Challenge #36 - Philadelphia Flyers Discussion Thread

[batdad]

Dec 10. THE DAY that I get a report that Andreas Karlsson has FINALLY seen Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome. I am very proud of him.

[Peter_Doherty]

I messed up a bit in the off-season and was over the cap, thought it would be fine until Oct 15, it wasn't so i had to waive Luke Schenn to deal with it and he got picked up, overall it's not a big loss but it is a bit annoying.... To fix the cap situation and the roster i send Nick Schultz and a 4th rounder to Arizona for Michael Stone and i'm also working on trading Read for someone cheaper, he's just too expensive for a pure 3rd line role...

Losing Schenn but trading for Stone actually makes my D-corps stronger but it did cost me some picks that i would have liked (the 4th rounder i sent and the 4th rounder i would have gotten for Schultz).

Edit: Nevermind, remembered to check my core rosters before i made the trade and Read is there ofc so won't make that trade

Edit2: Gotta thank you btw batdad, made some alterations to my personal tactics, especially for my defenders and it has really helped....

Edit3: I have noticed a rather annoying problem, my AHL team doesn't sign players so right now they are playing with 4D and 3 lines That means Hägg is playing 38 minutes a night, will that harm his progress?

[Peter_Doherty]

Q1 done season 3, my defending is miles better and we are doing really well sitting at 16-3-1 right now. Khudobin has taken the #1G spot by posting a 92.5 Sv% in 13 games going 12-1-0 in those games. I'm scoring a little bit less but it's worth it considering i let ALOT less goals in Voracek keeps on scoring, Giroux i PPG and Schenn is fitting in well to the left of them. Laughton has taken his game to another level posting PPG numbers to start the season, he plays on my second line with Lucic and Simmonds, talk about a tough line to defend

Brodie is AMAZING, 2+16 with 17 +/- and over 8 Av R... Streit and Del Zotto are doing what they have done in earlier seasons, Adam Larsson is having a bad start to the season though, his ice time went down with the arrival of Brodie and he hasn't fit in well in the second pairing so far, hopefully he gets his game together soon. Stone is doing fine replacing Schenn. Ghost and Gustafsson is splitting time as the last D and they are posting similar numbers, both are just under 7 Av R.

[batdad]

Depends on Hagg conditioning and what he can handle and how those 38 minutes go, and if he avoids injuries.

Good glad that it did, sort of.

[jesterx7769]

So I am finally going to get going on this today- must admit draft picks are a big disappointment since I enjoy rebuildling through draft in challenges over 4/5 years, but alas, challenge accepted!

I haven't seen people mention Couturier too much in this thread, did I just get lucky? His skills look amazing and I haven't even started season yet (15 passing, 17 slapshot)

[Peter_Doherty]

Couturier has been a disappointment for me, he's not horrible but he's no more then a decent 3rd liner either... Laughton on the other hand, he is a beast for me

[jesterx7769]

Not too give away to many secrets Batdad but I'm assuming you match your lines regularly when playing defensive/conservative? The problem when I do that is faceoff losses mainly it seems as my third/fourth line will get smoked by guys like Crosby which I think leads to alot of goals

[sao.phim]

I have almost finished Q3, currently leading my division and EC as well, just beat leading Caps twice.As for Couts, he is doing much better than B.Schenn (points, AvR). I play him on third line, PK and PP1. He has around 18 minutes ATOI. I plan to promote him to second line. Unfortunately, he is quite inconsistent - went through several streaks with rating of 5-6.
I wonder whats gonna happen, when G+V get cold. Currently they are leading league scoring, third Hemsky is more than 10 points behind them.

[sao.phim]

I haven't figured out how to improve the morale. Most of my team is almost permanently low or very low, despite going through some tremendous winning streaks and fair sharing of ice-time.

[Peter_Doherty]

I had the same, now most players are atleast hovering aroung OK, not sure what i did though

[batdad]

Not too give away to many secrets Batdad but I'm assuming you match your lines regularly when playing defensive/conservative? The problem when I do that is faceoff losses mainly it seems as my third/fourth line will get smoked by guys like Crosby which I think leads to alot of goals

SOrry...never match lines. Hate it.

[jesterx7769]

So funny thing, I just realized my $ was on Euros', didnt realize this until I uploaded my stats I just figured roster salarys had been adjusted lol

Pretty crazy up and down first 20 games. PP at 13% which is extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemley frustrating seems like no matter what tactics I use with the talent I should be doing better.

Ironically I just put Couturier on the top line and he's been lighting it up the past 5 games becoming my scorer, which shows how bad I did before that

However overall I'm still battling for a playoff spot

[Peter_Doherty]

Just finished Q2 season 3 and we just kept on rolling, 16-3-1 this quarter aswell leaves us way on top of the conference... I picked up Paquette on waivers to add some depth, he's my #13 Forward... Both my goalies are safely above 90% for the first time in this game (thanks batdad . That my first line is doing good was no surprise but that my entire second line and Brodie would be PPG after half the season i did not expect, especially not Laughton who had an 14 game point scoring streak

[sao.phim]

Jesterx: PP1 works for me well above 20% with diamond, Streit as playmaker on LD, RD MDZ, LW G, Couts/Simmer C, Voracek RW with selective shooting and passing first mentality.MDZ&G shoot first. For the rest of season i will have to re-shuffle it lightly, as my opponents already started to figure it somehow and % goes down. Also maybe caused by equal split with PP2, because I want to give them more icetime and opportunities to develop/score. Most of the time i play PP2 with Funnel. I may try to move MDZ to PP2 as there is lack of strong shooter on blue line.
Currently both Streit&MDZ are at almost PPG pace.

[Kopi]

Ok people, i joined and accept the challagne...my 1st one so far so hopefuly i wont suck too much.

The moment I load the game Del Zoto got injured for 4 months (Broken leg) and just before the start Mason for 3 weeks (and he really sucked during friendlies).

Below are my lines:
Raffl-Giroux-Voracek
Bellemare-Couturier-Simmonds
Umberger-Lecavalier-Read
Rinaldo-Schenn-Stortini

Macdonald-Streit
Grossmann-Schenn (will be Del Zoto once he recover)
Schultz-Gudas (will be Schenn when DZ returns)

Mason
Emery

I send all the guys i had an option back to juniors and most others to AHL. 2nd line will get a chance for 1st 20 games to see how they play...if they wont produce then Umberger and Schenn are most likely to move up.

edit1: Is it me or Mason relly suck big time...feel like Emery is better for my way of playing..

[Koekenbakker]

So much rules, wow! I'm going to give this a try...

[Kopi]

First 20 games behind me... 8-12 score. Major problem are both goalies. Mason even manage to have 2 games in a row rating 5. Most defenetly at this moment Emery is my 1st goalie (Mason 87% saves while Emery 88%). Players in D were also awful specialy Macdonald couldnt find himself while Gudas will be out of the team in about a week when Del Zatto comes back (was out 4 months). Vinny will also have to leave the spot in the roster to younger players..Raffl is playing very well in the 1st line with Giroux and Vorachek. Will for sure make some changes in the lines. Still havent picked anyone from waivers or sign anyone on free transfer but i guess wont needed that. But i must say im enjoying it! Challenges are fun!

[sao.phim]

So, finished regular season, won EC and in the play-off we are going against Maple Leafs. Currently leading 2-0 after home games.
As for Q3-Q4, my PP % went down drastically, Voracek slowed down, but in the end of Q4 he step up and managed to win league scoring despite heavy push by Ovechkin. Giroux finished second, Raffl also in top 10. Surprisingly, Emery had great second half of season, played around 30 games, decent GAA and Sv%. I will alternate him and Mason in play-off. We claimed off waivers Joakim Andersson to add depth for our play-off run. B. Schenn improved his production on LW (before he played as center), rotating with Raffl between first and second line. Lecavalier is still struggling, as well as Umberger. During next season I want to move both of them away, together with Grossmann - to clear up much needed cap space - most of our summer UFAs requested double salary rise - so far we signed MDZ (for 2,3 M/y) and Colaiacovo (1,1M/y). Going to sign Bellmare (wants around 1,3m/y), not sure about VdV, White and Emery (he wants 1,7M/y!!). Most def not going to extend Rinaldo.
As for our farm, they finished on the last spot, but line Straka-Laughton-Akeson was doing very well, L+A finished among top 15 scorers in AHL. Both of them will be promoted to Flyers first team next season. Ghost also did not disappoint and he will move up as well. Hagg, Manning and Alt were all very inconsistent and I will better leave them for some seasoning in AHL next year. Goalis - Stolarz incosistent, Zepp very good, but request big salary rise, so auf Wiedersehen Rob. Contracts for a lot of guys from Phantoms will not be extended as we need to save cap space and I don't see much future in them. From unsigned prospects my attention caught Lindblom (terrific season!), Aube-Kubel, Morin, Sanheim and Fazleev, all of them will move to Lehigh Valley for next season on ELC.

A lot of NHL GMs have been fired in Q3/Q4, mainly by teams, which were fighting for wild-card spot.

[umwoz]

Well guys, I'm gonna jump into this one. Figured there's only one way to get better...


EDIT: Immediately a disaster. Mason goes down, so I called up Zepp(I sent Stolarz back to Junior) for a few games. Played 2 and then when Mason came back I sent Zepp back down. He then stopped reporting to practice and Mason got hurt again, so I have Emery and an emergency goaltender in each game, just hoping Emery can hold up.

[batdad]

Meh bring Zepp up. THe not reporting to practice thing is broken (unless fixed in this game from 2007). The players will actually play for you. ANd if you were to discipline them for not showing up....you ALMOST always get a ticked off player. he will show up for games and eventually settle in.

[umwoz]

Yeah it took a bit but he settled in. Took me a bit but the entire team is starting to get on track.

Surprisingly I've been able to get Couturier going, 4 points in his last 5 with 8-8-9-8-7.

For some reason MacDonald has been god awful.

[Peter_Doherty]

Q3 done and i'm still doing 16 wins per quarter, this quarter was a bit different though, first line slowed down alot, both Schenn and Giroux went pointless in over 4 games and Voracek was also slowing down his scoring alot... I'm tinkering with the tactics trying to get them going again so we'll see... Team kept on winning though so it's no big deal, i do want them hot for the playoffs though

[Duranium]

Yeah I have some decent luck with my tactics for sure. Very defensive minded with my defensemen for sure, and always at least one hard skating foward on the back check,

Goalie records so far...17 games now

Emery 5-1-1 1.27 .955 1 SO
Mason 8-1-1 1.60 .946 3 SO

Individual tactics are in use for all my players, goalies set to stay in crease, very defensive and very safe pass.

So you basically set General Tactics for your whole line-up and then finetune with individual tactics? Do i get this right? How do your general tactics look like?

[umwoz]

It seems like nothing I do with this team can keep them under 4 goals against per game.

Kinda tough to stay motivated to keep up with this knowing I don't get a first round pick for sucking.

[batdad]

Yeah I have some decent luck with my tactics for sure. Very defensive minded with my defensemen for sure, and always at least one hard skating foward on the back check,

Goalie records so far...17 games now

Emery 5-1-1 1.27 .955 1 SOson 8-1-1 1.60 .946 3 SO

Indvidual tactics are in use for all my players, goalies set to stay in crease, very defensive and very safe pass.

So you basically set General Tactics for your whole line-up and then finetune with individual tactics? Do i get this right? How do your general tactics look like?

for
Yes and sometimes line tactics. But for team usually


Offensive, back check normal, hitting normal, passing normal, shooting normal or heavy, dump puck normal or rare, gap control normal or tight, etc.. All things are generally based on the average skill levels of my players overall and what is the best for them. So sometimes if I have a super slow team...wide gap. Puck pressure is normal or heavy all the time, agression is normal all the time, and adjust all things in line and individual tactics which vary wildly from career to career and sometimes season to season.