Sea Dogs - Challenge 11 - Discussion Thread

Post by **joehelmer** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 6:04 am

After my rant last night over my team's bad run in the season we've now started the 52-70, with a run of 6 wins and 2 SO/OT-losses in 8 games.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:30 pm

Not to toot my own horn here but...

That player attribute tracker I created a while back could be pretty useful in this challenge. If you take the time to enter your players' attributes into the spreadsheet you can check in on it and see if your young players are developing properly. I think it might be more useful in this challenge than it has been in past ones.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 8:46 pm

ugh. Had my season done. and when I went to save it crapped out on me.

So I'm back to 60 GPs, and on the first day in...Joyal gets an offer from the Coyotes...which I'm fairly certain he will accept. Oh well...he was an overager anyways....*sniff*

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:44 pm

Ouch! Tough break! Joyal is the only reason most of us haven't been cellar dwellers. I got lucky when I had to restart my game. Joyal is okay but Fullerton is better. Of course, FGC is terrible now but KGC is okay. Sauve isn't the goal scoring machine that he was for me in my corrupted game but he's still good. I also signed Mark MacEachern (an unsigned Saint John prospect) who has turned out to be a good defensive defenseman. So many of these guys have random attributes so it depends on the luck of the draw when you start a new game. I had a heck of a time finding a coaching staff.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:03 am

Saved he did sign with Phoenix, but the transfer agreement won't go through until June...thank god.

Doing quite a bit better than my crashed game, not by much...still dead last and out of the playoffs, just a few more wins, and goals.

Post by **Manimal** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:26 am

My scoring is down slightly in the second segment and FGC has tailed off. The team is still playing well and soon trading will be allowed. I'm looking to add some depth to the team and get rid of dead weight.
Has anyone made any good trades?

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:57 am

I wasn't able to get any trades in...I've pretty much resigned to the fact that it's going to be a poor season and look to the draft.

My redo of the last 10 games was slightly better (3 more wins, 6 less losses...and well 3 more OTLs) FGC finished with more goals and Sparling ended with the same amount of points. The plus/minus was better as well, and Stich finished with more PIMs...time for the screen shots then the draft.

mustardstew · Post by **mustardstew** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 2:57 am

yeah FGC has only scored like goals since the first 17 - but Theriault has turned into a PP monster!

the team is incredibly streaky... and guys are starting to get hurt - at crunch time...

I've lessened my practice intesities some, and I switch them to a gameday practice (on gamedays)... their condition is fine - but do practices still affect their performance / injury-prone-ness? as I said, condition is all at 96-100%, even on back-to-back gamedays... can they still be getting too much practice?

I was unable to get anything in trades... the overagers, noone wants, and all of our guys are ranked 3 or less by other teams... so this is the team we got!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:05 am

I usually take my guys off practice if their condition goes below 88%. Otherwise, I leave them practicing on something at all times. You've just got to switch the practice up every so often.

You're totally right about these guys being streaky. I can have a few games where I'm winning by scores of 5-1, 7-3, or 4-2 and then go on a stretch where I'm losing 6-5, 5-2, or 4-3 and losing in the shootout.

Post by **joehelmer** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:52 am

I got Bernier from Lewiston during the trading time, for Fullerton, who hadn't been good for me, and a 2nd round pick and later I got my second round pick back after a trade where I sent my 13, 14 and 15 round picks for it.
I also got Tomas Svoboda for Bruno Desjardins.
I will post a screenshot with my trades on ny last stat record for this first season.

I managed to get my team to the playoffs, but then I lost in four games.

Post by **Manimal** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:59 am

LOL, I just traded Dave Bouchard(he sucks and I don't use him) for David Bouchard

Post by **archibalduk** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:19 am

bruins72 wrote:Ouch! Tough break! Joyal is the only reason most of us haven't been cellar dwellers.

I definitely agree with that. My team has really struggled since I lost him to another team.

Laker2415 · Post by **Laker2415** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:56 am

[quote="Manimal"]My scoring is down slightly in the second segment and FGC has tailed off. The team is still playing well and soon trading will be allowed. I'm looking to add some depth to the team and get rid of dead weight.
Has anyone made any good trades?[/quote]

I tried to get Olivier Legault (who is very popular here in Fort Wayne, Indiana) from Rimouski, but they wanted the following:

KGC, FGC, a 2nd round pick in 2007 and a 3rd in 2008.

I like Legault, I just don't like him that much!

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 1:30 pm

1st overall pick in the QMJHL and CHL Import draft to me....Simon Despres and Tomas Vincour.

(Funny thing, in real life Saint John did get the first overall pick that year and did actually take Simon Despres)

And Alex Grant was taken last in the first round of the NHL draft by Carolina

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:34 am

So in Vincour's first game in the Q...4 Points (2 g 2 a)! WOOT!

mustardstew · Post by **mustardstew** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 3:21 am

so the boys tanked at the end of the season... 5 wins... uggh... landed in 6th place

luckily we got PEI, who I can apparently play lol - we won the season series...

and I won my first ever playoff series!! and ran into the monster that is Moncton... nedless to say I was happy to get 1 game from them lol!

learned a lot - lets see if I can make the right choices regarding FAs and / draft picks, since we lose 2/3 of the team...

mustardstew · Post by **mustardstew** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:24 am

Did the Western Division rule the league in anyone else's game (Season 1)? They had the top 4 teams (by a long shot) and both Cup finalists!

just curious

Post by **Manimal** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:22 am

I just played Lewiston and they had a defenseman playing goal!
Their top goalie was at the World Juniors and their back-up was injured.
I only managed to score six goals, though

Post by **batdad** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:20 pm

Trying to find some time today to play..get to 1st stats point. We shall see. 11 games in 8-2-0-1. Fullerton has only played one game though, so Joyal is gonna get injured or signed somewhere else. Hopefully I can get this done. I am having fun with it.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:42 pm

I hear ya, batdad! I'm having fun with this challenge but I don't have a whole lot of time to play lately, so it's progressing slowly. I'm nowhere near my usual pace.

Post by **joehelmer** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:10 pm

Yeah, I like this challenge as well. It's one of the best so far, it felt like that the NHL-challenges was getting too many complicated rules. This one has simple rules and that's making it funnier to play.

I have now started my second season and the season opening has been a lot better than in my first season, so far I'm very happy with my new signings and Bernier who got sent back to us from LA just before the season began, now he won the defensive player of the week award. I now got 5 wins in 8 games. Among them two wins against Moncton two days in a row and both were won with 4-0.

And FGC and KGC is once again two of my best players. FGC scoring 4 points (1+3) in one of the wins against Moncton.

Post by **batdad** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:16 pm

Guys...just so you know..my PP is clicking at 22% after 14 games. This is the longest I have ever gone with a good PP.....You is in trouble!!!!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:40 pm

joehelmer wrote:Yeah, I like this challenge as well. It's one of the best so far, it felt like that the NHL-challenges was getting too many complicated rules. This one has simple rules and that's making it funnier to play.

I like that everything is a new experience in this challenge. I'm not really familiar with The Q, so it's kind of made things fresh. As for the rules being simpler... yeah, that is a nice and refreshing change. Just remember, the reason we ended up with so many rules in the NHL challenges is because too many people were exploiting the game's weaknesses and playing dirty.

Marsac · Post by **Marsac** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:16 am

Hmm, I'm having some serious penalty troubles. I tried dropping the aggression level for the top two lines four games ago and saying it did not have the intended effect would be a major understatement. We were shorthanded 11, 11, 15 and 12 times in those games. The good news is we only lost the 15 times game (by a score of 5-6) when the PK had a terrible night, giving up 5 PP goals.

I'll have to take a look at personal intstructions next I guess as FGC is my PIM leader, that can't be right. 3 of the top 5 PIM players are top 6 forwards though so I'm not sure what to do about the tactics for those lines.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:49 pm

They could be taking stupid hooking penalties or something like that. I'm wondering if maybe it's the type of tactics that you have them playing? Maybe they can play that style? I've eased back on the Gap Control? If you're playing Very Tight and you player isn't quite as good a skater as the man he's covering, he could take a stupid penalty trying to slow him down.