Challenge 8.2 Toronto Maple Leafs 2nd season discussion

Post by **Calv** » Sun May 20, 2007 11:57 pm

Keep all of your season 2 related Leafs discussion in here. The 2nd season dates will be up in due course.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue May 22, 2007 7:30 pm

Has anyone started their second season yet? I'm almost there. Technically, I'm there. I'm in the preseason of the second season. I guess winning the Stanley Cup has opened some eyes. When the Season Preview came out last for the first season, we were predicted to finish in the lower half of the league, IIRC. This time around we're ranked #4.

I was able to resign Mats Sundin finally! He wouldn't consider an offer until he was a UFA though. When I went to make an offer, he was asking for much less than he turned down when I tried to resign him during the season. That makes no sense but... whatever! Other than that, I've made no changes to my roster. I signed a couple of my AHL eligible prospects to contracts to help fill out my farm team. Other than that, the roster is the same. I'm thinking that keeping the roster and even the lines the same, my guys will benefit from better chemistry. Plus, this is the team I wanted (for the most part! Some guys you just can't get sometimes).

Let's see how it goes!

Post by **Danny** » Tue May 22, 2007 7:35 pm

I'm in June 2007 now. Hope to at least finish pre-season today.
I plan to leave my roster as it is for most parts. I might be looking for a veteran 4th line center who can play PK as well, Tim Taylor has been made available, I might give it a try.
The rest depends on whether I'll be able to sign/trade for a better goalie than Toskala or not. If yes I'll probably have to deal Kaberle for cap reasons.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed May 23, 2007 1:51 pm

Taylor is a bit old. Have you thought about Brooks Laich? He's a good face off man and pretty well rounded overall. Or maybe Gaustad from Buffalo? He plays both LW and C.

Post by **Danny** » Wed May 23, 2007 2:32 pm

I got Blair Betts from free agency eventually.
I also signed Oli the goalie after he was still unsigned in September and agreed to 2.9m per year. I traded Toskala to the Kings for Garon.

Same thing you experienced with Sundin happened to me with Phillips, and to a certain extent Lukowich.
I traded for Philips and Lukowich just before their contracts expired in hope to sign them before free agency. I offered them new contracts in the last week of June, I matched their demands yet never got a reply and they went into free agency.

Funnily enough no one even approached Philips in the first week and I finally managed to sign him for just 1.8m p/a. Lukowich even signed for 500k

Although not with me but with the Rangers, I had to trade for him

I dumped Kaberle and someone else and got Michalek instead.
So, as you see, I didn't want to make too many deals but somehow couldn't resist

Gaustad certainly is an interesting player but too expensive. I didn't have more than 600k left, I'm still almost one million over 38 and I think he signed a new contract in Buffalo for 1m p/a.
I got 3 young guys and sent them to the Marlies, but for some reason their salaries count 100% to the cap, despite 2 way contracts, I was over 39m because of this, thus had to deal Toskala for the cheaper but not much worse Garon.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed May 23, 2007 4:06 pm

Betts is definitely a good option for a PKing 4th line center. It sounds like you did pretty well. That's strange about the young guys counting 100% towards the cap. Did you make sure to sign them to two-way deals?

Post by **Danny** » Wed May 23, 2007 4:33 pm

Yup they're on 2 ways, and they are also the same age and make about the same money some other guys whose contracts are not counted against the cap.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/1770 ... artlv7.jpg
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/4526/ellisht6.jpg

It's not the end of the world as I managed to get withing 1m of the cap for the second season after trading Toskala for Garon, but it's definitely a bit weird

Post by **batdad** » Wed May 23, 2007 5:26 pm

Danny-You are still in training camp.it appears from the 2nd image The salaries will go off the radar once the season starts if you send em to the minors. In other words won't be part of the cap then. Won't change until end of the month. More players, even non roster are counted in offseason, preseason. You have to add up the $ of guys you know you keeping to know what your in season cap will be.

Post by **Danny** » Wed May 23, 2007 5:44 pm

I shall find out soon. Yes I'm still in mid-September, those guys were signed, uhm, around mid August, they are already on the AHL roster as I only need them as backups in case of injuries. I'll check it out when I start the 2nd season tomorrow.

Post by **batdad** » Wed May 23, 2007 6:39 pm

Should change then.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed May 23, 2007 8:06 pm

I was going to stand pat with this team but I've been kind of annoyed with Chris Clark. He just hasn't been doing anything. I like his leadership and grit but he's rarely producing any points, even when I put him on one of my scoring lines. He's usually getting match ratings of 6 or 7. For the $1M per season he gets, I feel I can get a better player. I haven't found a taker for him yet though.

What I did do was make a deal for a winger to replace him (or maybe Vrbata is things go that way). I sent out a 24 year old minor league defenseman and two of the players I drafted (both in the second round, one mid and one late) in this past draft for Kenndal McArdle. I might see if I can package Vrbata and Clark together to get a better return. I definitely need to get rid of at least Clark though.

Post by **batdad** » Wed May 23, 2007 9:12 pm

Heh. He does that to you, old Clarkey.

So I just finished the draft. I did well...28th overall Kyle Turris, 30th I took Ryan Wilson (cause nothing til fourth round). In the fourth I took Ville Matikka (guy I traded straight up for Phaneuf in my CBJ game 2 days after the draft), and AJ Sturges. My seventh rounder is Andy Hivaranen. What is odd...I can pretty much write my own ticket, with a few exceptions with each and every one of these guys the day after the draft.

I have already sent Turris to Buffalo straight up for Henrik Tallinder. I have checked out what it would take to get LW Alex Picard out of CBJ....and yeah Villie Mattika...he with red attributes everywhere is enough. Actually I can get Zherdev AND Picard..for Matikka, Sturges and Eminger...jesus christ.

Does everyone get this with their recently drafted picks, or did I just draft crazy well.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed May 23, 2007 9:40 pm

I think it's just you! I got a lot of interest in Wilson but not much of anybody else. Even Wilson didn't generate the kind of interest that he usually does. Kane isn't even pulling much weight. Of course, I'm well past the Summer (just played my first regular season game of the second season... won 6-0). The computer seems more eager to deal for these guys right after the draft.

I'm totally unfamiliar with Matikka and Sturges. My scouts hadn't even looked at Matikka. They never seem to find anything in the Scandinavian region. I do better in Russia.

I'm not having much luck finding a return for Clark. I'm not really into draft picks at this point and I'm not having much luck upgrading my top RW spot by packaging Clark with Vrbata. I'm right where I want to be in regards to my budget, so I'm not going after the big money guys.

Post by **batdad** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:06 pm

Yeah just traded Eminger and Mattika for .... Wojtek Wolski. So I sent a late 4th round pick, and Eminger for Wolski. BWAHHHHHH.

Add that to my Turris for Talinder...jesus.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu May 24, 2007 5:36 pm

I finally unloaded Chris Clark. I shipped him to Montreal for Aleksei Emelin, straight up. Emelin is decent right now but I don't really need him at the moment. I've got him on my farm team. I'd still like to maybe ship out Vrbata for a better RW. Maybe I could package him with Emelin and a prospect?

Post by **batdad** » Thu May 24, 2007 7:20 pm

Heh. I had Emelin for about a month. I got him for Belak/some other useless guy. Then I traded him as part of a package to LA for Trevor Lewis.

Post by **Danny** » Thu May 24, 2007 7:23 pm

So, I've started my 2nd season as well. 7-2-1, defence is good but PK just went south, brutally. Can't figure out why, theoretically it should be better than last year's. oh well

oh, can we please take a cool team like the Bruins in the next challenge ?

Post by **Calv** » Fri May 25, 2007 10:54 am

The first set of deadlines are up

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri May 25, 2007 9:35 pm

So I finished my first block of 20 games for the second season and it was a rousing success! My first two games of the season were Niitty shutouts (6-0 and 7-0). I've had 4 games where I've scored 8 goals, 4 games with 7, and a bunch of 5 and 6 goal games. I had a few games where I struggled and in those I only put up 3 goals, one of those was one of the losses. In the other loss my team only scored 1 goal (letting in three). I started the season with essentially the same lines as last season, just replacing Clark with McArdle. Then McArdle went out for 3 weeks with a hip flexor strain. He should be back soon. I brought up Nikolai Kulemin from the farm team to fill in.

During this time, I had a few spurts where it looked like my offense was stagnating or at least certain lines were. My second line stopped producing for a couple games, so I moved Ryan up to the first line RW spot and put a hot Vrbata down on the second line RW. I tried putting Roy on the second line LW for a bit and moving Morrow down to the third but that didn't really work too well. Morrow seems to really click with Patrick Sharp. Right now I've got Roy as the third line center with Gaustad on his LW and Kulemin on his RW (McArdle will take that RW spot when he comes back). I moved Laich down to 4th line center and put Sutherby on his LW and Asham is still on the RW. I haven't touched my defensive pairing or order.

I think the real key to my success is my special teams. They're really clicking right now. My PP is at 28.3% as we speak (played one game since the 20 game stats) and my PK is 89.5%. I've kept my tactics the same as last season (which wasn't so good) except for two small changes. I used to have my PP shift length set to 30 or 40 seconds, figuring I'd have the guys going out there taking short shifts to keep them fresh and fast. I changed the shifts to 60 seconds, which I think is giving them more time to make things happen. I also changed the usage from favoring the 1st PP to being equal. I've got two good lines, so why not? The PK I might've changed from 30 second shifts to 40 second shifts but I can really remember. They could just be doing decent. They did okay last season.

I guess I won't bother getting rid of Vrbata. I haven't had any luck finding a team willing to give me what I want in return. I even tried packaging him with Pothier (who has several teams interested in him and is doing very well for me) to get a really good young RW but nobody is biting. I figured I could lose Pothier because I have Wilson playing down on the farm and he'd be great on my PP. No movement though. It's okay. Vrbata is doing well. He's 4th in the league in points, second on our team. He's also third in goals on our team and second in assists. That's after being moved down to the second line part way through the 20 games. I'm going to keep him there until either he or Ryan starts to slump.

So how close are you guys to finishing up your first block of 20?

Post by **Danny** » Sat May 26, 2007 8:03 pm

Finished my first set of games, too lazy to post the stats now though

A solid 15-4-1. can't seem to be able to get past that 14/15 wins mark. Would've been 16-3-1 if not for a game against the Canes where I was leading 4-1 and gave up 4 within 4 minutes

I changed from normal to tight gap control after 10 games, helped my PK, went up from 78% to 86%.
Oli the goalie is having an outstanding season so far, an GAA just above 2 and .923 SV%. Garon's individual stats as backup are rubbish but he has won 3 out of 4 starts so can't complain there. He's still "not in game shape" despite playing in almost every pre-season game and 4 during the regular season so far

Tallinder and Campbell are my best D pair, both of them +13 and Tallinder actually has as many points as Niedermayer.
Stuart and Niedermayer have an average rating of above 8 but their +/- is just 2, they can't get it going offensively this season so far. Lukowich and Philips are doing a great job as a shutdown pair.

Neither of my players is in the negatives in +/- actually, I don't think I ever had this before. All in all I'm satisfied with the season so far, I might move Clark from the 4th line to the 3rd to replace Nilson who isn't doing that well, and I think I'm gonna move Michalek to the 2nd and move Wellwood down to the 3rd and give him PP time instead.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Sat May 26, 2007 9:44 pm

Campbell is pretty darn good, isn't he? I had him on one or two of the teams I've played in the past and I've been very happy with the results.

Post by **batdad** » Tue May 29, 2007 11:41 pm

Good grief. I started my second season today.

I have no idea what is up with this team. PP at about 12%, PK well over 90%. I am....15-0-0. Nice start to the year that is for sure.

Post by **batdad** » Wed May 30, 2007 12:06 am

Well things did not end in game 16.

But it was interesting, and with a 5 to 1 lead in the third, the Sabres were apparently a little upset they were

The best part...they were even more upset after cause....Bates kicked the butt of Andrew Peters! You can see the proof! One fight for Shawn, one win..hahahahahaha. Of course I did not score on the pp...why ask?

Normally I would not post stuff like this, but darn it was funny!!!!

Post by **batdad** » Wed May 30, 2007 12:31 am

So as I approach 20 games, I see that Bruins is still under 36. But in the "salary cap" thread Calv says that 2nd season is $38 mill cap. So I was under this impression and went with 38. I am at 17 games and may or may not be able to make a trade to get under 36 if I have to by 20. Depends on responses from other teams and how fast they come.

Do I have to be under 36?

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed May 30, 2007 2:40 am

As far as I know, it's $38M. That's what the instructions for the second season said... unless that was only for the other challenge. I was going with that too. I just happened to be under the $36 when all was said and done. Trust me, I tried to pull a couple of deals that might've put me closer to that $38 but they wouldn't bite.

Nice brawl, batdad! I've had a few of those but none quite as big as that in this challenge. I've had one where just about everyone was involved but not quite everyone. Bates fighting and winning... now that's special! LOL!

I had a killer first 20 games but I'm struggling a bit in my second 20. I lost Sundin for 2 weeks (I think it will be longer by the time he's back) and that's REALLY hurt us. Vrbata has missed a few games too. McArdle was just riding the 3rd line RW and not really producing. It was hurting his morale, so rather than ruin him, I sent him down and brought up Kukemburg (I signed him in the transfer window). We'll see how he does. Overall, I'm having trouble keeping morale up for my 3rd and 4th lines. The top two lines score and are happy. The bottom two... they're not always so happy. Roy is doing okay now that he's filling in for Sundin but I'm sure he won't be once Mats is back. I'm just hoping they get things back on track by the time I post the second segment (I think I've got 7 or 8 games before it's stats time again) and start playing like they did in the first block of games.