Montreal Canadians: Challenge 3.1 Chat Thread

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:45 pm

I don't get how you guys have got such high payrolls? Mine is only $19,250,000...? Surely you lot must be smashing your budget-what gives?

munky · Post by **munky** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:47 pm

At any rate, I'll re-install the game and start up a new game. If it turns out I'm not allowed to restart, that's OK. I'd probably be playing with the same team anyway.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:59 pm

munky wrote:Sometimes I'm just a dolt.

I just swapped out my old 40 GB hard drive for a 200 GB drive. Clean install of Windows, the whole nine yards.

Guess what I forgot to backup?

Looks like a restart for me, if that's even allowed. Are we penalized for being scatterbrained?

That's a shame about losing your game. I don't see why they wouldn't let you restart it. Good luck!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:08 pm

BlackCats101 wrote:I don't get how you guys have got such high payrolls? Mine is only $19,250,000...? Surely you lot must be smashing your budget-what gives?

Are you sure that's in US dollars and annual wages? If it is, who did you trade away? You would've had to have gotten rid of Kovalev, Theodore, Koivu, and Souray to get yourself that low. When you start a new game, the Canadiens' salary is $36.5M with a maximum of $38M in the budget.

IIRC, that's below the NHL minimum. Isn't the league minimum something like $22M or so? I'm guessing you've got your's set to "UK Pound Sterling"

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:13 pm

bruins72 wrote:
BlackCats101 wrote:

IIRC, that's below the NHL minimum. Isn't the league minimum something like $22M or so? I'm guessing you've got your's set to "UK Pound Sterling"

spot on bruins72-it was in pounds sterling

How do I change this in the recording thread before Minstrel roasts me alive? I cannot edit the post...

Post by **archibalduk** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:23 pm

Just post your budget again in a seperate post. I'll go back and change it for you if you do it in the next five minutes.

I take it you know that you go to the Game Settings screen to change the currency to Dollars.

Post by **Minstrel** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 5:25 am

BlackCats101 wrote:How do I change this in the recording thread before Minstrel roasts me alive? I cannot edit the post...

Who me??

Eh, we'll let you live this time no roasting... next time though?

munky We don't punish people for mistakes, cause we've all had those

moments. Bummer about losing your game though

just let Calv know either by message or in the recording thread that he'll need to delete any stats if you've already posted them.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 6:01 pm

Well I just finished games 41-60 (sorry, I'm way behind schedule, Minstrel

). I've been VERY active on the trade front. I could've easily kept the roster that I had and probably been pretty decent but I had to keep tinkering. I had to get the kind of roster that I wanted. I'm sure it's going to hurt my chances on this challenge just because my stat leaders won't be as high because many key guys haven't been on my team the whole season. That's okay. If I take this challenge into the next round, I'll be in very good shape (like I was with the second season of the Carolina challenge). I'm still going well in the standings. I'm closing in on the top spot in the East. I'm only 1 point behind the Senators and they've played 1 more game than me. Not too shabby!

In early January I made a bunch of deals. First, I jumped on the Jagr bandwagon. Everyone else here seems to have gotten Jagr and I never bothered with him in any of the games I've played before... so I figured "What the heck!". I sent Richard Zednik and the rights to Alexander Korolyuk to the Rangers for Jagr. Zednik wasn't really doing much for me and I couldn't convince Korolyuk to sign a contract and come back to the NHL. He would've been a perfect fit for my team but he wasn't interested. So I got Jagr. He was underacheiving in NY but he's been doing better for me. He's at just a hair better than a point a game. The funny thing is, Zednik has 24 points in 20 games since joining the Rangers. Go figure!

My next move was a prospect deal. I sent the rights to Kyle Chipchura & Tomas Linhart to the Senators for the rights to Cody Bass. I love Bass' speed! He's a pefect fit for this team. He's also got great defensive abilities. He's make a great checking line/PK guy for me. Maybe he'll be a Selke winner someday?

Next, I sent Sheldon Souray and Ron Hainsey to the Predators for Danil Markov. Now I've got 2 Markov's on defense! Does anyone know if these guys are related? I shipped out Souray because he wasn't able to play the kind of minutes that I wanted out of him. He was always coming up injured or with low condition after games. Markov has a much better balance of everything (offense and defense) too.

Those last few moves all happened over the matter of a few days. At the end of January, I made a move I'm very pleased with! I sent Andrei Kostitsyn, the rights to Philippe Paquete, and my 2nd & 6th round picks in the 2006 draft to the Flyers for Jeff Carter and the Blackhawks' 4th round pick in 2006. I've been trying to pry Carter and/or Richards away from the Flyers in every game I've played for ages now! I finally landed Carter and I don't think the price was too high. I really love this kid's skating. He's got great leadership too. Once he develops, he's going to be one of the best in the league.

During the Olympics, at the traded deadline, I sent a few guys out of town. It's the end of February and I'm almost 3/4 of the way done with the season. I had too many centers for one thing. I also had a couple of guys that I knew I wasn't going to bother resigning, so why not trade them? First, I sent Mike Ribeiro and Mike Komisarek to the Wild for their 1st round pick in 2006. The Wild are 11th in the West right now, so it should be a decent pick. There's a lot of talent in this draft, so the more picks the better. Ribeiro was doing pretty good for me (45 points in 58 games) but I just never liked him. In real life he's a diver. He's a punk. Plus, I didn't really need him now that I had Weiss and Carter.

Next, I sent Sergei Brylin to the Flyers for the Predators' 3rd round pick in 2006. Brylin was kind of a spare part for me. I had him playing on my 3rd line. I originally got him because of his speed. I was thinking he'd be good for my second line but he never really panned out there, so he ended up on the 3rd line. I didn't really think he had the defensive abilities for my checking line though. A 3rd round pick isn't a bad return though. Plus, I just dropped $1.5M in salary.

My last move was to send Niklas Sundstrom to the Predators for their 2nd round pick in 2006. Sundstrom was making $1M and I had him alternating between my 3rd and 4th lines all season. It was a waste. I loved his checking abilities but he didn't have the skating or the stamina to fill an important role on my team. I thougth the 2nd round pick was a good return on him. I dropped more salary and got another pick for this deep draft.

To fill the roster spots vacated by these guys I brought up a couple players from the AHL. As a result of my earlier trades, I had Perezhogin sitting out. He's back to playing LW on the 4th line again. I brought up Maxim Lapierre and Sean Bergenheim to fill in the other two spots. Lapierre is a decent skater with great stamina. He's also pretty good on faceoffs for his age. Bergenheim is a great skater with a decent shot. He's got the potential to be a 2nd line guy one of these days, IMO. These three youngsters are making up my "kid line" for a 4th line.

I tried making other deals to strengthen my defense but they never really panned out. The deadline has passed, so I've got what I've got. I'm hoping these guys can gel over the next 22 games and make a good playoff run!

munky · Post by **munky** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:15 pm

OK, here we go again.

I'm going to try to keep as much of the original Habs intact as I can. No raping an pillaging the roster for me.

Pre-Season Transactions:
August 7
Signed Scout Russ Smart
Signed Scout Randy Peterson
Fired Scout Richard Green
Signed W Mikahil Grabovsky from Moscow Dynamo
Signed Scout Sergei Korneev
Fired Scout Vaughn Karpan
Signed Scout Andrej Cicman
Signed Scout Russ Mahoney
Signed Scout Erik Jonsson
Fired Scout Gordie Roberts
Fired Scout Dave Mayville
Signed Scout Karol Faith
Signed Scout Jason Ripplinger

August 8
Signed Scout Mike MacFarlane
Fired Scout Hannu Laine

August 9
Signed Jacques Laperierre as an assistant coach

August 20
Released rights to Johan Witehall, Martti Jarventie, Viktor Ujcik, Martin Sychra, and Peter Strom.

September 15

Traded the rights to Rene Vydarney to Boston for their 2006 3rd round pick. (Vydarney wouldn't leave Europe)

I don't know how much good it does to upgrade your scouting staff, but it's fairly easy to do so I went for it.

Witehall, Jarventie, Ujcik, Sychra and Strom are all getting a little old to be considered 'prospects' and they have no interest in leaving Europe - they're pretty much useless.

Opening Night Lineup
Zednik - Koivu - Kovalev
Grabovsky - Ribiero - Ryder
Dagenais - Bulis - Sundstrom
Plekanec - Bonk - Begin

Souray - Dandenault
Markov - Rivet
Bouillon - Komisarek

Theodore

Post by **E5150_ca** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:07 pm

This picture is dedicated to everyone who either

A) Traded Koivu

or

B) Thought about tradeing Koivu

http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=koivu8by.jpg

munky · Post by **munky** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:52 pm

Quick update: The signing of Mikhail Grabovsky is paying off pretty good dividends for me so far. He has 6 goals and 3 assists through 8 games so far. He's going to wind up costing me some bonus money at this rate, not that I mind.

munky · Post by **munky** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:32 pm

My Habs are sitting at 10-8-2 after the first 20 games. Not bad considering I lost Koivu for three weeks to a strained groin. He's back in the lineup now, thankfully.

I made the following blockbuster deals in the first 20 games:

October 6 â€“ Traded Pierre Dagenais and 5th and 6th picks in the 2006 draft to Atlanta for Slava Kozlov
October 15 â€“ Traded Yann Danis and a 3rd rounder to Anaheim for Ruslan Salei and 5th rounder.

Kozlov is on the top line and Salei has kept Mark Streit off the ice, I consider that a good thing.

Post by **timmy_t** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:00 am

Well, Iâ€™m in on this challenge as well. Hereâ€™s a recap of what I did up to the start of the season:

I decided to go a little different from my Hurricanes challenge team this time around. I tried to hold that team together because I really liked the way that they play, but EHM is different than the real NHL, so I didnâ€™t do as well as the Hurricanes.

The first thing I did was to add staff. I added Mark Messier, Cliff Ronning, and John Cunniff as assistant coaches and kept Claude Julien, Roland Melanson, and Doug Jarvis. I brought in Frank Provenzano as my Assistant GM and I also brought in 8 scouts and 2 trainers, to bring all of my staff to maximum totals.

The next thing was to execute some trades:

Carey Price to Blackhawks for Mark Bell
Guillaume Latendresse to Hurricanes for Erik Cole
Kyle Chipchura to Predators for Marek Zidlicky
Mikhail Grabovsky to Wild for Marc Chouinard
Jan Bulis and Mathieu Aubin to Predators for Steve Sullivan
Canadiensâ€™ 2nd and 3rd in 2006 to Wild for Brian Rolston
Sheldon Souray to Blue Jackets for Radoslav Suchy
Cory Urquhart and Canadiensâ€™ 4th and 6th in 2006 to Hurricanes for Frantisek Kaberle
Tomas Plekanec and Canadiensâ€™ 5th and 7th in 2006 to Flames for Chris Simon
Saku Koivu to Wild for Wildâ€™s 1st in 2006
Konstantin Korneev to Panthers for Panthersâ€™ 6th in 2006
Craig Rivet and Panthersâ€™ 6th in 2006 to Blackhawks for Blackhawksâ€™ 3rd in 2006
Francis Boullion and Alexander Buturlin to Predators for Predatorsâ€™ 2nd in 2006
Pierre Dagenais and Rene Vydareny to Blackhawks for Blackhawksâ€™ 2nd in 2006
Steve Begin and Canadiensâ€™ 1st in 2006 to Blues for Bluesâ€™ 1st in 2006
Alexei Kovalev to Sharks for Sharksâ€™ 1st in 2006
Chris Higgins and Sharksâ€™ 1st in 2006 to Hurricanes for Hurricanesâ€™ 1st in 2006

I also signed Eric Messier to a contract.

At the start of the season, my lines looked like this:

Cole-Rolston-Sullivan
Bell-Bonk-Zednik
Simon-Ribeiro-Ryder
Messier-Chouinard-Sundstrom

Kaberle-Zidlicky
Markov-Dandenault
Hale-Suchy

Theodore
Huet

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 10:15 am

E5150_ca wrote:This picture is dedicated to everyone who either

A) Traded Koivu

or

B) Thought about tradeing Koivu

http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=koivu8by.jpg

I apologise Saku....

Post by **inSTAALed** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 1:14 pm

I never even though about trading Koivu

He's producing nicely on my top line with Cole and Kovalev.

Post by **inSTAALed** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 4:11 pm

It was a tough first 20 games for us

Almost every player I have was out for some amount of time, and Ryder is out for 3 months. Everytime I think we are going to be healthy for the next game, another player get's injured

My first couple of games went smoothly. I was 4-1 and my team was on fire, especially Cole - Koivu - Kovalev. Than Koivu, Souray, and Begin all got kneed by Eric Lindros in the same game which started me off on a downward spiral. Everybody is back except for Ryder, so maybe my next set of games will go better. My line of Perezhogen - Williams - Zednik was on fire the past 3 or 4 games, but that couldn't stop me from losing. Cole had back to back 3 point games on games 19 and 20.

Another problem we seem to have is giving up bad penalties. I've never had this problem in any of my other games so I dunno what I'm doing wrong. After I traded for Wiseman, he took over Garth Murrays spot on the third line.

Here's my current lines:

Cole - Koivu - Kovalev
Begin - Williams - Zednik
Bulis - Bonk - Wiseman
Perezhogen - Lundmark - Dagenais

Souray - Dandenault
Markov - Streit
Rivers - Bouillen

Theodore - Huet

I'll post some screenshots in a secamundo

Post by **inSTAALed** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 4:23 pm

It also looks like I jumped on the Jagr bandwagon

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/5056 ... gon1is.jpg

Points Leaders 1-20

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5381 ... 1203ep.jpg

East Standings 1-20

http://img506.imageshack.us/img506/6435 ... 1202hb.jpg

munky · Post by **munky** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 5:50 pm

ARGH!

In a three game stretch I lost Michael Ryder, Andrei Markov, Ruslan Salei, Tomas Plekanec and Richard Zednik to injury.

Post by **inSTAALed** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 6:00 pm

I'm on a tear since the Jagr trade, 5-1-1. All 4 lines are producing!

Once Ryder comes back, I will have 3 great RW's

\

Things are turning around, big time

Post by **joehelmer** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 10:02 pm

I traded Theodore for Lundqvist and Zednik+5th 2006 for Jagr.

Post by **timmy_t** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 11:37 pm

My first 20 games with the Canadiens were all about experimentation. I played with line combinations, tactics, goalies, and whether I should coach or leave it up to Claude Julien. I learned that Jose Theodore seems to give up a lot of goals (2.74 per game) but luckily our offense keeps bailing us out of trouble (3.7 goals per game). I learned that Julien is not as good a coach as me, plus by coaching the games myself I seem to be able to make bigger comebacks. I tried to have a solid checking line (my 4th line), but they never seemed to do as well as I hoped they would, so I abandoned the idea and I roll 4 lines most of the game (unless we are down, then I go overload). I also roll all three defense pairings equally, since they are all pretty good. Here is how my lines looked for a majority of the 20 games:

Cole-Rolston-Sullivan
Bell-Bonk-Zednik
Simon-Ribeiro-Ryder
Messier-Chouinard-Sundstrom

Kaberle-Zidlicky
Markov-Dandenault
Hale-Suchy

Theodore
Huet

Chris Simon got hurt so I brought up Perezhogin to fill the hole, and Marc Chouinard has been very inconsistent, so I traded Philippe Paquette to the Predators for Scott Nichol.

Overall, we played well, going 15-4-1. I would like to improve our PP and PK, with them being 19.3% and 82.2% respectively. My team is playing well together and I havenâ€™t really had any major injuries (knock on wood).

munky · Post by **munky** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:13 pm

I made a couple minor moves in the second 20 game stretch.

December 12 â€“ Traded Andrei Kostitisyn, the rights to Matt D'Agostini, 2006 5th and 7th picks to St Louis for Christian Backman, 2006 4th and 5th picks.

December 14 â€“ Traded Ron Hainsey to Edmonton for 2006 3rd rounder.

Basically I upgraded the defense a bit and moved a guy (Hainsey) who was stuck behind seven defensemen on the NHL roster and wasn't going to see the ice anytime soon.

munky · Post by **munky** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 8:16 pm

Remember my plan to not gut the roster? Yeah, that plan has been scrapped after the third leg of the first season. My Habs went into full-on free fall mode, winning a whopping 2 of 20.

I had to shake it up or risk being fired before the season even ended.

January 7 â€“ Traded Sheldon Souray to Atlanta for Garnet Exelby, Stephen Baby, and a 5th rounder.

January 8 â€“ Traded Mark Streit to Phoenix for a 4th rounder.

January 26 â€“ Fired head coach Claude Julien.

January 31 â€“ Signed Doug Jarvis as head coach.

February 8 â€“ Traded Radek Bonk to St Louis for the rights to Marek Schwarz.

February 10 â€“ Traded the rights to Carey Price plus 2006 4th and 5th rounders to Phoenix for Derek Morris.

February 10 â€“ Traded the rights to Marek Scwarz plus 2 2006 4th rounders to Edmonton for Danny Syvret and 2006 6th rounder.

February 11 â€“ Signed Michael Ryder to a contract extension through 2007.

February 21 â€“ Traded 2006 2nd rounder and the rights to Danny Stewart to Detroit for Tomas Holmstrom.

Only time will tell if it's too late to right the ship, but I'll be damned if I'm going to completely give up.

Post by **inSTAALed** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:39 pm

After my wonderful start after getting Jagr, I started losing left and right.

munky · Post by **munky** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 11:27 pm

March 3 - I was fired.