EHM The Blue Line

Charles Davenport is seem probably former Wranglers owner. We will retire him. Thanks for report! we still have some players from 06 db but cleanup is still running.

Named wrote:Charles Davenport is seem probably former Wranglers owner. We will retire him. Thanks for report! we still have some players from 06 db but cleanup is still running.

Cool, that explains it.

Gearing up for the CHL Import draft now, I'm going to see if any of my old Edinburgh British prospects have an interest in coming over here. I'd especially like getting my hands on Ricky Worth or Corey Webb. I think either of them could be a real impact player in the Q. None of my staff wanted to come over here with me. But I'm hoping for more luck with the players. Having a British kid be a star player in major-junior would be a nice story.

Turns out all the promising young forward talent that was here when I got here have low consistency. Every single one of them. So that's rough, but on the plus side since this wasn't the first season of a save we can sign the guys we draft right away rather than having to wait a full season before they become old enough. That means I have a bunch of forwards, some D and a goalie coming in for this season. I'm still in the signing phase with a lot of them and waiting for more scouting reports to come in. So far a couple of the guys who had no consistency mention have now gained that in their more complete scout reports. So it's looking like a pretty decent draft under the circumstances.

I posted this on HFBoards - I'm sure some of you have done a lot of research about this but let me know your thoughts...wondering if this is just my DB or if this is a common issue, much like cap management, with the game engine:

Nino - I don't know how much you've researched this but I'm curious. I've gone into my saved game in 2021 and exported the data to compare CA and PA with my pre-game database. I wanted to observe the development of young players and I've noticed a very disturbing trend.

Basically...old players don't age nearly rapidly enough and this stifles the game's development of younger players. Guys in their mid 30's are still maxing out their CA at their PA and guys who start the game in their late 20's but have a little wiggle room in their CA to PA comparison are now in their early 30's and have all gotten better and almost all have filled their CA to the max PA. It's pretty rare for guys to continue to get better late like that.

So because the CPU generates depth charts and roles based on hierarchy of abilities, younger players with high PA get stuck in 4th line roles...top 10 picks, 2 years after they are drafted should be starting to get pretty big roles, important scoring line roles and reaching the cusp of star status. Instead of my 2019 draft class, guys with PA's of 170+ and star potential drafted in the top 10 still have CA's of 100 and are either still in juniors/NCAA or are buried in minimal roles with no chance of success.

Even a stud like Thomas Chabot, who I had supercharged a bit to get an important role with Ottawa right from the start...a stud top 10 prospects ready to shine - well he's a 135 CA/170 PA at the start at age 20 and 4 years later...he's 24 years-old and should be in his prime, he's gone up to only 140 CA because a bunch of middling vets still haven't lost enough CA for him to climb further up the depth chart.

Another example...Cody Glass, Vegas' first rounder and #6 overall pick this year. Starts out at 105/165 at age 18. Well, now he's 22, he should be really starting to peak...and he's a 120/165 4th liner for Vegas.

I don't mind if randomly some young guys never find a situation to hit their peak, and to me that is why you have the ability to set PA's with the -# (ie, -8 or -14) but this isn't a random thing, it's universal...the only guys who really buck the trend are Dahlin, Svechnikov and Lafreniere because, well, I made them uber-prospects - and they still haven't hit the levels of real stud prospects like Matthews and Laine in real life at a similarly young age.

My guess is when most of the older guys finally get into their late 30's, they will finally start to drop and then when in their mid to late 20's, some of these guys who are now young with high PA will finally start to hit their peak. But that is too late compared to real life. I look at the top 100 CA guys in the pre-game and there are lots of young guys but then I look in the saved game and the average age is way higher, with way less younger players and a way higher, on average, CA, because every single player in their late 20's up to mid 30's (and some beyond) are maxing their CA with their PA. Sorting each team's roster by age...some team's abrely have anybody younger than 25 or 26, even if they have a farm system stocked with younger guys with high PA. They don't get a chance until they are like that same age.

Some more research:

PLAYERS 21 & UNDER, BY CA:
IN TOP 50 (2017): 3
IN TOP 50 (2021): 0

IN TOP 100 (2017): 6
IN TOP 100 (2021): 2 (Dahlin @ 51, Svechnikov @ 100)

IN TOP 200 (2017): 12
IN TOP 200 (2021): Still 2

In 2021, the next highest CA player age 21 or under is Alexis Lafreniere who is number 417 when all players are ranked by CA...that means in 2021 there are THREE players 21 or under ranked among the top 417 players. At the beginning in 2017 there are 47 players 21 or under ranked higher than that in CA rankings.

Basically...
IN TOP 417 (2017): 47
IN TOP 417 (2021): 3

The funny thing is though, the issue is not CA itself. Because in 2017, Oskar Linblom is 21 years-old, ranked 410th in CA @ 130. In 2021, Lafreniere at 417th has a CA @ 135.

Let's take a look at the geezers...players 32 or older:

PLAYERS 32 & OVER, BY CA:
IN TOP 50 (2017): 9
IN TOP 50 (2021): 18

IN TOP 100 (2017): 19
IN TOP 100 (2021): 31

IN TOP 200 (2017): 28
IN TOP 200 (2021): 76

Basically, young prospect growth is completely torpedoed by old guys hanging around way too long. Especially in that 100-200 range and beyond that - not enough guys are seeing their CA decline. This is what is causing the backup of young players given menial depth roles. Again, the issue is not the actual CA of the players IMO...the #200 guy at the start in 2017 is at 150 CA in my DB. In 2021, 4 years later, #200 is still at 150 CA...so that again checks...it just happens to be the guy in 2021 at #200 is a now 34 year-old Martin Hanzal who has the exact same CA now as he did in 2017. And that is the crux of the issue. There is no breathing room for young players to rapidly develop their CA in prime development years unless they are wildly exaggerated at the start like I did with the three guys mentioned above.

BKarchitect wrote:I posted this on HFBoards - I'm sure some of you have done a lot of research about this but let me know your thoughts...wondering if this is just my DB or if this is a common issue, much like cap management, with the game engine:

Nino - I don't know how much you've researched this but I'm curious. I've gone into my saved game in 2021 and exported the data to compare CA and PA with my pre-game database. I wanted to observe the development of young players and I've noticed a very disturbing trend.

Basically...old players don't age nearly rapidly enough and this stifles the game's development of younger players. Guys in their mid 30's are still maxing out their CA at their PA and guys who start the game in their late 20's but have a little wiggle room in their CA to PA comparison are now in their early 30's and have all gotten better and almost all have filled their CA to the max PA. It's pretty rare for guys to continue to get better late like that.

Yes, previous testing I did during Early Access and in the year following suggested that to many older players maintained their talent for to long (IIRC this is evident in the Attributes testing http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... 4&start=25 I did and in the regen testing I did http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... 10&t=16787); the problem of course is there are some players that can play well for many years at an older age...but is the % of such players to high ingame at this point? I'm not sure, as I haven't done any significant testing in awhile, but it certainly could be an ongoing issue...

Based on the Gallagher example we looked at (on the HFBoards), I would say the editing you've done is most likely to make this problem worse (as we saw, the game at startup removed 28 of the 35 additional Attribute "points" you gave the player - those increased occurred in areas like Consistency and Important Matches and Natural Stamina, and all these factors will increase an older player's ability to stay in the NHL long after their physical skills have deteriorated (especially when they're given close to 20 in Determination/Work Rate)

So IMO, the answer to your question "if this is just my DB or if this is a common issue" is "it could be/likely is both"

BKarchitect wrote:So because the CPU generates depth charts and roles based on hierarchy of abilities, younger players with high PA get stuck in 4th line roles...top 10 picks, 2 years after they are drafted should be starting to get pretty big roles, important scoring line roles and reaching the cusp of star status. Instead of my 2019 draft class, guys with PA's of 170+ and star potential drafted in the top 10 still have CA's of 100 and are either still in juniors/NCAA or are buried in minimal roles with no chance of success.

I would love to know how the computer generates depth charts, but I don't (making it really hard to know "why" something is happening + what about the effects of tactics/ice time/linemates/success (stats)/competition level?)

I have no idea how the CPU generates Depth Charts (I wish I did!), but I suspect PA has little/nothing to do with it (also, see comments in blue below regarding CA)

Are you sure IRL top 10 picks get big roles after 2 years?
When I look at the 2015 Draft I see top 10 picks who after two years aren't ready for "big roles" IMO
Two 2014 NHL top 10 Draft picks have yet to play an NHL game; while 2011/2013 look good, three of the 2012 top 10 Draft picks and one of the top 10 in 2010 have played only 37, 67, 41 and 43 NHL games so

IMO if comparing/talking about develoopment of top 10 picks it's probably best to always review all 10 players.....

I think the idea that players at age 22 are playing on "important scoring line roles and reaching the cusp of star status" is at least a couple years early for almost all players (the IRL data that's available, referenced below, seems to suggest that age is at least a couple years to young)

BKarchitect wrote:top 10 picks, 2 years after they are drafted should be starting to get pretty big roles, important scoring line roles and reaching the cusp of star status. Instead of my 2019 draft class, guys with PA's of 170+ and star potential drafted in the top 10 still have CA's of 100 and are either still in juniors/NCAA or are buried in minimal roles with no chance of success.

Even a stud like Thomas Chabot, who I had supercharged a bit to get an important role with Ottawa right from the start...a stud top 10 prospects ready to shine - well he's a 135 CA/170 PA at the start at age 20 and 4 years later...he's 24 years-old and should be in his prime, he's gone up to only 140 CA because a bunch of middling vets still haven't lost enough CA for him to climb further up the depth chart.

Another example...Cody Glass, Vegas' first rounder and #6 overall pick this year. Starts out at 105/165 at age 18. Well, now he's 22, he should be really starting to peak...and he's a 120/165 4th liner for Vegas.

I don't mind if randomly some young guys never find a situation to hit their peak, and to me that is why you have the ability to set PA's with the -# (ie, -8 or -14) but this isn't a random thing, it's universal...the only guys who really buck the trend are Dahlin, Svechnikov and Lafreniere because, well, I made them uber-prospects - and they still haven't hit the levels of real stud prospects like Matthews and Laine in real life at a similarly young age.

My guess is when most of the older guys finally get into their late 30's, they will finally start to drop and then when in their mid to late 20's, some of these guys who are now young with high PA will finally start to hit their peak. But that is too late compared to real life. I look at the top 100 CA guys in the pre-game and there are lots of young guys but then I look in the saved game and the average age is way higher, with way less younger players and a way higher, on average, CA, because every single player in their late 20's up to mid 30's (and some beyond) are maxing their CA with their PA. Sorting each team's roster by age...some team's abrely have anybody younger than 25 or 26, even if they have a farm system stocked with younger guys with high PA. They don't get a chance until they are like that same age.

I've for seen the idea that "young upcoming stars aren't good enough" before...

Regarding your examples...

• it seems to me your "starting CA" may be to low for players you expect to be elite (in TBL 9.0 Auston Matthews starts 9.0 the 2016 season with a 154 CA (19 year old McDavid's CA is 178)
• the modern/TBL Rosters have an average CA of about 138 now and so an 18 year old starting at just over 100 CA won't be a top line player for many years (a 135 CA at age 20 is still a below average NHLer.....IMO a 105 CA at age 18 is pretty low for a player expected to be a Top player
• The effects of tactics/ice time/linemates/success (stats)/competition level during teenage/early adulthood years is expected to affect CA growth

The other thing about examples is sample size...the Attribute testing I did showed examples of young players with CA growing appropriately; there's many examples, here's just a few...

• A. Holz (158 PA), between ages 13 and 17, goes from a 30 CA to a 108 CA.....on the other hand J. Lawrence (175 PA) goes from a 30 CA to only an 82 CA
• 15 year old J. Valeno (183 PA), between ages 15 and 19, goes from a 59 CA to a 126 CA (between 19 and 23 his CA goes from 126 to 159)
• 15 year old B. Wilde (163 PA), between ages 15 and 19, goes from a 30 CA to 132 CA (between 19 and 23 his CA goes from 132 to 158))

I think there's a lot of good examples in the testing I did, and what it shows to me is a variability! HaHa It's not awful IMO, but may not ideally represent the few that are elite as teens/in the early 20s

The ingame Hints note ""Forwards will generally peak and play their best hockey between the ages of 27 and 33"
I think this is the same as what it said for EHM07.....while I know things have been tweaked, and I think this is probably a little different (lower age range) now, but maybe not low enough?

The IRL data I'm aware of doesn't support the majority of players "being ready/near top form" in their early 20s (for examples https://www.google.ca/#q=nhl+forwards+b ... 9443594135 but apparently “the vast majority of players are at 90 per cent of their best by age 24, although there are a few late bloomers" - so maybe 24 is the key age to look at?



P.S. Suggestions have been made regarding coding tweaking to hopefully better represent realistic player growth (ideas like allowing Consistency to start lower/grow more & Defensive Role to grow as players age)

I'd disagree on the 2015 draft...McDavid, Eichel, Marner, Hanifin, Provorov, Werenski & Rantanen are all either top 6 forwards or top 4 defenders (Hanifin just hindered by the depth of the Canes blueline) with Zacha an NHL regular in a lesser role and Strome expected to step into an important role this year. Granted, that was a ridiculously good draft - this isn't even counting the likes of later picks like Aho, Konecny, Chabot, Barzal, Boeser, Connor, Beauvillier, etc) but two years in and a lot of players in the draft are making important contributions in important roles. Even half that rate would sound nice...but I'm not seeing it in the simulation.

I might sim with the TBL roster and look at the same matrix (21 and under, 32 and over) at the start and 4 years later to see if my database has just wildly veered of course or if this is just how the game is. I'm sure all my tinkering has added different variables but I can't shake the feeling that every draft class further away from the start of the game has less and less of an impact in it's first 5 years (let alone 2) - that guys don't really get "good" until, well, I guess as the game guidelines suggest...like age 27. I would vehemently disagree with that (especially when it comes to scoring forwards) but maybe the game is working exactly as designed then

BKarchitect wrote:Some more research:

PLAYERS 21 & UNDER, BY CA:
IN TOP 50 (2017): 3
TBL 9.0 TOP 47 (2016): 1
(10 players tied for next level lower, so it's either top 47 or top 57.....top 47 CA range is 166-196)
IN TOP 50 (2021): 0

IN TOP 100 (2017): 6
TBL 9.0 TOP 107 (2016): 5
(top 107 range is 158-196)
IN TOP 100 (2021): 2 (Dahlin @ 51, Svechnikov @ 100)

IN TOP 200 (2017): 12
TBL 9.0 TOP 195 (2016): 8
(top 195 range is 149-200)
IN TOP 200 (2021): Still 2

I needed some kind of reference point for comparison, so I added the startup data from the TBL 2016-17 Rosters (9.0)
For me I've never been concerned about the really young players in EHM.....I don't think there's as many Top under 21 players as some do (the data doesn't support the idea IMO)

One thing that comes to mind for me is it seems you think this year's and the upcoming Drafts will produce even more "special" players than recent Drafts have.....I've not heard or seen anything like that myself (more like the opposite, that it could be many years before we see the young talent we've recently seen)

As mentioned above in my earlier post, I think your starting CA for elite players is likely to low (see McDavid/Mathhews in the TBL DB for examples on "NHL ready" first liners as teenagers)



Regarding where things are at by 2021...did you select the options to add additional young players?
Without an underdatabase that covers those initial Draft years, I think users should add fake players or accept that initial Drafts after the first year will be poor

IMO if you don't want "fake players" to be in your database at startup I think you need to ensure you have complete draft classes for the first four years at least (I.e. among players who are ingame at startup at age 14-15-16-17)

We know the game repopulates itself via regens, and that regens occur 2-4 years after retirement...so it makes sense to me that unless told to at startup the game itself isn't handling the draft class much after only 3 years after startup as the regened players are unlikely to be old enough to be draftable after only a few years); IIRC the players added by the game (if you tell it to add juniors at startup) are as young as 10, so it's adding players to cover 7-8 years of drafts



I never want fake players in a database I work on, and at the least I'm in control of the whole database (including those first 4 draft classes); for me, fortunately I've not got this issue to worry about as with retro databases I've always got the necessary draft classes! HaHa

Well 11th is a little disappointment, but on the other hand it is one place higher than the newspaper expected us to finish. A strange season, we won against top teams, lost against the worst teams, almost never got more than 1 win in a row. We signed a new Head coach in octobre, but i decided to fire him at the end of the season again. Several players exercised their player option. So we have almost all of the team staying, which leads to not much room to get improvements. We also have the problem that belarussian players count as import players for us even though we are playing in the belarussian league. After all Elektrenai is a lithuanian team

Pavel Dashkov had a great season considering our perfromance: Due to an injury he only played 43 out of the 44 games. Here he scored 16 goals and 25 assists for 41 points. Also leads the team in +/-.

Despite my well not so great success so far i am the GM who has 8th highest reputation in Belarus. I could try to get a job in the first Belarussian League, but will not do it for now

BKarchitect wrote:I'd disagree on the 2015 draft...McDavid, Eichel, Marner, Hanifin, Provorov, Werenski & Rantanen are all either top 6 forwards or top 4 defenders (Hanifin just hindered by the depth of the Canes blueline) with Zacha an NHL regular in a lesser role and Strome expected to step into an important role this year. Granted, that was a ridiculously good draft - this isn't even counting the likes of later picks like Aho, Konecny, Chabot, Barzal, Boeser, Connor, Beauvillier, etc) but two years in and a lot of players in the draft are making important contributions in important roles. Even half that rate would sound nice...but I'm not seeing it in the simulation.

Hmm....

I need to do other things, so I'll just say...IMO top players are top 60 forwards and top 40 D worldwide
IMO there's not enough truly elite players to populate each NHL team's first line
I don't see many of those players you're listing as deserving as being among the best worldwide (or even among the 1st liners), and that's the CA level you're looking for these young players to have...

Bottom line...you're the one doing the editing, you can edit them anyway you want
The game even gives users the option to add extra fake talent at startup

Thanks Nino! I'll just tinker away - I've long since deviated from the official TBL path so I'll deal with issues as I see them

FYI the 2018 draft is going to be a great one.

BKarchitect wrote:I might sim with the TBL roster and look at the same matrix (21 and under, 32 and over) at the start and 4 years later to see if my database has just wildly veered of course or if this is just how the game is.

I'm not sure the TBL database is set up to have multiple similar Draft years at startup (is there the same likelihood of 140-160 PA players, 160-180 PA players and 180-200 PA players for at least the first 4 draft years? I'm not sure anyone has ever checked)...

BKarchitect wrote:I can't shake the feeling that every draft class further away from the start of the game has less and less of an impact in it's first 5 years (let alone 2)

I'm not sure if that's happening or not

What I do know is my regen testing & Riz's own testing has shown the CA/PA levels (including "by age") to stay pretty stable over many years (decades); I did a lot of testing on this, it took weeks of just simming to do so, and then weeks to compile the data

BKarchitect wrote:that guys don't really get "good" until, well, I guess as the game guidelines suggest...like age 27. I would vehemently disagree with that (especially when it comes to scoring forwards) but maybe the game is working exactly as designed then

I think the point of contention might be the word "good"
Maybe a player can be good but not deserve the CA you seem to want them to have (that would make them elite on a worldwide standard)

As the link to the IRL data showed, the UBC study (based on stats from the 1997-98 to 2011-12 seasons, considered 2,033 players and a total of 9,901 player years) found that it's about age 24 that players are at 90% of their peak, and the performance of forwards peaks between the ages of 27 and 28. Defensemen are best between 28 and 29, and the performance of goaltenders varies little by age.

BKarchitect wrote:Thanks Nino!

You're most welcome!

Well just look at the season Crosby, Kessel and Ovy did in my saves with the Pens. Kessel at 38 is still all green in the right attribute and did 88 pts in 72 games. Crosby is still green too but Ovy did lost alot. I know Sakic IRL did a 100 pts season at what? 37 or 38? But we all know it doesn't happen often really.

What's with the consistent derailing of this thread? Also BK have you tried manually upping the reputation of those young stars? If not that's where I'd start the troubleshooting to get them up the depth charts. Not sure that's the cure. But it is where I would start looking at it.

And in a feeble attempt to get back on topic (as fruitless as it seems these days). Pre-season is over and we're looking to head into the first full season with BB Armada. The papers have us as the worst team in the league (as usual), and they don't even think Martin Carlin is good enough to make any of the Top 10 lists. He is however good enough to make one of my Stanley Cup winning teams, and I personally rate that slightly higher. He's grown like crazy all summer with our coaching staff and heading into the season this is what he looks like:

Note his 9.67 AvR and 3 PPG in the pre-season games. I think he came to play, and he's going to be our captain right out the gate. Trial by fire! The fact that he's gained PA based mental attributes is a scary good sign. That normally only happens in players of at the very least 160 PA. It's only really common in 180+ guys, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he's going to turn into considering he looks like an NHL Draft 1st rounder in his first possible CHL season. So I've got the reins for this guy's development for at least 2 seasons. Unless I win the Memorial this season I guess, but that seems ambitious.

This is what our lineup will look like:

We don't quite have the forward depth I did at Edinburgh (let's face it that team was essentially a good major junior team). So I'm going back to the "Equal" 30/30/30/20 setup for forward icetime. Our Dmen are a lot better than they were when I got here, but it turns out the lack of time before the draft came back to bite us. Christophe Hitze, our 26th Overall pick is actually inconsistent. But it took like 20 scout reports for anyone to find it and only one scout sees it. So maybe he's just a little bit inconsistent? Regardless he's the best defensive Dman I got so I'll give him 1 season to show me that he can play. But that was quite disappointing regardless. We're currently slightly high on playmakers, but I expect 0.7 PPG+ pace from my entire Top 9, with at least a few above 1 PPG guys. Our backup goalie had a hard time hitting .800 in pre-season and we still won all 3 games, so that's pretty telling of our domination in play. But exhibition is exhibition.

I did get some love from the NHL in the off-season. St.Louis are apparently doing great as they came in and offered me the spot as their GM in July. I obviously declined it, but I was surprised at being headhunted by the NHL this early. I guess winning the CHL and the Memorial Cup in the same season does that to your reputation, as undeserved as the latter was.

I've actually never switched teams in a save before. So this is a bit of a new experience to me. It feels kinda odd and I'm going to keep an eye on Edinburgh and see how they get along. For anyone wondering about the CHL Import draft; None of my old players wanted to come over and play in the CHL as I had signed them all to new contracts before I left. I ended up picking a consistent Two-Way Winger from Latvia as my 1st pick and taking a gamble of Ricky Worth of Edinburgh with my 2nd pick. He currently has no interest in joining us, but maybe if he doesn't get a new contract/enough icetime in Edinburgh he will reconsider for next year. He's still only 16 as he was 14 when I signed him, so there's plenty of time to get a reunion with him. Depending on how long I stay here that is. But with how good he scouted I may even bring him along to the AHL/NHL in the future. Why not have a British developed NHL player? It would be a good story. The Latvian winger is scheduled to join us on the 7th of June 2020 when the transfer window opens again.

New season starting and we are rated again as the worst team in the league. And i have to admit they may be right, as we were not able to get any improvement on our team.

Key arrival is Evgeny Konobry a goaltender who played last season in the VHL with a save percentage of 92 %in 25 games. He even played 44 KHL games between 2008 and 2011. Sure that is a long time ago, but it shows he is able to keep is net clean.

Konobry is rated as 8th best goalie in the league, Dadonov as 9th best left wing and Bogdziul is the 7th best right wing. We have an average age of 23.12 years. I have 2 international and 1 U-20 national team players

Shindigs wrote:What's with the consistent derailing of this thread?

Just to clarify that this is a fairly general discussion thread rather than a purely blog thread. Whilst I'd prefer other topics to be discussed elsewhere (it makes them easier to find in the future), I've no problem with people discussing topics which naturally lead from the game they're describing in here.

Start of november and we were able to lead to great players to our team, both only on 1-year contracts though, but at least with options going with it.

Kriss Lipsbergs, RD, 25 year old latvian defender. A well rounded player who has been with HS Riga last season and this season. Easily best defender on our team now

Artyom Kryukov, C/LW. At 36 years he is a little old, but amazingly good and experienced. Artyom Kryukov (born March 5, 1982) is a Russian professional ice hockey forward. He was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres in the first round, 15th overall, of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft. Despite his high draft status, Kryukov has never played a professional game in North America, spending his entire career to date in his native Russia. He has played for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. HC Sibir Novosibirsk, Vityaz Chekhov, and SKA Saint Petersburg in the Kontinental Hockey League. Kryukov missed the entire 2009–10 KHL season due to a knee injury suffered in the pre-season. 262 KHL games is still a great career. Last season he scored 24 points in 55 KHL games. So in the 2nd belarussian league he should have an impact even in a weak team. Well rounded player with great faceoffs.

Newyear 2019 .. we are at 11th position, but not without hope. Especially as we won 4 out of 6 games in december this time. But we are still 9 points out of the playoffs. We would need a great finish to get there.
Topscorer this time for us is Evgeny Dadonov who is on his final year and had some appearances on the belarus national team. He played 28 games and scored 24 points (8G/16A). Evgeny Konobry is a surprice bag in goal, though i think it is more the defense before him that makes the difference. His save percentage varies from 75 to 95 %. He is currently at 87.3 % for the season.

Kriss Lipsbergs did very well scoring 14 points in the 17 games he played for us. Half his points he scored on the Powerplay. Two of his three goals had been game winning goals.
Artyom Kryukov allready lost quite a bit of his skills, after all he is 36 years old. He still is our top Center. In 12 games he scored points (3G/6A) which leads allready to place 2 in my team amongst centers. I will excercise the team option on him if he keeps up his work.

Update on our import players:

G Evgeny Konobry He still has a contract till April 2020 and we do not plan to sell him. He will be the starter next season too.
RD Kriss Lipsbergs his contract ends allready after this season, but we have a player and a team option there. Should he not exercise his option we will exercise ours. He is an amazing player for us.
RD Andrei Volgin he is on his second and final year of the contract but all options still here. A good offensive D. But his abysmal defense lead us to not exercise the option. Should he wish to stay we will try to deal him probably. In 61 games for us he scored 23 points and a -23 with an average rating of 6.23.
LW Evgeny Dadonov he is on his final year and no options there. We may let him go as he earns a lot and we have two other great left wings. In 72 games his scored 42 points so far, though this season is great for him and we may try to sign him again
LW Pavel Dashkov his contract ends after this season, but boith options still in place. 52 points in 69 games and high speed will lead to him staying in Elektrenai. He also has an average rating of 7.03.
LW Pavel Korsakov his contract ends after this season, but boith options still in place. It may well be he has to leave us. We are not too happy with his performance, though he plays mostly on line 3. 48 points in 87 games is not bad, but he also earns 13.500$ per year, more than any other player on the team.
C Artyom Kryukov his one year contract ends after this season, but as i mentioned i will keep him around probably even though he is old. But we have almost no good center.
Roman Petrov the 33 year old right wing scored 71 points in 101 games for us allready. If he doesn't use his Player Option we will let him go. He is reliable but not that amazing his biggest asset is his speed. But that is going down slowly

After some delays the first season with the Armada is up and running. Essentially every player I drafted has met or exceeded my expectations so far. The only exception being our goalie we drafted, but that might be because he's on his rookie season. For some reason he's better against Sherbrooke Phoenix than our starter, which is an odd thing. Sherbrooke happen to be our biggest rival in the Q, so having a way to deal with them is neat.

At new year we sit as the 2nd best team in the entire CHL, we were sitting at 1st for most of November and December but then we ran into a sour patch of goalies putting up very good SV% against us. We're back on track in the few games we've played after new year though.

That also leaves us top of the Q, as you may have guessed:

I'm quite pleased with how well our special teams are working despite how fresh this team is. Most guys haven't played together before and we have a fair few rookies. Which leads us to the leaderboards:

I haven't bothered to add faces to the top players of the other Q teams, because quite frankly I don't think I'll be here long enough to justify how much time that would take. Marshall Lessard was drafted the year before I got here, and he's currently ranked 68th Overall for the NHL draft. Joël Teasdale has put up a nice overaged year in the league thus far. Martin Carlin has been just about as good as I expected him to be, and he's in no small part responsible for our BP being quite good for how bad our goalies perform. Raymond Saulnier who was also here when I took over has really put up insane playmaking on the 3rd line. Working together with Axel Simic who is on his final year in the league, as well as rookie Alexis Giguère.

Just about everyone is chipping in and the lines are scoring at about the pace I was hoping at the start of the season. Inconsistent Defenceman Christophe Hitze has been quite decent, making me think maybe he's in the higher "inconsistent" range. Which would be fortunate. But when you compare him to Ludovic Nash who plays the same role he does somewhat pale in comparison. But he's got more upside than Nash'.

Regular season now over, set a new league record with 50 wins on the season. Also broke a lot of franchise records. Martin Carlin broke the rookie scoring record after 18 games, and I kept getting news items about him rebreaking it for every single game he had points after that. So that was fun. We also shattered the LW/C/RW/Rookie/Overall scoring records for the franchise around mid january. This is what the standings ended up looking like:

We ended as the top CHL team as well. I was quite pleased with our special teams' performance. Our scoring was quite the thing as well, ending the season with a GPG average of 4.96. That's almost up there with my highest scoring Jets teams. So who were behind all those points and goals?

Our 1st line was pretty disgusting, with a combined 278 points. Martin Carlin lead all rookies, obviously. But Joshua Lawrence was only about 12 points behind. Alexis Giguère ended up the 4th highest scoring rookie. The rest of the team's performance looked like this:

Christophe Hitze actually took off and surpassed Ludovic Nash in the second half of the season. It seems he can play even with the consistency issues. As a more defensive player it's not as important I suppose. Our other rookie D of note was Willie Boisvert who had the point on our PP1 unit as well as 1st pairing offensive defenceman duties this year. He really did quite well for it being his rookie season.

I also had Team USA come in and try and get me to take over as the GM. Turned it down, but again it's a funky offer to get as dual-citizen of Sweden and Hong Kong.

We'll face Val d'Or in the first round of the President's Cup playoffs. It was one of the fairly close matchups we had during the season quite frankly. But we should be able go far with the team we got.

Ended up sweeping Val d'Or 25-9 on aggregate. Lessard was just showing off in game 4:


Next up was Rimouski Oceanic. We had really given it to them in the regular season so I wasn't expecting much from them in the playoffs. We got off to a rocky start with them going up by 1 goal in the 3rd of game one. But then we had 2 quick goals with 3 minutes left, followed by two even quicker EN goals. When all was said and done we'd swept them 24-8 on aggregate. Martin Carlin finally started firing on all cylinders this series and had 3 points in both game 3 and game 4.

Up next was Shawnigan. Their goalie ended up giving us a lot of trouble. He had been weak against low shot targeting all season. But in the playoffs he pulled off a shutout in game 3. But we still had them on the ropes in Game 5 where their goalie forced us into sixtuple OT before Joël Teasdale scored the game winner off a turn-over.


And the President's Trophy is ours! Cape Breton really gave us a run for our money. They ended up using their backup goalie against us for all but the 1st game, and he could just decide to no longer be bad against his weakness at will. Forcing the series to a 2-2 tie, after being down 2-0. But then we fought back despite Martin Carlin going out with an injury in game 5, to win the series in 6. Since we won it in our "first" season we got the special news items for the win:


Despite a small hiccup against Kingston we came away as the group winners of the Memorial Cup:

None of the games were really close, the only reason Kingston was an issue was that our goalie let in 4 goals in 24 shots and their goalie only let in 3 in 45 shots. That's just what happens sometimes when you face a new goalie for the first time, and their starter is essentially NHL backup ready. I wouldn't even put ours in net in Swe-2 if I could help it.

The semi-final game ended up being between Spokane and Kingston, so there was a shot at a rematch from last year's Mem Cup final. But sadly Kingston won that game 4-2. So it was a final against the one team that beat us in the group stage. But now I knew to not target their goalie low anymore. So unless our goalie had another breakdown there was only ever one possible outcome here:

We ended up beating them 5-3 in a fairly comfortable game, with Martin Carlin scoring the Cup winning goal in the 30th minute. That's Stage 2 completed for real this time. Now to start looking for a job in the ECHL or AHL.

Marshall Lessard won the Jean Béliveau Award (Leading Scorer), the Frank J. Selke award (Sportmanship) and was nominated for 5 other awards.
Martin Carlin won Best Defensive Forward of the year, Rookie of the year, the Michel Bergeron Trophy (Best Offensive Rookie of the year) and was nominated for 5 other awards.
Willie Boisvert won the Raymond Lagacé trophy (Best Defensive Rookie of the year) and was nominated for the Emile Bouchard Trophy (Best Defenseman of the year).
Joël Teasdale won Best Forward, Best Offensive Player of the year, the Michel Brière Trophy (Player of the Year), Most Valuable Player and the Guy Lafleur Trophy (Playoff MVP). He was also nominated for the Frank J. Selke award.
Gunnar Lofthouse was nominated for Best Goalie of the year, which is just sad.
Christophe Hitze was also nominated for the Raymond Lagacé Trophy.
Rudy Farina was nominated for the Best Defensive Defenceman of the year Award.
Jéremie Massie was nominated for the Guy Lafleur Trophy.

There was a slight Armada feel to the award ceremony to say the least...
Martin Carlin is officially added to the list of players I want to try and get to play under me in the NHL eventually; Joining the likes of Erik Wallberg, Filip Hasa and Ricky Worth.

We had a great finish of the season going up to 5th place at the end. Actually the signings of Lipsbergs and Kryukov really turned things around for us. Even though Kryukov didn't put up amazing amounts of points, to have two good centers paid of a lot.
In playoffs we got eliminated in round 1 2-3 against BFSO Dinamo ... but the injury devil bit us hard. We had our starting goalie only for the final two games and our top right wing Bogdziul has not had an appearance. Topscorers in regular season have been RW Roman Petrov (38 games, 14G, 24A), C Edgar Verbickas (42 games, 15G, 25A), LW Evgeny Davydov (44 games, 14G, 22A). Evgeny Konobry ended the season with a save percentage of 89 % and two shutouts in the last 5 games of the season.

The two turnaround players weren't bad at all either - RD Kriss Lipsbergs 21 points in 30 games, Artyom Kryukov 19 points in 28 games.

I just realised that I started my second season with Pitts and forgot to post my post-season update.

After winning the Cup I took some...risks. Maybe risks that could end up for me getting fired but I just won the Cup so...I hope they'll be patient! I decided to accelerate the rebuild a little bit since Crosby and Kessel are starting to drop faster. Since when I took the team they signed most of their prospects, I decided to make a push at the draft to get some additional picks. (I had like 4 or 5 non-signed prospects left that was ridiculous) I made a couple of trades during the draft and it went well. I traded away a couple of prospects for picks, Wennberg for picks and the "worst" trade according to my board and fan was trading away 30 years old Cehlarik who just did 79 pts after putting no more than 26 pts the season before. I ended up with 4 second round picks and 2 third round picks. I also moved in the first round from the 30th place to the 11th place but failed to pick the guy I wanted too. I still got something good I HOPE.

For the UFA market I changed a little bit the rule I said I would do, which was picking players fro 25 years old or younger. I simply realised that there's not much players that are UFA by their 25! So I tried to signed superstar Shawn Martin that was 27 but failed. I also lost Nelson, Ovy and DeKeyser but I never planned to resign them since they were aging.

So....after those departure, the season's ranking came out and we're still dead last! Which is not a big surprise now. Unlike last year where we pulled a huge surprise I really believe I'm among the worst teams in the league now. So far we are 4-5-1 and we're really struggling with scoring goals. Our PP is at 9% and our PK is at 80%. Losing DeKeyser really made a big difference, I wasn't expecting that.

Now it's the end of october and since 2 weeks we are getting fined for being below the salary cap so I had to react fast enough. I checked for overpaid players in the waivers but nothing. I checked the trade block and nothing...So I went to the UFA but most players that are available are not asking for a huge price. Then I spotted mister Ovechkin! Why not? He demands 1.4 millions for the year but I boosted the contract to 4 millions and I will only let him be in the team but not on the roster. Ovy is now 40 and he's really done. So let's say it some kind of Pronger/Datsyuk type of help.

philou21 wrote:I just realised that I started my second season with Pitts and forgot to post my post-season update.

After winning the Cup I took some...risks. Maybe risks that could end up for me getting fired but I just won the Cup so...I hope they'll be patient! I decided to accelerate the rebuild a little bit since Crosby and Kessel are starting to drop faster. Since when I took the team they signed most of their prospects, I decided to make a push at the draft to get some additional picks. (I had like 4 or 5 non-signed prospects left that was ridiculous) I made a couple of trades during the draft and it went well. I traded away a couple of prospects for picks, Wennberg for picks and the "worst" trade according to my board and fan was trading away 30 years old Cehlarik who just did 79 pts after putting no more than 26 pts the season before. I ended up with 4 second round picks and 2 third round picks. I also moved in the first round from the 30th place to the 11th place but failed to pick the guy I wanted too. I still got something good I HOPE.

For the UFA market I changed a little bit the rule I said I would do, which was picking players fro 25 years old or younger. I simply realised that there's not much players that are UFA by their 25! So I tried to signed superstar Shawn Martin that was 27 but failed. I also lost Nelson, Ovy and DeKeyser but I never planned to resign them since they were aging.

So....after those departure, the season's ranking came out and we're still dead last! Which is not a big surprise now. Unlike last year where we pulled a huge surprise I really believe I'm among the worst teams in the league now. So far we are 4-5-1 and we're really struggling with scoring goals. Our PP is at 9% and our PK is at 80%. Losing DeKeyser really made a big difference, I wasn't expecting that.

Now it's the end of october and since 2 weeks we are getting fined for being below the salary cap so I had to react fast enough. I checked for overpaid players in the waivers but nothing. I checked the trade block and nothing...So I went to the UFA but most players that are available are not asking for a huge price. Then I spotted mister Ovechkin! Why not? He demands 1.4 millions for the year but I boosted the contract to 4 millions and I will only let him be in the team but not on the roster. Ovy is now 40 and he's really done. So let's say it some kind of Pronger/Datsyuk type of help.

I love how the Salary Cap system forces you to sign what I like to refer to as 5M$ paperweights in the early parts of a rebuild. I mean you can just be below and pay the fine, it doesn't really matter. But it just feels wrong to sit below the floor.

I had to get a bit into July before the annual mass-firing happened. The Milwaukee Admirals team is a mess, as is the Nashville team for that matter. So their GM got the chop and I swept in for that position as fast as humanly possible. I apparently forgot to save the screenshot from last night but they did decide to hire me. Which wasn't a huge surprise as that Mem Cup win made me go up one more spot to #13 in the global rankings. I'm the GM with the 3rd best record in the world currently. The GM of a team in the Netherlands and a random junior team still has me beat on that front.

Going to the ECHL after this wouldn't really make sense. Not to mention winning the Kelly Cup isn't what you'd call "hard". I'm considering doing the NHL after the AHL and making winning a World Cup the final corner of the Pentagon. Because I've never ever even tried being a National team manager. So that would actually be a new challenge. We'll have to see which team I do it with, but it certainly won't be any of the Top tier national teams. I'm not entirely sure I'm insane enough to try and do it with Great Britain, but I am tempted. Regardless the World Cup will be saved for last, as the logical next career step from the AHL is the NHL.

For whatever reason it's impossible for me to sign British players to the AHL. Anyone know why that is? I can however sign some of my old Swedes that are still at Edinburgh. I will probably look to do so in this off-season as we don't have anywhere near a full roster here. And Nashville are really low on prospects somehow.

Going from deep lower leagues to major is making this game real fun. I mean winning all what is possible to win. NHL should be the last one even it will be in 2100 .

Where can we find our GM ranking? I didn't know we could see that.

philou21 wrote:Where can we find our GM ranking? I didn't know we could see that.

GM stats in your gm menu