Challenge #37 Discussion - Blowing Up The Canucks!

[Peter_Doherty]

I was contemplating trading for Neubauer aswell, he's in Rangers for me too... But i decided against it because i'm already so deep on the wings, especially scoring wingers.

[batdad]

Yeah...just going to allow me to dump the underpeforming Morin in season 4, if I decide to. Or Kassian.

I need another good C but the problem is will be another young guy I do not trust. LOL. UNless of course someone gives up on Reinhart or someone like that.

[Peter_Doherty]

Yeah, filling up at C is clearly the toughest thing with this challenge... It's so hard to trade for the young stud Cs and the guys from the tier below just don't cut it.

[batdad]

Season 3 quarter 2 is done.

The highlight of this is the goaltending. It is insane for me. Basically Markstrom 2 games then Demko 1.

Combined the two had ....5 shutouts and only 1 game each where they gave up more than 2 goals. They were absolutely INSANE. Average shots against this team is 29.5 and both have had a shutout where they faced 40 shots plus.

The guys just do not score all that much, at least in my mind. But I have scored what the third most goals this quarter as a team? Weird.

I have 5 guys with 10 goals plus and two more with 9. Jeremy Morin who has been my second half leading goal scorer both seasons has 8. We shall see...


Vey is still producing mostly although he is injured for 10 days right now. 10-13-23 in 33 games.

Henrik Tommerenes is the big shock for me this year. He has AvR of 7.11 and is 3-18-21 so far on the season, which is only two points less than Trouba (Both goals)

Thought Muller would do better this year, but he is just the same as last season on pace for 25 points or so. Not happy with him, and he and Dillon go in and out of lineup like every game.

Shinkaruk is 9-10-19. Streaky either gets two points (usually 1-1) or none in a game.

Kyle COnnor is lighting up the AHL with Neubauer on his wing...11-27-38 in 30 games.

Rasmus ANdersson is 5-27-32 in 33 games down there as a rookie. Looking good.

Nedjelkovic is 18-2-0 1.77 and .930. Hmm...Markstrom is on way out maybe.

[nickflyers]

At the 40 Game mark! Very poor season, sitting in the basement, fans are calling for my head. You know same old same old in Vancouver.

9-23-8............ouchy

Bura-Yak-Kuz continues to be my top scoring line. Other than that, nothing to write home about as far as the Nucks go.

Utica is rocking a 28-5-2 Record. A.Grenier, H.Shinkaruk, H.Tommernes and S.Laughton are all in the Top 50 for points, with Tommernes leading the league in assists with 31

Prospects:
Callum Booth(15-9, 3.07, 90.1SV% @ Quebec) is backing up Blackwood at the WJC.
Mitchell Marner(20-22-42 7.12 @ London) is on 4th line duty(zero points)
McCann(14-27-41 7.56 @ SSM) has a goal and two assists centering the third line at the WJC.
Everybody's favorite Swede Dman, Jesper Lindgren(1-4-5 6.91 @ Modo) has a goal and 3 assists at the WJC.
Thomas Novak(20-38-58 7.67 @ Waterloo)(28th Overall)
Jens Looke(21-23-44 7.52 @ Ottawa)(82nd Ovr) Took home Rookie of the Month for October and November along with OHL AND CHL player of the week for 11.30.15
Matthew Spencer(2-15-17 6.84 @ Peterborough)(42nd ovr) Not bad. On the top D-line for the Petes
Jake Virtanen(16-19-35-7.72 @ Calgary) Took home WHL Player of the Week 11.30.15

[visualdarkness]

On thing that I'm really struggling with is the changed player development in EA. Now really "sucky" players soon can get better than "sure deals" within one or two seasons, as it should be.

[kennec]

[quote="Peter_Doherty"]11 games in and we are a bit inconsistent but still good (7-1-3), 1st line is getting better and better (Blugers 5+2, Kreider 2+2, Jensen 4+7), PP is up to 18.2% after starting at under 10 after 6 games. My 2nd line (Bärtschi-Bonino-Puljujärvi) was my driving force for the first half and is keeping up the production pretty good. The biggest positive surprise is my 3rd line (Shinkaruk-Samuelsson-Virtanen), they are continuing where they left off in playoffs (Samuelsson instead of Girgensons), Shinkaruk has 11+3, Virtanen 2+8 and Samuelsson 2+5, Shinkaruk is just amazing.

On D we have Lindgren at 1+11 and Kylington at 0+10, both are just insane. On a negative note it looks like Rasmus Andersson isn't really ready, his Av R is really low but since his partner Kylington is doing so great i'll give him some more time.

Edit: Marner is going nuts down in Utica in his second pro season, he has 11+8 in 13 games right now Ryan Orban is also growing into a solid player in his second pro season with 12 points and over 7.50 AvR.

Edit2: Bulgers is almost at PPG now, i tweaked both his line settings, the PP and his individual settings and now he's playing really well
Look at this beast, this is his rookie season "


how does virtanen look in your game? i am about to trade him away atm... mayby i should keep him?

[Peter_Doherty]

He looks good, he's developing nicely and even though his technical attributes aren't great he plays really well. He's at 5+17, +9, 28 PIM and 7.26 Av R right now for me after 28 games without any ice-time in PP or PK.

[visualdarkness]

I was about to trade Virtanen for a guy that was already scoring in the NHL at 21-years old. He looked mediocre but had decent offensive skills and first line potential, but ultimately I decided to give Virtanen a shot instead

[watts555]

Someone in this challenge that I was ready to give up on was Blomstrand. He wasn't happy where he was in my organization. I gave him a shot. 8+11 in 41 games on the third line has been pretty good for me. I try to build my third line as my "defensive" line

[Peter_Doherty]

Blomstrand has done well for me on my 4th line, he's important for my PK.

[visualdarkness]

Blomstrand fled to Switzerland for me and now he's in Sweden. Should I try to lure him back? I've lost quite a number of players to UFA/RFA, latest was Joacim Eriksson, which hinders me from dealing Lehner.

[kennec]

He looks good, he's developing nicely and even though his technical attributes aren't great he plays really well. He's at 5+17, +9, 28 PIM and 7.26 Av R right now for me after 28 games without any ice-time in PP or PK.

those stats from 3rd line? sounds very good..

[Peter_Doherty]

Yeah 3rd line, the line is getting carried by an amazing Shinkaruk who has 22+16 in 35 games though

[batdad]

I think it is hilarious that guys have Blomstrand in their lineup but gave up on Vey. Blomstrand is playing on the farm for me. I keep re signing him but he just has no shot at knocking Vey off the team, or Kenins. Kenins is consistently 7 rating and is always killing my penalties. He does all the little things none of my offensive guys can do. Blomstrand could play 4th line for me but would not be killing penalties and most certainly would not be putting up 23 points in 33 games playing on my third line. So no way no how. But I keep him around as insurance as I have so few LW.

[Peter_Doherty]

I think it's good that we all make different players work, as it should be We all coach differently so players should perform differently for us, to me that's a really good sign for this game overall

[batdad]

I Know. but what would you rather have 10-13-23 in 33 games, or 1-15-16 in 82 games? Sure it is cool some use Blomstrand. I have thought about it. But he does not play his role as well as others do. Shinkaruk, Vey, Horvat...even McCann and Gaunce play their roles better.

[visualdarkness]

Has anybody had any success drafting goaltenders? Outside of the first round in the drafts all appear to be brutal and I had to draft two third stringers just to get a third and a fourth goalie as my goalies left me.

[visualdarkness]

First day of training camp and Marner brakes his arm and Shinkaruk injures a rotator cuff. Sounds like a tough camp this year.

Also, Pokka was a really expensive pick up but I needed a new offensive D, but his WC performance is promising. Currently he sits at 8.00avg four points in four games and lat game he played over 32min and got named first star!

I just encountered a nice bug, "the everlasting PK bug". My team sucks too much to play with only four guys for half a game.
I must say that they played pretty decent for being stuck on PK for two periods. You see guys, this game hates me.

[kennec]

Has anybody had any success drafting goaltenders? Outside of the first round in the drafts all appear to be brutal and I had to draft two third stringers just to get a third and a fourth goalie as my goalies left me.

I drafted an keeper in the draft 2017 in 2nd round. He currently playd good in AHL and got good attributs, little less then demko at start of game. But he got around 8.0 Avr in AHL wich useally means he will be good in NHL to.

[visualdarkness]

So fourth season about to begin. I switched out almost everyone that I could to start "rebuild 2.0", only keeping Lehner and Kassian as veterans. I'm going for a "total-hockey" approach based on puck-possession as this lineup won't be winning too many battles in the corners.

Bärtschi - Scheifele - Lazar (My veteran stability line, should be decent all year round and pretty balanced)

Saad - Hischier - Yakupov (All offense line with Saad as the only even slightly defensive and Hischier is my '15 2nd overall playmaker. All scored like crazy on the PP in the preseason but went minus.)

Virtanen - Jenner - Görtz (Virtanen and Jenner provides a crash-bang game with Görtz fishing for a counter attack)

Grigorenko - Girgensons - Kassian (same as the line before but with Grigorenko as the counter)

Shinkaruk, Horvat

My defense is rebuilt completely. Day (2nd overall '16) will have a lot on his hands in his rookie year playing the top paring but he looks like a stud defensively. Pokka is my only offensive dman and will drive my powerplay and provide a lazer from the blueline, a great puckhandler. Musil is jumping up the rankings and now my scouts call him a fairly good player instead of just decent, a physical monster with a decent shot. Petrovic is my second shooting dman but also a stay-at-home.

I wanted to bring Rasmus Andersson (2nd round '16) up for this season as he is almost a clone of Day but he had a really bad pre-season so I sent him back to the AHL. I got some nice depth on the D though.

Day-Pokka
Lindholm-Musil
Percy-Petrovic
Ouellet

Demko/Lehner - Lehner needs to really improve or he'll see Demko got a huge share of the games.

[Peter_Doherty]

I Know. but what would you rather have 10-13-23 in 33 games, or 1-15-16 in 82 games? Sure it is cool some use Blomstrand. I have thought about it. But he does not play his role as well as others do. Shinkaruk, Vey, Horvat...even McCann and Gaunce play their roles better.

For me he plays his role perfectly, he's my 4th line winger + PK and does it well. I would never let Shinkaruk, Vey or Horvat on the PK before Blomstrand.

[Peter_Doherty]

Has anybody had any success drafting goaltenders? Outside of the first round in the drafts all appear to be brutal and I had to draft two third stringers just to get a third and a fourth goalie as my goalies left me.

Not really, i know that there are several goalies that go in the 2nd round of the 2015 draft that become really good, guys like Tomek, Vladar, Samsonov etc all become good from what i've seen.

[visualdarkness]

First game down and we outplayed Sharks pretty well winning a 3-3 game in SO. Virtanen and Hirrscher both scored in their first ever NHL games and Day got an assist, not bad!

[stone169]

Has anybody had any success drafting goaltenders? Outside of the first round in the drafts all appear to be brutal and I had to draft two third stringers just to get a third and a fourth goalie as my goalies left me.

I drafted Zachary Sawchenko in the 2nd round of the 2016 draft. He's currently my backup. He was the playoff MVP in Utica two straight years and led the team to the Calder Cup both years. He's been a pretty capable backup for me this season posting some decent numbers:
9-7-2
2.60 GAA
.910 SV%

Mind you though, he was a high 2nd round draft pick going 31st overall.

I recently drafted Ilnaz Samoilov 4th round #91 2020. 1st season in Utica he's 14-5-1 2.50GAA .895SV%. He's at least a couple years away from even getting a whiff of sitting on an NHL bench.