Calgary Flames - Taking control of raging Flames

[ippe]

I downloaded Eastside Hockey Manager few days ago and started a career with my favourite team Pittsburgh Penguins. I have been fan of Football Manager series for almost a decade but I didn't know what to except for this game. It turns out Eastside Hockey Manager or EHM, isn't nowhere near close to Football Manager what it comes to realism but it doesn't make this a bad game. Anyway I achieved quick succes with Penguins and altough they are one of the best teams in NHL I found that 40 wins in 50 games in season two is a 'bit unrealistic' to say atleast. Anyway my point is now that I know basics of this game I want to start a new career with team located in Western Conference. To keep things as realistic as possible I have adopted few extra rules for this series. Rules are mainly borrowed from The Blue Line Forum Challenges.

Trades/ Acquiring players
- Only 1 for 1, 1 for 2, 2 for 1, and 2 for 2 deals allowed.
- You'll be allowed a total of 3 trades per season.
- Draft picks are allowed as components of the deal, except 1st rounders. Only picks for the upcoming draft are allowed.
- No waiver claims allowed!
- UFA signing is allowed but you can only acquire 1 UFA player for maximum of $1,5M wages per season.
- You can't take advantage of possible bugs. (Barrage shooting possibly being one?)
- Tanking isn't allowed. You must always try to make it into Playoffs.

In this career I use TBL Rosters v.9.2.



Calgary Flames season 2016/17 - ippe The Manager takes control of Calgary Flames

There were few murmurs when unknown manager from Finland took over the Flames. Newly acquired manager didn't have any previous experience for managing a hockey team but he has strong passion for hockey and is tactically transcendent to his colleagues, atleast according to man himself. ippe The Manager wants to build the team with patience but he has already promised that under his management Flames will made it into Playoffs in 1st season and win the Cup in the future. Flames' team is full of young talent and ippe The Manager is known as fan of the younger players. ippe The Manager wants his team to play fast paced and entertaining offensive hockey but he also wants his team to be tight at back.

Tactics and lineup to start 1st season are following:

Note that some tactical changes might and probably will happen during the season. Team is currently bit slow for my liking so expect few trades where older and slower players are being replaced by faster and younger players.




After this opening post I think I will post two times during regular season. Those posts are being posted mid-season and at the end of regular season. If I made it into Playoffs I will post 3rd post in which I'll take a look at Flames' Playoff run. If you like I might made this interactive series and ask your opinions about possible trades and other stuff like that. If you are not interested in that kind of thing I just do this career for my own pleasure. That's enough for this opening post. I'll be back with mid-season report in tow days or so. Bye guys!

[ippe]

Calgary Flames 2016-17 - Mid-season recap

ippe The Managers 1st season in Flames has hit the halfway point so it's time to do a little recap how thigs have turned. It has been a difficult start that has to be said. Flames have had such a bad luck with injuries as Johnny Gaudreau and Dennis Wideman have both missed almost half of the first 41 games. Competing without 1st line LW and maybe the best player in the team has been hard and there have been some scoring issues. Flames have scored 2,88 goals per game which isn't horrible but when my team relys on scoring that number isn't good enough. Defensive wise season has been even poorer as Flames have averaged 3,07 goals against per game, that being 8th worst record in the league. I can't help it but I feel my opposition has better goaltender 9 times out of 10 and some upgrades on that position are needed. I'm not huge fan of Wideman after he cross-checked that referee IRL but in this career he's important player for me because after my top 4 the quality of players takes a huge drop. Because Wideman has been injured I've been forced to play 5ht D-man in top 4 and that has cost us a lot of goals. Jokipakka, Engelland etc. don't have legs nor hands to play in my system.

Here are the standings after 41 games.

Spoiler: Click to reveal

13th at the West isn't that good but I've played less games than every other team in my conference and point percantage of 0.500 ain't that bad. Power play has also been horrible as you can see but absence of Gudreau has surely hurt us here and I excpect that number to grow towards the end of a season. Divisional playoff spot is currently 10 points out of reach and that can be too much but wild card spot is only 6 points away and that's definitely doable.

What it comes to individual performances there have been some positives and negatives amongst the team. Top 6 forwards have been performing well but 3rd liners Mikael Backlund and Troy Brouwer have been disappointments. These players are on $3,5m and $4,5m contracts and are considered veteran players of the team so they really need to step up their game. Backlund has infact shown some improvments but Troy Brouwer has been major let down as he is clearly too slow and technically poor to my liking. He's still great physical player and can score goals on team that fits his style better but I think his days at Flames are over.

Spoiler: Click to reveal

As you can see from the stats I already made one deal. Before season opening I traded 33 year-old center Matt Stajan ($3,125m) to Winnipeg Jets in exchange of 25 year-old winger Aleksander Burmistrov ($1,55m) in 1:1 deal. Afer announcing the deal both the fans and board of Flames celebrated the deal as a steal and I definitely won this one. Burmistrov has infact been my top scorer with 16 markers in 41 games whereas Matt Stajan has been disappointment in Winnipeg and is thorwn at the block when trade deadline approaches.

I still have 2 trades left in this season and I'm thinking of trading away Troy Brouwer and maybe Brian Elliot as many teams are in market for a number one goalie. In exchange I wan't young defenders/ wingers who can contribute right away and also a goaltender who is capable of winning games. I'm also willing to trade players like Deryk Engelland but they dont't have that mch transfer value so I don't expect other teams to be all over them.

[ippe]

Calgary Flames 2016-17 - Regular season recap

I've finished my 1st season as GM of the Calgary Flames and now is time to take a look how I've done. Let's start with the trades.

Matt Stajan, $3,125m (CGY) <--> Aleksander Burmistrov, $1,550m (WPG)
As I mentioned in previous post I made this trade before the season even started. Burmistrov ended up being my 4th best point scorer (61) and 2nd highest goal scorer (28) so I won this trade by a country mile and Burmistrov was excellent player for me. He played most of his game at 1st line and I'm not sure if that's his place in the long term but he will surely be valuable player for my Flames team for years to come.

Troy Brouwer $4,500m, (CGY) <--> 1st Round Pick 2017 + 3rd Round Pick 2017 (PIT)
Brouwer was pretty much useless player for me scoring 1+8=9 points in 44 game and also logging -9 rating in the process. I offered him to all teams at the trade deadline and Pittsburgh offered me the craziest trade involving their 1st and 3rd round picks in the coming draft. Pittsburgh won the whole leaue and are expected to do well at the playoffs so their 1st rounder won't be a lottery ticket but I don't really care about that.

Daniel Pribyl $0,925m + Nicklas Grossmann $0,575m (CGY) <--> Nikita Zaitzev (TOR)
This was bit odd one for Torontos point of view but at the time of the trade they were 2nd to last at the East and Zaitzev had only 1 year deal at Toronto so it made sense to trade him away for future assessments. They wanted prospective C (Pribyl) and depht-D (Grossmann) so I offered the deal to them and they accepted. Zaitzev is obviously very good defender for me as he is very mobile and can move the puck. Even crazier thing is that after all Toronto made it into playoffs finishing 8th at the East so good job for them,



At the mid-season recap I hoped that we could made it into playoffs and we just managed to do that! January was rough for Flames but after I acquired Zaitzev our defence felt much better and Monahan, Gudreau and company scored goals to win us games. I previously said that divisional playoff spot might be too far away but I managed to catch up that 10 point cap with Oilers and clinched divisional playoff spot at the last day of the regular season. We experienced some ups and downs during the season but in general I'm very happy with the team. We made it into playoffs and as said "anything can happen in the playoffs." People of the Calgary will be estatic at Scotiabank Saddledome Arena. We go in the playoffs feeling we can beat everyone.

Spoiler: Click to reveal

Finally let's take focus on individual stats. As mentioned Burmistrov played great first season as the member of Calgary Flames. He formed terrific 1st line with Gudreau and Monahan. Our highest scoring player was still 2nd line center Sam Bennet who scored 27 goals assisting another 40 making his point tally 67. He bettered his point record set in previous season by 31 points and made his breakthrough to NHL elite. Top six played well in general and every single one of them scored at least 50 points. Only player offering some sort of secondary scoring was Kris Versteeg who scored 19+13=32 but he played 1st line minutes at the beginning of the season when Gudreau was injured so I don't think he scored too many points from 3rd line.

Mikael Backlund was the only major disappointment as his average rating 6,45 was the 2nd worst amongs the team regulars. He wasn't on power play but 10+10=20 in 82 games is just too little and as he is earning $3,575m per season some serious questions need to be asked.

I also realised I haven't posted my lines so here they are:

Spoiler: Click to reveal

I'll be back with my playoff run in few days. At the 1st round we'll face LA Kings. In 4 regular season games we finished with the record of 2-1-1 outscoring them 13-10 so I expect very tight series.

EDIT:

Playoff run ended quickly this season se I might aswell talk about it on this message.

LA Kings vs. Calgary Flames. Kings wins in 5.

Series started in LA and we played two tight games with Kings but unfortunately won both games in OT. I think this was turning point of the series as Flames clearly run out of steam after two frustrating loss and young team couldn't bounce back after disappointing start to the series. Flames only won the 3rd game of the series and after losing game 4 at home ice it was clear that LA would win this one. I think this was pretty much story of whole season. Top 6 forwards delivered whereas bottom 6 didn't and my goaltenders couldn't match with oppositions goalie.

Flames - Kings 3-4 OT
Flames - Kings 2-3 OT
Kings - Flames 2-3
Kings - Flames 4-1
Flames - Kings 3-4

Season ended with disappointment but the future of the Flames still looks good. Bottom 6 is easy to upgrade as I have tons of cap space and some pieces to trade away but upgrading my goalies might be harder objective due to my trading restrictions.

[ippe]

We are back again! Season 2017/18 has reached its halfway point and it's time to do a recap of first half of the season and ofcourse 2017 entry draft.

I had a big draft as I had all seven of my own picks and also Pittsburghs 1st and 3rd round picks. My first pick as 20th overall was Finnish defender 18 year old Miro Heiskanen. My other first round pick was 18 year old American center Scott Reedy who has 17+18=33 in 40 games of AHL so far. I expect big things from these two guys and Swedish defender Eric Brannström drafted in 3rd round is also showing promises but other players looks pretty average for now atleast.



I also made few trades and free agent signings but I have to admit that I broke almost every single rule set on my opening post... I tought that I have two options. Either I follow the rules and be the team who sometimes make the playoffs and sometimes doesn't or I break the rules and try to actually win something. I still try to be realistic and not to cheat as AI can be very bad for trades if you grind the trade value offering them multiple later round picks which are pretty much useless. Anyway here are the trades and other acquisitions I made in summer 2017.

1st Round Pick 2018 (CGY) <--> Ondrej Palát $6,300 (TBL)
The biggest trade of the summer was made when I offered my first round pick of this season's draft for Tampa Bay Lightning in exhange of Czech winger Ondrej Palát. In this universe Tampa still have Ben Bishop and Valtteri Filppula so they had some serious cap issues. Tampa had already signed him for $6,300m cap hit for next six seasons but then they ended up offering him around the NHL and I took the bait. Trading away my 1st rounder was hard decision but Palát is an elite player and my focus is on playoffs so my 1st round pick would probably be late pick anyway. Cap hit of $6,300 is maybe $0,500m too much for my liking but I had the cap space so what the heck...

Rights to Adam Ollas Mattsson + 3rd Round Pick 2018 (CGY) <--> Rights to Nathan Beaulieu (MTL)
I needed some depth on defence and Canadiens were ready to trade away Nathan Beaulieu so acquiring him was no brainer. Adam Ollas Mattsson is 21 year old defender and Calgary's 6th round pick in 2014 entry draft. I had atleast 3-5 better defensive prospects than him, including my 1st round pick Miro Heiskanen so trading him away wasn't that hard. I also traded away my 3rd round pick to made the deal happen but because I have pretty deep prospect pool I felt it made perfect sense. I ended up signing Beaulieu for $2,000m cap hit for next five seasons. When I think it now I could have gave him more money for the sake of realism.

Kris Versteeg $2,900m (CGY) <--> 3rd Round Pick 2018 (NJD)
I signed Ondrej Palát in top lines so Versteeg was pretty much useless. He's 31 years old and he's got speed and acceleration of 13 so he didn't fit my style of play. I traded away few picks so acquiring one was good return.

Lance Bouma $2,200m (CGY) <--> 4th Round Pick 2018 (COL)
Bouma was on high wages considering he was 4th liner in last season. He was also on of the weakest performers with an average rating of 6,62 so I just wanted to get rid of him. 4th round pick isn't too much but it was the best I could get out of him.

Mikael Backlund $3,575m (CGY) <--> 2nd Round Pick 2018(NJD)
Backlund was on of the biggest disappointments in my first season with average rating of 6,45. I actually decided to gave him another chance in new season but after 13 games he had 0+0=0 and avg rating of 6,46 so I had enough. Devils needed center and were ready to gave away their 2nd round pick so I took it.

Free Agency
Out: Brian Elliott, Deryk Engelland, Dennis Wideman, Ladislav Smid, Jyrki Jokipakka & few AHL guys who had nothing to offer.
In: G Keith Kinkaid $1,600m, D Cody Goloubef $1,200m, C Erik Haula $1,800m, C Jean-Gabriel Pageau $2,000m (RFA so lost my 2nd rounder) and RW Viktor Stålberg $1,500m.

Basicly I let older players with big wages walk away and signed some faster players on smaller wages.

Season 2017/18

Season has started well as Calgary are currently 3rd on West and 2nd on Pacific only bettered by Sharks who by the way won the cup in 2016/17. Calgary has scored 19 and conceded 17 goals less than in similar stage on last season. That has lead to 12 points more than last season on this stage and Calgary is currently on course to finish this season with 106 points compared to last season's point total of 93.

Spoiler: Click to reveal

This post is already too long so I'll just post individual stats and lines here and go back to my journey with Flames.

Spoiler: Click to reveal

[ippe]

Season 2017/18 - Regular season recap

ippe The Manager's 2nd season in the charge of Calgary Flames has reached it's end and it has been a good one. At the mid-point of the season Calgary was 3rd in the West so instead of just aiming ofr playoff qualification I tought that we should finish as high as possible. I tried to made some trades and acquire myself a new goalie but Penguins didn't want to trade away Matt Murray and Lightning wanted to keep hold of Andrei Vasilevskiy. But after all goaltending wasn't even issue as Chad Johnson was more than capable goalie for me.

At the halfway of the season I was oncourse to finish with 106 points but 2nd half of the season was so good that Flames in fact grabbed whopping 114 points winning The President's Trophy. Calgary scored 3rd most goals in the league with 266 markers and allowed the very least goals with 196 setbacks. Goals scored average was 3,24 per game and goals allowed 2,39 per game. Tampa Bay Lightning won the Eastern Conference with 111 point so I won The President's trophy by 3 points.

Power play stas were kind of interesting because my power play percantage of 17,6 was 21st in the league but Flames got the most power play opportunities with 376 bettering 2nd placed Panthers by 37. Flames found the net on power play total of 66 times making that 6th highest number in the league. Penalty kill percantage 84,8 was 3rd best in the league. Flames weren't dirty team by any means as the took only 5,77 penalty minutes per game, the lowest amount of any teams. 473 penalty minutes were also least in the league by a margin of 93 minutes to 2nd lowest Panthers.



Individual wise top performers were forst line wingers Johnny Gaudreau and Ondrej Palát. Sean Monahan scored tht most goals in the team with 41 markers and assisted another 48 making his point tally to 89 points in 82 games. Monahan was lethal on power play as he scored 21+15=36 on PP. 2nd liners scored around the same amount of points than last season with all of the three forwards finishing around 60 points mark. Chad Johnson had very good 2nd half of the season and his average rating was 3rd best in the team only bettered by Johnny Hockey and Palát.