Blackhawks Challenge 9.1 and 9.2 discussion thread

[bruins72]

He's playing at least 07-08 down on the farm. I don't want to waste a potential homegrown. It's either going to be Blunden or Bolland as my homegrown. They'll be replacing Bochenski and occasionally moving up to replace either Havlat or Vrbata (whichever I keep) when they're being lazy.

I'm already thinking I'm going to have to waste Price as a potential homegrown. I'm not so sure I can acquire a goaltender in the offseason. If I can't, Price will be on the Blackhawks roster splitting the games with Lalime most likely.

I lost Michalek for the first round of the playoffs. He came back after the first game of round 2. I'm facing the Stars in the second round and they've been tough. Turco is just rock solid. I started off down two games to none. I've won two on the road to come back and right now we're tied 2-2. They've got me worried!

[bruins72]

Oh boy! I won game 5 to take the 3-2 series lead but lost Lalime for 3 weeks during the game. Boucher was able to do the job in that game and get us the win but will he be of any use to take us further?

I also decided to call up Bolland and Blunden to give them a little playoff experience. Bochenski is a waste of space and Holmqvist is only decent on the PK. We'll see how the kids do.

[corinthian]

I've lost Havlat for 3 months just 2 games away from playoffs, but Bondra (now 1st liner) is delivering , Hawks will face Canucks in Western Conf. Finals

Now i have a doubt: who will be my homegrown player? Bolland or Istomin (i already assigned him, but i'm not sure he'll be joining my club before draft).

[bruins72]

Ouch! 3 months? That's rough. I'm guessing that's going to be a rough playoffs, even with Bondra stepping up.

Istomin won't count if he hasn't joined your club before the draft. When Euro-prospects agree to a contract in the game, they're not officially contracted to the team until they actually sign and join to your team.

[Danny]

Uhm, I have a bit of a problem (might be a bug)

I have signed Toews in November 2008 to be my HG for 2010-2011. I do not have the news item but I have a screenshot from the transactions screen from Jan. 2009 showing that he is already signed and will join in June 2009. He joined in June 2009...after the draft...and all of a sudden it shows in his history he was signed on June 24th 2009, when actually he was signed in November 2008.
I suppose he's still eligible for HG 2010-2011 if I post the transactions screen from Jan 09, right ?

[batdad]

As long as June 24, 2009 is before the 2009 draft he will be eligible to be your homegrown. The reason he signed then is the transfer date from wherever he was before. If you left him in college, he would not be able to come to you until after his college season contract expired..June 2009. Hopefully June 24 is prior to the 2009 draft. Like with Euro prospects, you have to be aware of when they will come to your team. He was not playing in your system until June 2009, so he is not part of your system til then. June 24 2009 sounds like it is okay though.

I guess you will have to wait and see, when the rest of us catch up to you.


Joking, sort of.

[Danny]

No I think 24th is 1-2 days after the draft. Well that's pretty stupid, seeing as he was signed 2 years before his HG season and he's still not eligible. The rules say he must be SIGNED before the draft as well. There is not a single word in the rules that he must be on my team before the draft.

Rules:

(For example he must be either on your farm team, or a signed prospect by Draft Day 2007, to be eligible to be your homegrown for the 2008-09 season). THE PLAYER MUST BE SIGNED BY THE PREVIOUS DRAFT DAY to be considered “in your system”.

-----

He clearly is a signed prospect, since he signed in November 2008 and his HG season is supposed to be 2010-2011

[batdad]

Danny-If you have something to show he was signed in November 2008 then there is not a problem. You have to have something to show that though. "The signed prospect by Draft Day 2007" rule would apply to this as well. Cept he must be signed by the previous draft day (2009 in your case).

If he was signed in November 2008 and you have something to show that...then it should not be an issue. So the rules still apply.

When you sign a Euro during the season, the same thing happens re the transfer as with college players. The technical signing date must be available to prove he was signed before the transfer date when he came to your team. If it is not, I am sorry...but he would not be eligible.

My question would be where did Toews play 2008-09? With N. Dakota or with one of your teams? If it was North Dakota you need to prove he was signed before the 2009 draft, just like we all would. If he played in your system it would be easy to prove, because you would have him on your all contracted roster screen.

[Danny]

Well that's exactly my problem. When I click on his history it says signed 24th of June. Which is wrong. That's the date he joined my team. He did sign in Nov 08. I do not have the news item for his signing anymore, mainly because he game doesn't seem to store them for more than 2 months. I only have the Transactions screenshot from January 09 (2 months after he signed), which lists him as signed and says that he will JOIN the team on the 24th of June. The other thing I have are old save games (pre draft 2009) which I could load, go on his profile and I assume I would find the info "transfer arranged for 24th June 2009". But I do not have the news item. I just wanted to know whether those screens I can offer are sufficient.

And re your question, he spent the whole 08-09 season in North Dakota I assume, at least he wasn't on any of my teams.

[batdad]

Okay..we are going to have to let this discussion go for right now. This is an interesting situation Danny. For sure. Post the screenshot from your game in Jan 09. Then B72, Shadd and I will let you know in the next little bit.

One thing we all need to remember is that the user is responsible for taking the screenshots. It is unfortunate you do not have the original one, maybe the January one will be enough. We need to see it first, and go from there. So post it here for now and we shall see.


We know this is all a learning experience for all of us. Me included. So we will answer all questions and field all incoming worries concern. However...one thing we cannot do is make sure everyone does have enough prospects on their rosters to be sure their butts are covered for homegrowns etc. That is up to each individual GM. So as B72 said before...MAKE SURE YOU HAVE LOTS OF PROSPECTS, just in case silly things happen in the game.

[bruins72]

This is the same point I was stressing to laskey the other day. When you get the message in November of 08 (or whenever the case may be) that so-and-so has agreed to join your team, it also says the transaction will not be completed until (in your case) June 2009. It never says that he has signed a contract! It says that he has agreed to join the team. Then once that date in June (or July in some case) comes along, you get a message saying that the player has signed with you.

It's a lousy situation to get stuck in but it has been pointed out.

[bruins72]

Just to show you what happens when you sign players that don't join your roster immediately, I've got a couple screenshots. Unfortunately, they're not for the same player (I took Rask off my shortlist because he didn't look like he was going to turn out so good) but you can still see what's happening.

First, the new item where the agree to join the team. Notice how it says "The deal will go through on June..."? That means that the deal isn't official yet. Now for the signed with the team shot. This is where it says the player has signed the deal and it will keep him with the team for however long. This is the official signing.

[Danny]

You might have mentioned it before, but it was probably after this whole thing happened to me anyway. But I must have overlooked it regardless.

Yeah I think it makes sense, now that you say it I think everytime a player joins a team the news item also says he has signed. I was under the impression that agreeing terms means signing. I never really pay attention to those "player X has joined" news items, I mean I know that he'll join anyway I don't need to read it
Just weird that a player and a team would agree on a transfer in November and then leave it on a verbal arrangement for over half a year and sign the contract only on joining day.
Not the end of the world for me, I've got enough other players who can be HGs, but I assumed he'll be in the line up anyway so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. Well I might have to trade him now.

But I think for the future the HG rule could use some tweaks

Oh, just saw your screen. Yeah not gonna argue, as said above, but it says Istomin was a free agent, that's different I think

[Shadd666]

No. He is signed "as free agent" because he wasn't contracted to a NHL team. When you perform a search for players and filter them only to have the free agents, you will see all players from europe, like Istomin. It doesn't mean he is not contracted to any team, just that he isn't contracted to a NHL team. So it's the exact same case as yours Furthermore, Bruins wouldn't have had to wait until June to sign someone without a team Things like that only occur when signing players from europe and some other leagues.

As for the HG rules needing tweaks...maybe... It's one of the new rules, so it can't be perfect at once! By the way, what kind of tweaks are you thinking about?

[Danny]

Ok, yeah I'm aware there are different UFA classes. Just thought it's different for Euros than for college players because of the Euro transfer windows

As for the tweaks...most of the rules are fun and make it more challenging, but they are complicated at the same time...which is ok since they serve a purpose.
But the HG rule seems to be unnecessarily complex, I noticed it right away but thought I'll just give it a try and see how it works in practice. If I may take Toews as an example, quite frankly I don't see why those 2 days make any difference, especially since the game seems to be picking those signing dates randomly. I've just loaded an old save and tried to sign him and now it says the deal will go through on the 18th of June, which would be before the draft. At least if it always was the same date for all players in every season. I just think, if you want to stick to the draft day deadline then just a change from "needs to be signed" to "needs to have the transfer arranged" would simplify it without taking anything away from its purpose. You'd still have to reach an agreement before the draft but you wouldn't lose out if he joined you 2 days too late.
Won't help me or anyone else in this challenge obviously, but you might wanna think it over for future challenges

[Shadd666]

Thanks for making the proposition Danny, we'll look into it

As for the rules being complicated sometimes, keep in mind that there are many new rules, and so it can't be perfect at once At least, that's the way the rules are actually, and everyone has to be within those rules for now

We can discuss possible ways to tweak/update the rules (there's even a thread for that ) in the future though. And when things are being too confused for anyone, the best reflexe is to ask first and wait for an official answer. And if the answer takes time, don't worry, it's just that we're discussing about it. So be patient (not only you, i say that for everyone ).

Thanks for everyone's comprehension.

[Danny]

As for the rules being complicated sometimes, keep in mind that there are many new rules, and so it can't be perfect at once

They are fairly good. It's just that with the current HG rule it's really a bit out of your control.
Because the signing date sometimes happens to be after the draft you'd have to sign certain players 2,5 - 3 years before their HG season which is a bit too much IMO.

[batdad]

Um..no Danny it is not out of your control. You could have signed Toews in the summer without any issue. You chose not to, so that is too bad for you.

I have a theory that the reason people do this is to avoid having the entry level contract in a year when you are not using the player. Well...sorry but if you want that to happen...then you deal with the not having him as a HG the next season as well. That is just the way it is. Unfortunately, you have learned that the hard way.

Anymore discussion on how rules could be tweaked and changed is to be in the Challenge ideas thread where it belongs.

[Danny]

Well he doesn't count against the cap when I send him down so that certainly wasn't the reason. Why I said it's out of my control is because sometimes they'll join before the draft, sometimes just after the draft and sometimes in July, regardless of when I sign them, even if I do it more than half a year before. Anyway, yeah, lets close it here and I might post my suggestion in the appropriate thread.

[kuulapaa]

I'm in the end of January '07. My roster and lines have been like this for a moment:

Weekes/Boucher

B.Stuart - Lilja
Vaananen - Aucoin
Keith - Seabrook
(Vandermeer)

Sturm - Marleau - Vrbata
Michalek - Kvasha - Havlat
Moreau - Sharp - Lapointe
Holmqvist - Arkhipov - Ruutu
(Bolland, Hamilton)

My lines haven't produced very well, but since my defense has become tighter, I've been doing pretty well (33-13-2). Now I'm about to move Havlat 'cause his average rating is just 7,5 and he leads team's stats only in penalties. It's not good enough for me considering his wage.

I have two deals to choose from, first is a semi-future-deal bringing Sutherby and Eminger from Washington - I should give up Havlat, Wisniewski and the rights of Vorobiev (and some draft picks). Second one would bring more in future and less right away. It would cost me Havlat, Wisniewski and couple of picks for Pahlsson and Bobby Ryan from Ducks. I'm leaning towards the Ducks deal, but above all I'm concerned if I should do trades of any kind when my team is winning.

Well, I have to make a decision very soon. And live with it.

[bruins72]

I wouldn't worry too much about losing Havlat. I'd just move Ruutu up to his spot on the 4th line and then rotate Bolland and Hamilton on the 4th line RW spot. I'd think that should be good enough. With that lineup you should have no problem producing goals.

I'm thinking the same as you. Take the Ducks deal. Pahlsson will be a nice addition to your checking line and Ryan will be a star in the future. Sutherby and Eminger are good but they're easy enough to get in another deal and if not they're easily replaceable.

[batdad]

Lidas--Good #s out of Connolly. Wow!

Anyway...what happened to Heatley in the last 20? I guess you dealt him, because he is not on your roster for stats at year end? Who did you get for him? Curious, cause I was thinking about moving him too.

[bruins72]

I was figuring Heatley got injured and was out of action for a good stretch. Lidas has an interesting looking team. I wouldn't mind hearing more about his game.

[Lidas]

Anyway...what happened to Heatley in the last 20? I guess you dealt him, because he is not on your roster for stats at year end? Who did you get for him? Curious, cause I was thinking about moving him too.

I offloaded him for Ryan Smyth and a 2nd.
By mistake, I clicked "confirm rumor" when the press was asking me if he was gonna leave the team. That obviously widdled him off, so he refused to sign for a decent salary. Smyth was the best replacement LW I could get, and his salary is lower too.

[batdad]

Hee. Too funny. I thought it must be Smyth, but was wondering.