Challenge #36 - Philadelphia Flyers Discussion Thread

[jesterx7769]

I've never really messed with gap control which I probably should put it at tight for those guys with good pokecheck and D skills

[umwoz]

Anybody play around with "open" for defensive zone? Seems like it might be decent for offensive lines.

[Kopi]

For some reason MacDonald has been god awful.

I feel you man! Biggest let down at my game as well.

I did waive Gudas as he just went on my nerves with his awful performances and Devils took him.

But i claimed from waivers John Scott Imagine the 4th line i have Scott - Rinaldo - Stortini

[batdad]

First season 30 games in and on my d men games played it is simple

Del Zotto and Streit never leave the lineup
Grossman, Macdonald, Schultz play 4 of every 5 games
Schenn plays 3 of every 5.
My waiver wire pick up Kostka plays to fill in for the guys I am sitting out *rule is 2 6 ratings, or 7-5 and you are out next game.*

Coliaccovo in the minors. Waived as he just SUCKED in ex games

Radko Gudas? 2 games out of 30 or so. Just wasting time in the stands. He is my stat guy which I believe is why every dman on the team has tons of turnovers. I will likely call someone up befor playing him again. He sucks rocks. Luke Schenn is an all star in comparison.

[jesterx7769]

Jesterx: PP1 works for me well above 20% with diamond, Streit as playmaker on LD, RD MDZ, LW G, Couts/Simmer C, Voracek RW with selective shooting and passing first mentality.MDZ&G shoot first. For the rest of season i will have to re-shuffle it lightly, as my opponents already started to figure it somehow and % goes down. Also maybe caused by equal split with PP2, because I want to give them more icetime and opportunities to develop/score. Most of the time i play PP2 with Funnel. I may try to move MDZ to PP2 as there is lack of strong shooter on blue line.
Currently both Streit&MDZ are at almost PPG pace.

Thanks for the tips of what you find working, I think my problem is taking too many shots since that seemed to work in 07. Question though, why do you have Streit as the playmaker and MDZ shooting when Streit has the much better slapshot?

[umwoz]

Streit's creativity and passing are much better.

[jesterx7769]

Streit creativity 17 passing 15
MDZ creativity 16, passing 15

Also since my last post I lost 6-1 and 7-1 in back to back games being out shot 91-50

edit followed up by a 5-1, but then i beat the Canes

[Peter_Doherty]

Streit has 17 passing for me atleast

[umwoz]

Yeah same here, Streit with 17 passing but surprisingly poor anticipation.

[sao.phim]

Disappointing play-offs - after sweeping out Leafs in first round we got eliminated by Capitals 1-4 in EC semifinals. All games were very close, but after winning EC and 3-0-1 bilance against Caps in regular season I expected more. In the playoffs did well G+V, Couts, B.Schenn, Raffl (all 1 PPG or more), Ok were MDZ, Amac, Simmonds, Streit. From bottom 6 scored only VdV once and that fact cut out our chances for advance to EC finals. Emery had 92,5%/ 2.40GAA/8.20 AvR in 5 playoff games.
Ducks got SC, in the finals crushing 4-0 Habs. Brendan Gallagher won play-offs scoring (12+11), but it was not enough as Ducks proved to have more effective depth as almost everybody from Ducks top3 lines was able to score or produce points. Fleischmann came second (10+13), M. Johansson third (11+10) and he was dominating force in the series against us.
In the draft we are holding pick n. 53 and from pre-draft rankings it looks we might get one from following d-man: Provorov (currently ranked 60), Zboril (62), R.Andersson (66) or forwards: B.Boeser(57) or Ch. Fischer (68). Thinking also about some late draft goalie prospect (Tretyak is ranked around # 150). We'll see..

[geckon]

I was quite busy recently and had no time for EHM the last several days. Hopefully this will change soon so I can pick up the challenge.

[bruins72]

I finally got 40 games in on this challenge. These guys are sooooooo bad! I can't get them to perform. I've never done this poorly in any of the challenges before. Even worse, we don't have our 1st round pick in the draft, so we can't even get one of those top guys.

[Kopi]

what i cant belive is that Mason do much more for the team when he is injured then when he gets a chance...guy has open doors everytime he play

[Peter_Doherty]

Yeah, Khudobin has taken the #1 role for me, annoying part is that Mason is in my core so i have to play him 35 games Want to trade both him and Read in the off season (Read to save cap space) but since both are in the core i have to keep one of them

[batdad]

LOL. I may have read it wrong...nope double checked.

December 2014 Player awards

NHL PLayer of the Month Ray Emery. Emery played 4 games with 4 wins and 1 shutout
Offensive player of the month Rick Nash-10-14-24 in 12 games. Okay good with that
Defensive player of the month--well clearly it was Ray Emery right? Yeah....No....it was get this....STEVE MASON 9 games, 8 wins and 1 shutout.

THat is so EHM!!!1

[umwoz]

So first offseason is 1 B tier UFA or 2 C tier, right? Then I can have one waiver claim of a c tier during the season?

Also.... I'm so happy I didn't make MacDonald a core player, really going to give it my all to trade him.

[sao.phim]

So, in the draft 2015 we picked:
B. Boeser - RW/C
J. Forsbacka Karlsson - C
J. Lindgren - RD
G. Carlsson - LD
G. McFadden - LD
C. Sanford - RW

Half of our picks were spent on players from Sweden, hope they all develop well.

Sabres got McDavid and Hanifin, Eichel went to Coyotes, Zacha to Canucks, Werenski to Sharks, Marner to Ottawa, Strome to Florida, Barzal to Dallas, Crouse to Jets. From goalies first went Blackwood to Canes (#8), then Samsonov to Columbus (#14), then Vladar to Lightning (#24).
Unfortunately for our "first" pick my guy Provorov was already taken by Devils as #36. I went for Boeser before Korostelev or D. Yan, hope it was lucky choice.

Season 14/15 Awards:
Art Ross Trophy - Jakub Voracek (Giroux was second)
Hart Memorial Trophy - Giroux (Voracek second)
NHL Plus-Minus Award - Giroux (Voracek second)
King Clancy Trophy - Giroux
NHL First All-Star Team - Giroux, Voracek

Calder - Drouin, Vezina - Rinne, Conn Smythe - Getzlaf, Lady Byng - Palat, Selke - Zetterberg, Norris - J. Carlson, Maurice Richard - Ovechkin.

AHL:
Fred T. Hunt Memorial Trophy - J. Akeson (Most Sportsmanlike Player)

[umwoz]

Put out an offer to all to give up MacDonald, Avs offered EJ. Not sure he'll be an upgrade but it opens up a little bit of cap space.

Gonna try for Mez and a Bachman as my FA signings.

EDIT: One day later after sending me the offer, Sakic gets fired, they reject the offer.

[Kopi]

You can trade two Core players that dont make it to the new list for season 2 right?

[umwoz]

Finally got a trade done to clear some cap and horrible contracts.

Luke Schenn straight up for Lee Stempniak. Solid defensive winger to push one of VdV or Rinaldo out of the lineup.

[batdad]

You cannot trade em if they are you core. You can trade within the trade rules if they are not in your core.

[Kopi]

You cannot trade em if they are you core. You can trade within the trade rules if they are not in your core.

well next season two of your core players are not among core players no more as you only pick 8 out of those 10 core from the 1st season plus you pick 1 homegrown...so two of your ex core players can be traded then?

[Peter_Doherty]

You cannot trade em if they are you core. You can trade within the trade rules if they are not in your core.

well next season two of your core players are not among core players no more as you only pick 8 out of those 10 core from the 1st season plus you pick 1 homegrown...so two of your ex core players can be traded then?

After July 1, yes... Since the new season starts then

[Kopi]

Thanks Peter..just want to do double check as those two will be Mason and Macdonald as it seems

After 40 games im doing pretty well...had even a nice run of wins and you can guess who was my goalie at that time. Did read what Batdad wrote to you guys about tactic he use and i guess it worked a bit at my team as well. Also when Del Zotto came back from injury our form went up and i reduce penatly minutes....my PP is among 5 in the league yet PK sucks. Since i claimed from waivers John Scott that play along with Rinaldo and Stortini on 4th line i havent run into fights...a bit surprised. B. Schenn and Couturier doing solid in 2nd line but so far Raffl really took with both hands the chance i gave him in 1st line with Vorachek and Giroux. Vinny has the worst ratings and will be traded next season while "2nd best" is already Macdonald...

[batdad]

Pretty sure other than giving dates that is what I said Kopi. Never much hidden in what I say.

40 games in for my guys. Um....you guys are struggling? These guys fly for me.

Giroux back on top of NHL scoring ahead of Corey Perry by 2 points who has played 8 more games than us. We are in 1st in the conference, Boston is 2nd 3 points back and they have played 5 more games than us. (Interesting that there are alot of bad schedules for guys out there, guess I got lucky having only 2 places where I play 3 in 3, and then I get at least 2 days off on both sides of those three game sets)

Lineup right now, really has not changed much becuase the guys when I think I need to tweak something have a big game...

Kostka is a pleasant surprise. He is playing full time for me now, and not making mistakes and chipping in the nice odd play.


MacDonald is out for a couple games, so Grossman gets back in.

Umberger-Giroux-Voracek
Raffl- B Schenn-Simmonds
Lecavalier-Couturier-Read
Rinaldo-Bellemare-White
Van De Velde

Vinny is just quietly going game to game with 6 or 7 rating. Doing nothing good and nothing bad...just a spot filler, but Couturier seems to be developing along side him and is now getting second pp time, where he is doing well.

PP I have switched up a bit and got some results for once. Most of my pp goals came in the last 10 of my 20 game set. PP in last 10 games has been 12-52 23 percent. I think that is the best 10 game streak I have ever had. Last two games though no goals, so all 12 came in 8 games.

Defense core

Del Zotto-Streit
Schultz-Kostka
Grossman-Schenn
inj-Macdonald and spare is that dork bus Gudas.

Mason-Emery of course. Mason plays two games then EMery gets one, Both have been ridiculous.

So with my PK killing it, and my PP starting to come...this could be interesting. However I am sure as always that the last 2 games are the rule not the exception and by the end of season my PP will end up at about 13% like it always does. Ugh.