EHM The Blue Line

2nd set not as strong as first. Randell slowed down a ton. But Sinclair picked up most of the slack. The PP nowhere near as productive, but still better than I have ever been. Only about 2 games without at least one pp goal in the whole season. And usually only get 1 or 2 chances in that game.

Voracek and Stich might both get moved. Both my imports are annoying the daylights out of me. I will likely keep Stich though, because I am worried I will lose Grant and Lund.

Time for my second Memorial Cup in a row, after beating Quebec with 4-3 in games in the President Cup final.

Just playing my last game of year 3 reg season. Interesting season, and the last quarter is nowhere near as good as the first 3 were. I think (have not looked) I have lost 3 games. what the? I have 6 reg time losses and 1 OT/SO loss. Also my pp in this last quarter has been HORRIBLE. Dropped below 20% for first time in the season. I betcha this last quarter I am shooting at about 15%

Game 1 of playoffs

Saint John 10 Victoriaville 0

Sinclair 0-6-6
No one with more than 2 goals. PP went 6/12. Outshot them 53-21

ehm...that's pretty good...

Heh. Yeah..4 game sweep. Closest score was 5-2 (or 3). Sinclair in the four games??

2-13-15

And a second Memorial Cup to my record!

Congrats

I finally finished the regular season in my 2nd season. We won the Jean-Rougeau Trophy and we're set to play Drummondville in the first round. Sparling lead the league in points and Barr lead the league in goals. I was kind of disappointed that Barr hit the 50 goal mark. He came up a few goals shy, netting 47. Also, Sparling missing the 100 point mark by just 2 points.

Well Sauve dropped from 1st place to 2nd in the ISS Final Rankings. Patrice Cormier took the #1 ranking. We'll see where he gets drafted once we get to that date.

My players' final ISS rankings for the 2008 NHL Entry Draft...

#2 Yann Sauve
#17 Pascal Amyot
#108 Keven Guerette-Charland
#111 Bryan Barr
#185 Matthew Stoddard

So I just finished won my first round playoff matchup and I get a job offer from the St Louis Blues. They just canned their GM and want me to work miracles for them. Of course, I want to keep playing the challenge so I'm going to say no. Still, I think I might make a save before I turn down the job... just in case I want to go back and take that job after the challenge is over.

Anyone else gotten any job offers?

Actually no, even though I've won the Memorial Cup two years in a row.
I hope it comes soon, so I can do as you're thinking, going back and accept it and play the game again later on from there.

Season #1 for me was up and down. I had to win 6 in a row just to make the playoffs and then I was knocked out in 6 by Acadie-Bathurst.

I just started season #2 and I ran into a problem. My third leading scorer (behing KGC of all people and Sparling), Luc Melanson (9 games 4-3-7 with 30 shots on goal and a 7.78 rating) says that he has personal problems and asked to be put on a two week leave of absence, which I granted him.

Anyone have this happen to them while playing? The game said that if I granted him the two weeks, he might not come back, but I'm hopeful that he will.

Whoa, that has never happened to me, ever while playing this game. Must be a hard call to make.

It was a hard call to make, but I figured that his performance might suffer if we kept him on the roster.

There is good news, we are 3-0 since the decision (an 8-4 win over Rimouski and 5-4 and 4-2 wins over Halifax). There are three more games and 10 days left in his leave, so hopefully the team will keep winning and he will rejoin the team in 10 days. I will have an update after the leave is supposed to finish.

HAppened to me in the CBJ challenge way back in the day. Alex Picard. Came back, then the next day asked to be dealt. So I did ...check out my blog if its still there....

Was Melanson having any morale issues? If he had a really low morale that could've triggered it. Or maybe it's just random and if you didn't grant his leave of absence he would've had some serious morale issues? It's interesting either way. I've never had it happen to me.

I think it was more random than anything else. He was playing on the first line with Sparling and Randall, had 3 goals and was +2 in the 2 games prior to him leaving and his morale was Very Good.

What's even worse, he was on pace to shatter what he did last year, which was only 28 points in 68 games.

Melanson is back from his hiatus and he played 13:37 against St. John's registering 2 shots and 4 penalty minutes and was a -1 for the night.

I asked for a report from all 4 coaches and the trainer and everyone of them said that we was fine. His morale is still very good and he was on the second line for the game (the GC's and Sparling are still my top line). However, he is still unhappy for whatever reason and he still says that he has personal problems.

Does anyone have any suggestions that might be able to help get this kid out of his funk (is it against the rules to ask for help/suggestions?)? I'll probably keep him until Christmas and then decide whether or not to trade him, as a new environment closer to home might be able to help him.......except that Moncton (his hometown) is floundering in last place 6 points behind us and has lost 5 straight games, so that might make his personal situation worse.

Okay---let the nightmare begin. Leading 2 games to 0 over Halifax in the final round for the Q. And guess what? There are bids from NHL teams for

1. Alex Grant
2. Steven Lund
3. David Stich.

So yeah. 1/2 my d-core will be gone soon. And the other part is that the guy who was my overage #4 earlier in the season signed with an ECHL team and left me in January. So wel....

Mem Cup D core will be

Sauve-Amyot
Barbeiro (my UFA)-Robert (has played 2 games for me)
Boland-Roch (has played 10 games for me)


BIG CHANGE from what I have had. Big big change. But I knew it was coming.

Sorry, Laker... I can't think of anything that might change Melanson's situation. The best you can do is keep him playing on a successful line. If his morale is still high and he's not causing any problems for you, just ignore the fact that he's got personal problems and let him work them out on his own. You're not the one who told him to go home with that girl.

And it's perfectly fine to ask people here for advice on your challenge team.

Well I won the President's Cup (QMJHL championship). Now I've just got to wait for the Memorial Cup to come around. I actually went with Dopud in net for the first 12 games of the playoffs (9-3 in that stretch) but he started struggling, so I put in Fullerton. It ended up working well because Fullerton went 7-1 through the rest to help us win!

We got QMJHL awards announced...

Yann Sauve : QMJHL First Team All-Star, 3rd place in Michel Briere Trophy votes, QMJHL Def Player of the Year
Pascal Amyot : QMJHL Second Team All-Star, Raymonde Legace Trophy
Alex Grant : QMJHL Second Team All-Star, 3rd place in QMJHL Def Player of the Year
Bryan Barr : QMJHL Second Team All-Star, 3rd place in Guy Lafleur Trophy votes, Marcel Robert Trophy, 3rd place in Star Player Trophy votes
Ryan Sparling : Jean Beliveau Trophy, Guy Lafleur Trophy
Karl-Oskar Ekholm : Ron LaPointe Trophy (best coach in QMJHL)

Okay, so I'm a little confused on how the Memorial Cup works. I've never done this before. Like I said in my last post, I won the QMJHL championship. Then a couple (in-game) days after I got all of those award announcements, I have a Memorial Cup game (no message, just a game) against Calgary, then London, and then Saginaw. I won all three of these games. Then I get a message (after playing the 3 games) saying that we qualified for the Memorial Cup (also messages saying London and Calgary qualified). That same day, I get a message saying that we got $140k for finishing 1st in the Memorial Cup. So does that mean we won? And if so, why the qualifying messages after we've won? This is very confusing.

EDIT:

Never mind! About a week later I had a game against Calgary for the Memorial Cup Championship. That message must have been about qualifying for the finals or something.

I won my first Memorial Cup!

Congrats to the Mem. Cup B72!

I'm 12 games into season 4 now, with 9 wins and 3 losses, two of those losses was in the first three games where several of my key players was on training camps with their NHL teams.
One of my wins was a match against Acadie-Bathurst which I won with 9-0 and Sauvé was 1+4 and was awarded the "Best Defensive Player of the Week"-award, he was 1+4 that week so he won just because of that match.

I just did my second draft. I tried to trade up and get the #1 overall pick from Cape Breton but they weren't having any of it. I really wanted the #1 ranked player, a center named Carl Stevens. His only weakness was a 6 in Workrate and a 3 in Aggression. Everything else was at least AHL caliber already, if not better. I was drooling over this player's ability and thinking what he could do for me. My scouts say he's good for about 80 points, calling him a two-way forward with 1st line potential. They compared him to a more talented version of Sergei Fedorov! Here is a look at Carl Stevens' profile and his scouting report.


Carl Stevens

Scouting Report

Report Card

The kid is amazing! He had 72 points in 50 games with Tri Pen of the Newfoundland Midget AAA League and I could see him making an immediate jump to my club. He'd be the centerpiece of our offense! But of course, Cape Breton didn't want to make the deal. So the roster freeze hit and our challenge no trade period began. We hit the draft and here are the results...

2008 Draft

Cape Breton doesn't take him! OMG! He keeps sliding and I'm wondering if he'll fall all the way to 18th. No, he makes it as low as 9th. Of course, there is no trading allowed right now, so I wasn't able to make a trade, jump in, and draft him. Moncton just got a steal! Once I'm able to trade again I really MUST try to trade for him!

BTW, does anyone know who this kid might be a regen of? I'll ask in the regen thread too.

I ended up getting Delen Finnerty, a checking forward with 1st line potential. My scouts say he could be a slower but more talented version of Todd White. Not bad but nowhere near the the caliber of Carl Stevens.