TBL Challenge 1.1 & 1.2: Washington Capitals Chat Thread

Post by **Minstrel** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 12:10 am

I don't in general have injury issues in my games, except for those players that their best skill is injuring themselves

I think it was just bad luck really, sometimes when it rains it pours I guess...

Good luck with the division, is your Eastern Conference as close as mine is? It's freakin me out

Eastern Conference

Forgot to mention that even though he missed some games late Ovechkin took Rookie of the Month honors for January too

. Not too shabby: Dec/Jan Rookie of the Month

Post by **E5150_ca** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 1:47 am

Yup, mines quite close as well.
http://img397.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... art6gd.jpg
Oddly, alot less points all across the board in my game

Ovechkin was sitting in a distant 3rd in rookie scoring on my team till about January, then as soon as the new year came, so did the points for him. He fineally took over first place (from Kunitz (Ducks) of all people) and it doens't look like he'll be looking back. Crosby looks to be finishing a distance 4th.

Devils88 · Post by **Devils88** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 10:29 pm

Here's the story of my Games 41-60.

After a injury shaken second quarter, my first line (semin, halpern, ovechkin)
got back to work. (although ovechkin now plays on the second line) PP was better but still lousy.
Also i couldn't lower my Team PIM. 2nd most in the league.
Alexander Semin is my hero. 67 points, most goals, assists and +23
Most of the Trades i've done to shock up the roster, fell in place.

After a shootout loss to san jose, i lost to the bruins 4-5 by a goal scored at 59:21.
After that i got a 6-game winning streak beating the sharks 2-2SO, red wings4:1, canes 5:1,panthers
5:1, leafs 3:1 and most glorious the devils by an heroic score of 1:0.

then the lightning came and struck me. I hate these team. the first line of lecavalier, richards and
st.louis is giving the hole league headache. (1,2,3 in scoring race) lost my previous matchups 3-4 OT,
and 2-6.
was up 2-0 when st.louis scored a shorthander late in the first. that was the turning point.
Vince, Martin and Brad got over me and ended my winning streak...2:4 in the end.

lost next two games (one in so, one by one goal) and got back on a 4 game winning streak, before coming to old routine...a win, a loss, a win,...

here are my trades i've done in 3rd quarter. (most players were transferlisted)

got brian gionta from the devils for rights to dovgan and 6th rounder. Little G plays on the 1st line (22GP, 9g,8a) OK.
got jonathan girard (bruins) for rights of peat and tvrdon. jon is superb at the moment (17GP, 6g,5a +10)
got rob davison (sharks) for mink. good pickup, solid defending (10GP 2g,4a)
got brylin (devils) for clark and aulin. not that good, was planned for 2nd line center now plays third.(11GP,0g,2a)
got martin biron (sabres) for clymer and wilsie. still high salary but ok (3GP 2W, 1L)
waived scott lachance who was claimed by the habs.
Trade for Kolzig is pending (la offered dustin brown). if nothing better comes...ok. 5 mio. free

hoping the injury bug doesn't hit me again in my last quarter....

Lines:

Semin - Halpern - Gionta
Ovechkin - Cassels - Zubrus
Ott - Brylin - Zalesak
Pettinger - Sutherby - Gordon

Witt - Girard
Davison - Ference
Jackman - Orpik,Eminger or Morrisonn

Post by **E5150_ca** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:35 pm

Cassels on your 2nd line? WOW. He was absolutly horrible in my game, I ended up dumping him on waviers.

Post by **archibalduk** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:38 pm

I'm thinking of dumping Cassels too. He started the first few games well but has since faded into oblivion.

Post by **Minstrel** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:50 pm

I traded Cassels though he was actually doing well for me. I dealt him, rights to McNeill and a 3rd to Carolina for Vasicek.

Interesting I've found Davison very helpful as a 6th/7th D since I picked him up though he was a waiver claim actually.

I'm currently letting the bad luck drain from my game before going back to it

my team has seemingly forgotten how to play hockey since the trade deadline...

BTW your stats have been recorded at GLR D88

Post by **E5150_ca** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 5:38 am

Ho-ly Adam Oates.

Take note this is in the middle of a playoff series with the Leafs...

http://img462.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ing8xb.jpg

All year I made offers for him, even both my 1st round picks at deadline, and just when I need him most, this happens. I am in shock.

Post by **E5150_ca** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 6:59 am

Didn't manage to get the player in previous screenshot but man o man did my team pick a great time to go on a hot streak.

Took the Leafs in 5 games, then the Devils in 4.

Sabres are up next.

Devils88 · Post by **Devils88** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:20 pm

The last quarter of my Caps Challenge began delightful

My Boys got hot (exept Semin who cooled of a bit) and with 7 games left for the season my record was 10-3-2. Was in clear 6th conference place and 10 points ahead of no.9 (sabres)

....BUT
Then I lost my next 6 games, before i won the last match of the regular season. best time for a losing streak

Ended up in 8th place with 93 points, only 2 shy of missing the playoffs.

So i played no.1 seeded Devils in the first Round. Yeah, the Devils dominated my Game over the season and won the presidents trophy.....

THEY WASHED UP THE ICE WITH MY BOYS, letting me only win Game 4 of the Series which ended 1-4.

I am really in shock....what happend the last 10-15 games....i don't know now....but i found someone i will trade for this lousy streak. Steve Eminger had a -6 in 5 playofff games with 6.20 rating. Bye Steve....

with a 25 million payroll i will get a BIG second line center in free agency for 2nd season.

overall record was 43-32-7...not bad if someone told me at the start of the Game....but not now...
:blue:

Post by **E5150_ca** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 9:45 pm

Devils88 wrote:but i found someone i will trade for this lousy streak. Steve Eminger had a -6 in 5 playofff games with 6.20 rating. Bye Steve....

I'll take him

I could use another quarterback for my other powerplay line.

Devils88 wrote:
with a 25 million payroll i will get a BIG second line center in free agency for 2nd season.

From looking at expiring contracts in my game, you better be quick about it as there's not much.

I'm really looking forward to my off-season, as I saw a number of big name D reject offers from there team

Post by **Minstrel** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:14 pm

As I mentioned D88, I feel my team is trending toward to same kind of sputtering finish as well. I'm a bit scared to go back to it

I'll probably face the music this weekend though, I'll let you guys know how I do

Rubbinio · Post by **Rubbinio** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:17 am

I just got my exam schedule for my courses and it is horrible to put it in nice terms.

So I am bit disappointed to announce that I most likely not have the time to complete this challenge so maybe next time....

Good luck to all of you taking part !

PS: I will post a screeny of my transactions so far in the image gallery shortly.

Post by **Minstrel** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:56 am

If you are able to finish up by 'round the first week or so of January then go for it. Otherwise around then we will be starting up the next new Challenge and you can hop in with that one

Post by **E5150_ca** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:55 pm

Finally found enough free time to write up a reoort on my last quarter and the playoffs.

Lines:

Ovechkin - Spezza/Madden - Hunter
Gratton - Madden/Spezza - Semin
Battaglia - Halpern - Zubrus

Witt - Clymer
Stevens - Eminger
Pratt- Morrisonn

At the trade deadline I moved some prospects and draft picks around, and picked up Chris Gratton. I only had 5 picks in the 2006 draft: Two 1st rounds, two 2nd rounds and a 7th round.

Over the all star break, I worked my team trhough some new tactics in practice, focusing alot more on offense and boy did it pay off. My first line was going on crazy point streaks, stuff like 30 points in 5 games between them. I almost always had Spezza centering first line, but if I was playing a high scoring team on the road, I moved Madden up to help balance out the D on my 3 lines.

My defense started smartening up around this time too, still not up to par, but atleast I wasn't disicplinigng them after every game for 4 and 5 ratings like before. I sent Outlette back to Hershey, and had Miller play the last 22 games.

The conference and division was really close at this point, and I knew that EVERY point counted. Myself, the Lighting and Thrashers were all within one point of each other and fighting for top of the division. With two game sto go, I was 2 points ahead, and if I won the first one, I had the divison locked up. I beat the Lighting in my 2nd last game, sealed the division and brought up a bunch of young guys for the last game, to rest my stars.

I was confident going into the 1st roud, the Leafs lacked alot of speed, and I figured with the fast paced offensive I was playing, it wouldn't be too difficult. I was right.

Was even happier when I saw my next opposition was the Devils. I just kept up the fast paced offensive style, and they were done in 4.

I wasn't too worried about the Sabres, sure they had taken out the Penguins, but I hadn't had trouble with them all year. I took the first 3 games rather handidly, I sat some players to rest up during the 4th game, and we lost, I wans't worried though and I took them out in Game 5.

The western final was Might Ducks vs Vancover and I was hopeing and dreaming for Ducks victory, but alas Vancover prevailed. I was almost 99% sure I wans't going to beat the 'nucks, we only met once in the reg season and I barely escaped with a lucky win. The first game was a really high scoring game, that went into overtime. 6 minutes into overtime... the nucks scored. short-handed.

Everything went downhill from there, I couldn't stop the Nucks top line, and they sweeped me in 4. Bertuzzi, Naslund and Morrison managed 20 points between them in the 4 game series.

Calder went to Ovechkin and he was named to rookie team.

rubbish did that take a long time to write...

Post by **Minstrel** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:36 am

Great writeup

I'm not sure if I'll be able to match that kind of playoff performance, pretty impressive you made the Final!

I'll be writing the story of the end of my first season this weekend most likely, I'm not very optomistic though... maybe it's just residual "they'll find a way to screw it up" feelings from being a Hawks fan

Post by **E5150_ca** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 3:09 am

Well good luck!

I think alot of the reason why I did so well was because I played 2 teams that were so slow, while I was such a fast team that I just far outskated them. In playoffs its best to have a scout check out the other team, then change your tactics to take full advantage of there weakness's.

For instance, Vs the Leafs and Devils, I had every single line useing skating offense, and had every player was skating 'intensively' at practice. Both teams goalies were old and having condition problems, so I set shooting at barrage, and by the end of games they were so dam tired they couldn't stop a basketball.

Looking at past scores of the Sabres, I noticed there goaltender had a problem with low shots, so I just set shooting to selective and 'aim low'. I also saw most of there offense came from there first line, so I set matcing lines for 1v2, 2v1, moved Halpern up to my 2nd line and just locked them down with a line of Gratton - Madden - Halpern.

I was hoping of taking advantage of the Cloutier situation in Vancover..and it seemed to work in the first games (6 goals) but alas after Naslund scored that shorthanded overtime winner, my team just gave up.

Post by **Minstrel** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 7:39 pm

Very interesting!

I'll admit I don't do that much research going into games

I can see how it would really pay off when facing the same team for a series. Good stuff.

Post by **E5150_ca** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 8:39 pm

Eh, I don't do that much research during the regular season, just in the playoffs, cause well, its the playoffs.

Draft: On draft day I had the

24th pick
28th
32nd
57th
205th

I traded the 24th and 32nd to the Sabres for the 15th leaving me with:

15th [Drafted Jim Levesque (projected to be 'a more talented version of Vincent Lecavalier'

)]
28th [Drafted Mike Duco (Projected to be a key 2-way forward)]
57th [Drafted David Burkholder (Projected to be 'a better version of Ken Belanger' with key status potential]
205th [Drafted Kevin Baker (Project to be like a 'defensive minded Tim Connely' with key status potential]

I didn't do much scouting for the draft, as I knew I wouldn't have any more then 5 picks. Took a good 40 odd proposals before I found a team that was willing to trade their early 1st round pick, as I wasn't impressed with any of the guys ranked 20-30. I'm thinking of rushing Mike Duco so John Madden can teach him the ropes before he leaves the team, still a little too early for that though, maybe next year.

Post by **archibalduk** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:33 pm

I'm 40 games in and am an inch away from suicide. Right from day one this has been a nightmare. During the second segment I shook up my lines and it worked for two games, but then we went back to our bad old ways. I tried tweaking the lines and tactics a little but this only brought me very limited success.

So I totally changed the way I pick lines and this resulted in a fairly decent run of form for about four games. Now we're playing a little more convincingly and we're losing by fewer goals.

I brought in Ryan Malone (I'm a big fan of him since EHM 2004) to the dismay of the Caps' fans. He's done ok considering how rubbish my team is.

This is proving to be the biggest nightmare I have ever had playing EHM. I have grown to hate each and every player of my team. I only really have respect for Semin and Ovechkin.

Somebody hand me the prozac

Rubbinio · Post by **Rubbinio** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:30 pm

Finally, i managed to get my trades image upladed so if you want to see it here it is:

http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/al ... ser_id=294

I would have liked to finish this game but unfortunatelly getting good grades in my univ exames is top priority for me so I look forward to our next challange.

Post by **Minstrel** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 9:33 pm

Game 76... still no sight of land... err wait

I just noticed as my team continues to struggle post trade deadline that: my last ten home games 7-3, my last ten road games? 3-7!!!!

Methinks I have to rethink my road game strategy.

Post by **Minstrel** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 10:14 pm

Seems that there may be a bit too much influence given to the home ice advantage and that they'll be addressing making it a bit more even in the upcoming patch...

Nevertheless, my team does suck on the road... and that continued through my first matchup in the playoffs with the Devils. I knew I was in for a struggle when the news text setting up the series detailed that in four games this year they'd outscored my Capitals 20-9 including a 6-2 beating in the last game. I had a helluva time beating Brodeur, but Lundqvist was equally impressive and we took care of business in a dominant game seven performance.

We may have gone as far as we can though, as we are now facing Ottawa who are seeded higher than us and we've lost two close matchups on their ice to start of the series.

If we get past them it's most likely we'll end up facing Pittsburgh who lost all of 17 games on their way to a 125 point season...

Maybe I'll wait and hope to beat them as a Christmas present?

Post by **E5150_ca** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 6:29 pm

So how'd you finish? DETAILS MAN DETAILS.

Post by **Minstrel** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 8:41 pm

Heh.

Been busy with the holidays and such but I will finish it off and post my wrapup tonight. Let me just say that I beat Pittsburgh

Post by **E5150_ca** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 11:32 pm

So I haven't been checking back every few minutes to see if you've posted yet. Nope. Not me.