Challenge 16: Edmonton Oilers (Discussion Thread)

cstorring · Post by **cstorring** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 5:42 pm

Well, finally got the first 20 games down. It was definitely a roller coaster ride.
Horcoff is a machine, he was injured for 6 games or so and that really sucked, but he has huge points for the game he's played, including a few 4 and 5 point nights.
Basically what happens is i'll lose a couple modest games due to defense and Deslauriers/Dubnyk, then i'll win 10-2 or 8-1, then i'll lose 7-2 or something. Highs and lows are abundant...the last game I played was my 10-2 win, so hopefully the tweaks to lines/tactics keep working and its not just a fluke.
I have an obscene amount of goals against, its rather embarrassing. Maybe the only way to fix it is to score more often so they don't have a chance to, since my tactics skills aren't good enough to shut em down defensively.

Well, onto the next set, fingers crossed for no injuries to Horcoff.

DutchOiler · Post by **DutchOiler** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 5:43 pm

Hmm I'm doing better then I expected, most of the games loosing by only one goal and already three wins in nine games.

Post by **batdad** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 7:14 pm

Wow! In season 1 I have 3 all stars. Horcoff, Souray, Visnovsky. And I had two in the AHL Brule and Nilsson. Nilsson DNP as he got hurt though.

53 games in ...I am having my most effective offensive first season in a challenge

Horcoff is 33-64-97.

Lazion · Post by **Lazion** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 7:27 pm

Okay, finished quarter 1 of season 2 and I'm really happy to my new additions.

Lately Conklin has been amazing in net and already won best defencive player of the week award. Last three games SV% is 96,4. JDD has played much more better when he can get some rest.
Cos of Maltby and Yelle I can now really trust to my 3-4 lines and PK. Yelle has scored 5+2 as checking line center.
Maltby brings reliability in 4th line so now Brule and Pouliot can score some sweet goals.
And what comes to Jackman.. he sometimes make bad mistakes as scores in own net, but when he keeps his hand away from buck he is really rude dude. It's funny to follow when Jackman plays PK.. whoever gets the puck are down in second, so opposite team must move puck really fast.
Still have to work with PP.. really don't know what is the problem.. Players are too slow to react rebounds.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 8:15 pm

Awards time for season 1...

Horcoff : Art Ross winner, Hart 3rd place, Pearson runner-up, 1st All-Star Team
Hemsky : Art Ross runner-up, Lady Byng winner, Rocket Richard winner
Souray : Masterson 3rd place, 1st All-Star Team
Visnovsky : Norris runner-up

grits207 · Post by **grits207** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:00 pm

Is it too late to enter this challenge?

Post by **joehelmer** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:02 pm

grits207 wrote:Is it too late to enter this challenge?

No, it's not too late. The challenge takes part until 8 April 2010.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:11 pm

Doing my draft and the first round is going nowhere near how the players are ranked. As expected, Hall went first, but after that it went wild. 8th ranked went 2nd. 12th ranked went 6th. 2nd ranked went 8th. 3rd ranked went 10th. Lots of players ranked in their 20's went in the mid-teens. 31st ranked went 19th. Then Jon Merrill, ranked 11th, fell all the way to 20th. I was hoping he'd make it just a few more picks so I could take him at 23. My scouts all tell me to take Ryan Martindale. a 6'3" Center ranked 30th overall. I don't like him. He's big but he's only got a 9 Strength and 6 Aggression. LAME! I end up taking Quinton Howden, ranked 33rd. He's a LW compared to a more talented version of David Booth. I just didn't see anybody ranked higher that I really thought would turn out that great. I almost took defenseman Mark Pysyk. He's a defensive defenseman but he's projected as having 5-6 potential. I want more out of a 1st round pick.

The rest of the draft kind of sucks. I'm not going to go into detail on that. I had a couple guys that I was hoping would make it around to my 2nd pick but no such luck.

Post by **joehelmer** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:39 pm

I my first draft I was number 30 in overall standings but got pick 2, I had hoped for pick 1, I have never had #1 in a draft.
I went with Hishon after that Hall got pick first, I wanted a future first line center and it was either Seguin or Hishon, I went with Hishon as he was stronger and more aggresive than Seguin, but he had quite low in those two stats. I also could have gone with Kitsyn or Kabanov from Russia.

In my second season my team started the first half of the season good around place 4-5 in the Conference, but in the third quarter we start to lose and now we're in 13th in Conference.

jbsnadb · Post by **jbsnadb** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 1:57 am

bruins72 wrote:Doing my draft and the first round is going nowhere near how the players are ranked. As expected, Hall went first, but after that it went wild. 8th ranked went 2nd. 12th ranked went 6th. 2nd ranked went 8th. 3rd ranked went 10th. Lots of players ranked in their 20's went in the mid-teens. 31st ranked went 19th. Then Jon Merrill, ranked 11th, fell all the way to 20th. I was hoping he'd make it just a few more picks so I could take him at 23. My scouts all tell me to take Ryan Martindale. a 6'3" Center ranked 30th overall. I don't like him. He's big but he's only got a 9 Strength and 6 Aggression. LAME! I end up taking Quinton Howden, ranked 33rd. He's a LW compared to a more talented version of David Booth. I just didn't see anybody ranked higher that I really thought would turn out that great. I almost took defenseman Mark Pysyk. He's a defensive defenseman but he's projected as having 5-6 potential. I want more out of a 1st round pick.

The rest of the draft kind of sucks. I'm not going to go into detail on that. I had a couple guys that I was hoping would make it around to my 2nd pick but no such luck.

I have no idea what his PA is, but I took Howden in the first draft of the Avalanche challenge. He was my second line LW until the 6th season, when I traded him...for Ales Hemsky.

grits207 · Post by **grits207** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 2:11 am

My first 20 games have gone much better than I expected. I currently have an 11-7-2 record. I got off to a terrible start, getting outscored 15-4 in the first two games combined. Also, I lost Visnovsky and Smid for 3 weeks.

However, after those first two games the team has been playing pretty good. Hopefully we can keep it up.

Marsac · Post by **Marsac** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:12 am

I'm still without my laptop (and really missing it in between periods of the Olympic hockey games) but I've installed EHM on an old machine at work and started the challenge. Since I don't have access to my saved tactics I tried to develop something more defense oriented and failed horribly, we were 5-13-2 in our first twenty. I sent most of my young players to the AHL for development at the start of the season as well which may also have played a part in our weak performance.

Yesterday I revised the tactics to a classic two offensive lines, a two-way line and a physical line and brought up a number of youngsters who were doing well in the AHL. Gagner, Stortini, Smid and O'Marra were recalled to the Oilers. Down went Reddox, Potulny and Pouliot. Nilsson and Strudwick are scratched.

In our last three games we scored 16 goals while giving up 5, I hope it's not just a fluke. Our playoff hopes are probably gone as we are dead last after 30 games played but it's something to build on for next season with the addition of a high draft pick.

The callups:
Smid 5GP 2A +1 4PIM 7.80AvR 17:59ATOI.
Gagner 6GP 2G 3A +4 2PIM 8.00AvR 9:25ATOI.
O'Marra 7GP 2G +0 2PIM 6.86AvR 10:08ATOI.
Stortini 14GP 5A +0 63PIM 7.36AvR 8:18ATOI.

None of the callups are getting PP time but Smid and O'Marra are playing on the PK. I'm a bit worried about O'Marra's morale so I might end up juggling him and Potulny who has been destroying the AHL after being sent down (4GP 4G 3A +2 8.75AvR).

Current lines:
Souray-Visnovsky
Grebeshkov-Staios
Smid-Gilbert

Comrie-Horcoff-Hemsky
O'Sullivan-Gagner-Penner
Moreau-Stone-Pisani
Jacques-O'Marra-Stortini

The top line has been strangely effective after Comrie being absolutely awful before the changes. The biggest disappointment to my surprise has been Grebeshkov who was -30 at one point (now -25), he looks decent enough on paper to me. I'll probably be looking to package him and Nilsson/O'Sullivan for a goalie in the offseason. Other offseason changes will probably see Cogliano replacing Comrie.

I'll hold off posting stats until I get my laptop back (supposed to be finished today so hopefully next week), I've kept a save from game 20 and will make another one at 40 if I get there before the weekend.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 2:28 pm

jbsnadb wrote: I have no idea what his PA is, but I took Howden in the first draft of the Avalanche challenge. He was my second line LW until the 6th season, when I traded him...for Ales Hemsky.

I think I took Howden too but I didn't play that game long enough to see Howden develop. So I take it he turned out okay for you?

Post by **Lidas** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:22 pm

I aimed to strenghten my defense with the draft. Got the 18th pick. 1st and 2nd choice were defensive defensemen. Then I went for some forwards and a goalie.

1. Erik Gudbranson
2. Brock Beukeboom
3. Victor Ohman
4. Joonas Donskoi
5. Riku Harma
6. Jason Zucker
6. Connor Redmond
7. Joel Vermin

Círyatan · Post by **Círyatan** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:58 pm

Last part of the first season saw us drop out of the playoffs and down to the 10th place in the Conference. Even with JDD back a couple of games without my forwards scoring more than the opposition were enough to push us down the table. Now for the Awards:

Aleš Hemský: Art Ross Trophy Runner-up, Maurice 'Rocket' Richard Trophy Winner, Lady Byng Memorial Trophy Winner
Shawn Horcoff: Art Ross Trophy Winner, Lester B. Pearson Award Winner, NHL Second All-Star Team
Patrick O'Sullivan: Art Ross Trophy third place, Maurice 'Rocket' Richard Trophy Runner-up, Calder Memorial Trophy Runner-up
Sheldon Souray: James Norris Memorial Trophy third place, NHL First All-Star Team

The draft was disappointing. I had the 9th overall pick, but somehow missed all the players I hoped to draft. Well, whatever, this is whom I got:

9th overall: John McFarland, a promising two-way centre, compared to Mike Richards by my scouts. I considered drafting Hishon instead, but I felt I liked McFarland mental side a bit more. Niederreiter and Merrill were also available at this point, and some of my scouts recommended those, but McFarland seemed to be the best overall choice.
39th overall: Defense was my priority for the 2nd round, and there were a number of defensemen available at this stage. However, I had some reservations regarding most of them, and so I ended up with Troy Rutkowski, an Edmonton-born guy projected to be a future second-pairing blue-liner, and maybe a candidate for a future captain.
69th overall: Charles Inglis, another centre, and a gritty two-way player who's not afraid of dropping the gloves. I think he might be a good bottom-six choice in a few years time.
99th overall: Stephen Hickey, a big right winger, again chosen mostly for the grit factor.
129th overall: Connor Brickley, an American-born left winger. My scouts compared him to Daniel Sedin and Milan Michálek, and even though I'm aware his potential might not be that high, I couldn't pass on that one.
159th overall: Emerson Hrynyk, a solid defensive defenseman.
189th overall: Cam Lanigan. At this stage there only future borderline NHL-ers were available, and as none of the skaters caught my attention, I decided to add a goalie to the system (no good goalies at all in this draft, unfortunately).

OK, now for the off-season, and the goalie hunt. From what I see there's not that much out there. Anyone succeeded in bringing a real star at this point? Lidas, I see you've got yourself Biron, and I've also been looking at him for some time. How's he doing?

outdooral · Post by **outdooral** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:24 pm

Third quarter completed.Not much better,but was without Souray,Moreau,and Comrie for 3 weeks at the same time.Moreau still out and just lost JDD for 3 weeks.
Horcoff leads the league with 87 points.Changing gears for the last quarter,see if I can get any defensive play here.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:46 pm

So I'm on July 1st 2007 and I'm looking at trades. This is going to get tricky. We're up against the cap... actually we're over the cap with the players we've re-signed. I think that Averaged Club Salary will go down as we get closer to the regular season (I always have a hard time with that). Some teams have a ton of cap space but that's because they don't have many players under contract. I don't want to just dump salary. I want to get something in return. So I have to try to go after the few decent players they have under contract and they usually don't want to give them up and/or they make more money than the players I'm trying to trade away. There are a few teams that have ZERO cap room. I can't afford to take on any of their salary, so they're out the window too. So then there are a bunch of teams that I've tried to deal with. I've been working on trades for the past 2 or 3 hours now and I'm not getting too far. Nobody wants to trade away any of the goalies I went after. I was hoping to get lucky but that was a pipe dream. So then I started looking at replacing Staios on defense and maybe moving Pisani for a LW. Staios is old and wasn't very effective. Pisani is in his 30's and really not needed on this team. He's been a 3rd line guy for me and he's really done poorly. So I made a ton of offers for RD's and LW's offering those two guys. I went through every team in the league trying to make something work. Most of them want me to add just a little more, which I can't do because of the 2 players per side max on trades. So after all of that, I had 1 trade that was accepted. I'm just not sure if I want to do it or if I want to hold onto my trade and wait until trading opens up again in mid-October. Here is the deal...

Staois and Reddox to Detroit for Jonathan Ericsson and Justin Abdelkader.

With this deal, I'd ditch the 36 (37 later in July) year old Staios with his poor play and $2.7M contract (07-08 is the last year of the deal) and spare-part Reddox. I would have included Pisani but my AGM thinks I'd be giving up too much. Detroit loves it though. I tried to tweak the deal and change the players coming back. I replaced Abdelkader with Cleary and Reddox with Pisani but they didn't like it. I don't see any other deal with Detroit.

So looking at what I'd be getting... Ericsson is 26 years old RD/LD and making only $900k (last year of his contract). He's a defenseman that is decent in many areas but doesn't really stand out in any either. I guess his slapshot looks pretty good. He plays with a little grit but he's definitely not a tough-guy type. He seems like he was make a good 3rd pairing defenseman that could play the PP if I wanted him to and maybe do okay on the PK. Abdelkader is a 23 year old LW/C that had just signed a 2 year extension with Detroit back in March for $1M per season. My scouts say he's an energy forward with 2nd line potential. They say he's like a poor man's Tuomo Ruutu. He split the season between Detroit and Grand Rapids, playing 43 games in the NHL with 21 points and 41 games in the AHL with 42 points.

So what do you guys think? Take this deal, getting a 5-6 defenseman and a 3rd or 4th line LW that MIGHT be a 2nd liner someday... or hold off and see if there are any better deals to be had once the season starts?

Lazion · Post by **Lazion** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:53 pm

Quarter 2, Season 2 - That was a one hard quarter.
Not just my PP but now my two best scoring lines are surfing. I disciplined all players from 1st and 2nd line and Hemsky was only one who think that was unfair. That simply cleared my mind who is gonna leave team next summer. Don't wanna rebeller in my team. Now I really miss Horcoff as Gagner's line are horribly in +/- stats. Stone's second line in other hand shows some promises.
Had some bad injuries too. Yelle and Maltby are both out for three weeks so I can't rely on my PK or checking line for a while.. those injuries really are taking effect to my team.
Almost all time I have two dmens out.. oh I pity my goalies now. Even though both my netminders are the only reasons why we can win some matches. Little statics: JDD GP 17, SV% 0.905, SO 2 and Conklin GP 24, SV% 0.903, SO 1.
JDD has played most of easy matches, but both goalies morale are suberb. So I stick in swapping between JDD and Conklin.

Wonder what happened to my 6th round pick Cristoffer Bengtsberg it shows that he is in HV71 (next to the name) but I can't see him HV71 or junior team rosters. Hopefully that doesn't take effect to development because he hasn't play any games this season.

Círyatan · Post by **Círyatan** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 6:02 pm

Staios has been terrible for me as well, B72, and I also considered trading him. This team, however, seems to be lacking good defensive defensemen, while we still have a good offensive trio in Souray, Visnovsky and Gilbert. So I would rather go for a defensive specialist, maybe a guy like Montador, than Ericsson. Abdelkader, however, is a definite upgrade over Reddox. I don't know, I guess I'd look some more.

But I'm also having trouble working on the trades. I'm still hoping there might be a goalie out there who can be snatched for the right price. The person I don't see on this team is Comrie, who is at best a second line winger, and he's too weak mentally for my liking. The only trade including a decent goalie I've been able to work out so far is Comrie and Gagner to WSH for Varlamov and Alzner, but I'm not so sure about dealing Gagner. This offseason looks like a really tough one.

Lazion wrote:Wonder what happened to my 6th round pick Cristoffer Bengtsberg it shows that he is in HV71 (next to the name) but I can't see him HV71 or junior team rosters. Hopefully that doesn't take effect to development because he hasn't play any games this season.

Maybe he's been loaned out somewhere?

Lazion · Post by **Lazion** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 6:13 pm

Círyatan wrote:
Lazion wrote:Wonder what happened to my 6th round pick Cristoffer Bengtsberg it shows that he is in HV71 (next to the name) but I can't see him HV71 or junior team rosters. Hopefully that doesn't take effect to development because he hasn't play any games this season.
Maybe he's been loaned out somewhere?

I doubt 'cos in player profile doesn't read 'on loan from HV71' and in player profile upper line it shows Player number-Player name-Team which is HV71. Oh well.. I really can't say that he is developing even starter in AHL because of his low mental attributes and high age. But he was pretty good in Allsenskan last year.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 6:14 pm

Círyatan wrote: But I'm also having trouble working on the trades. I'm still hoping there might be a goalie out there who can be snatched for the right price. The person I don't see on this team is Comrie, who is at best a second line winger, and he's too weak mentally for my liking. The only trade including a decent goalie I've been able to work out so far is Comrie and Gagner to WSH for Varlamov and Alzner, but I'm not so sure about dealing Gagner. This offseason looks like a really tough one.

I just looked at that trade in my game and it wouldn't happen. I guess Washington has some budget issues. They'd be under the salary cap but their board must have given them a low budget. I was looking at maybe doing Varlamov and Methot (or Alzner) for Gagner (who I have no use for) and Staios.

outdooral · Post by **outdooral** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 6:26 pm

Glad to see the end of February.Everyones healty again,and we ended our 7 game losing streak with back to back wins over the Wild and Yotes. Maybe we'll get on a roll in March.If not high pick here we come.

From what Im reading its not going to be easy to upgrade in net over the summer.
Staois and Smid have been a decent 3rd pair for me this season,but will probably be looking to trade Staois as well in the off season.Comrie too by the looks of things.

Círyatan · Post by **Círyatan** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 6:26 pm

bruins72 wrote:I just looked at that trade in my game and it wouldn't happen. I guess Washington has some budget issues. They'd be under the salary cap but their board must have given them a low budget. I was looking at maybe doing Varlamov and Methot (or Alzner) for Gagner (who I have no use for) and Staios.

Well, one trade I have been working on is getting a legitimate first-line centre (despite Horcoff numbers, I'd really like him on the second line more), and Lightning seemed willing to part with Lecavalier. There must be some budget issues involved though, as I can't tweak it to a doable status. Maybe it's similar here. And Comrie has lower cap hit than Staios. Guess I'm still looking.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 6:35 pm

Yeah, Comrie has a slight lower cap hit but it's not making too much of a difference.

Good luck getting Lecavalier. TB isn't interested in hearing any offers for him in my game.

Post by **batdad** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:06 pm

It is February..Rask waived...no takers. Boston is desperate to get rid of one or the other goalie. I do not think they care which one.

I hope they sign Rask for next season, then on July 1st I am going after either him or Thomas...as I have never had either one. But I have a feeling they are not going to qualify him, and he will be an unsigned prospect so I won't be allowed to deal for him.