Challenge #27 - Toronto Maple Leafs - Discussion Topic

[Manimal]

Going to give this a shot. Never tried challenges before, but this should be a fun one to play as the Leafs. No trades and UFA signings in the 1st season right? Just saw that and wanted to confirm that was still the case

Yes, no trades or UFAs until July 1st

[outdooral]

Still at it here and going to try to finish season 4.
The draft went pretty well and managed to pick up some good looking prospects
1st rnd Took Radek Turek 6’3 Cze Center being compared to Patrik Berglund
2nd rnd Alexander Bostrum 6’2 Swe Dman with 3-4 potential
3rd rnd Kalle Kankaanpera Fin G looks real solid already

Going into Free agency we really need a good #2 Goalie and depth on the wings....but I get to spend up to 5 million... so..... I sign Joe Thorton for 3 years at 4.5/season .Im hoping he is the “impact” player we need to go to the Cup this year. He didnt sign until close to the end of the July trade period so I have to wait until mid Oct to make a trade and will be looking at a backup goalie. With Kadri, Grabovsky and Connolly all in play.

[Prowl]

I have to say - scouts are decent, but I'm struggling figuring out which coach to fire lol. Who did you guys sign as assistants out of curiosity?

It sounds like Kadri doesn't do well, but I'm going to give it a go to have him be a bonafide budding star as he's turning into IRL. Hopefully, my little experiment works

[timmy_t]

I have to say - scouts are decent, but I'm struggling figuring out which coach to fire lol. Who did you guys sign as assistants out of curiosity?

It sounds like Kadri doesn't do well, but I'm going to give it a go to have him be a bonafide budding star as he's turning into IRL. Hopefully, my little experiment works

I signed Steve Konowalchuk as an assistant in the first season. Remember you can only fire one assistant coach and two scouts each season.

As far as Kadri goes, He's been with the Marlies the last two seasons. The first season he played center and had 69 points and a 7.67 AVR. I didn't like the way he was developing as a center so I just converted him to a C/LW and he's got 66 points in 59 games and a 8.05 AVR.

Good luck with the challenge, I think you'll like the limitations it imposes on you (trading/signing).

[bruins72]

Please keep in mind that the current challenge only runs for a couple more weeks.

[Prowl]

I'm off work for the next couple of weeks so I should be able to get through at least one season Not looking to win, but to try playing with the restrictions and see how I do.

[Apollo]

Party way through season 3, finished 3rd in conference in season 2 but lost in first round boo. Basically looked at who everyone else was getting for acquistions, so far I have added mike smith, Booth, Beach, Tootoo, and Orpik. I had Kadri for wisnewski accepted but cancelled it when I saw kadri had the same amount of points as bozak did in half the games last season. so far this season kadri is meh with a 7ish rating.

macarthur is rubbish, he is all arounded but doenst excel because of that, the board doesn't even want him on team.

Also realized powerplay % is more amount the amount of PP's you have. first two seasons I let colton orr lead the league in penalties so I didn't have many PP's which upped my percentage (lots of 2/3 games, etc) this season now that I don't play him I get a lot more opporutnities so my % is down (several 1/10 type games).

Two other things I also learned in the challenge is
1) don't try to change the team, its not a physical aggressive team so don't bother trying to make them one, just go all out offensive and up the D

2) look for who is available for trades, at first I tried to search for the best ppl but its so hard to get a trade done with restriction so just look at who teams are shipping out and you can get good deals

[Prowl]

God Reimer and Scrivens are....well.....absolute garbage. Mind you, I'm playing with the Red Playmover Tactic which exposes them even more. Having said that, I just blew out Columbus 12-3 4 games in. I decided I'd keep Kadri as he had a pretty good pre-season. He's got 7 points in 4 games.

My team:

JVR-Connolly-Kessel
Grabovsky-Kadri-Lupul
MacArthur-Bozak-Kulemin
Seckel-McClement-Orr

Gunnarson-Phaneuf
Liles-Franson
Kostka-Komisarek

Going to try to hit 20 games today and upload my stats Having practice set on all intensive til the end of October before I modify.

[bruins72]

So I've finished my regular season and playoffs for season 3. I don't have my stats logged and screens posted yet because I'm still in June.

So we finished the season 5th in the Eastern Conference. The thing is, we were only 1 point behind the 1st place team (Bruins) and tied in points (but behind the Sabres in wins) with the 4th place team. Only one team in our division didn't make the playoffs (the Senators). Our division was tough! Oh and we were doing this without Liles, who was out for three months due to a UCL tear.

We had the Sabres in the first round and they were a really tough matchup. They took us all the way to 7 games before we were able to beat them. Next up was the Bruins, the team that lead the conference. We managed to take them in 6 games. In the conference finals we had to face Ovechkin and the Capitals. They had finished 1 point behind us in the standings but they were ranked 2nd because they lead their division. We quickly ended up down 3 games to none. We just couldn't get a handle on them. Then we managed to sneak out a 3-1 (last G was empty netter) win in game 4. Game 5 brings a strong statement from our third line (Deschamps, Kadri, and Kennedy) leading us to a 6-0 win. The team was firing on all cylinders at this point and got a 4-2 in Game 6. And then finally in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, this Maple Leafs team skated to a 5-2 win. They were heading to the Stanley Cup Finals!

In the Stanley Cup Finals we met up with the Nashville Predators. The Predators had finished one point behind us, good enough for second in the Western Conference (behind President's Trophy winners, the LA Kings). Our lead in points gave us home ice advantage for the first time in the playoffs. We got Liles back off the IR at this point but I didn't feel comfortable playing him after he had been out the last 3 months. I just didn't think he'd be in playoffs mode. I stuck with the young Morgan Reilly, who had been brought up to the big club when Liles went down with his injury. Reilly hadn't been spectacular but he wasn't bad. The lines were working, so I wasn't going to mess with them. Game 1 was tight. We won by a score of 4-3. Game 2 was another close one. We ended up taking this one 2-1 in OT. The next two games moved to Nashville and the Predators managed to win both by fairly close scores (3-1 and 4-2). We came back to Toronto and won another close one, 3-2. Game six headed back to Nashville and the scoring seemed to open up a bit. We were up 3-2 heading into the third period. The Predators scored to even it up. With less than 4 minutes left, they scored again to pull ahead 4-3. JVR managed to dig deep and score the game tying goal 15 seconds later. 4-4. And then with less than 2 minutes left, Leafs captain Phaneuf put us ahead 5-4. And Kessel adds the empty net goal with 20 seconds left in the game, sealing up the victory. THE LEAFS WIN THE CUP!

So after the parade we got ourselves ready for the NHL awards. Kessel lead the league in points, so I knew we'd get at least one award (and we're pretty certain to get the Smythe since we won the Cup).

Kessel: Art Ross winner, Conn Smythe winner, Hart Memorial 3rd place, Lady Byng 3rd place, Second All-Star Team
Connolly: Art Ross 3rd place, Lady Byng winner
Phaneuf: Conn Smythe 2nd place, First All-Star Team
Randy Carlyle: Jack Adams winner
James van Riemsdyke: Lady Byng 2nd place, Plus Minus 3rd place
Nikolai Kulyomin: Plus Minus 2nd place, First All-Star Team

One of the biggest surprises here were that Kessel was named to the Second All-Star Team and not the First, despite leading the league in points. The other big surprise was that Connolly wasn't even a mention for the Conn Smythe despite being the top points scorer in the playoffs, with 3 more than Kessel, 8 more than Legwand (3rd place), and 9 more than Phaneuf (2nd place). That was a bit of a head scratcher.

Our AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies did pretty well for themselves too. They made it to the Calder Cup Finals before losing to the Charlotte Checkers, 4 games to 2.

So that's it. I might come back with a draft update. Not sure.

[jesterx7769]

yay for winning amazing how much the chances go up once you get a goalie.

[Prowl]

Yay!!! I am suffering through Reimer and Schrivens. I feel like Mike Keenan with how often I've had to pull the starter. I've given up 128 goals in 29 games. I knew I'd concede a ton with my tactic being designed for a star goalie, but these 2 goalies couldn't stop a beach ball. The only reason why I'm 17-9-3 after 29 games is that Kessel, JVR, and Connolly are absolutely dynamite. Going to try to get through a season before the challenge ends. Enjoying the limitations though - I just wish I didn't have to be stuck with Reimer or Scrivens all season. They are certainly not playing like they are IRL

[outdooral]

Well done on the win Bruins. Thought I was on my way to a win in season 3 as well until we lost Backstrom and went back to Scrivens/Owuya.
Im doing well in season 4, was in first place for a while.Im just past 40 games and will give an update soon.
Any chance of extending this until the end of the month ?

[bruins72]

I'm not sure about extending. I think we might have some folks eager to start off on the next challenge. Let's see how things go over the next few days/week.

[outdooral]

Season 4 done and heading to the playoffs. Got to try and finish before the deadline. Just might do it.

Finished 2 in the East with 110 pts and 3rd overall behind the Capitals (117) and Kings (115)
Kessel was 3rd in league scoring with 46 G 60 A and Kulyomin 7th with 47 G 53 A.

Mid October I made my trade to add a solid backup goalie and traded Tim Connolly to Pittsburgh for Brian Elliot. Then in February decided to bolster the defense and traded a 2nd round pick for Nick Schultz.
Had a great season overall other than a poor PP 14 %. Tried lots of different tactics and combinations, just couldnt get it right I guess.
Going into the first rnd of the playoffs vs Montreal, they won the season series 3-2 and are pretty solid with Nathan Horton, Corey Perry and Paciorety all scoring as well as Price in net.

[bruins72]

Nathan Horton has floated around the league in my game. He was with Washington for a season or two (and one of the top 5 in points in the league) and I think he's currently with the Kings. It really surprises me how Boston doesn't hold on to it's talent in this game. Going into season 4, I couldn't really find a big $5M UFA to sign because I really didn't see any of my top players that I wanted to replace. I ended up signing Brad Marchand for my third line to play with Barkov and Eaves. Marchand only cost me $2M per season. Oh and speaking of Boston, I think we might need to retire Savard or make his injury worse. He returned after being out 4 months with a bad concussion and since then he's been playing and fairly injury free. He's now 38 and still with the Bruins.

So my UFA signing was Brad Marchand. I also made my trade in that early July window. I traded Liles (who was out for the playoffs when we won the Stanley Cup) because I already had the guys I wanted on LD (Gunnarsson, Reilly, and Zadorov). I sent him to the Kings for Voinov. Voinov is looking like a complete stuf with awesome skating along with impressive defensive and offensive abilities. Oh and Zadorov has been a beast in the preseason, scoring a point a game and hitting almost as much as Phaneuf.

So here is what my lines look like. I plan on rolling 4 lines fairly evenly to start the season.

Lupul - Connolly - Kessel
JVR - Schenn - Kulyomin
Marchand - Barkov - Eaves
Deschamps - Kadri - Kennedy

Reilly - Phaneuf
Gunnarsson - Voinov
Zadorov - Komisarek

Schneider - Reimer

Right now I've got Holzer, Franson, and McClement as my healthy scratches.

I've got a good feeling about this lineup but I'm pretty sure I won't get far into the 4th season. I'm just playing around with it until we start the next challenge.

[outdooral]

Won the first series 4-2.Now heading into the semi finals against the Islanders.
Just some other notes.
Bruins I noticed you still have Kadri as well and are playing him 4th line center. He had his best year is season 4 with me, 64 games 10 G 17 A -1 and a 6.83 Rating. I tried to turn him into a Lwinger and although his positional attributes never changed (still unconvincing as a winger) he had his best games there.
I played Joe Colborne in season 4 as my 4th line center he did ok . 6G 11 A, +7, 7.25.
And I know you want to hear about T Biggs. he played 65 games 3 G 12 A -2, 7.17, so not great but good as a depth guy.

[bruins72]

Kadri was my 3rd line center in season 3 and really didn't impress me much. He got bumped down to the 4th line to make room for Barkov, who did really well in the AHL in season 3. If I weren't playing by challenge rules, Kadri would be big, fat trade-bait. Neither Colborne nor Biggs has really impressed me enough to get called up. They're career minor league guys in my game.


Good luck in the playoffs!

[timmy_t]

Well, I finished my second season. I ended up 42-32-8, which was good enough for 8th place. I faced the President's Trophy winning Capitals and lost in four games. The Sabres won the Stanley Cup and Vanek won the Conn Smythe.

Phil Kessel won the Rocket Richard and the Art Ross, he was also 3rd in +/-
Korbinian Holzer won the Calder (???)
Connolly won the Lady Bing

Improvement between the 1st and 2nd seasons: +27 points, +40 goals for, -39 goals against, pp -0.15%, pk +3.01%

Overall, I'm satisfied with the results, but I need more consistency throughout the season. I had trouble with the "Physical" teams all season long and I'm beginning to think that I should probably add a little grit in the off season (or spread my grit around). The two players I signed in the first off season, Clarkson and Lapierre, performed ok, with Clarkson being the better of the two. Both of them were on the 3rd line all season, with MacArthur as their LW. (He is basically wasting away there and will be traded this off season)

Lapierre - 3-19-22 -13 192 pims 7.03 avr 2/3 fights
Clarkson - 25-18-43 -10 174 pims 7.29 avr 3/12 fights

I'm not sure who to pair with them next season, but the one obvious thing is that Clarkson does not need to fight anymore. He is pretty bad at it.

I didn't like this draft very much so I won't post the guys.

I plan on signing Barkov and Zadorov for sure in the off season. They probably need to play a season in the AHL first before bringing them up to the Maple Leafs.

My main off season target (either sign or trade) is a #1 or #2 center with a high faceoff rating. I'd love to steal Richards or Carter from LA, but it would be really hard to get either of them 1 for 1.

Obviously, I won't be able to play another season since the challenge ends tomorrow, but I'll keep this save and all of my notes so that I can pick it up at another time. (which I love to do)

[timmy_t]

Kadri was my 3rd line center in season 3 and really didn't impress me much. He got bumped down to the 4th line to make room for Barkov, who did really well in the AHL in season 3. If I weren't playing by challenge rules, Kadri would be big, fat trade-bait. Neither Colborne nor Biggs has really impressed me enough to get called up. They're career minor league guys in my game.


Good luck in the playoffs!

How did Schenn do for you?

[outdooral]

Kadri, Bozk and Mac Arthur have all been trade bait since season 1 for me...just no one else wants them either.

Tied at 2 games each against the Islanders and thats all Im going to get in today. Will try to finish up tomorrow.Are you sure I cant have another day or two. I can have it wrapped up by thursday night for sure.

[bruins72]

I'll extend it another day and see where you stand.I might launch the next challenge but tomorrow still but not allow people to post stats until the next day.

[outdooral]

Thanks ,
I should have some time later today and for sure tomorrow morning to finish up

[bruins72]

How did Schenn do for you?

He's a solid and reliable #2 center who is great on faceoffs. He scored over 100 points in season 3, IIRC.

Thanks ,
I should have some time later today and for sure tomorrow morning to finish up

Good luck!

[outdooral]

Ok all done.
We ended up beating the Islanders in 6 games after losing the first 2.
Next up the Rangers a tough series that goes the distance we win 3 in a row to win it. Joe Colborne scores the winning goal.

Off to the Stanley Cup against the Blackhawks with Henrik Lundqvist in net as well as all their regular guys. ( Kane , Sharp, Toews, Seabrook, Keith). They only finished 5th in the west but had 100 pts.

We win the first game 4-3 in OT, lose the second 3-4 and Backstrom gets a mild injury. No problem this year. Elliot comes in and gets a 3-0 shutout in game 3. Backstom is ready for game four and gets named 1st star stopping 32 of 33 shots we win 2-1.Lundqvist is the second star stopping 33/35.
Games 5 isnt good we lose 6-2 despite putting 43 shots on net
Joe Thornton scores the game winning goal on the PP and we win the game and the series 4-2.

Leafs win the cup.

[bruins72]

Congrats!