Challenge 39 Rebuilding the Bruins - Discussion

[Manimal]

I didn't get far in my game and now I decided to go back to online gaming.
I did trade for Sam Bennett, though. Him and Pastrnak would make a nice combo, I think

[Dadonov63]

How can you guys handle the caphit? I mean, trading away big contracts, and only get lower contracts or draftpicks back?

[visualdarkness]

Some notable injuries lately are Pastrnak, Yakupov, Murray, Subban, Spooner and a bunch of other guys. There is a reason we have 10 straight losses now solidifying the last place. In short, basically all my top guys are or have been out. What can I do?

[visualdarkness]

This reporter may be drunk.
Fitzpatrick is my future!

[visualdarkness]

Time for my halftime report.

Injuries, injuries, injuries, injuries, injuries to all my players looking even slightly hot. It is almost insane how bad that has been.

14 games without wins as one streak is the result and 18 points in 40 games. Last in scoring, last in PP%, second last in goals against and by far most penalties. Special teams are improving and every time a player comes back I see improvement.

Not many guys are looking that good and Pastrnak is sorely missed but is gone for two more months.
Yakupov is my most consistent scorer with his 11 goals and 24 points.
Klefbom is looking good at only -1 with 14 assists.
I cant blame the goaltending led by Subban at 0.905 with an abysmal team in front of him.
Biggest surprise is Matej Stransky with his 6 points in 6 games since getting called up. My scouts hate him and the assman does too, but his play makes my trade looking better.

Prospect report:

Evan Fitzpatrick - Posting a solid 0.910 on a team as bad as my Bruins. I got big hopes for him and hope he gets traded.

Zboril - He is the best defender on St Johns by far.
Siegenthaler - He wasnt doing well in the AHL so I sent him down to Atlanta where he got 12 points in 12 games.
Chad Krys - Is looking worryingly bad in Boston College.

Sonny Milano - He is tearing up the OHL with 21 points at 14 games and before that he had 15 in 15 in the ECHL before I sent him down.
Jake Debrusk - Solid at a ppg pace.
Simon Stransky - Stransky nr 2 is still hated by my staff but he is over a ppg pace in the WHL and simply solid all-around.

Logan Brown - Solid but I expect more. 29 in 33 but I want him to be dominating with his size and talent.
Nathan Noel - Racking up assists but just as my scouts say he isn't a goalscorer at all.
Jonathan Ang - What a bust! The worst scorer out of all my forward draftees with 13 points. What the Dickens?!
Eemeli Visuri - 23 points in 21 games with an Av R of 7.86 in the Finnish second league. Ang should learn from him.

Senyshyn - Decent in OHL and 35 in 39.
Bartek Bison - Scoring at half-pace, not good enough for an all-out offensive player.
Petrus Palmu - The Hobbit is one heck of an OHL scorer with 17-26-43 in 34 games. He is racking up awards and all-star teams so I am ignoring my staff when it comes to him.

[Forward]

Started my 2nd season without any trades and just re-signs and signed with young players.
At the beginning reached 4th now I'm falling down and with 20 games i'm 11th

League
Team

[bruins72]

Still in my first season. Just logged my 40 games stats. While we're still in the basement, I feel we're doing better than we were before. The big difference is sending down Subban and bringing up Ned. Pickard can still be counted on for a loss when he's put in net due to back to back games. Ned gives us a fighting chance though. He's played 19 games and has a record of 7-5-6. He's also got a 2.44 GAA and .919 SV%. That's not too bad with this team.

I'm still struggling down the middle. Kuznetsov is solid on my 1st line. Spooner is my 2nd line center and he can be pretty good at times but he's more likely not so good. He's played 30 games out of 40. Griffith has played in 18 and has been worse. Sheahan has locked down my 3rd line center spot. Even though he has a bad average rating, he's hitting and blocking shots out there. Same goes for Kemppainen, who's centering the 4th line.

[visualdarkness]

Right now I cant advance further in the game before the error hell breaks loose.

[bruins72]

I saw somebody posted that on the SI forums. Has Riz or anyone there responded to it yet?

[visualdarkness]

I saw somebody posted that on the SI forums. Has Riz or anyone there responded to it yet?

Nope, nothing.

[jesterx7769]

How can you guys handle the caphit? I mean, trading away big contracts, and only get lower contracts or draftpicks back?

cap doesn't matter. you will be under and just get "fined" each week. Doesn't matter.

[jesterx7769]

This reporter may be drunk.
Fitzpatrick is my future!

very interested to see how he turns out for you. Drafted goalies never ever seem to pan out so I avoided him despite needing a goalie.

[Peter_Doherty]

Okey, back playing. Beginning of season two was up and down, i would have had a great start if it wasn't for the fact that my third pairing and third line forgot how to play completely. Thought they would bounce back but 13 games in i had to make some changes, they were all horrible (Morrow, C.Miller, Lindberg, Spooner and Connolly). Weird since all of them were good last season. Trotman is in the lineup for C.Miller while Lindberg goes to the 4th line, Khokhlachev takes his spot. Add to that some tactical changes on both the unit and personal tactics. Hopefully that makes it better, the rest of the team has been good, even great. Started with a win after the changed so right now we are 9th with 5-5-4. If Trotman doesn't convince me he's an NHLer (I have my doubts so he's on a short leash) then i will bring Zboril up, he's been solid (7 Av R) in his first 8 pro games in Providence.

I also had to rework my PP, was at 8%, scored a PP-goal the first game after the changes so hopefully that gets better aswell.

In other news i can report that Logan Brown is completely tearing OHL to pieces, he's at 9+12 with an 8.43 Av R after 14 games. His partner in crime last season - Clayton Keller - is having a rougher start to this season, he's been bumped from Browns line both at even strength and on the PP so he only has 9 points so far, guess he was carried by Brown last season. Hopefully he can bounce back.

[axepig]

So I'm at the half of my 2nd season and it's horrible. I have 17 points in 41 games My offense sucks, my defense sucks and I really don't know what to do. I'm not very good with tactics so I haven't touched it much aside from upping offense and shooting, we're still last in shots per game. None of my centers are any good, Spooner can be a serviceable 3rd or 4th line and Griffith sometimes goes on a streak and is 2nd line material during that streak but otherwise he should be a RW. Pastrnk is turning out to be a bust, somehow... Makarov is struggling to stay above .900 and McIntyre is not getting the job done. Morrow is another bust too, he really is struggling everywhere I put him.

Do you guys fiddle a lot with tactics or do you just set a generic one and run with it?

[Peter_Doherty]

I fiddle ALOT with tactics, only use personal tactics aswell and it's very rare that i go 5 games without changing something.

[Peter_Doherty]

Okey, Khokhlachev is insane, he's now my points leader after 24 games with 17 points, all in even strength and only from the bottom 6, wow... Guess i should give him a bigger role, but the team is working quite well not so i don't want to rock the boat Lindberg is still a black hole though, very weird.

Oh no, Mrazek just broke his leg, gone for 4 months

[Asher413]

Classic AI- I almost traded the farm for Mrazek (but they wanted more than I was able to give with the rules)- then... they cut him in camp.

[bruins72]

I saw somebody posted that on the SI forums. Has Riz or anyone there responded to it yet?

Nope, nothing.

I passed along the info to Archi hoping that he might be able to get the message to Riz quicker.

[bruins72]

Okey, Khokhlachev is insane, he's now my points leader after 24 games with 17 points, all in even strength and only from the bottom 6, wow... Guess i should give him a bigger role, but the team is working quite well not so i don't want to rock the boat Lindberg is still a black hole though, very weird.

Oh no, Mrazek just broke his leg, gone for 4 months

Are you using Koko as a center or a winger? I've been reluctant to bring him up and play him because he's a natural center and I like my centers to be passers and he's more of a shooter. I don't have room on the wings for him yet.

[Smylie]

Well I'm gonna give this a try again...... Not sure I like the not seeing the stats and having to rely on a suspect scouting. But........
Traded Siedenburg, Erickson and Rask to Detroit for Jurco, Mrazeck and their 1st round pick
Sent Chara and Krejci to Columbus for Jenner, Forsberg and Rychel
Bergeron and McQuaid to the Knucklheads for Horvat, Jensen and their 2nd round pick.....
Haven't got to the season yet lets hope it's not a total blowout......

[Peter_Doherty]

Okey, Khokhlachev is insane, he's now my points leader after 24 games with 17 points, all in even strength and only from the bottom 6, wow... Guess i should give him a bigger role, but the team is working quite well not so i don't want to rock the boat Lindberg is still a black hole though, very weird.

Oh no, Mrazek just broke his leg, gone for 4 months

Are you using Koko as a center or a winger? I've been reluctant to bring him up and play him because he's a natural center and I like my centers to be passers and he's more of a shooter. I don't have room on the wings for him yet.

He's on the wing now, started the season as my 4C tho, he was good the first season as my 4LW with 9+12 and over 7 Av R, no PP-time. Suddenly he exploded as my 4C between Kempe and Randell so i moved him to 3LW to try to fix my abyssmal 3rd line, looking at the game log now and he was better before the switch, might be because Spooner and Connolly drags him down though, not sure... My 3rd line is a mystery to me, probably changing it up now again by reuniting Kempe-Koko-Randell just now as my 3rd line instead of 4th He has 8+9 in 28 games right now.

Edit: Are you sure he's a shooter? The description i get is "Playmaking forward", that said his stats say he's a shooter with the same amount of goals as assists more or less.

[Peter_Doherty]

Crazy tight in the east for me 30 games in, 5 points between 6th and 16th, i'm right in there.

[stone169]

Something weird is going on with the Stats again. I just went to upload my stats for Q4 of the 2nd season and instead it tried to put them into Q1 of the 3rd season, which I haven't even started yet.

It looks as though it automatically filled up my 2nd season Q4 stats with my 2nd season Q3 stats.

Not sure if anyone else had or is having the same issue. Is it possible to get this fixed?

[m0fownz0r]

Sounds weird.. However, I have no idea, because I had to quit the challenge due to the ehm constant erros I was getting

[bruins72]

Something weird is going on with the Stats again. I just went to upload my stats for Q4 of the 2nd season and instead it tried to put them into Q1 of the 3rd season, which I haven't even started yet.

It looks as though it automatically filled up my 2nd season Q4 stats with my 2nd season Q3 stats.

Not sure if anyone else had or is having the same issue. Is it possible to get this fixed?

I'll pass it along to Archi and see if he can fix it.