Challenge 8.1 Toronto Maple Leafs discussion

red-dog · Post by **red-dog** » Sun May 13, 2007 10:22 pm

What a rubbish-ass team this is turning out to be. I mean I can't say I'm too surprised, but after a somewhat decent 60 games the entire team (save Joel Kwiatowski, Chirs Clark and Chris Thorburn) slump into a horrid warp of defeats and injuries, and I end up going from play-off contender to loser-Leafs. What a bunch of incompetent pansies the lot of em. I'm quite positive I won't continue on to 8.2. Not a chance in hell.

Post by **CatchUp** » Sun May 13, 2007 10:45 pm

Yeah, I have to say - I've noticed a bit of the same...and I don't have ANY of the original Leafs on my roster. But I'm going through a similar slump where I literally CAN'T score on the PP. At all. Ever. For 12 games now.

Post by **batdad** » Mon May 14, 2007 3:13 am

Great...you guys mean to tell me that my PP which sucks rocks now...will only get worse? Fricking eh. I love the Leafs. They are sooooooooo true to life. Put on the uni...and you automatically suck.

Wahoo!! Cannot wait to play again.

Post by **CatchUp** » Mon May 14, 2007 3:37 am

Well, that's that.

I won the Leafs a Cup - and now I think I'm done with them.

I was happy with the 1st line I assembled:
Zetterberg-Marleau-Doan
Hannan-Niedermayer

red-dog · Post by **red-dog** » Mon May 14, 2007 2:37 pm

I have to say, even though I eventually disliked playing this challenge, I got something good from it all. I'm probably not giving away too many secrets worthy of copying, but there are a few names who I'll be getting in other games, and who really surprised the heck out of me.

Joel Kwiatowski played well in all the offensive lines, regardless of who I teamed him up with. I claimed him off waivers, and he turned out to be quite a positive addition to the squad averaging a 7.50+ and scoring some big game winners.

Another guy who turned out to be a lot better than I'd imagined was Chris Thorburn. His 6.50 average soon turned into a 7.50 when I lifted him up from the fourth line and teamed him up with Jeff Halpern and Kyle Wellwood in the second line. His stats do not give too much away of his hidden abilities as a power forward, but his attitude really helped the other guys on the line.

Chris Clark, while not a HUGE surprise to anyone, really played a good season, most of which was spent on my first line. Oh yeah, and there's this D-man called Peter Metcalf who I signed from some ECHL team, and who quickly became a serious challenger to Barret Jackman and Ian White. In fact he covered very well for any injured D-man.

Anyway, these names are not your Marleau's or your Niedermayer's, and I know they alone won't win too many Stanley Cups for ya, but I like the hard working attitude and grittiness I got from these guys and I'm probably going to sign at least some of them in future challenges as well.

Post by **batdad** » Mon May 14, 2007 3:58 pm

Clark will help win you a cup. Dude is awesome. Kwiatkowski is great..cheap..5th dman or a right winger. Great to have around. Always waived.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon May 14, 2007 4:05 pm

Gaustad is another guy that will help you win a Cup. He'll be okay in the regular season but he really turns it on in the playoffs and scores clutch goals.

Post by **batdad** » Mon May 14, 2007 4:59 pm

Yes these guys are great..but Bruins, just a question. Don't you get tired of having the same guys all the time? I mean...I have had Clark 3 times, Kwiatkowski 3 times and Gaustad 4. I am just bored of them now, and want to try new guys in their roles. Not Ortmeyer... I have never been able to figure him out, and he always ends up being traded away agian.

Post by **CatchUp** » Mon May 14, 2007 5:19 pm

I tried a few new defensive players this time around. I got Phalsson out of Anaheim and Hagman from Dallas. Both played ok on my shutdown line with Ott. Average ratings around 7. I dealt both Hagman and Phalsson near the deadline and replaced them with Mike Fisher and Derek Roy - nothing like stealing talent from your divisional rivals!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon May 14, 2007 5:52 pm

batdad wrote:Yes these guys are great..but Bruins, just a question. Don't you get tired of having the same guys all the time? I mean...I have had Clark 3 times, Kwiatkowski 3 times and Gaustad 4. I am just bored of them now, and want to try new guys in their roles. Not Ortmeyer... I have never been able to figure him out, and he always ends up being traded away agian.

Oh yeah, I definitely get tired of having the same guys all the time. A challenge kind of pushes me towards certain guys though. I've had Clark before, once maybe twice. The thing is, for the money, it's hard to find that kind of grit and leadership. I don't use him as a scoring winger. He's always riding my 3rd line. Gaustad, this is only my 2nd or 3rd time with him and one of those times was on a team I was playing that wasn't part of a challenge. I guess I go through cycles with certain players. I'll include them on my teams for a bit, then I won't. I haven't traded for Hollweg lately.

I guess I always tend to go towards certain guys in challenges because of the need to cut salary. There are a handful of guys that have a certain amount of talent that are signed for lower money. There are certain other guys that you'll never pry away from their current team too.

Post by **batdad** » Tue May 15, 2007 2:25 am

Christ I hate this team....ick ick ick. Yet I change nothing. cept I picked up Boogard on the off chance a scrap win might make the pp go. Wellwood has picked up big time. 3g 5a in his last 3 games. Huselius/Cheechoo have correspondingly slowed down though.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue May 15, 2007 3:37 am

My team has been going in cycles. In the first block of 20 games, they were doing great. Then they struggled in the second set of 20. Then they came back and did well in the next block of 20. Now that I'm in the last chunk of games they're struggling a bit again. I lost half my left wings to injury at one point and went with a short rosters because I traded away most of my prospects. I was missing Roy for a good dozen or more games. Then Morrow went out during that time. Then I lost Sutherby for a few. It's a good thing I have a lot of guys that play multiple positions! Morrow was really hot for a bit before he was injured. Roy was my second line LW but then he started to get cold, so I moved Morrow up from the third line. Morrow had a stretch of 6 or more games where he was getting 10 ratings. Then the injuries hit. Right now I've got my whole team healthy again and I'm hoping to close out the last five games of the season strong before moving on to the playoffs.

BTW, does the game self-destruct if Toronto wins the Stanley Cup? Some things just shouldn't happen.

oxenhoper · Post by **oxenhoper** » Tue May 15, 2007 1:59 pm

self destruct.

God i'm really bad at this game..........

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed May 16, 2007 6:59 pm

Well... I finished my first season and I'm pleased with how it went. We won The Stanley Cup and that's always a good thing. We've got a good young core (only 4 players that are 30 or older after winning the Cup) and I've got them all re-signed. The only player that I haven't been able to re-sign that I want to retain is Mats Sundin. He's been happy all season long, lead the league with 140 points, thinks I'm extremely competent, and loves everything about the team. For some reason he doesn't want to negotiate a contract at this time. I don't get it. Oh well! I'll see what centers are UFAs in the off-season and sign one of them or try for Sundin again once he's a UFA.

After all my dealings, I'm sitting pretty well going into the draft. I've got 2 firsts, 4 seconds, 2 thirds, 2 fourths, and 1 fifth round pick. I felt the Laughs (Leafs) had a pretty lousy bunch of youngsters, so I dumped them all. Now I can replace them with players that I want. My scouts are much better than the ones that picked those guys. I also made a lot of trades. Maybe after the challenge is done, I'll post my transactions? This is the roster I ended the season with...

Michalek - Sundin - Vrbata
Morrow - Sharp - Ryan
Roy - Laich - Clark
Gaustad - Sutherby - Asham

Pitkanen - Morris
Hannan - Pothier
Vaananen - Clymer

Niittymaki - Boucher

Morrow started the season with the Stars, where he wasn't doing much. Once he came over to our team, he was a fixture on the 3rd line LW and had a couple stretches on the 2nd line. Heading into the playoffs, Derek Roy started to get cold so I moved Morrow up to his spot on the 2nd line. It was MAGIC! My second line was my most productive in the playoffs! Sundin's line must've had teams working on shutting them down because they weren't anywhere near as effective as they had been during the regular season. Anyhow, Morrow was tearing it up in the playoffs, followed by Bobby Ryan (one point less than Morrow) and Patrick Sharp (one point less than Ryan). I had never really paid much attention to Sharp until I played a season or so as the Blackhawks before we started this challenge. I really like him. He's more of a shooting center but he works out well. I had a couple injuries during the playoffs. Michalek missed 5 games at the start. Niitty missed 3 games. I actually threw him back in net before he was fully recovered because Boucher looked like he was going to blow the series for us. I also lost Ossi Vaananen for the last 3 games of the Stanley Cup finals. Arron Asham missed 4 games but he was just a 4th line guy getting minimal minutes, so I just didn't replace him and just let the other guys absorb him minutes.

I'm currently sitting well below the TBL budget ($32.2M out of the alloted $36M) but a lot of guys got raises for next season. I'm sure I'm going to close in on the second season budget of $38M. Then again, if Sundin won't resign, I could have plenty of room. Right now I'm looking forward to the season awards and the draft. It should be a fun second season!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed May 16, 2007 8:07 pm

Season Awards!!!!!!

Sundin won the Ross, Hart, Pearson, and Plus/Minus awards. He was also First Team All-Star.

Bobby Ryan was runner up for the Calder but won the Conn Smyth and was named to the All Rookie Team.

Joni Pitkanen won the Norris trophy and was named First Team All-Star. He was also in the top 3 for other awards.

Radim Vrbata won the Lady Byng and was runner up for the Rocket Richard trophy.

Scott Hannan was Second Team All-Star.

Paul Maurice won the Jack Adams Trophy.

Konstantinov16 · Post by **Konstantinov16** » Thu May 17, 2007 2:03 pm

Well I hope I'm not too embarrassed to put my stats up there. So far out of 9 games I've played like 6 in OT and I'm in 9th place in the East. If only I could win those OT games.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu May 17, 2007 3:20 pm

Don't sweat it. There are a bunch of us that have been playing these challenges for a while now. There's a difference between playing a team for a career game and playing a team for a challenge. So there's a bit of a learning curve. IIRC, Calv was talking about doing two different "rankings" on the challenges. One for the challenge vets and one for newer players.

**********

I went through the draft with all of those picks. With the 1st round pick I got from the Flyers (8th overall), I took Patrick Kane. He's going to need a lot of time to develop, so he doesn't help me much in the challenge. Still, I was happy to get him. I ended up trading my other first rounder plus a 4th and a 5th to move up in the first round. I saw that James Van Riemsdyk was still availble, so I made the deal to move up to #16 overall and take him. My 4 2nd round picks were spread throughout the round. I was able to nab Nathan Martine, Nikolai Lukyanchikov, Ryan Wilson, and Akim Aliu. In the 3rd round I picked Artem Gordeev and Brett Leffler. My remaining 4th round pick (and my last of the draft) was used on Albert Polinin. Overall, I was pleased with what I was able to get in this draft. I doubt I'll ever see any of these guys in my lineup unless I play past the 2nd year of the challenge... but it's still nice all the same.

Post by **archibalduk** » Thu May 17, 2007 3:59 pm

Konstantinov16 wrote:Well I hope I'm not too embarrassed to put my stats up there. So far out of 9 games I've played like 6 in OT and I'm in 9th place in the East. If only I could win those OT games.

That's nothing compared to me! I run this site as well as having written the TBL Guide and I'm in 9th position in the Challenge Stats for games 1-20

So far I've had a very up and down season. I shipped out all of my high earners (apart from Sundin) and brought in some cheaper players to get myself in line with the TBL salary cap. Steve Sullivan has been my greatest acquisition, leading my team with nine goals in the first 20 games (not that that amount is anything to shout about!).

During the pre-season, Peca slipped a disc and so he's been out for three months. He should be back any day soon and so I'm hoping he'll be able to step in and improve things for me. The last four or five games have been a disaster - my best two RDs were injured in consecutive games and so they're both out for two weeks. This lead me to sign Milan Jurcina to fill the gap. He signed him in time for my 20th game of the season. Furthermore, Stajan (my 4th line centre) has just been ruled out for two weeks.

Things are looking pretty grim but I think I can turn things around once I've gotten Peca and my defencemen back from injury. Prior to this injury crisis, we were playing well - even with the absence of Peca. Whether I can turn things around enough to avoid the humiliation of our little wage (B72, batdad & CatchUP), however, is another thing

Lowlight of the quarter: Losing 0-7 at Buffalo. The fans were livid!

Players In:
Glen Wesley - LD - Carolina
Ben Clymer - RD - Washington
Mattias Weinhandl - RW - Minnesota
Ossi Vaananen - LD - Colorado
Steve Sullivan - LW - Nashville
Radim Vrbata - RW - Chicago
Milan Jurcina - RD - Boston

Players Out:
Bryan McCabe
Tomas Kaberle
Ian White
Carlo Colaiacovo (I wanted to keep him just because of his name but eventually traded him out to acquire someone else)
Bates Battaglia
Jeremy Williams
Alexander Suglobov

Konstantinov16 · Post by **Konstantinov16** » Thu May 17, 2007 4:49 pm

Yeah, I won't sweat it, and the veteran and rookie thing sounds like a good idea to me.

archi: I know, sometimes the game is frustrating but it's always fun. My low point was when I traded for Marleau. The fans were really angry because I had to give up so much to get him. Ah well. It's still been very fun trying to push my team to do well.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu May 17, 2007 5:02 pm

If only the fans knew that Marleau = Stanley Cup in EHM!

Post by **Danny** » Thu May 17, 2007 5:15 pm

Yeah but only if he and 3 other key guys don't get injured during the semi finals...

Post by **batdad** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:30 am

Apparently, Mats Sundin is Gretzky, Lemieux, and Thornton all combined. How the heck does he get 115 pts in 60 games, when my power play is firing at a great unbelievable rate of 13.8 % overall (10.something in the last 20 games)

Post by **CatchUp** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:40 am

yeah, well - your record looks pretty tasty for the last set, so I don't know if I'd be complaining.

Post by **batdad** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:48 am

Yeah...kind of scary. this team learned how to play defense for those 20 games. Unfortunately, they left alot of offense at home in learing this d-part of the game. Cheechoo had 30 goals going into the 41st game. Huselius 31 I believe. Now Cheech has 42 and Huselius 40. Somehow, Mats points stayed fairly constant.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:20 am

Nice record for that second set of 20 games, batdad! It's crazy how the team seems to going in cycles. I had the same up and down problem over the course of my season. Key guys will disappear from the stat sheet but Sundin just keeps on chugging along. This challenge has been much more interesting than I had expected.

Challenge 8.1 Toronto Maple Leafs discussion

I hope this isn't too embarrassing for me.

Re: I hope this isn't too embarrassing for me.

Yeah