. We are leading the division of course and there are some players really hot right now - and when I say hot I mean HOT. LD Maxime Lamarche is leading the league scoring stats with five goals (the lead is shared by five players, Drakkar's David Cliche is one of them too). J-P Caron (who was btw the only Baie-Comeau player ranked in season previews, he was considered as 9th best center in the league) leads the league with 8 assists in 5 games. G Nathan Dunnett's saving percentage is .905 and Drakkar is the 2nd best PP team atm with PP% of .25 - I say. Or actually I don't say nothing. I'm astonished. Proud but astonished.

After I hired that little weasel for our Head Coach some other teams awoke too. First Chicoutimi hired some crafts skills by signing Canadian Steve Carpenter as their Head Coach. His technical attributes were relievingly poor. But at least he has some preferred tactics and a specific coaching style - that's something our coach misses. Soon after that Val d'Or signed Don Champagne as their Head Coach (his atts weren't any better than those of that Bob the Builder guy in Chicoutimi but he had the style too). At that point I wanted to do something. I searched all the staff there is looking for somebody named "Bourbon" or "Cognac" or "Slivovich". No match. I thought that even "Ouzo" or "Sake" would do but no, nothing/nada/zip. Closest that I was able to find was some Weingartner dude and 'Yotes physio Jim (?) Serbus. So there's nothing to do I guess but wait. Luckily there already are Dan coaching in St. Thomas and Brandon as physio in Columbia. Two more and I'll hire them all and then it'll be settled.

Oh, wait. I did hire someone. There's no assistant coach in the world (of EHM) who would sign with us. But there was some pathetic bum who agreed on joining our team as a assistant GM. His name is Joe. Joe Gregory.

Beukeboom · Post by **Beukeboom** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 2:18 pm

Wow, all my best players found out i suck and will probably leave on a free.

Post by **McQwak** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 3:23 pm

You should have signed them during the 1st season

Many players have accepted my renewal offers so far...

Beukeboom · Post by **Beukeboom** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 3:59 pm

Well i did in winterof 1st season, but should have done at beginning of 1st probably.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 4:27 pm

kuulapaa wrote:Your discussion (read whining ) made me so curious I decided to give this Challenge a try myself. Now I can whi... discuss about it too. And yeah, they sure look like a sore bunch!

LOL! And now you see why we whi... discuss!

kuulapaa wrote:Here are my first experiences of Drakkar team:
- no staff and no-one willing to take a chance - not even for money!!! (boy, this is not real - or realistic, offering an assistant coach 100 k bucks and he says no because he just joined a team that is paying him two thousands for the season! That's what I call dedication!)
- new Drakkar Head Coach has evently been chosen (out of two suckers... - *tadaa*) - Art Degenhardt, a 48 year old American with no preferred style of play and a general coaching style (he's the best I could get... so welcome Art, I'm sure you can do miracles... actually I'm counting on it )

I ended up with a 41 year old British head coach, named Jon Thomas, with no preferred style of play and a general coaching style. He's not too bad. He's got most attributes in the 12-14 range but a 16 in Adaptability and a 17 in Determination. I didn't luck out with the retired players like a lot of folks did.

kuulapaa wrote:- three exhibition games played, two to go - scores are 1-4 against Saint John at home, 3-4 against Rimouski away and an shootout win 3-2 against Montréal in an away game! This team tends to give the lead away in the last minutes, they led 3-2 against Rimouski only four and half minutes before the end and blew it and in Montréal game they lost the lead 19 seconds before the end.

My team seems to do that too. I've seen lots of 1, 2, or 3 goal leads blown in the 3rd period and then we lose by a goal at the end of the game.

kuulapaa wrote:It seems I'm going in the season with somewhat incomplete roster, I couldn't sign my unsigned prospects as they had already signed deals somewhere else. And to be honest, there were some "prospects" I didn't even want to offer a deal haha...

That's odd. My unsigned prospects signed with us even though they had already signed deals elsewhere. Because they were in lower leagues, they're allowed to leave to join us. Of course, the foreign players we had as unsigned prospects (Jank and Benda) were already signed by teams in their home country and had no interest in joining us. I had plenty of unsigned prospects that I had no interest in signing though. Some were horrible... even compared to the garbage we already have signed!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:58 pm

Well that was officially my worst quarter in a challenge EVER!

Beukeboom · Post by **Beukeboom** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:59 pm

Reigning Champioins Shawinig-whatever have signed Eric Lindros as GM, while ilost my best scorer and D man to free agency and cant ever bring over my draft pick Kühnhackl ever. But had to take him, his father is a hero in Germany and he was born only 30km from here. I have some nice additions though. Cant wait for new season.

Marsac · Post by **Marsac** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 6:42 pm

Mid-season rankings are in and Caron made it to #131... I don't see it. Caron looks good on paper (apart from his pathetic 3 Bravery and limited size) but has 8G 9A in 40 games with an AvR of 6.40 while seeing almost 19 minutes of ice-time per game.

On a positive note the team has been playing alot better lately and we're 5-5-0 in the last 10.

Off-topic I'm currently watching the European Trophy playoffs. Finally some decent quality hockey on TV, just one more month to go!

Beukeboom · Post by **Beukeboom** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 7:43 pm

Caron wasnt even drafted in my game due to his 2 month , he still is my franchise player.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 7:56 pm

Season 2 is shaping up to be another long season, but hopefully improved.

We went 1-5 in preseason with only one of the five loses being by more than one goal.

We were ranked 18th again overall but Lchlan Parent my first overall pick in the '07 draft was ranked 6th overal LW adn 2nd overall prospect.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 8:19 pm

Loosie wrote:Just because at work I cannot upload a screenshot. My April 1st Board Confidence Update:

"The Baie-Comeau Drakkar directors are satisfied with your overall performanceas General Manager, but are becoming increasingly concerned about our pool league performance.

Please ignore those fans who have been calling for your resignation.

You have our total confidence and support.

The player payroll seems to be under control."

I'm surpirsed I lasted the entire season without getting fired.

Get this... so I'm 21 games into the season and have only 9 points. They're extremely pleased with my overall performance however they're concerned with our recent run (what, like the whole season?) of defeats. They're also sad about our fan's enthusiastic support fading. But they're extremely please with my overall performance!

Also, I'm constantly getting news items with so and so bad-mouthing one of my players. Every time I get one of those, I defend the player. About 80% of the time I get the news items saying that the fans pay tribute to the player and the board is please that I backed him. It's comical.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:03 pm

bruins72 wrote: Get this... so I'm 21 games into the season and have only 9 points. They're extremely pleased with my overall performance however they're concerned with our recent run (what, like the whole season?) of defeats. They're also sad about our fan's enthusiastic support fading. But they're extremely please with my overall performance!

Also, I'm constantly getting news items with so and so bad-mouthing one of my players. Every time I get one of those, I defend the player. About 80% of the time I get the news items saying that the fans pay tribute to the player and the board is please that I backed him. It's comical.

I had the same thing all season with players gettign attacked. Most of the time I defended them, but a few times, usually when they did actually deserve becuase they had a run of rating 5 or less then I didn't defend them. And most of the time the fans and the board sided with me. By the end of the season almost half of the team was unhappy because they lost confidence in my abilities.

Sadly a handful of them carried that into season 2.

Beukeboom · Post by **Beukeboom** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:46 pm

My first round pick Alexander Gacek just became player of the month and rookie of the mont in a month were he was injured for 3 weeks

Thats what i call an achievment.

kuulapaa · Post by **kuulapaa** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 10:28 pm

I knew it, I just freakin' knew it! I totally jinxed my team when telling their great start to the season. Now they lost next five games in a row scoring only five goals and allowing twenty. They can't score on power play any more, they can't win games. There is no hot players in there any more. Or maybe their inconsistency comes in series of five.

We dropped from 1st to 8th place just like that - but that may be the best. I can't take the pressure of the league leader and neither can the team.

I'm playing my 7th defenseman (LD) as the RW of our 4th line. He won't be producing a lot I assume, but he's giving Cliche a few minutes more to breathe during games. That's enough for now.

I'm all hooked for signing more and more staff to Drakkar. Now I signed second physio, a lad called Steve Lindsay, he came from Truro (or that's what he said anyway). Now there's six of us in personnel already. If only I could find a assistant coach some day too...

But now I gotta rush, we are playing bridge every Thursday at our front office. And there's some winning to do.

Leeman14 · Post by **Leeman14** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 12:19 am

Well, I have to admit this is my first attempt at a Challenge and it couldn't have been a better choice (well, maybe) since I actually see the Drakkar several times a year playing against my local team, Rimouski.

Anyway, almost 30 games in and we're in the basement. Hovering between 7th and 10th and the media is really attacking my boys. Many are unhappy and some are even 'considering' their 'options'.

I'm having fun with this and it was even nice to actually see Joe Sakic accept the head coaching position. His non-player stats aren't bad nor are they the best but... so far, so good.

Glad to be involved.

Cheers!

Leeman14 · Post by **Leeman14** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 12:24 am

Also, someone mentioned how fun it would have been to have a filter setting that would allow you only QMJHL or Quebec non-player searches. Since that's not something that works within EHM, I just spent some time offering contracts to scouts and coaches that were born in La Belle Province.

So far, everybody except Sakic and my Assistant GM (a British fellow) are Quebecois.

Laker2415 · Post by **Laker2415** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 2:37 am

I decided to get back into a challenge and am convinced that this could be extremely difficult. The preseason just finished and other than a 7-2 pasting from Saint John, we we're in every game, going 3-3-2. Scoring goals is going to be extremely difficult with this bunch, who were led by Lamarche and Olsson who had just 5 points apiece. The goaltending is great with both Dunnett and Giroux having ratings over 8.5. My goal is 20 wins for the season, but after viewing some of the posts and with the luck I've had in past challenges, maybe 10 wins would be a more realistic goal.

kuulapaa · Post by **kuulapaa** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 9:51 pm

Things are going pretty swell here right now. First it seemed that I was right about that inconsistency-in-row-of-five thing, but now the team is playing better all the time (and now the jinx, I know). Especially the defense is working well, they have allowed only 16 goals in their last 9 games and won seven of them.

I've tried to search for an assistant coach and after several offers I searched for ANY assistant coach asking my assistant to eliminate unrealistic targets. As result I got one name - Martin Bergeron, a center playing and coaching in Swiss third division. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I can cope without him or not. He has adaptability of 15, but that's very much about all. His goalie coaching att is 9 which is pretty high, considering...

I've tried a different approach to the team coaching this time and it seems to be working. The basic principle is to keep the tactics simple, so I decided not to use all three levels of tactics - team, line and personal. I'm using only two of them with success - 'til now it is. I'm very curious to see how it all goes on.

The biggest surprise in this challenge so far has been the atmosphere of unhappiness and criticism. Players are unhappy, the media criticizes players one by one, never seen anything like this before. It's like there should be shrinks and media consultants to hire in the staff too

Beukeboom · Post by **Beukeboom** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 9:54 pm

That replaying thing becuase i made a not allowed trade screwed all up , i am in a smlump now and my lower line ssuddenly became the only ones that score.