Challenge #43 - 2003 Blackhawks Discussion Thread

[braeden]

It really feels like I can't win a game in the first season... Would help if Thomas didn't get injured for 10 days and my D age wasn't 28,25,24,22,20,18...


Growing pains. Look at the Blackhawks now.

[kuulapaa]

Sun Dec 14th 2003

In my game Flames swept Pengs in SC Finals and won the Cup.

In the 2003 Draft the TOP 10 picks were as followed:
1. C/LW Eric Staal – CHI
2. RD/LD Shea Weber – LA
3. C Patrice Bergeron – CAR
4. C Mike Richards – MIN
5. C/RW Jeff Carter – BUF
6. G Marc-Andre Fleury – WSH
7. RW/LW Loui Eriksson – WPG
8. RW Corey Perry – PHI
9. G Corey Crawford – CLB
10. RD Brent Seabrook – NYI

Blackhawks picks after that were:
#22 C Travis Zajac
#31 G Jaroslav Halak
#61 LW/C Clarke MacArthur
#91 RD Richard Holland
#121 LD Chuck Dreger
#151 RW James Thomas
#181 RD/LD Stanley Hale

I needed to lean pretty much on my staff's opinions in my picking as I somehow didn't have even nearly all of the ranked players scouted when the Draft Day came. That doesn't bother me though, not knowing everything makes it maybe a bit more realistic.
After the draft I signed Staal, Halak and MacArthur to Entry Level contracts. Halak was immediately sent to Columbus Chill of ECHL to learn NA style hockey and to develop. Also MacArthur was sent back to Juniors after the Training Camp, he was not nowhere near ready for anything else.
Eric Staal started the season as the 2nd line center but I kept him under close eye in order to react immediately if he would have needed to be sent back down to his junior team. But now, after 30 games played he leads the league in rookie points scored by 11 points. Staal has 34 points with which he is the second best point scorer in Hawks. It seems pretty clear that he managed to claim a regular spot and he is actually very close to getting the 1st line C spot.

I signed also Chris Thorburn and Jay Bouwmeester to contracts. Thorburn has played in Indianapolis Ice all the season this far, Bouwmeester has played all but two games of the season so far in Hawks.

I let 11 players to walk after the season which then seemed to be a little too much as I noticed there was only some ten players in the farm team when the new season was about to start. I had taken the lead in Indianapolis too but wasn't paying too much attention to Indianapolis roster while I was busy in getting the season started. I then managed to sign some players for them so that they'd be able to start their season too.

I made 5 trades in the offseason and one more both in November and in December:
1) Steve Guolla to Oilers for Maxim Afinogenov and Marcus Nilson.
2) Steve Ott to Canadiens for Andrei Markov.
3) Kevin Dean to Rangers for Alyn McCauley.
4) Scott Hartnell and Brendan Witt to Islanders for Radek Bonk and Zdeno Chara.
5) Kip Miller to Lightning for Trevor Kidd.
6) Scott Hannan to Coyotes for Derek Morris
7) Kevin Haller to Blues for Daniel Corso.

1) I'd been quite happy with a direct swap of Guolla and Nilson, but Oilers gave us also Afinogenov. I thought to give him a shot no matter his bad looking atts and he has actually played well in AHL scoring nearly in PPG pace. Nilson hasn't succeeded too well, he has played in the 3rd line even though he isn't actually a defensive forward.
2) Ott for Markov was a dream deal in my opinion although the board or the fans didn't celebrate it. Markov is young and talented defenseman and I hope I can lock him as a long term part of the team. Ott has not made anything remarkable in Habs after the trade.
3) Dean for McCauley was a good trade too for us. McCauley has played big minutes in top lines and he has been at least decent. As soon as I manage to find a real 1st/2nd line C he may go or at least he moves to lower lines but until then we'll keep it this way.
4) Hartnell and Witt for Bonk and Chara was the biggest deal this far I've made. And guess what? It made both the board and the fans angry! Hell yeah! I admit Bonk is worth nothing. He has played worse than I expected (20 games, 0+0=0, -13) but it doesn't matter. Chara has been great and I believe this is just the beginning. He has 5+19=24 points in 30 games and he's only -1. I'm so happy having him in the team! Hartnell hasn't been able to produce much in his 29 games in Islanders (1+2=3, -1) and Witt has played only in few games. I still see us as a clear winner of this trade.
5) Miller for Kidd was a deal that had to be done because Snow retired on us in the beginning of August. We needed someone to replace him and Kidd was available. And Miller was expendable.
6) In November I swapped Hannan for Morris. This one I tried to avoid as so many other Challenge GM's seemed to have traded for Morris but as there was so few right handed RD's around I just had to do it. Morris came in in a rough period for all team so his stats look bad right now but I'm sure he'll be another valuable member of our defense. Anyway he has scored the same amount of points in ten games than Hannan did in the 20 games before his trade.
7) The most recent trade of mine is dated on this very day. It is a minor deal which sends Haller to Blues for Corso. Haller was unhappy with his ice time for a long time and then – as usually – demanded for a trade. I acted quickly and found one interested team. Blues gives us Corso, another one star player in return. I don't expect anything from Corso but I just see we need him more now.

The reason I see we need even a player like Corso is our injury situation right now. We've had a bunch of injuries earlier, nothing special though. But now we are in deep trouble. Thomas is on IR, he has a groin strain that keeps him out for a week. Daniel Cleary got injured for two months and he has been out for a month now. Marcus Nilsson is day-to-day with a twisted knee. And today we lost our top scorer Pavel Rosa for a month and Marco Sturm for a week. As Sturm played as a righ winger after Cleary's injury we can say Hawks is missing four right wingers at the moment. So I think Corso will be seeing some ice time as an RW as soon as he has arrived to Chicago.

I got fired from Hawks on Dec 2nd after losing to Minnesota Wild. It was our seventh loss in row. After 30 games Hawks is sitting dead last in the league with 17 points. We have lost 20 games and ten of team by one goal (OT losses not included in this number). It start's to look like we're going to have another great center from the 2004 Draft.

[SteveBonus]

Season 2 is done, and once again we finished dead last, but did manage a meager 5 point improvement over the previous season with a 22-48-12 record. I didn't expect to have a great season given the youth of my defense, and a rough 3 win Q1 pretty much met my expectations. Q2, though, is where I had a record over .500! The wheels completely fell off in Q3 though, where we went through an 11 game losing streak and cemented our spot at the bottom of the standings. But it's really not a bad time to finish dead last....



CROSBY!

So now I have both Crosby & Ovechkin, both of whom will have their rookie seasons next year, likely as linemates on the 2nd line behind the Sedins on the top line. Not bad at all, and a real bright future ahead for the team. I'm fairly happy with my draft overall, at least my top 5 picks. The bottom 4 guys I don't expect to ever see the NHL, and maybe not even an entry level deal. The funny thing with this draft is my head scout, coach and AGM all wanted me to take Letang 1st overall instead of Crosby. Not a chance guys!

There were also a few trades during the season, as you can see below. During the season I brought in Chuck Kobasew and Paul Martin, plus some draft picks. I shipped out Tverdovsky, Storr, Mitchell & Brylin. My biggest trade happened just after the draft where I dealt Plotnikov straight up for Corey Perry! I am pretty pumped about this deal, and I plan to play Perry with Crosby and Ovechkin. I was getting many, many offers for Plotnikov, and I needed RW so I started countering offers for the best RW options I could find. I was shocked when I saw that the Bruins could definitely consider a straight up offer for Perry, so that was definitely the deal to go for. I could have also had Hemsky, but would have had to give up another player to get him.


I am early into the UFA period now and so far I have signed goalie Mathieu Garon to a 2yr/$500k deal. He'll be my new backup goalie and I will try to move Brent Johnson, but not opposed to keeping him on as a 3rd stringer. I will also try to get someone else signed to a $500k deal, but there aren't many decent options. Maybe by August some guys will lower their standards and sign a cheap deal.

I am loving the way this roster is shaping up and I hope next season is finally a successful one.

Here's how the team currently looks:

[bruins72]

Sun Dec 14th 2003
I got fired from Hawks on Dec 2nd after losing to Minnesota Wild. It was our seventh loss in row. After 30 games Hawks is sitting dead last in the league with 17 points. We have lost 20 games and ten of team by one goal (OT losses not included in this number). It start's to look like we're going to have another great center from the 2004 Draft.

You can add yourself back in as GM if you'd like to continue. To avoid getting fired, go to the little "gear" icon at the top right. Click preferences. Check the box next to "Disable Human Manager Sackings".

By the way... great deal getting Chara! I was really trying hard to get him in our last challenge but couldn't get it done.

[kuulapaa]

You can add yourself back in as GM if you'd like to continue. To avoid getting fired, go to the little "gear" icon at the top right. Click preferences. Check the box next to "Disable Human Manager Sackings".

By the way... great deal getting Chara! I was really trying hard to get him in our last challenge but couldn't get it done.

I did, in the very next day of the game, thx. And as much I prefer going as realistic way as possible (for instance I try to keep as many of the original Challenge team players as I can instead of trading all out) I think I could tick that box as it is so time consuming and boring to send your scouts out again and set your lines and tactics and...

Yeah, getting Chara was nearly a dream come true. My defense pairings are now
Chara – Phillips
Markov – Morris
Nasreddine – Bouwmeester or Bouwmeester – Reirden
and as soon as Danny Groulx (or someone else) is ready to step up I'll send Nasreddine away. Reirden may get to stay because of his size and because he is an RD.

[braeden]

Almost at the 40 game mark in my first season.

Traded Kevin Haller for Sergei Brylin and signed Patrick Roy in FA to be our backup.

My lines:
Daze-Brylin-Cleary
Bartecko-Ott-Rosa
Miller-Pahlsson-Pominville
Guolla-Gaustad-Kubl
(Hartnell injured)

Liles Phillips
Oduya Weber
Witt Reirden

Thomas
Roy

[saberhagen83]

After Q3 in season 2 we sit in a comfortable position 12p clear in 2nd spot. Before the season, or even early on, I had ideas of players to trade out come the deadline. Guys like Reirden and Brylin could have been on the trade block, but with playoffs close I think it's best to hold on to these guys as I am likely not gonna be able to upgrade on them anyway. One trade did go through however. Rangers came at us with a lateral trade offer in our favour (I feel like it was). They offered us Daniel Henriksson for Brent Johnson, which I accepted. Thing with Johnson is that he was terrible for us and cost more with 2 years to go. Henriksson has an expiring contract and the idea is to bring in Elliott next year and possibly play him in the AHL and move Ouellet up as backup to Thomas. Biggest negative with Ouellet is his low recovery. But the internal cap given, I have to save money somewhere and Thomas isn't exactly cheap and can still play at a high level for a few more years.

Bouwmeester and Plotnikov has got a few games to try out the hard life of the NHL, but so far I prefer to keep them in the AHL where they are doing very good. Pominville is likely one guy I will try and flip come deadline day. If I can't get a resonable return, I will re-sign and try again next year. Then again, not interested in picks...so may have to re-sign him unless I can package him in a deal to get a better player back.

Oh and I wish teams would stop pursuing Phillips! He is a top 3 player on my team and they come at me with insulting offers like a 3rd+4th round picks.

[Beukeboom]

So i had a great second season , presidents trophy , Lord Stanley and everything with Malkin not even on my team yet. But turns out i was so happy i screwed up the savegames with new season saves overwriting the ones i Keep for making screenshots later. So can i proof my Playoff run via the history screenshot , other data via records screens etc. from the new season?

[saberhagen83]

Against all odds we beat the Penguins in 6 games to claim the Stanley Cup!

In the 5th playoff game, Thomas got injured for 4 months! Ouellet had to come up and took over from Henriksson, who also went down soon after. And boy did he do well! Staal had a couple of injuries as well but the team managed to hold out. Vasicek had worked his way from 3rd to 1st line over the course of the season and that line was great and led the way in the playoffs. But a big shout out to Fisher, the dude is a playoff beast! 22p in 25GP?! Impressive! Bouwmeester, Pominville and Plotnikov all made apperences as well and I was actually impressed by Pominville...maybe I'll keep him actually. And Plotnikov actually bagged 2 goals in the final 2 games as I dumped Ott, who had been terrible on the 3rd line.

Gonna be a interesting off-season, should be good fun trying to fit everyone into the team next year seeing as Bouwmeester, Plotnikov and Pominville are all eyeing a starting spot now. I feel safe-ish now knowing Ouellet will be the backup though.

[bruins72]

So i had a great second season , presidents trophy , Lord Stanley and everything with Malkin not even on my team yet. But turns out i was so happy i screwed up the savegames with new season saves overwriting the ones i Keep for making screenshots later. So can i proof my Playoff run via the history screenshot , other data via records screens etc. from the new season?

Yeah, go ahead and do that. Moving forward, you should really do your screenshots when you complete the season.

[braeden]

Wow...Sharp and Chara in the same trade. Might have to say goodbye to Hartnell who doesn't look like anything too special.

Am I allowed to trade Zajac if it says 'rights to Travis Zajac'? I signed him to a contract and sent him back to the WHL for what its worth...Says he's on a loan from the Blackhawks

[SteveBonus]

Year 3 is done - we made the finals! This was a really fun season, with 2 really nice looking lines of Sedin-Sedin-Fedotenko + Ovechkin-Crosby-Perry. Scoring was no problem whatsoever for this team, with Henrik Sedin winning the Art Ross trophy with 97 point performance. Brother Daniel wasn't far behind with 93 points. Meanwhile Ovechkin and Crosby both put up 77 point rookie season, with Ovi winning the Calder trophy on the back of his 52 goal rookie year.

The young dmen all continue to progress very well. Bouwmeester, Weber, Suter and Martin all have some very impressive looking attributes. Byfuglien and Burns are growing a bit more slowly but they were both definitely effective enough. My main issue is in net. Ryan Miller's attributes are not growing much, and my scouts rank him with 3 stars. Garon is about what I expected, but he ended up sharing about half the starts with Miller. Ideally Garon would be my backup earning 15-20 starts a year instead of 40. I'd like to get a good goalie, but unless I want to part with a top caliber player I won't get a top caliber goalie.

BUT, Miller was fine in the playoffs, handling the full load all the way to the finals. Having a high scoring team also helped! However, the Sabres dispatched us in a quick 5 games, but we had a pretty easy ride to the finals before that. I'm at the point now where I'm looking to bring in solid veterans and shutdown guys to accompany the skill up front, as I don't see why we can't make another run to the cup.

This time we of course did not draft 1st overall, but 19th overall. Here's how it went:


I also made one trade so far this offseason, sending Daniel Cleary and Ethan Moreau to the Habs for PJ Axelsson and a 3rd round pick. Axelsson has better looking defensive stats than either of those guys and I plan to have him join Ott on the 3rd line with someone else. That is if Ott is still with the team. I don't want to trade him but I've been negotiating with NYR to get Carey Price. I don't think it'll happen as Ott is as good a guy as I'm willing to give up...but that won't stop me from trying!

Also I signed 35 year old Jeremy Roenick to a 2yr/$895k deal. He's not the superstar he once was but his technical attributes are still pretty decent. I figure if I give him 4th line minutes + PP time I can get something good out of him.

Quick Update!
We got Price! It cost Steve Ott and 20 year old 3-star defense prospect Andrew MacDonald. So if you're keeping score, that's the Sedin Twins, Crosby, Ovechkin, Bouwmeester, Weber, Suter, Byfuglien, Burns and PRICE on one team. I am going to have future cap trouble! Future trouble keeping under the challenge budget too...but at that point I may just stop with the official challenge and continue on with all the same challenge rules minus the budget rule, because this team is going to be too fun to break up!

[Peter_Doherty]

Done with season 1, ended up sweeping Penguins in the SCF Think i mentally broke them when i won the first away game (game 3) in OT5.

[CJ]

that's the Sedin Twins, Crosby, Ovechkin, Bouwmeester, Weber, Suter, Byfuglien, Burns and PRICE on one team. I am going to have future cap trouble!

OMG!

[bruins72]

that's the Sedin Twins, Crosby, Ovechkin, Bouwmeester, Weber, Suter, Byfuglien, Burns and PRICE on one team. I am going to have future cap trouble!

OMG!

Yeah, I'd say you'd pretty much have to dominate with that team or you're doing something seriously wrong.

[Peter_Doherty]

That first season sure was amazing, don't think i've ever wont the cup in the first season during a challenge before. Drafted Sekera in the first round of the draft and signed Joe Corvo and Brent Johnson as my UFAs. After that i also made a trade, sent Steve Ott and David Wilkie away for Josef Vasicek, another skilled winger for me and someone with a bit of size to go with it.

[saberhagen83]

Season 3 is off to a great start with a 9-1-3 record. Not many changes has been done this off-season at all, a few players have been let go like Brylin and Reirden. 2 UFA signings was made, Mikko Koivu and Andrei Shefer. Shefer has made the line-up after a very good pre-season and he has done pretty well as a bottom pairing RD. Koivu on the other hand had though competition and didn't play well enough, he is putting up points in AHL but still has pretty low avg rating though.

Daze - Staal - Vasicek
Kunitz - Plotnikov - Sturm
Ott - Halpern - Rosa
Fisher - Påhlsson - Weller

Phillips - Clark
McKee - Rachunek
Bouwmeester - Shefer/Corvo

Thomas/Ouellet

[woody513]

Haven't really done this before but I thought I'd give it a go this time as it looks like a really fun challenge. I'm currently 5-8-0 after 13 games of the first season which I'm pretty happy about considering how bad the team was at first. I saw what everyone did for the draft here and I wanted to try something to different to see how it would work out.

I went with:

1st: Jeff Carter
21st: Buff
31st: Travis Zajac
61st: Eric Fehr

And the rest aren't really all that interesting.

Even though everyone has been singing Staal's praises I just liked the look of Carter better and at the time I believed I was going to be able to trade for Parise but the Rangers are still yet to sign him to a deal.

The trades I made were:



I didn't think Sturm looked all that good and the Rangers were happy to give up Suter for him.

I thought a lot about the Rinne trade. Ott and Hartnell are good but I figured players like them were a lot easier to come by than a goalie like Rinne, who was my second choice after Lundqvist.

I picked up Daniel Sedin really easily as well. I didn't really want to trade Thomas but to get Sedin for him and Thorburn I couldn't say no really. I signed Guy Hebert as my UFA really as a stop gap until Rinne really comes into his own.

I needed a solid playmaking center and Hecht fit the bill on that, so only giving up Pominville and Kip Miller for him was nice.

Finally, I was just looking around for trades and found that the Coyotes would do a straight swap of Buff for Burns which was amazing considering Burns had been drafted 8 spots above Buff.

So I'm looking forward to a good season with the following lines:

Daze - Hecht/Carter - Rosa (Carter has 11 points in 13 whilst Hecht only has 5)
Sedin - Hecht/Carter - Cleary
Bartecko - Pahlsson - Cummins
Belanger - Guolla - Lapointe

Phillips - Dean
Hannan - Burns
Witt - Haller

Hebert/Rinne rotating

Team can seriously improve but both Carter and Burns look really good already. Burns is a PPG player and leads the team in scoring atm.

[SteveBonus]

that's the Sedin Twins, Crosby, Ovechkin, Bouwmeester, Weber, Suter, Byfuglien, Burns and PRICE on one team. I am going to have future cap trouble!

OMG!

Yeah, I'd say you'd pretty much have to dominate with that team or you're doing something seriously wrong.

Absolutely, and the domination has begun, even with Price in the minors. Since Price was just 19 and needed some seasoning before playing in the NHL I sent him down to the AHL. For some reason I didn't have the option to send him back to junior, but the AHL did the trick just fine. To make sure that he got the bulk of the starts down there, though, I had to get rid of Ray Emery. So I sent him & my NHL backup Mathieu Garon to Florida for Ilya Bryzgalov, who went on to be a pretty decent backup to Ryan Miller.

I also made 2 more trades before the season started:

Jason Pominville & Kris Versteeg to the Flyers for Ryan Callahan. Callahan being a young defensive forward is exactly what I wanted. Pominville had good shooting and skating attributes, but was lacking elsewhere. Same for Versteeg. I could afford to give up some offensive talent for a more defensive guy considering the skill I already have up front, so I had no hesitation in making this deal.

Ruslan Fedotenko & Matt Moulson to Tampa Bay for Thomas Vanek! I'd been eyeing Vanek for awhile and finally worked out a deal I was comfortable with. Vanek gives us another high level forward, and his presence proved to be VERY important this season.

My lines during the season were generally as follows:

D. Sedin - H. Sedin - Vanek
Ovechkin - Crosby - Roenick
Axelsson - Zajac - Callahan
Kobasew - Pahlsson - Perry

Suter - Weber
Bouwmeester - Byfuglien
Martin - Burns

Miller
Bryzgalov

Perry started the year on the 2nd line and Roenick on the 4th, but Perry was pretty ineffective while Roenick was rather effective, so I swapped them. Roenick ended up finishing the year with 50pts so I am VERY pleased with how he turned out for me.

As for the season - well, it went extremely well. We won the President's Trophy with 125pts (57-14-11) and then had a hard fought playoff run to win the Stanley Cup! Rounds 1 and 3 weren't too difficult, but round 2 & the finals were very challenging, with both going 7 games. I mentioned earlier that Vanek's presence proved to be VERY important, and, well, he scored the cup winning goal in game 7 overtime! Game 7 was quite a game as we went down 2-0 early and it wasn't until the 50th minute that we got back into the game:



We also cleaned up at the NHL awards:

Art Ross - Henrik Sedin - 112pts
Rocket Richard - Alexander Ovechkin - 64 goals
Lester Pearson - Henrik Sedin
Lady Byng - Henrik Sedin
King Clancy - Daniel Sedin
Jack Adams - Larry Robinson
Hart - Daniel Sedin
Conn Smythe - Daniel Sedin

So that's that, we got our cup. I'm probably going to continue playing out this team on my own but not sure I'll keep posting updates or stats/screenshots. This has been my first challenge and it's been great fun!

[oSans]

Wow the sim takes forever, seriously I wish there weren't so many leagues I'll never use turned on.

[oSans]

For the year one draft I'll be going off my knowledge of the game (which granted is nowhere near as much as you guys, I'm sure) and go for Shea Weber first overall, and next year go for a beastly center in Malkin (presumeably, depends on how we do. IF I do not finish first/second overall though I won't trade up.. I would for Crosby though because c'mon it's Sid the Kid, he's a beast.) Don't kill me, I know he turned out great for all of you I just wanted to build from the most needed positions. And I'm a diehard Capitals fan, so it's not even bias that's making me do this, I just feel it's more logical.

I may be stupid though lol

[Peter_Doherty]

Wow the sim takes forever, seriously I wish there weren't so many leagues I'll never use turned on.

You can turn them off, or atleast change the settings on them. Go to Options -> Selected leagues and change the leagues you don't care about to 'view only'. Then you go to Options -> Detail level and turn the details down on the leagues you don't care about. I usually go default on international competitions and quick sim on all the european leagues + ECHL.

[saberhagen83]

Currently up during the Olympics break and trade deadline approching, and we are working those phones. So I haven't been happy with the way Brad Ference was playing this season. During the last stretch he did get to play cause of injuries, and this has been his best ticket to hold down a spot on this team this year. We had 4 defensemen injured at one point! So playing time certainly can be given to fringe players.

The Mighty Ducks were the most interested team, they actually wanted to give up 3 players for Ference, but I worked it down to 2 and took off the 3rd round pick they were trying to gain from me. So Ference to Anaheim in exchange for defenseman Delmore and winger Pesonen. As that went through I saw a offer coming in for Toronto's Byfuglien. It didn't look too spectacular so I had to dive in. And we struck a deal, sending Delmore + Pominville their way. They were quite interested in Pominville and Delmore sweetened the deal a bit.

I then took a quick look on the trading block and saw Devils wanted to give up on Craig Anderson. Ray Emery's contract is expiring and I think Anderson has a higher potential, still a year older though. But Emery + 5th was all it took, and I was happy to take the chance and see if Anderson can become that backup goalie I can't see Emery turning into right now.

Think I'm done trading for this season. There are a few names I've been looking at but I don't want to break up my top 6 while chasing another cup and they are doing so well. We sit 1st in West with 81p after 59GP. But I might make some bigger changes next year.

[MWE]

Finally got internet at my new house

Downloading the save file now

[saberhagen83]

Done season 3 and we lifted our 2nd Cup, beating Tampa Bay in the final in 7 games. Staal as usual dominated with Daze and Vasicek, however I can see Daze is slowing down. He was in fact traded to the Lightning in the off-season that followed, with Vanek coming the other way. More speed on our 1st line, but maybe not quite as strong defensivly without Daze.

2 players that really did impress me in the playoffs were Moulson, who again got to come up and he did very well. Another was the aquired Pesonen around the deadline. Came in and played 7 games, putting up 7 points. I'm certain he will have a part to play on this team next season, he is quite fast and seems to have a nice shot.