Blackhawks Challenge-3rd season and beyond discussion thread

Post by **batdad** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 7:15 pm

Before I post my season 4, first 20 game stats I have something to say.

GET MARION HOSSA

Oh and Jonathon Toews...WOW! He is absolutely on fire for a rookie on the 2nd line. 11-10-21 in 16 games.

This team on paper is likely the weakest/least experienced one I have had in the entire challenge. However...they are so far by far the best team.

Even if the pp is 2-35 in its last 4 games. Ugh.

I am not sure when I will get my blog up to date so...

I sent Grabovsky back down..he was just not doing it for me, and is now on the block. In the Ville Leino trade I made I had picked up Nicklas Backstrom..but I had too many vets on Norfolk..so Backstrom and Nick Grossman (a career AHL d-man) were sent to the Rangers to pick up Marcel Hossa. So...now I have two Hossas. Weird.

Lineup:

Heatley-Horcoff-Hossa (HHH3)
Toews-Richards-Blunden
Marcel Hossa-Bolland-Dustin Brown (morrow guy)
Boogie-Arkhipov-Werner

(no extra forward on the roster--I have enough young guys I can call up and send back--Grabovsky, McArdle, Skille, Istomin, Luutinen (waiver wire pick up)

My financial situation was a mess because Gleason got $4.621 mill from an arbitrator and I accepted.

Players in for year 4: Toews, Marcel Hossa, Dustin Brown, Ryan Wilson, Jeff Schultz, Petr Budaj

Players out: Morrow, Leino, Havlat, Emery, Hamilton,Michalek.

Post by **Shadd666** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:49 pm

I can't really talk about my favs players and so as i'm just 50 games into the second season, so it's a bit early.

However, i've noticed that many of you guys are disappointed by Ruutu. Since start of season 1, i play him on the left wing, as the Hawks start with a big hole on the left side. He has a pretty good season 1 on the 2nd line. So far in season 2, he stole the first line spot to Sturm and is second in the team in goals, trailing only Havlat.

So for those who don't know what to do with him, give him a shot on the left wing and see if it works... Afterall, he shoots left...

As for Sharp, he works pretty well on the second line for me and put up nice points by centering Sturm and Blunden.

Keith doesn't devellop, and i hope i'll be able to put him out of my core soon, and out of the team too. Seabrook is awesome as a first pair left defenseman, despite being a natural RD (but Aucoin and Morris are here too

).

thunderbug · Post by **thunderbug** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:10 pm

Shadd what did you do with Bourque? 2nd line lw was where I put Bourque who has done fairly well for me. Then initially I had Lapointe on 1st line duty where he was decent but traded him and Handzus for Heater and didn't look back. With Smolinski now on 1st line Center I moved Ruutu to Center the second and have Vrbata as the RW. This might have been my mistake in Ruutu disapointing me, but I thought he also played Center. Vrbata developed Ruutu didn't and Vrbata ended up winning the RW spot straight up. As far as sharp goes, I don't despise him I just don't have a spot for him. He did ok when he was 3rd line center for me (Behind Smolinski and Arkhipov) but now he's sitting at 4th line center (added Foppa). Arkhipov just seems to be better all around and can pretty much be put anywhere, and anyone playing Sharp over Smoke or Foppa is nuts. I'm starting to realize too that Keith is worthless. Seabrook is a beast though. I have him on the Right with Kukkonen on the left. Now if only I could turn Barker into a clone of his. Then I could bump Kukkonen down who's numbers aren't great this year after a fantastic first year.

corinthian · Post by **corinthian** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:49 pm

Right now i'm celebrating my 1st Stanley Cup after 4 seasons

Amazing run 16 wins in a row :
Stanley Cup

Special teams really won Championships : PP - 21.9% ; PK - 90.3% (Playoffs Stats) (':thup:')

Along with great numbers from Thornton (5-32-37) and Michalek (17-13-30) (':thup:')

Post by **batdad** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:00 pm

What? The Sharks won the cup? You are supposed to use the Hawks!!!

Heh. Kidding. Congrats.

corinthian · Post by **corinthian** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 1:39 am

Thanks Batdad!!

for 2 secs you almost got me! ':-p'

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 5:26 pm

Well... I traded away my leading scorer. As a matter of fact, I made 2 trades that I think will be good for my team. Both were key players on my team but I really like the way the team has been playing since the trade. Unfortunately, I'm probably blowing my bonus points because it's so late in the season and I traded away the player who had the most assists and points (Sedin). Oh well! This is going to pay off for me!

I'll be updating my blog shortly. I'll post details of the trades there.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:42 pm

WOW! Peter Chiarelli is smarter in real life than he is in EHM. In my challenge game, he finally fired Dave Lewis February 27th 2009.

Post by **batdad** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:56 pm

heh.

Tampa Bay in my game? Fired the coach in Dec 06, manager in Jan 07. Hired new for both in Feb 07. Then in Nov 08 coach fired.December 08---manager fired again. Hired 2 new ones again in the next couple of months...and now it is Dec 09 and guess who they hired as manager? JAy Feaster. Then guess who he hired as coach? Tortorella. Hmmm....

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 6:16 pm

Beautiful!

Usually the teams just trade the same GMs and coaches back and forth. Those guys are just going back to the same well.

corinthian · Post by **corinthian** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:01 pm

During the course of this challenge i've reading about how Havlat is overplayed and lacking effort (so i don't see Havlat in roster core anymore, mine included).
I was considering trade him this season but he's now a Super Havlat (37 points so far).
Is this happening only in my games or anyone else already had a good performance from him?

Jagr has been waivered by Ranger this season (U$8.8 million), Capital has to pay part of it? (Like real life)

thunderbug · Post by **thunderbug** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:01 pm

in my challenge Havlat has scored, 131 points in the first season and 143 in the second season.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:23 pm

I had him for 1 season and he scored 99 points for me. Not enough for what I was paying him!

Post by **batdad** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:13 pm

T-bug: Is that just regular season, or playoffs included?

thunderbug · Post by **thunderbug** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 5:23 am

Thats Reg only I believe let me check to make sure... Thats regular only playoffs included 156 for season 1 and 175 for season 2. If you want to see insane you should see Forsberg's numbers for season 2 I was sad to have to trade him away, but I determined I had to trade one of the big 3 away and he was the one I could the best without. 67 122 for 189 for regular season, playoffs included 84 137 for 221. My advice for Havlat is to put some talent around him. He is decent by himself, but he is so much better with talent. Just prior to the 40 game mark of season 1 I had him on a line with Handzus and Lapointe. Handzus and Havlat were over a point a game but not that far ahead. Lapointe was a point a game. I traded Lapointe and Handzus to Ottawa for Heatley and haven't looked back.

thunderbug · Post by **thunderbug** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 5:37 am

Ok so pretty soon after I won the cup I realized I was going to have salary problems. I decided to deal Foppa since I would rather keep the rest of the team solid. I ended up getting Richardson from Colorado for him. I was hoping for a better deal since I have a lot of young kids that can play center, but I'll take it. I only had one signing this year and am pretty happy with my team. I picked up J.P. Dumont to play either 2nd or 3rd line minutes depending on how he does with fighting it out against Vrbata. Originally my plan was 2nd line, but Vrbata has improved quite a bit over the summer.

Post by **Shadd666** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:39 am

I had Havlat for two seasons. 101 pts in season 1 (46+55) and 99 pts in season 2 (51+48), where he finished as the best goalscorer of the league. Fact is, he had stretches of 25-30 goals in 15-20 games, and then runs with just 2-3 goals in 20-25 games, which cost me a lot of stupid loss. He has been the main reason why i didn't keep the Cup in season 2, with only 7 goals in 17 game, 5 of them being in the first round. And in game 7 of the conference finals, he had a spectacular total of zero shots and a 5 rating. He is superb when he wants, but problem is that he never wants when I want or when it's needed, contrary to Handzus, who scores about 30 goals per year with me, but with at least 10 game winning goals! (for just 4-5 to Havlat)

Enough is enough, Havlat is on the go. I grabbed Hossa on the FA market, and he looks to work harder. I'm still in pre-season though. Problem is that noone in the league has the cap space to take Havlat's salary, except Colombus. But i really don't want to face Havlat on a regular basis! Maybe he'll end there though, if i can't find another place to send his 6M$...

Post by **Lidas** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 4:02 pm

Sad days have come as I was forced to let 5 times in a row Selke Trophy winner Dave Scatchard go.
Even though he agreed to take a pay-cut we just couldn't afford to keep him as the rest of the team keeps getting more and more greedy.

Replacement will come straight from the juniors. (Maybe I should have signed him earlier so he could count as a HG)
He is the 2009 draft first overall choice - John Tavares. Its gonna be interesting to see what he can do for the team!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 8:23 pm

It's already been an interesting off-season for my team. I just wrapped up the Stanley Cup win in season 3. I see a news item stating that Esposito is up for grabs. The Predators drafted him but never signed him. His rights are gone and he is free to sign! I match what he is looking for but offer a little more of a signing bonus. He signs with us and technically it's still in season 3 (June of 2009) and I only signed one UFA for season 3. Now I've still got 2 UFA signings available for season 4. I'll probably be looking for signings like this one when the time comes.

So the draft is coming and Tavares is ranked #1. Of course, I want him. Who doesn't? I see that the Islanders win the lottery, I work a deal with them to get their first round pick. Of course, after I accept, I figure out that they don't have the first pick in the draft even though they won the lottery. It seems they beat the odds and won the lottery but can only move up 4 spots. So now I have to give up a bunch more to get the Lightning's #1 pick. I manage to pull it off but I'm kicking myself.

So now it's early July, before the TBL challenge trading deadline. I've been trying to pry Andrew Ladd from the Hurricanes since the challenge began. He's just one of those guys that I've always wanted but I've never been able to get my hands on. I get a news item saying that the Hurricanes are shopping him! I ask what they want and they say Carey Price. I laugh in their faces. I counter with Dalibor Hosek, a Czech goalie that I just drafted in the 4th round. He appears to be a regen (Hasek?) but he doesn't look super-special at this point. They accept! Now I'm looking to ditch my former Selke winner Sutherby and his $3M per year contract. This will let me put Michalek down on the 3rd line and Ladd can be my 2nd line LW. BTW, I got a message telling me that my fans celebrated the steal and my board was happy about the trade. I usually don't get these kind of messages. Usually they just complain about how much I give up.

There have been some other deals I've made but I'll go into all the details on those in the blog when I get around to it.

Post by **batdad** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 9:12 pm

And you say nothing good ever happens to you in your games. Bite me!

Hosek, Dalibor...such a creative name for Hasek, Dominic...and may he HAUNT YOU FOR THE REST OF THE CHALLENGE~!!!!!!

Post by **Shadd666** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:41 am

Phew... I finally found a way to get read of lazy Havlat before season 3 AND get under the 38M$ before the start of the season. It wasn't that easy, but it's done! Havlat, Sturm, Timonen and Thomas are out, replaced respectively by Hossa (from FA), Arkhipov (FA), Kalinin (trade) and Price (HG). Oh and i put my hands on Cherepanov too, but i don't remember in which deal.

Now i have tons of updates to make in my blog

It'll certainly take me a whole day to be up-to-date... Tomorrow...

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 12:48 pm

batdad wrote:And you say nothing good ever happens to you in your games. Bite me!

Hosek, Dalibor...such a creative name for Hasek, Dominic...and may he HAUNT YOU FOR THE REST OF THE CHALLENGE~!!!!!!

I'm guessing "Hosek" won't be ready to play the time the challenge ends. I'm hoping not at least!

I wonder if he really is the regen of Hasek. How do you check that again? Is it just country of origin plus height and weight?

I think this is the first lucky break I've gotten though. Of course, it was offset by the whole draft pick situation immediately before it.

Systemfel · Post by **Systemfel** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 2:16 pm

bruins72 wrote:How do you check that again? Is it just country of origin plus height and weight?

Ht, wt, country, flair, consistency.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 3:05 pm

Hmmm... maybe it isn't Hasek then. I don't know where to check consistency (other than the editor, which I don't use) but his flair is way off from Hasek's. Hosek has 12 flair while Hasek had 20. Hosek is 6'1" while Hasek was 5'11". Hosek weighs 160 lbs while Hasek weighed 178 lbs. They're both from CZE. Hosek is from Usti nad Labem while Hasek was from Paradubice.

Hasek is definitely gone from my game. I can't find him anymore.

thunderbug · Post by **thunderbug** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 4:11 pm

consistency is on a weird page, Information page maybe I don't remember.