Challenge #38 - Shark Attack! - Discussion Thread

[eric1985]

Figured id try out this challenge and hopefully last longer then last time haha, as usual, I went for the BPA when trading these guys.

Our Lineup heading into the new season.
Drouin Couture Stone
Nieto Hertl Wingels
Boucher Tierney Kucherov
Zolnierczyk Viedensky Smith

Johnson Larsson
Muller Doherty
DeMelo Tennyson

Sateri
Stalock

[visualdarkness]

Johnson Larsson
Muller Doherty
DeMelo Tennyson

Good luck with Doherty in the second, I found him to be awful. While he can play physical he is very much lacking in many important areas.

[eric1985]

The Yakupov experiment failed, but I gotta give him kudos for his determination. How many released players begs to get another shot?
I almost feel sorry for him.

I had like 12 agents approach me and im not even through training camp yet...

[Sesyde]

Figured id try out this challenge and hopefully last longer then last time haha, as usual, I went for the BPA when trading these guys.

Our Lineup heading into the new season.
Drouin Couture Stone
Nieto Hertl Wingels
Boucher Tierney Kucherov
Zolnierczyk Viedensky Smith

Johnson Larsson
Muller Doherty
DeMelo Tennyson

Sateri
Stalock

If I'm not completely mistaken, that Lightning deal is not allowed. You trade out 4 players, while the limit was 3. Just a heads up before you go too far in to your game.

[visualdarkness]

The Yakupov experiment failed, but I gotta give him kudos for his determination. How many released players begs to get another shot?
I almost feel sorry for him.

I had like 12 agents approach me and im not even through training camp yet...

But the agent from a player that you just released the same day?

[Sesyde]

So, I am in the playoffs in season 2, first matchup vs the Kings. I am up 3-2 at the moment, but my Special teams are the worst I have ever experienced. I just scored my first PP goal in the playoffs now in OT game 5, so at the moment I am 1/33... That's a whopping 3%
Boxplay aint much better comming in at 71,4%

The biggest problem I have had so far in the matchup, besides the obvious lack of special team, is that my stars are not producing. My first line that carried this team to the playoffs have just 1 goal at the moment, and we're talking about no 1, 3 and 38 of the regular season Point leaders.
Something has to be done...

[visualdarkness]

The fourth season is approaching and Huberdeau won his third straight Lady Byng and Chychrun made the Rookie All-star team.

No trades at all during the season.

Wow, the 2019 draft sucked so bad, even the first ranked player is a potential third liner! Hated all my picks.
Luckily I won the lottery so I hopefully got something useful from it.

#1 Kirby Dach - A poor mans Brian Little with no stick handling or deking. Like I said, brutal!
#40 Locke Easton - Poor mans Nieto 2/3 that cant pass the puck.
#70 Spencer Desbiens - Quick hard working LW with nothing else. 2/limited potential
#100 Harrison Blaisdell - Quick 2nd LW with some decent key stats but no hockey sense or stick handling
#130 Anton Johansson - Sub par standard 3rd checking C over-ager
#160 Jeremias Rundgren - Flashy defensive C. Brutal atts but 2nd line potential.
#190 Jiri Vala - Huge D with a decent slapper, decent passing and great bravery. Unscouted.

Made a couple of trades to shake things up:

Tennyson and DeMelo for Nikita Korostelev and Jordan Maher
Maybe a mistake to trade away two right sticks and my best +/- guy last season with no D coming back, but it was the best one I could find. Two 1/2 potential forwards back is decent.

Sean Kuraly for Marcus Högberg
I needed a new backup goalie in any way possible. Unproven but his atts are decent and he seems mature.

Fredrik Bergvik for Jacob de la Rose and 5th
I lacked one left-handed PK guy as Sheahan refused to re-sign and hopefully he will be decent in that role.


All in all my forwrds will be almost the same, trading Couture to get a equal level C back seems impossible.

Huberdeau - Couture - Coyle
Nieto - Hertl - Wingels
Goldobin - Boyko - Hartman
de la Rose - Kalfirt - Samuelsson

I seriously lack RDs so Dumba and Chychrun cant be in in the same pairing. I will try to keep Marincin and Johnson at minimum ice-time as they lack stamina. Chad Krys will get his rookie chance and he looks like a Chychrun light. This crew is so offensive minded that its almost like playing with five forwards.

Müller - Chychrun
Krys - Dumba
Marincin - Johnson


I am looking forward to an even worse year.

[Asher413]

::Rant:: I feel like coaching games myself makes for less logical results and less consistent results... at least for me ::/rant::

Season 2 is done. We went in waves of .500 or close hockey, then terrible hockey. About 35 games in I decided to punt on the season

In November, sent AHL Tierney to Philly for Nick Sorensen (I have like two forwards that even can pretend to be penalty killers outside of my stars). December: Couture, Smith and Wingles to Minn for Hanifin, Grosenick to CHI for Barabanov and Hayes to COL for a 3rd round pick at the deadline. Despite those moves we had a good 3rd quarter, then it went to nothing again in a terrible 4th quarter.

JOhansen, Nieto, Hertl and Girgensens have solidified themselves in the top 6 plans. O'Regan was better than I thought, with 27 points. But, we just didn't have it in one goal games despite decent special teams (17.1 PP and 82.7% PK). Ullmark had a nice rookie year at 902 percent saved. 3 Shutouts. In all, I'm really at a loss as I can't seem to take below average talent and do anything. Finished dead last, hopefully the lottery won't kill us. The positive is the baby Sharks won the title... in part because the big boys weren't in the playoffs so a lot of guys could be sent down.

[bruins72]

So despite finishing with the worst record in the league for season 1, I got the #2 overall pick. The Red Wings (who finished 2nd worst in the East) for the #1 overall. They took Nolan Patrick, the consensus #1 overall, who my scouts compare to Kopitar (some say a better version of him). He looks pretty good but I'm not impressed with his mental attributes. I kind of went against my scouts wishes on my pick. They were telling me to take Maxime Comtois, the player ranked #2 by the ISS. He's a LW and he looks like he could be sniper. I just didn't like enough about him and figured it would by a few years before he made it into my lineup. I really don't need an offensive LW right now. Also, he's got a fair amount of really bad (red) attributes, has poor decision making, and is susceptible to getting a sprained wrist. That probably isn't good for a sniper. I could have taken Krief, the fast skating, playmaking defenseman. He's a total defensive liability though. Plus, I really don't need anymore LD. So I went with the guy ranked #5 overall, Mikhail Zubarev. He's a defensive center. He's strong and a fast skater. He's already got some decent defensive attributes. I could probably use him in season 2 if I wanted to. I didn't look at signing him right after the draft though. So I'm bringing him over for season 3. He'll either make his way onto my NHL roster or soak up a bunch of minutes in the AHL.

I've been trying to make some trades over the summer but all I've come up with so far is to trade Harry Z for the Blues' 2nd and 3rd round picks in 2018. I'm looking at trading Oleksuk and Hayes for something at some point. They're spare parts and they're of trading age. I also want to trade Hertl because he's been a total dud for me. Unfortunately, other teams don't value him as much as I'd like them to. I'd like to strengthen up my RD and maybe get a defensive-minded LW for the 4th line.

Barring any trades coming about, this is what my lines are looking like...

Nieto - Couture - Coyle
Fiala - Boyko - Hartman
Hertl - Grigorenko - Wingels
Tinordi - Smith-Pelly - Smith

Reinhart - Johnson
Beaulieu - Musil
Muller - Doherty

Stalock - Grosenick

[visualdarkness]

Nieto - Couture - Coyle
Fiala - Boyko - Hartman
Hertl - Grigorenko - Wingels
Tinordi - Smith-Pelly - Smith

Reinhart - Johnson
Beaulieu - Musil
Muller - Doherty

Stalock - Grosenick

Very interesting with Fiala on the second line, I havent even given him a shot. Though he broke a ECHL record last season with 157 points. Doesnt mean much though as the ECHL salary rules are broken hence the league almost empty.

[Sesyde]

Nieto - Couture - Coyle
Fiala - Boyko - Hartman
Hertl - Grigorenko - Wingels
Tinordi - Smith-Pelly - Smith

Reinhart - Johnson
Beaulieu - Musil
Muller - Doherty

Stalock - Grosenick

Very interesting with Fiala on the second line, I havent even given him a shot. Though he broke a ECHL record last season with 157 points. Doesnt mean much though as the ECHL salary rules are broken hence the league almost empty.

I have also had Fiala in my 2nd line all of season 2. He did very well there together with W.Karlsson and Nieto. His stats aren't very good but he just seem to work. He did fantastic first season in AHL so I had to try him, and as I said, it worked great.

[eric1985]

Figured id try out this challenge and hopefully last longer then last time haha, as usual, I went for the BPA when trading these guys.

Our Lineup heading into the new season.
Drouin Couture Stone
Nieto Hertl Wingels
Boucher Tierney Kucherov
Zolnierczyk Viedensky Smith

Johnson Larsson
Muller Doherty
DeMelo Tennyson

Sateri
Stalock

If I'm not completely mistaken, that Lightning deal is not allowed. You trade out 4 players, while the limit was 3. Just a heads up before you go too far in to your game.

My god your right, i overlooked that part. Ill just delete that save and try again.

[visualdarkness]

Three games in season four and our PP is still impotent with 0 goals. How do you coach a PP in this game?

[Asher413]

Keep in mind I suck at winning, but can put up 15%+ power plays. I almost always field a forward (usually a center because of the defense) on the point. I also try to make sure my two D men are two of the best passers on the team. I pretty much ignore positions to make sure my best 4 forwards are on the first unit. (and to cut it off at the pass- the Sharks gave up 6 shorties with this, my Pens save is 25 games in in 2008 and with Malkin and WHitney on the point it's 0 SHG against.)

With my team it was

Morrissey-Girgensons-Nieto-Johansson-(Hot winger)

[visualdarkness]

Well I have tried a lot of different things in both this and the last challenges and still we are at 0% six games in also this season. That is with a 40% PP training!

[visualdarkness]

21 games in and we are on the upper half atleast, but PP is at an amazing 3.6% and it is killing games for me.
Krys is holding up fine as a rookie D but the Johnson-Marincin paring is bad.

[SteveBonus]

What a crazy season 2019-20 was! I hadn't made the playoffs before this season, but after my 14-1-2 start I was pretty optimistic that this would be the year I made it. And boy was it ever! We went 54-22-6 (114pts) to win the President's Trophy, which took me complete by surprise given the roster hadn't changed THAT much over the previous 89pt season.

Standings:


Player Stats:


I also had the following goalie stats:
Andrei Vasilevsky - 48-28-4, 2.03 GAA, 0.911 Sv%, 8 SO
Juuse Saaros - 8-4-2, 2.38 GAA, 0.893 Sv%, 1 SO

Next up came the playoffs, which was a wild ride:

Conference Quarter-Finals - defeated Ducks in Game 7
Conference Semi-Finals - defeated Flames in Game 7 OT!
Conference Finals - defeated Avalanche in Game 7 OT!!
Stanley Cup Finals - defeated Bruins in Game 5!!!

Stanley Cup! Holy moly!


Playoff Stats:


To make things even more sweet, the Worcester Sharks also won the AHL regular season & Calder Cup! I control them too (well, my 2nd GM Johnny Gettum-Ready does all the heavy lifting).

This is by far my most satisfying EHM season ever, and most unexpected. I was just hoping to sneak into the playoffs and this season completely blew that away. Guess now I have to see if I can do it again!

[bruins72]

Nieto - Couture - Coyle
Fiala - Boyko - Hartman
Hertl - Grigorenko - Wingels
Tinordi - Smith-Pelly - Smith

Reinhart - Johnson
Beaulieu - Musil
Muller - Doherty

Stalock - Grosenick

Very interesting with Fiala on the second line, I havent even given him a shot. Though he broke a ECHL record last season with 157 points. Doesnt mean much though as the ECHL salary rules are broken hence the league almost empty.

I started Fiala in the AHL for season 1. I ran into some injury problems and brought him up to fill in. He spent the first half of the season in the AHL and the second half in the NHL. In 37 NHL games he had 28 points and was a +5. That's on a team that wasn't scoring a lot and didn't have many plus players. He made it so I couldn't send him down. I'm actually going to move him up to the first line and switch places with Nieto because I don't want him with 2 rookies (Boyko and Hartman) on that second line.

I made a couple minor trades before the start of the season to pare down my roster without having to waive anyone. I sent Oleksuk to the Ducks for Max Friberg. While Friberg isn't anything special, he can skate and leans more towards defensive play. He'll be decent on my 4th line and PK. My second move I liked a lot more. I sent Eriah Hayes to the Lightning for Clark Bishop. Hayes played 64 games on my 4th line in season 1 and had 5 assists and a -11. He wasn't needed. Bishop will play in the AHL this season (barring injuries making him a necessary callup). He's a nice young defensive center. He can skate, has nice mental attributes, and some pretty good defensive attributes. He could develop into a great 3rd line center/PKer for this team.

So I'm going to let Ullmark play in the AHL this season. He split the starts with Stalock in the NHL this season but Grosenick came over in the transfer window and I would have had to waive him to send him down. It will be good to have Ullmark get most of the starts in the AHL but still have him available to call up in case of injuries. We'll see what happens and maybe Stalock can be traded at some point.

[visualdarkness]

Made a nice trade, got my pp to 10% and climbed to third place, closed the game without saving for some reason and lost all that progress.

[bruins72]

And Eriah Hayes played 1 game for the Lightning (-1, no points in about 12:00 of ice time) and they've waived him to send down to their AHL affiliate. This is what I would have had to have done with him. So essentially, I got Clark Bishop for free!

I've only played 6 games so far this season but I'm off to a 4-2 start! Our PP% is only 9.5% though. I've got to improve that. Our PK% is 84.4%, which is the middle of the pack. I'm not so concerned about that but the PP needs to start clicking. We've been pretty good so far but we were HORRIBLE in those 2 losses. Early on, Fiala has been a stud on the first line. He's got 5G 2A and +6 with 2 PIM in 6 games so far. I can't ask for much more than that out of him. Just looking at his attributes I would have figured he was terrible. He's been one of my best though.

[Sesyde]

So second season is done, and it was an ok one concidering my expectations going in to it.

The season started so and so, kind of like the first one. But instead of dipping down into the abyss after 20-30 games like in S1, we kept on going. Carried by my 1st line (Domi, Couture, Hertl) we eventually managed to fight our way up to a 2nd spot in the conference and a nice playoff spot as a reward. So we can surely say that the regular season went really well, finishing with a record of 47-26-9. I scored most in the league (GF 270) and had by far the least times shorthanded.

Going in to the playoffs we started out playing against the Kings. My record during the regular season against them was quite ok so I was expecting us to do well here, especially after Kopitar got injured in the first game. We ended up beating them 4-2, which was a little worse than I expected.
Then came our bane men, the Oilers. We were swept 4-0 and was never really even close in any of those 4 games. I just couldn't find a way to stop them from scoring on me, and myself I never scored more than once per game. Their first line with Hall, NH and Eberle is just insane in my game and they tore me apart.
What was significant for the whole playoffs was that my 1st line that did so well in the regular season, just couldn't produce. And as posted before, my special teams were absolute shite.

Looking back overall I must say I am okay with my season, I expected us to struggle making the playoffs, but we ended 2nd so that is a huge step forward.

My Lineup as it looked for the most part of the season was:

Domi - Couture - Hertl
Fiala - W. Karlsson - Nieto
Hartman - Boyko - Smith
Goldobin - Tierney - M. Karlsson

Muller - Nurse
Morrissey - Ristolainen
McCabe - Theodore

Grosenick
Stalock

Awards, trades and draft will follow

[Smylie]

Well things went as expected for the first year…… finished 3rd last and got the 4th pick in the draft as Carolina won the lottey……. I would have been last except for a pesky 4 game win streak at mid point thru the final 22 games…. Oh Well….. Positives and negatives for the year were Muller and Johnson both being close to a 0+/- after 80 games….. On the other hand our soon to be sniper Goldobin was doing his best Nail Yakupov imitation and was a lovely -34 in 79 games…. Top goal scorer was Nieto with 31 and points with 52 total….. Johnson had the most assists at 34…… Both Stalock and Grubauer had Goals against averages north of 3.00 though I think that was more a reflection of a porous defense…..

So for their efforts both Stalock and Johnson were shipped off to the Oilers for Oscar Kelfbom and Edmonton’s 2nd round pick(45)….. That turned out to be LD Zach Lauzon…. He was the 3rd LD picked as Crete-Belzille and Farrance were picked 4 and 33….. Zolneirczyk after a pedestrian 7-7-14 and a -24 in 73 games was shipped off to Pittsburgh for LW Lucas Lessio….. Also heading elsewhere –Winterpeg- were Oleksuk and Smith for LD Michal Wikstrand and LW Brendan Lemieux.
Rounding out the draft were: LW Peltonen, LW Laporte, RD Regan, RW Turgeon, LW/LD Mocquard, G Oettinger and a C Rubtsov…..

Brought the little Debrusk up from the minors at the end of the season and in 15 games he had 3-4-7 and +7…… He may, with the new acqusitions, not even make the top 4 LW’s and may spend some more time in the AHL….

Tarasov in 63 games was a +2 and 11-8-19 and could secure a return starting spot because of his RW/C ability….. there will be a 3 way dog fight in net as holdover Grubauer, new recruit Grosenick and AHL star Bergvik all duke it out in training camp…….

It should be an interesting season…….

[Devils88]

Challenge 38 Season 1

The first time in my Challenge-History that i was able to win the cup. There were three Game 7s we won on our surprisingly sucessful season.

The season began good as we won the Lottery. I decided to take Auston Matthews as No.1 despite ranked only No.7 and passed by Chychrun, Day and Puljujärvi.
Picks:
1 Auston Matthews
36 Kale Clague
42 Matthew Tkachuk
73 Jonas Siegenthaler
74 Nick Heid
96 Hans Göran Ericson
110 Alex-Olivier Liebel
126 Jared Bethune
156 Kevin Dahlberg
169 Ryan Zuhlsdorf
186 Filip Larsson
193 Nikita Makeyev

I signed Matthews and slotted him to the center-spot on line 3. Not too much minutes but enough to develope. After the Canucks Challenge we all know, how important good Centers are. So i went after another C and some good defenseman in my trades. (didn't trade for any guys i had in CH37 - except Yakupov who is trash in this Save.)
Our Trades:


I could not sign Säteri and needed to go with the Stalock / Grosenick Tandem. We are strong down the middle and had some young unproven guys on the wings. Our biggest positive surprise was the offensive firework my 2nd line produced. Them and solid goaltending was the foundation of our regular season success.
Coaching Staff:
HC - Guy Boucher
AC - De Boer, MacLean, Malarchuk, Brennan, Woodcroft. (Robinson retired)
Worcester Staff: HC: McLellan, AC: Wallin, Murray

Lines:
Nieto - Couture -Wingels
Hertl - Monahan - Nylander
Dano - Matthews - Hartman
Goldobin (mostly on 3rd Line) - Oleksuk - Smith
Zolnierczyk and Boyko were spare parts.

Murray - Johnson
Müller - Ristolainen
Zadorov -Tennyson
Mc Cabe - Bergman

Stalock - Grosenick

We had normal injuries with some guys missing about 10 games, the only significant loss was Johnson for 3 months. But Bergman and McCabe played ok til he was back. We ended the season with a record of 54-22-6 despite i could not solve our special teams the whole year. PK got slightly better over the season and ended at 78.4%. But the PP was absymal. Normaly i have a percentage of 17-19%. in this challenge 11.2%. oh man, what did i tweak around to get them going, but nothing worked out too well.

With our last game (which we lost) we lost the no.1.seed to the blues. (sharks and blues ended the season with 114 pts. each). At the begin of the season i hoped for Matthews to go for the Calder. But it was William Nylander who lead the Sharks in scoring with 91 Pts. (41/50) He ended up 5th best scorer in the league.

For the Playoffs i tred something new, cause i never get past Round 2 in my Challenges before. I decided to match the No.1 lines with ...my No.1 line. And that worked out well. Also Stalock in goal was fantastic at the important times.

Conf.Qtr Final vs Nashville: Won Series 4-2 - we were down 0-2 and Rinne frustrated us, til we won Game 3 in OT 5:4. that was the turning point.

Conf.Semi Final vs Anaheim: Won Series 4-3 - held Getzlaf and Perry in Check, but 2nd Line LW Etem scored 11 Points in this series to keep it tight. Game 7 wasn't that close - 4:1 win.

Conf.Final vs Minnesota: Won Series 4-3 - this was the closest series i remember. 5 games decided by one goal, we were down 0:2 in the series and came back with a game 3 ot win again (like Nashville series). In a 2-1 Game 7 win, two unlikly heros scored: D-Man Bergman and our 4th Line LW at this time - Marko Dano. So we went on to the SC Final for a matchup with the Washington Capitals.

SC-Final vs. Washington: Won Series 4-3 - an epic Game 3, which went to the 4th OT. Ryan Hartman scored after 124:06. Stalock got injured (in 2nd OT) for 2 Games which we lost with Grosenick in Goal (2:3 OT and 1:5). Game 6 saw the Nylander (2G) / Hertl (3A) combo come to life in a 6:3 win. So a ultimative Game 7 took place. Score was tied at 2 until 56:46. Then, who else, Nylander fired home the Stanley Cup winning goal. Hertl scored 2 EN Goals for a 5:2 win.

Awards:
Conn Smythe: Alex Stalock won, Nieto was 3rd
Calder Trophy: William Nylander
Lady Byng: Tomas Hertl
Adams Award: Guy Boucher
Plus / minus: Monahan was 3rd
Selke Trophy: Wingels was 3rd
Nylander was in the 2nd Allstar Team and also with Zadorov voted to the All-Rookie Team.

So after the ultimate Stanley Cup win i changed my goals for Season 2. Before the Playoffs i planned on trading Couture, Wingels, Johnson etc. But now (with the taste of victory) i'm trying to repeat the triumph. So i'll keep the core together. We'll see how Season 2 goes.....

[Sesyde]

Trades and draft are done. Awards has also dropped in.

Awards
Max Domi - Had a fantastic season: Art Ross winner(96P), Maurice 'Rocket' Richard winner(50G), Second All Star Team
Hertl - Also did great: 3rd Place for Art Ross (92P), Lady Byng Memorial winner (thanked me for it)
Josh Morrissey - Was really good in his offensive role: 3rd place for Calder Memorial, Rookie All Star Team
Logan Couture - I think he was a bit carried by his Linemates, but he did well: 2nd place for Lady Byng Memorial

Trades
I decided to take a risk and make a big one. I moved out Couture, Stalock and M. Karlsson to Blackhawks for Teräväinen. Basically replacing my 1st line C with a younger one. This can very well brake us, since I have no other keeper comming in for Stalock. So we are down to Grosenick, Bergvik and Eriksson-Ek. We thought were that Stalock sucked big time during the regular season. He played 43 games, while having figures of 2.89 GAA and 89.0% saved. Grosenick had better numbers and I will gamble that Eriksson-Ek is ready to become the backup already this year, maybe he can even become an even pairing with Grosenick splitting the load 50/50. That's my hope at least.

Draft
As for the draft, I sent my scouts out several times, but I somehow missed sending them out the last run. That mistake resulted in me having almost no scouting info what so ever for this draft. Going into every single player to check is just too much work for me when reaching the higher picks. Therefore I went quite a lot on mental attributes. Anyway, here are the results:

1-27 Alen Lidman - RW - The scouts recommended him and some compare him to Kucherov, I don't really see what the fuzz is about, but I chose to trust them this time.
2-57 Antonin Grman - C - Solid mental stats and has already developed his physical and offensive stats ok for a 17year-old
3-87 Axel Ottosson - C/LW - Another one with decent mental and physical stats. Is described as a Power Forward and I could see with some development that he can be a good 3-4 line player
4-117 Chevan Letourneau - C - 20 in Determination (somewhat of a favourite stat for me) and while he is on the slow side, he's got ok offensive attributes
5-147 August Gunnarsson - RW/LW - 22 year-old that probably never will be anything. Decent stats in his club though
6-117 Tomas Öhlund - C - Another 22 year-old. Good at faceoffs and could maybe become an ok defensive Center
7-207 Albin Runesson - RD - Yet again 22 years. has decent number to maybe take a spot in Worchester

I am really not happy with the draft, but if the brain is stupid one gotta pay for it.

Going in to next season I will try to switch up a little bit in my lines, trying to bring in some of my young talents and try to have some of them in the top 6.

[Sesyde]

Might have solved my goalie situation (or made it worse) with a late trade in the preseason.

Grosenick to Stars for Brent Moran

This is a gamble though. Attribute wise he looks a bit better than Grosenick, but he doesn't have more than 1 game in the NHL and that could be risky for using as a starter, but I will for sure try. He did put up a nice 93,3% in AHL last season with 1,72 GAA so he should be ready.