EHM The Blue Line

If it makes you feel better, I got off to the same start in season four. Now, I'm battling the Blues for top seed in the West.

Since touting his virtues, Caron has imploded. In his last two starts, he's let up 15 goals in 51 shots, including 10 goals in one game (Nabokov got injured 2 minutes into his relief appearance).

Thanks to him, I'm one point back with three to play.

So much for the great cup run of 2010.

After dispatching the Flames in 6, we went into the second round matchup with Anaheim a bit shorthanded. Sullivan went down for five weeks at the end of March, and returned too late, since Dumont was sidelined with a groin strain and missed the who Semi-final series. Nabokov was decidedly mediocre, complaining about his unhappiness the entire Ducks series over not being under contract for next year, but at the same time, boasting that there is nothing we could offer that would make him re-sign.

So, looks like another goalie is on the menu for next season, although it looks like Caron may be the guy, and I'll be in the market for a backup. Such a waste of three 120+ point performances (including Kovalchuk's numbers in Chicago).

Sometimes this game can really bite the big one!

Prior to season 5, I tried to pry Jonathan Bernier from LA, especially once the Kings signed Nabokov as a free agent. However, they refused to even discuss a trade, blowing smoke about how much of an untapped upside he had, and how they would never entertain the thought of trading him.

September 14th, they outright released him.

That's just wrong. LA is one of the teams that seems to release an awful lot of good players. Other people have seen Doughty released.

I'm in the playoffs for season 3 right now. I swept the Blackhawks in the first round. So far in the second round I'm up 2-0 on the Oilers. The games against the Oilers have been much tighter than the ones against Chicago. My two wins have been with scores of 2-0 and 2-1 while against the Blackhawks we had scores like 4-2 or 6-3. I've got a good feeling about the playoffs this year <knock on wood>.

My farm team in Milwaukee was knocked out of the playoffs in 5 games. I contemplated bringing up Wilson for our playoffs but I don't want to disrupt what I've got going here. If we struggle, I'll bring him up. Otherwise, he'll just have to wait until training camp.

I've got 2 players down in the ECHL, Chet Pickard and Viktor Sjodin. Sjodin doesn't look to be anything special but Pickard is doing quite well. He won Saver of the Week 5 times, Saver of the Month 3 times, Rookie of the Month 2 times, and Player of the Week 1 time. I think he'll be making a move up to Milwaukee next season.

So I spoke too soon on the playoff series against the Oilers. They came back and won the next 2 games to even things up. I just played game 5 and managed to pull off a victory. My top 2 lines had been stagnant in our 2 losses, so I swapped my RWs on the top 2 lines. Dumont seemed to be doing okay on the 2nd line with Legwand but Kesler struggled on the Michalek and Arnott line. We were down by a goal going into the 3rd period. I had to make a change. I took Kesler and put him in as center of the 4th line. He was having a bad game. I moved Hinote up to the top line RW spot. He seemed hot and already had a goal. Boy did it pay off! Hinote scored 2 more goals in the 3rd period to get a hat trick! We also got another goal from Dumont, winning the game 5-3! Now I've just got to keep these guys going for another win!

WOW! What a comeback!

So I was matched up against Detroit in the Conference Finals. We had home ice advantage and they won the first 2 games on our ice. I decided it was time to bring in Wilson and sit Hinote. I put him on the 2nd line LW and the 2nd PP unit's LW. He didn't do so well. He ended game 3 with a 6 rating. I kept him in their for game 4. I moved Wilson down to 3rd line LW, putting Lucic back on 2nd line LW but kept Wilson on the 2nd PP unit. I also decided to sit Tootoo and dress Hinote. We won the 4-3 in OT and Wilson had an assist and an 8 rating for the game. Much better. Still, we were down 3-1 in the series. Game 5 we're back in Nashville. I give Wilson another shot at 2nd line LW (still staying on 2nd PP). We win the game 4-2 and Wilson scores a goal (9 rating). This is getting good! Game 6 we head to Detroit and I leave things as they are. Wilson scores a hat trick and we win the game 6-2! The series is tied up 3-3 and we're heading back home to Nashville! I can't believe it! Wilson seems to be forming a nice line with Legward and Kesler. They combine for 8 points in a 4-3 win over the Red Wings in game 7 to top off the greatest comeback in Nashville Predators history!




And now we're heading into the Stanley Cup Finals. We're playing the Florida Panthers... the same team we lost to last season. The big difference this season is that we've got Bouwmeester (and Tarnasky) on our team. They've still got Erat and de Vries. Erat is doing okay with 13 points in 17 playoff games. At the opposite end of the spectrum is de Vries with no points and a -1 in 3 playoff games. For some reason he hasn't been playing. Bouwmeester has 6 points in 15 playoff games for us along with a 8.20 rating.

Let's see if we can bring home The Cup this season!

Predators News, November 21st 2009

Preds’ Exhibition Games

Predators played eight Exhibition Games. Here are the results of them:
Hurricanes A 6-3
Lightning A 3-4 s
Islanders H 5-3
Capitals H 0-5
Sabres H 0-3
Avalanche A 3-5
Kings A 5-3
Devils A 3-4
Games against Islanders, Capitals and Sabres were played during our Training Camp, which partly explains the poor results of those games. My training methods also cause bad exhaustion to players in the middle of September, so I wasn’t very worried.

Best point scorers in the Exhibition Games were Dumont (2+6), Getzlaf (4+3), Legwand (2+5) and Wilson (1+6). Besides them Hossa (4 goals) and Jessiman (3 goals) were good.
Ryan Suter was disappointing both in Training Camp and in Exhibition Games (6 games, 0+1, -5). I wasn’t very worried of that either.
When Preds’ started training after summer I made a special training program just for David Legwand, who was dead-cold in spring. His attributes were all on grey in spring, but after some weeks on the special training some of his attributes started raising (and none of them dropped). At the same time he got his game going again. Now he is the second best in points and the best in assists after 22 games of the regular season. In summer I was thinking to use him as a trade bait this winter, but now that isn’t an issue anymore. He has stabilized his position in the team roster pretty well.

First trade of the season done

Because I wasn’t able to sign a good goal-scoring winger in off-season, I went after one as soon as it was possible. First I was trying to build the deal around Jordin Tootoo, whom I had waived and sent to Milwaukee in the beginning of the regular season. The best players we would have got with this were Chris Higgins or Linus Klasen. Higgins is good but nothing more and Klasen is a big question mark, so I had to think something else.
So I started from the beginning again. First line would be ??? (the new acquisition) – Getzlaf – Dumont. Second line would be Hossa – Legwand – Jessiman or Wilson – Legwand – Hossa. The third line would be Hagman – Niedermayer – Ortmeyer and the fourth line would be Pihlström – Betts – Ward/Jessiman. These lines left Ward, Shafigulin and Platonov on the bench.But even more with these lines I was using Hagman as a third line or maybe even fourth line winger which I think isn’t the place for a player with 3 M annual salary. This way I ended up dealing Hagman and Platonov and youngster Cass Mappin. With this package I got a whole new kind of players to choose from. This time the two I finally chose from was Mikhail Grabovsky and Alexander Semin. I have been watching Grabovsky from season #2 and he is really a player I would like to have in my team. But in the end Semin was anyhow the better and safer choice, so I traded for him.

How are the new faces doing in Predators?

Summer’s acquisitions Blair Betts and Rob Niedermayer are responsible for our defensive line(s) and our penalty killing. First they were centering the third and fourth lines but then I changed fourth line’s mentality from defensive to normal and dropped its shift length to 30 seconds and now there are some younger players playing in it and third line is our sole defensive line: Betts – Niedermayer – Ortmeyer. I am happy with their performance but especially Niedermayer isn’t very happy with himself. That is the common problem with my defensive forwards – they are often unhappy no matter how well they are performing defensively. Betts is -1 in 22 games and Nieds in at the bottom of the team with -6, but in the same time the team has given up far less goals and our penalty killing is working better than ever in this Challenge.

Alexander Semin has done pretty well. It took a couple of games from him to get in the team, but now he has 9+11 in 15 games.

Because of some simultaneous minor injuries I had to call someone up from Milwaukee. I called 20-year old LW Cole Penner, who is ranked pretty high in our team report. Actually he is #3 of the left wingers after Semin and Hossa. So, I called him up and he played in fourth line with Shafigulin and Jessiman. In his first game he scored our opening goal and got 9 as rating. Next two games he got rating 10, first he assisted two goals and then scored one and assisted another. After that he hasn’t been as effective and I probably should send him back to Milwaukee before he gets too frustrated.

I was mostly frustrated because all that came on the heels of what Pittsburgh did.

The let Jordan Stall sit - unsigned - as an RFA all season long before finally deciding to sign him for the following year iin June. Thinking they may not be as high on him as I was, I tried to trade for him.

They wouldn't even listen to an offer, crowing about how valuable he was to them, and he was a future franchise player.

So important they left himout of hockey for a YEAR!!!!!!!!!!! silly billies.

We did it!

My Predators have won the Stanley Cup!

What a series! It looked like it was going to be a walk in the park at first. We took game 1 by a score of 2-1 in OT. That was close. Then we took game 2 by a score of 6-1. I felt like we were really dominating! Then we lost game 3 by a score of 3-1 in Florida. Then we stormed back in game 4 and won by a score of 9-2! Of course, as luck would have it, we had to suffer a little in that loss. Legwand went out for 10 days with a groin strain. He was gone for the rest of the series. So Wilson moved over to 2nd line LW and Lucic moved back up to 2nd line LW. We dressed Tootoo and plopped him down at 4th line RW and shifted Hinote and Begin each over one spot (RW to C and C to LW). I figured we'd just need to hold on and win 1 more game without Legwand. So game 5 comes along. We're leading 3-2 in the second period and I've got high hopes for finishing the series in Nashville. Then Howard goes down with a groin strain with less than 2 minutes to go in the second period. I take him out and put Ellis in. Less than a minute later Ellis lets one by him and the Panthers even it up, 3-3. In the third period we each score a goal. It's 4-4 after 60 minutes and we're going to OT. About 15 minutes into the OT, the Panthers score and win the game. The series is now 3-2 heading into game 6 in Florida. Ellis is starting the game. I contemplated bringing up Pickard, fresh off winning the ECHL Kelly Cup Playoffs and being named MVP. I didn't want to throw him into the fire though. He wasn't ready for this. I stuck with Ellis. We're tied up after 60 minutes, the game is 3-3. About 17 minutes into the first OT, Suter scores on the PP and the Predators win their first Stanley Cup in team history!

I'm guessing Arnott will be named the playoff MVP. He had 34 points in 23 games and a 9.13 rating for the playoffs. Wilson did very well since being called up. He finished with 13 points in 12 games and an 8.00 rating. In comparison, Legwand had 16 points in 21 games and only a 7.10 rating. Maybe Wilson will challenge for 2nd line LW next season? Or maybe I'm better off keeping him at LW on that 2nd line?

I'm sure we'll have lots of awards coming soon. Then it's on to the draft. Once I hit July 1st, I can post my season 3 stats and then start thinking about my UFA signings. I'm just glad to have gotten my Cup in the 3rd season.

Uggh! It's June 9th and somehow Jared Cowan is a UFA. His contract at Spokane is running out and the Islanders (the team that drafted him in my game) must have let his rights expire. The Lightning, Ducks, Blues, and Senators have already put in an offer. Of course, he'll be signed by the time July 1st hits. I'll have no chance at him.

Season 3 Awards!

Jason Arnott: Art Ross, Masterson, Conn Smyth, Hart 2nd runner up, Pearson 2nd runner up, Plus Minus, First All-Star Team
Milan Michalek: Art Ross runner up, Conn Smyth runner up, Hart runner up, Rocket Richard. Plus Minus 2nd runner up, First All-Star Team
JP Dumont: Art Ross 2nd runner up, Plus Minus runner up
Bobby Carpenter: Jack Adams
Jay Bouwmeester: Norris 2nd runner up

bruins72 wrote: We did it!

My Predators have won the Stanley Cup!

Congratulations sir!

I'm starting season 2 right now, and I'm hoping to make the playoffs this year and maybe a cup run in season 3. It seems like a lot of challengers are doing well by season 3. Do you think that it's more us, as GM's getting a handle on what's going on, or do you think that it's having better players by then?

timmy_t wrote: I'm starting season 2 right now, and I'm hoping to make the playoffs this year and maybe a cup run in season 3. It seems like a lot of challengers are doing well by season 3. Do you think that it's more us, as GM's getting a handle on what's going on, or do you think that it's having better players by then?

I'd say it's a combination of the two. By the time season 3 hits, you should have a real handle on this time and most of it's players. You'll know how to get the most out of a lot of these guys. Also, by season 3 you've had 2 UFA signing periods and also 4 trades (if you've used them all by that point). It's a pretty safe assumption to say that you'd have gotten rid of the trash players and brought in guys that you want. After that it should be all a matter of developing your talent and working them in where you can.

In this year's draft, I went almost entirely European. In the news item where they do the top ranked skaters for the draft, the North Americans had the #1 overall guy and the next highest ranked was #34 overall! The Europeans were #'s 2-6. The sad thing is, that North American that was ranked #1 overall was terrible. He didn't get taken until #7 and he was drafted too high at that position. I wouldn't have spent my 30th overall pick on him. I probably wouldn't have used my #60 overall either.

My picks...

1st rd #30 Robert Durak RD 6'3" 183 lbs CZE
This guy was ranked 19th and fell into my lap at 30th. Offensive defenseman with a pretty good physical game. Only real negatives are his Influence (5) and Work Rate (6). Scouts project him to be a 1-2 Offensive Defenseman, like a more talented version of Roman Hamrlik.

2nd rd # 60 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins C 6'2" 174 lbs CAN
My one North American. He's a good skater, plays with a little bit of an edge. My scouts say he projects as a skilled offensive forward with second line potential, playing like a smaller but better version of Mike Rupp.

3rd rd #90 Gleb Vasilev LD/RD 6'2" 200 lbs RUS
Scouts say he's a stay at home defenseman with 3-4 potential and compare him to a more talented version of Carlo Colaiacovo. He's already an excellent skater.

4th rd #120 Maksim Chuvilin RW 6'2" 207 lbs RUS
Looks pretty good outside of terrible balance (6), influence (4) and below average Checking and Pokechecking (6). Despite this, my scouts project him as an offensive power forward with second line potential. They compare him to Petr Sykora with a bigger frame but a slower stride.

5th rd # 150 Emil Nordlund RW/LW 6'0" 176 lbs SWE
I went totally off the board with this guy. He was unranked. I just felt he was worth a gamble with a 5th round pick. He's an offensive power forward with 4th line potential but I have the feeling he can be better than that. His scouting report is all A's except for a B in stickhandling. He's a very good skater, aggressive, and can hit. My scouts say he could be like a more talented version of Troy Brouwer. I really love this pick!

6th rd # 180 Adam Knebl C 5'10" 160 lbs CZE
The pickings are getting really slim at this point. My scouts say this guy is a 2-way forward with 3rd line potential. They compare him to a poor man's Brooks Laich.

7th rd # 210 Urban Edlund RD/LD 6'3" 194 lbs SWE
I'm not so sure about this guy but my scouts seem to think he can be pretty good. They say he's a skilled defenseman with 3-4 potential. They project him to be like Andrei Markov with a bigger frame. We'll see.


So there's my draft. I'm pretty sure nobody is going to recognize these guys because I'm pretty sure they're all regens. If I could have made a trade, I would've gone after this one guy that was ranked 6th and drafted 11th. He was my favorite player in the draft. He was a Swedish C/RW named Christofer Sjokvist. Check him out...

Attributes

Scouting Report

The guy is already a beast! I'm sure most of us could find a spot for him on our NHL rosters right away. If only I had a chance at him!

bruins72 wrote:If I could have made a trade, I would've gone after this one guy that was ranked 6th and drafted 11th. He was my favorite player in the draft. He was a Swedish C/RW named Christofer Sjokvist. Check him out...

Attributes

Scouting Report

The guy is already a beast! I'm sure most of us could find a spot for him on our NHL rosters right away. If only I had a chance at him!

I wanted to grab that regen too in my game - with another name of course. It's Forsberg

I've had some computer problems recently, with everything running REALLY slowly... I hope I have it sorted out now.

Just finished my first 20 in season 4, and Ovechkin has made a huge impact. He joined us after 5 games, but in his first 15 games with the Preds he has 35pts (20+15) not bad. Looking at Ovvies success, its difficult to miss Svatos, who has also been awesome. 33pts in 15 games (12+21). Carter and Penner have been injured about half of the games, so Arnott has stepped up into the 1st line again, and made a formidable job. Go Preds!

Rainy weather kept me at home this weekend so I had time to finish up season one. Sadly we finished dead last but atleast we showed improvement in every segment so there's still hope for a playoff appearance in season two if I make the most of my two trades.

So, we finished last overall but I'm sad to say that Tavares is not a Predator as the Thrashers won the lottery.

Here's our draft day:
#2 LD Victor Hedman (Ranked #5), Offensive defenseman, no. 1-2 potential
Very Ambitious, Determined, Strong Character
A bigger, better version of Ron Hainsey

We passed on Brayden Schenn (picked at #3), Landon Ferraro (picked at #15) and Ryan Ellis (picked at #5) because of mental characteristics, and because I'm partial to Swedes.

#31 C Jacob Josefson (Ranked #54), Two-way forward, first line potential
Determined
Like Mikko Koivu

#40 RD/LD Chad Lowry (Ranked #189), Skilled defenseman, no. 1-2 potential
Sporting, Strong Character
Like Dan Hamhuis

#61 RD/LD Simon Jodoin (Ranked #58), Skilled defenseman, no. 3-4 potential
Very Ambitious, Fickle
Like Dan Hamhuis

#64 C/RW Vitaly Karamnov (Unranked), Two-way forward, third line potential
Realist, Loyal
Like Steve Kelly

#91 C Joonas Nättinen (Ranked #139), Skilled offensive forward, first line potential
Determined, Mercenary, Poor self-confidence
A bigger, better version of Mike Sillinger

#103 LD Brett Ponich (Ranked #65), Skilled defenseman, no. 5-6 potential
Realist, Independent, Strong Character, Relaxed
Like Ron Hainsey with a bigger frame

#113 RD Michael D'Orazio (Ranked #112), Skilled defensive defenseman, no. 3-4 potential
Ordinary
Like Ryan Whitney

#121 LD/RD Tim Erixon (Unranked), Skilled offensive defenseman, no. 5-6 potential
Ordinary
Like Brian Campbell

#148 RD Dalton Prout (Unranked), Skilled defensive defenseman, no. 3-4 potential
Competitive
Like Nolan Baumgartner

#151 LW Marshall Everson (Unranked), Two-way forward, second line potential
Strong Character, Relaxed
A poor man's Daniel Sedin

#181 LW/RW Mats Zuccarello Aasen (Unranked), Skilled offensive forward, third line talent
Independent
A poor man's Martin Straka

#188 RD Philip Samuelsson (Ranked #123), Enforcer, no. 5-6 potential
Determined, Very Aggressive
A bigger, better version of Johnny Oduya

That's an awful lot of D-men but I've never had much luck trying to draft to fill future roster holes so I just went for what I considered to be the best player available.

Hedman was signed to play in the AHL, Karamnov to play for his junior team and Aasen to challenge for a regular spot.

I wanted to get a starting goalie as one of my UFA signings but no luck there, I ended up choosing between Martin Gerber and Kevin Weekes. I finally went with Weekes for rotation duties with Ellis until I can pick something up on the trade market. For my good rep I had Nils Ekman all ready to sign when I realized that I had offered him more than the 1M I was allowed (1.175 I think) so I had to withdraw the offer and try again at 1M. By then he had gotten offers from other teams and decided to sign with Tampa. Instead I signed Nolan Yonkman who played well for our AHL affiliate last season, he will get a shot at the third RD spot in camp.

I've drafted Mats Cuccarello Aasen before, and really liked the way he played, but was hesitant to bring him to the roster because my staff didn't have quite the same opinion of him that I had. I'd be interested to see how he pans out for you.

Let's chat about Radulov

Has anyone signed him?
Has anyone tried signing his brother then offering a contract to him? I'm debating if it's worth picking up his 4th line talent brother, if that means there's a chance to get him.

Lidas wrote:

bruins72 wrote:If I could have made a trade, I would've gone after this one guy that was ranked 6th and drafted 11th. He was my favorite player in the draft. He was a Swedish C/RW named Christofer Sjokvist. Check him out...

Attributes

Scouting Report

The guy is already a beast! I'm sure most of us could find a spot for him on our NHL rosters right away. If only I had a chance at him!

I wanted to grab that regen too in my game - with another name of course. It's Forsberg

That's who I figured it was but I wasn't sure. Oh do I wish I could've drafted him!

Marsac wrote: #121 LD/RD Tim Erixon (Unranked), Skilled offensive defenseman, no. 5-6 potential
Ordinary
Like Brian Campbell

I've drafted him before and really liked him. I had intended to draft him in this game too but I waited too long and somebody else got him. Nice pick!

Marsac wrote: #188 RD Philip Samuelsson (Ranked #123), Enforcer, no. 5-6 potential
Determined, Very Aggressive
A bigger, better version of Johnny Oduya

He's the hidden jewel of this draft! I really like this pick.

Asher413 wrote:Let's chat about Radulov

Has anyone signed him?
Has anyone tried signing his brother then offering a contract to him? I'm debating if it's worth picking up his 4th line talent brother, if that means there's a chance to get him.

Nope. I really don't think anyone has signed him. I don't think the board ever allows you to offer him a big enough salary to convince him to come over.

there's my draft. I'm pretty sure nobody is going to recognize these guys because I'm pretty sure they're all regens.

Nope..Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was the 1st overall pick in the 2008 WHL Bantam Draft by the Red Deer Rebels. He is amazing in real life. Played 5 games with Red Deer as a 15 year old and had 9 or 10 points. Ray Ferraro whose boy Landon played in Red Deer with Ryan has referred to him as possibly the "next one" already on TSN. If he is projected only as a 2nd liner, with what people are saying about him here...he is underrated in 1st go around in Lidas DB 1.3. He is not in 1.2 as I don't think manimal had the WHL updated yet. He is going to be a STAR. In real life.

I have Samuelsson in my Canucks game...I left him in Manitoba until he was 24. Brought him up...and he is putting up 7.5 ratings on a regular basis over the last couple seasons. He is tough, and plays solid, and can occasionally fill in on the pp as well as pk. Wins a TON of fights.

So, I'm about to wrap up training camp for season two and the biggest question mark is Colin Wilson... My scouts say he's ready for a regular role and his camp/exhibition performance certainly indicates that he is but would it hurt his development to start at second line LW? With the Ekman signing falling through my second best option seems to be Jordin Tootoo since I want Ellison on the third line.

G
Weekes
Ellis

D
Hamhuis-Weber
Suter-deVries
Kulyash-Yonkman
(Zanon-Belak)

F
Sullivan-Arnott-Dumont
Tootoo/Wilson-Legwand-Erat
Ellison-Bonk-Ortmeyer
Grant/Tootoo-Platonov-Ward

If I can live with a competent LW (Tootoo is accomplished) on the second as well as the third line another option would be to play Erat-Legwand-Ward and Grant-Platonov-Tootoo.

I'll try the old recipe of an offensive line, a two-way line, a checking line and an energy line for the start of this season while matching 1v3-2v2-3v1-4v4.

Marsac wrote:So, I'm about to wrap up training camp for season two and the biggest question mark is Colin Wilson... My scouts say he's ready for a regular role and his camp/exhibition performance certainly indicates that he is but would it hurt his development to start at second line LW? With the Ekman signing falling through my second best option seems to be Jordin Tootoo since I want Ellison on the third line.

Marsac wrote:If I can live with a competent LW (Tootoo is accomplished) on the second as well as the third line another option would be to play Erat-Legwand-Ward and Grant-Platonov-Tootoo.

I'll try the old recipe of an offensive line, a two-way line, a checking line and an energy line for the start of this season while matching 1v3-2v2-3v1-4v4.

In my game Wilson was ready to play single games in season #2 but he seemed not to be ready to keep his level up enough all the season. He played some great games in Predators, but was assigned to Milwaukee most of the season still. I brought him up for the season #3 and he has been good and totally ready for the big games since. If I was asked, I would go with Erat-Legwand-Ward -line and bring Wilson in occasionally to get some experience and filling the injuries, but I'd be all the time prepared to send him back down if/when he gets frustrated.