A Simple Tactic

Post by **philou21** » Mon Mar 09, 2020 11:39 pm

Just bumping this thread so it goes to the top. Took me a while to find it and I remember that this tactic was fun to use and Shindigs advices are always good

TurboJ · Post by **TurboJ** » Tue Mar 10, 2020 1:23 am

philou21 wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2020 11:39 pm Just bumping this thread so it goes to the top.

Thanks for the bump - I never saw this thread before! Very useful stuff indeed!

I would like to ask for suggestions how much of this could be adapted to an extremely top-heavy team.

Care to give me some advice?

I've only ever played NHL and through experience I've become quite good at winning. I've won the cup on about 85% of all my seasons. BUT. This has always been through building my team, not so much through tactics. I've just used some simple unit tactics and focus on offense a lot. Very little tweaking with the personal tactics.

Now my goal is to maximise player point production. I want my star line to score as much as possible, pure and simple. Going for some career records etc.

Basically I'm building a core of four players. One very offensive D, and three superstar forwards. All four can play a fast skill game which is what I usually do anyway. Very good, creative puck control kind of bunch. These guys are extremely talented and my goal is to see how good a career I can build for them. That will mean top heavy, since eventually these guys will all want 10+ million per...

But my question here is if there is a 'simple tactic' to maximize the production of ONE LINE.

Should I do personal tactics only? Use the units tactics only for setting the positions or even use team-wide tactics altogether?

How about ice time? Usually I alternate 'overload' for the purpose of giving my stars more ice time. Maybe even 'only 3' could work if the team was fit enough? I have always built my teams for great depth before, and it has been very successful. Now I want to be top heavy and break some player records.

Post by **philou21** » Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:35 pm

Honestly I don't really know what to answer haha I've been away for a while and I'm a bit rusty, I tried this tactic on many levels (NHL, AHL and in the junior) and it worked well in all of them. I never did anything particular to make my guys score honestly. I always get good results. I don't know if it's because of chemistry or good coaches but I never had to worry about my superstar to score a ton of points.

TurboJ · Post by **TurboJ** » Wed Mar 11, 2020 9:35 am

Thanks. I really started to wonder about this after in my last game Connor McDavid only had a total avg of 1.03 points per game for two straight seasons around age 30 while surrounded by 170-190 CA wingers. By contrast, I have had a complete nobody (relatively) score an average of 110 points per season five times in a row on a very generic second line. I even had the old Detroit winger pair of Tatar / Nyqvist score 110+ points each for multiple seasons on a much worse team. In all cases I was winning back to back cups, but it just doesn't make sense how a generational player would just suddenly lose his scoring touch in his prime.

After all my experience it does feel like the winger position is the easiest one to have very high point totals.

Anyway, I studied this very thread and I implemented some ideas from here. I gave very specific personal tactics for every player and every game situation, and I immediately had one of the best scoring seasons I ever had even though my star players were pretty much all rookies. Also 125 points for a center with 15 faceoff skill is something I've not achieved before. The personal tactics seem to have a very big effect, as the scoring was 1.7 times as much for my top line as it was the year before.

Further analysis indicates that using the 'high' tempo on star forwards AND offensive defensemen is key. I remember now that when Tatar and Nyqvist were scoring 100+ every season I did have them on high tempo on every offensive line. This time around I only used high tempo for the most talented players and select situations, but it seems to have worked as two of my rookie forwards (both just 18 years of age and still a way from their PA) just scored 1.25 and 1.4 points per game avg on their first seasons. I will see what the next season looks like to be sure the tactics were the thing that made the difference.

FWIW I did have an excellent scoring season, 400 goals for the team with not a huge amount of top end talent; BUT I did at the same time suffer more injuries than even before. Had one player just straight up retire for an 8-month injury, another player also out for 8 months, two players out for 4 months and additionally several key players out for multiple weeks. IIRC I had one player who did not get injured during the season.

I do wonder if high tempo has an effect (there was not excessive tiredness for anyone though). Or if the game just tries to balance things out by throwing injuries at you. My young star winger did score 40 points in his first 24 NHL games and then got injured for a month; and other similar stuff like that. Seemingly it's more often than not the very key players who do get injured so I wonder if there's something there.

TurboJ · Post by **TurboJ** » Sat Mar 14, 2020 11:47 am

Just reporting back; with heavy utilization of personal tactics, offensive mentality, high tempo plus having most players on 'carry puck' and 'join rush', if find it extremely difficult to lose any games, even if I try really hard I can't lose much. Just adjust each player according to their skillset, player role and physical prowess and your team will be significantly more effective. For me, team-wide scoring went up by about 20 percent and my second line started posting numbers better than my first line had previously. I've had five different players score 95+ every season after I started using personal tactics like this.

BulldogsFan · Post by **BulldogsFan** » Fri May 08, 2020 8:03 pm

Nino that post you have in the first thread page the one of the picture is that something you have for all lines?

Rokodaroko · Post by **Rokodaroko** » Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:04 pm

TurboJ wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2020 11:47 am Just reporting back; with heavy utilization of personal tactics, offensive mentality, high tempo plus having most players on 'carry puck' and 'join rush', if find it extremely difficult to lose any games, even if I try really hard I can't lose much. Just adjust each player according to their skillset, player role and physical prowess and your team will be significantly more effective. For me, team-wide scoring went up by about 20 percent and my second line started posting numbers better than my first line had previously. I've had five different players score 95+ every season after I started using personal tactics like this.

TurboJ could you send some screenshots of the tactic in more detail?

Im playing with CBJ and the original tactic by nine-o plus Shinding's advice did help, but currently Im on a pretty big losing streak and only 8th in the conference in December, don't know what went wrong to be honest, I didnt change anything. The first half of the season went pretty well and I was around 4th consistently.

Also, the targetting doesnt work for me, whether I target low, high or the five hole I dont see it reflect on the shot chart and most goals dont even come from the "targetted" spots.

TurboJ · Post by **TurboJ** » Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:36 am

Rokodaroko wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:04 pm TurboJ could you send some screenshots of the tactic in more detail?

Sorry for not replying earlier. I haven't visited the forum in many months so I didn't see this message. At the moment I don't have a game running so I'm afraid I don't have any of these tactics left to take a picture of. Sorry.

Kopi · Post by **Kopi** » Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:34 pm

Had a bit of hard time in the middle of the season with LA Kings and reading this discussion so I gave it a try...we were flying after few games and finished in playoffs and lost in the final against Tampa 4:3. Tactic sure works and as it was written few personal settings and you are all set.

for this Tactic!