Challenge #27 - Toronto Maple Leafs - Discussion Topic

[Mattias.William]

Well, that was a fun season 1... Did so poorly in games 41-60 that I was in contention for the bottom spots in the conference, and if it weren't for playing Montreal twice it could have been closer.
Ended up 13th in the conference with 77 points. Of course, 13th in the East actually equates to 27th overall which should put me in contention for one of the few decent 1st rounders available this year.

My team scoring was actually pretty tight. 2 players with 29 goals and 3 players over 30. As everyone else already pointed out, goaltending is a serious concern.

The Sharks ended up beating the Devils in 5 to take the Stanley Cup and oddly enough, the Marlies (not controlling them at all) made it to the Calder Cup finals and lost to Charlotte in 4 straight. Of course, Charlotte went 12-1 in the playoffs.

As for player stats:
Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf tied for 111 points with Bobby Ryan as a close 3rd (go Anaheim)
Corey Perry had the most goals with 51
Chris Kreider tore up the rookie race and ended with 51 points

Anyway, that's about it I suppose. On to season 2!

[Mattias.William]

Seems like I won the draft lottery as I end up getting the 1st overall pick, so I grabbed Alexander Barkov.
I also managed to pick up the 26th ranked Anton Slepyshev with the 65th pick.

All of a sudden there is a glimmer of hope in Toronto.

[batdad]

CHarlotte is always good in the AHL. Not sure why...I have some real bad players on my AHL Charlotte team in the game I am in 2025 with as GM of Carolina. Yet they have never finished (since 2006) lower than 3rd in the conference and in the 19 years have been in the Calder Cup finals 12 times, winning it 8.

[Mattias.William]

I signed Mike Smith as starting goalie for season 2, he wanted to have over $3.000.000 per year, but I managed to get the salary down to $2.900.000 per year and a cap hit of $2.922.000 per year.

man, I really don't have any luck... Tried for Smith @ 3m per season, but he signed with Edmonton for 2.7m. Actually offered 3m to about 8-10 players who all signed elsewhere... Now, I need to know: do you have to pick a trade tier and stick with it, or can you pick a different tier each season? i.e. Tier 1 is what I had hoped for this season, but there's nobody left in the UFA market worth over 1.5m, so can I go with tier 2 or waivers this season and try again for a tier 1 grab next season? I'm really looking forward to the 5m signing in season 4.

[Mattias.William]

Season 2 preview ranked us 17th with "Key new face" B.J. Crombeen. (picked him up for $950k cap hit to help on the PK)
Also grabbed Peter Budaj for $1,050,000 cap hit to round out the 2m allowed for "Tier 2"

anyway, 5 minutes into the first period and B.J. Crombeen is out for 2 months with a "Hip Pointer"..

that's a Boatload of Awesomeness!

Lines SHOULD have looked like this:

van Riemsdyk - Grabovsky - Kessel
Lupul - Barkov/Kadri - Kulemin
Leverton - Kadri/Barkov - Crombeen
Slepyshev - Deschamps - Biggs

Liles - Phaneuf
Rielly - Komisarek
Moffat - Holzer

Budaj
Reimer

back to the drawing board.

[Mattias.William]

sorry for all of the posts, but I brought up Colton Orr to slot into Crombeen's place as they essentially have the same purpose.

so in game 2, Orr gets 2 shorthanded goals in my 7-0 trouncing of Buffalo.
Barkov got the first 2 goals and rode that to first star.

[Manimal]

I signed Mike Smith as starting goalie for season 2, he wanted to have over $3.000.000 per year, but I managed to get the salary down to $2.900.000 per year and a cap hit of $2.922.000 per year.

man, I really don't have any luck... Tried for Smith @ 3m per season, but he signed with Edmonton for 2.7m. Actually offered 3m to about 8-10 players who all signed elsewhere... Now, I need to know: do you have to pick a trade tier and stick with it, or can you pick a different tier each season? i.e. Tier 1 is what I had hoped for this season, but there's nobody left in the UFA market worth over 1.5m, so can I go with tier 2 or waivers this season and try again for a tier 1 grab next season? I'm really looking forward to the 5m signing in season 4.

You can change UFA Tier from season to season

[Syvis]

Just finished season 1. Got to the playoffs in the last game of the regular season and finished 7th in Eastern Conference. I beat Boston 4-2 in the first round and in the second round I faced Rangers. I gotta say, we got absolutely raped by the officials in the Rangers series. I have never seen anything like this. Rangers scored a total of 14 goals in five games on the powerplay and they got 8.2 powerplays per game. That's a joke. Granted, my PK and goalies sucked hard in the series but I had the chance to go ahead 2-1 in the series in the third game but Rangers won it 4-3 in overtime and the best part? They got 14 powerplays during that game. And how many did they score on the powerplay? You guessed it, four.

Ah well, I'm really happy I even made it to the playoffs and advancing to the second round was just bonus. But that right there Bryzgalovs me off.

[Mattias.William]

I signed Mike Smith as starting goalie for season 2, he wanted to have over $3.000.000 per year, but I managed to get the salary down to $2.900.000 per year and a cap hit of $2.922.000 per year.

man, I really don't have any luck... Tried for Smith @ 3m per season, but he signed with Edmonton for 2.7m. Actually offered 3m to about 8-10 players who all signed elsewhere... Now, I need to know: do you have to pick a trade tier and stick with it, or can you pick a different tier each season? i.e. Tier 1 is what I had hoped for this season, but there's nobody left in the UFA market worth over 1.5m, so can I go with tier 2 or waivers this season and try again for a tier 1 grab next season? I'm really looking forward to the 5m signing in season 4.

You can change UFA Tier from season to season

Excellent!

[Mattias.William]

20 games down and we're dead last - I suppose losing Kessel and Crombeen for the same month didn't help matters. Oddly enough for the 2 games I let Reimer take so far were both wins - but Budaj played much better and currently has a record of 4-11-3.

The funniest thing is probably that Tim Connolly is on top of the league in scoring -- of course given that he refused to sign for me at the end of last season, he happens to be playing for the Jets. I also could not re-sign Clarke MacArthur.

I managed to make a trade to get that brought in Mark Stuart to pair with Phaneuf on D. All I lost was David Steckel (and Gunnarson if you count the fact that I put him on waivers to make room and he was claimed)
What annoys me is that I don't have anyone in the system that is over 32 years old, so the player-for-pick trade is not going to happen for a few years. Seems foolish to give away a 2nd rounder at this point in a rebuild process.

one good note though is that Barkov is on pace for 60 points to steal the Calder trophy from the likes of Sven Bartschi and Ryan Strome.

[timmy_t]

Hey mattias, this doesn't help you now, but anytime you have trouble getting someone to sign look at the role they have selected. (ex - Depth, Core, Key) For some reason I think I had to change MacArthur from Depth to Core and then he re-signed.

[umwoz]

Happens all the time for me. Usually a result of the salary range your board has assigned for the specific role, and the player wanting more than that.

Although I did have one of my own games go glitch wild and Griffin Reinhart wanted 30M over 2 years after being upgraded to Key.

[outdooral]

20 Games into season 2 and I cant believe how much better this team is with a decent goalie.We are in 3rd place in the east with 23 pts.

Niclas Backstom has been solid so far with a 2.65 GAA and .921 SV %.The PP isnt as good as last year at only 15.7% and we are taking far to many penalties again, leading the league with474 penalty minutes, but over its a better season so far.

I made what I though was a good trade on Oct 27th to get some better defence. I traded Jake Gardiner, who I couldnt play and couldnt send back to the AHL to Washington for Karl Alzner. Just a bit older but already much better especially defensively.Looks like a good fit so far playing on the second pair with Franson and gets Pk time as well.

[smokey]

20 Games into season 2 and I cant believe how much better this team is with a decent goalie.We are in 3rd place in the east with 23 pts.

Can't wait. Reimer sustained an injury somewhere after the 20 game mark and will be gone for the season. Scrivens was awful, so I sent him down to the Marlies and lifted Rynnas and Owuya. Owuya's been the better of the two, actually winning a few games, but in geneal my season, which started out pretty bad, got even worse without even a semi decent goalie. With abysmal goaltending (and I mean ANY option after Reimer) I've managed to win only a third of my games, with both Scrivens and Owuya having a gaa over 4 and Rynnas' gaa a laughable 6+. Needless to say this team really needs an NHL-ready starting goalie and I'm looking at every option to trade away just about any key member of the lineup to correct this during the off-season.

[Mattias.William]

SOOOO, I was playing a game against Montreal, and somehow all of a sudden I was 2 men short for 7 minutes. This was caused by a clipping penalty and 2 minors, so I can understand part of it, but here's where the fun begins. After these penalties ran out, one of my penalty lights stayed on for the rest of the game - which happened to still be around 45 minutes. I figured, oh well, it's just a light -- WRONG!!! Montreal kept scoring powerplay goals for the rest of the game in an agonizing 6-0 loss.

[smokey]

Nice, would've been able to get Mike Smith for less than 3 mill, but instead got Dan Ellis and David Clarkson for a combined 1,9 mill. Also signed my nr1 pick Seth Jones (2nd overall) and possibly looking to sign some of the other picks too (Collin Valcourt, Emil Galimov, Jesse Forsberg, Klarc Wilson, Carter Rigby, Ryan Rupert).

[timmy_t]

I'm halfway through the first season and I'm in last place in the East with 15-24-4. My PP is at about 15.4% and my PK is at about 80.8%. The two biggest injuries so far were Tim Connolly with a partial ACL tear which kept him out of the first three months, and I lost Dion Phaneuf to an ankle ligament sprain and he's been out for three weeks.

For some reason I'm having a little trouble in the training department. A lot of my guys are showing little progression and some are actually going red. I'm usually really good at this part of the game and my players almost always get into the green rather quickly and then continue progressing. I may have to do a little coaching shakeup at the end of the season...

I agree with everyone about needing a clear-cut number one goalie but I'm not sure what I'm going to do on that front. I may try to trade either Grabovsky or Connolly because both of them don't really fit into the style I like to play. I prefer big centers on my team - at least 195 lbs or bigger. I'm also looking forward to the extra trade and a little more money to sign free agents. (Thanks bruins72!)

I'll keep you posted on the rest of the season.

[outdooral]

I had the same troubles with training in season 1 as well. As soon as the season ended I put everyone on all intensive training until mid summer. Almost everyone is in the green now in season 2

[bruins72]

I finally wrapped up my first season. I just have to post my screens and stats. We finished last in our conference and second to last in the league behind the Blue Jackets. We won the lottery though, so I was able to snag Barkov. I can't wait to get to July 1st so I can start working on making this team better!

[bruins72]

So I made my two UFA signings. I wasn't too please with my results. I wasn't able to land Smith, Lehtonen, or Howard, so I went with plan B. I was able to sign Budaj for $1M and then I strengthened up my defensive depth by signing Ryan O'Byrne for $870k. I think I probably should have went after a RW instead of a D but hindsight it 20/20. I didn't try to make an trades in that short July window, so I'll have to wait until things open back up in mid-October. I signed Barkov and my intent is to keep him on the big roster, giving him third line center duty and maybe mixing in a little PP time here and there.

[outdooral]

40 games into season 2 and we have reverted back to last years form. We’ve dropped to 9th in the East with 40 pts but at least its still a tight race. Backstom has had some bad games and his GAA has gone up to 3.23 . We are dying on special teams again. 27th in PP goals for and 5th in PP goals against as well as 8 shorthanded goals against

Alzner has been good and steady and I think Im going to move him up to the first pair with Phanuef for a while .

[jesterx7769]

This is my first challenge and I just uploaded my first 20 games...dead last.

Funny enough the first 10 games I was doing good, 3 wins and 19% PP (obv i knew it would go down) then the injuries hit. Connoly/Grabovsky both overlapped about a week, Lupul missed 10 days, and Phaenefu missed 10 games. Problem isn't really THEM being out but who is stepping in as they are garbage and I keep getting the media questioning by guys being on the roster lol.

I did not adjust my tactics for the first 20 games, just did default attacking since my team has no defense and was hoping for some offense (worked at first). PK and GA just got insane towards the end of Q1, sever 8-1, 6-1 type games.

I have some strategies for the offseason which is why I am not overly concerned with the first season, I know I am not going to win the challenge. Mainly want my guys to train, and get a few pieces I need for next year. Despite me not being a tactical wizard I have no idea how people are winning around 50% of games in first season just because of the lack of goalie.

[jesterx7769]

After being at the bottom of 20 games I decided to go through my stats and do my own tactics for Q2. Things were off to a great 6-3-1 start until more injures just like everyone else. 2 defense and 2 forwards down really hurt with this weak team. The Florida Panthers are my biggest nemesis killing me 3 times in Q2 by massive amounts. Onto Q3

[jesterx7769]

Aaaand done with season one. After having a good Q2 and Q3 I went on a 12 game losing streak in Q4 so much for getting my tactics figured out but then I tweaked my VERY disappointing PP tactics and BAM! Tore it up having a PP goal the last 5 games and having 4 PP goals alone in my final game!

Overall finished with 25 wins worst in conference but better than Columbus. I feel like this team can make the playoffs though after adding pieces during the offseason. I plan on adding 5 starters (G, 2D, 2FW)into my line up for next year (Barkov-draft, D/FW-draft pick, player for player, then either goaltender in FA or 2 for 1mill each)

[outdooral]

Season 2 game 60, Good times bad times.
I changed my lines to balance things out a bit and did a rework on my tactics and was having a much better quarter until game 53 when I lost JVR for 3 months, my top scorer and best player at the time.We promptly went on a 5 game losing skid. Ive brought up Joe Colborne to fill the roster spot, centering a new 3rd line with MacArthur and Bozak.

The Alzner/ Phaneuf pairing is working well and allowed me to use Phaneuf more offensively.

We are in a tight race for a playoff spot, sitting in 10th with 61 pts . 8th place has 63 and 13th has 60.