Paul T

I wonder if Season 4 will turn out like the others?

I wonder if Season 4 will turn out like the others?

Personally, I agree with you on Rask vs Thomas.

Paul you devious fellow. I had only ever looked at the transfers contract screen.
That said, I am stubborn in my conviction that a player's movement on the terms of their current contract should not be limited. 
. . 

I think this is a fantastic idea.  I'm not sure how it could be organized in a way that Anders could handle hundreds of questions coming his way at once, but this would be great from a community perspective.

Hey Anders:

You know there is a core community of long-term managers here who love this sim. What do you think about hosting an AMA on Discord where we can ask you simple (perhaps Yes/No) questions about elements of the sim - with as much elaboration as you are comfortable with?

I mean here things we have always wanted to know but have been unable to determine in-game (example: "Does fatigue strongly impact goalie attributes/performance?"). I have a few of these, they've come up in various discussions, and it would be interesting to hear your perspectives on some of these things. Of course, you do not have to answer any leading questions or ones that reveal game mechanics.

This could also be a good avenue to talk about your roadmap for GPHM in the future, any areas you need help or input on, any resources we can provide, gain feedback on the game, etc.
Thoughts? Other managers - feel free to comment as well if this is something you want to see.
 
Alex

Agree.  And my dilemma is that during the regular season, there is no other goalie I would want on my team.  But during clutch moments, he's collapsed too many times for me to feel confident in him.  I also agree that many of the goals were not mostly his fault.  But in the end, you want a goalie that can elevate their game in the biggest moments and steal games for you.  That's what makes greatness... in any sport.  And that is not what I see from Rask.  In those moments, I'd rather have a goalie with a 3M salary and 4M spent elsewhere.
Just to go back to the Thomas Cup Finals for a second.  He may have cost Boston 1 game in that series, but look at the entire body of work.  In a 7-game series, he let in 8 goals.  From games 1-7 it went:  1-3-1-0-1-2-0.  That is simply insane!  And if you go back 1 game further, he got the shutout in game 7 of the ECF vs. Tampa.  So Thomas finished those playoffs by only allowing 8 goals in his last 8 games.  Absurd numbers.  Compared to Rask's 18 goals allowed in the 7-game series vs. St. Louis.  Choke job.
To me Thomas will always be the better Boston goalie.  If Rask eventually wins a Cup it will make it closer, but even still.
Thomas:  4x All Star, 2x Vezina, Conn Smythe
Rask:  3x All Star, 1 Vezina

Entire thread with examples and details below.

Let's get this fixed, as this is an issue since 2017, it routinely comes up, and it impacts gameplay.
 
 
 

I would argue he does and he is quietly the best goalie in the world currently but what do I know I guess.
 
Look at his career stats, both regular season and playoffs. Regular season wise he currently has the 2nd best career save percentage all time behind only Dominik Hasek with an amazing .922. That is if you ignore the career stats of Chris Driedger, Igor Shesterkin (who I think is the modern Dominik Hasek), Andrew Hammond, Calvin Petersen, Pavel Francouz and Elvis Merzlikins. With over 500 games played that isn't by accident.
 
Playoffs wise he is 12th best if you limit it to goalies that have played in at least 10 games with a .927 save percentage in 89 career playoff games. The 11 goalies in front of him? Manny Fernandez (11 games), Olaf Kolzig (45 games), Tomas Vokoun (22 games), Braden Holtby (89 games), Ben Bishop (49 games), Craig Anderson (46 games), Jonas Hiller (33 games), Cory Schneider (14 games), Tim Thomas (51 games), Robin Lehner (10 games) and Mike Smith (24 games).
 
If I may say, you are almost sounding like a Leafs fan at the current moment with their doom and gloom statements about their team and how their players are overpaid and thus bad. I never thought that the Leafs were a cup contender coming into this year. How could they be when they got significantly worse as a team? Their team D got much worse and their offensive depth got worse too. They are complaining about Matthews and Marner being overpaid when those two have been two of the best players all season for the team. I see the current Leafs team the exact same way as I saw the Caps in the early Ovechkin era. They even have similar team composition problems in general. The biggest difference is that the Caps didn't spend a massive chunk of cap on 4 players. Them overpaying Nylander and arguably Marner wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't signed Tavaras. It isn't that Tavaras is a bad player. It is that signing him never made any actual sense.
 
Toronto needed D badly and instead they spent 11 million on Tavaras when they had Matthews and Kadri. Had they not spent that 11 million on Tavaras they could have gone after Calvin de Haan or John Moore that offseason. No, they aren't top 4 dmen but how useful would one of them be for Toronto currently? Alternately, this past offseason they could have gone after Stralman, Nemeth, Myers or Shattenkirk. Shattenkirk would have been a great stand in for Barrie, at a cheaper rate, while also not losing Kadri in the process to get him. The only reason Shattenkirk didn't work in New York is that his skill set can't carry a team. However it is a great skill set to have to compliment skilled offensive players. Relatively low risk with relatively high reward. To add on, look at the upcoming FAs on D. Pietrangilo, Vatanen, Edmundson and van Riemsdyk to name 4. 18 million in cap space and a potential top 4 D group of Reilly, Pietr, Muzzin and Shat could have been had with say, 7 million in cap space left. Instead Toronto fans are stuck with a massively flawed roster for the next 4 seasons at least.

He looked perfect last night against the Flyers.  The Flyers played far better than Boston for at least 40 mins of that game and Carter Hart had a damn near perfect game, but Rask was perfect and that is why Boston won.  

Guess he didn't learn anything from Tim Thomas. 

LOL!  I played my 83 OVR backup who hadn’t lost in regulation all season. Now 9-1-3. And he (computer) countered with his 78 OVR affiliate goalie. Another point of note - they tied the game on a SHG and the GWG was scored by a 78 OVR player with no offensive skills. It was a tough one for sure. 

If you had to bet your life on which team won this game...

This doesn't qualify as a great single game performance, but sometimes it's the little things.
Today the St. Thomas Stray Cats led the Big Delta Stealheads 1-0 early in the 3rd period.  At the 4-minute mark, Stealhead defenseman Aarno Reijonen dropped the gloves with Stray Cat (and former Stealhead) Zinedine Argouin.  Reijonen got his @ss kicked... bad... but that's besides the point.  The fight lit a fire under Big Delta and over the next 8.5 minutes, they out-shot the Stray Cats 11-1, scoring on 2 of those 11 shots and eventually holding on for the 2-1 win. 
Aarno Reijonen took one for the team and that sh!+ doesn't go unnoticed.
His stat line:  no goals, no assists, no hits, no shots, no blocks, no giveaways, no takeaways, 1 fight, 74 performance.

can’t buy a win this season. I expect to at least make the playoffs with my current roster. My guys can’t score to save their lives. Hoping for a better second half this season. Oh well! I will be extatique when my team starts winning more games.

Ah yes, the rare and elusive 24.00 GAA. Nothing brings people together like shit goaltending.

Priceless!!
That last stat line is very similar to my game against the #12 Rome Trojans earlier this season (who scored more in that game than their next 3 combined). 


At least we can commiserate!

I raise you my Buzzer GHL goaltender - 94 overall. The last loss was against a team near the bottom of the league in every category. He lasted 10 minutes. 

Game mechanics, imho - I've grown used to it. Identical consistency issues with my starters in both Cage and Buzzer.

Both 94 overall and both can last only about 3-4 games before they have a monumental collapse and a goalie rating in the red. This sim has a bit of black humour in it when it comes to goaltending  .

A while ago someone had mentioned a high (non goalie) performance rating and I forget what it was.  Today, Terho Huhtala had a performance rating of 88.  That might be the highest single game performance I've ever had from a skater position.
Interesting story around Huhtala.  I acquired him in an early season 2 trade that sent an all star goalie out West in exchange for Huhtala, Amick and a GHL 1st.  The jury is still out on whether it was a bad trade or not as I still feel like the goalie doesn't perform up to his rating, but on paper I probably shouldn't have made it.  I was hesitant to acquire him given his low Defense and Spirit, but he quickly became one of my top scorers in season 2 and always seemed to score in big moments (I guess that Heroic trait means something afterall).  Going into season 3 free agency, one of the games best forwards, Joesph Rackley, became available via relegation.  I decided to make a play for him, but needed to clear some cap first.  Huhtala became the odd man out and the only option was waivers.  I knew it was a giant risk as it left me with a smidge over 10 million to bid.  But... I tried to be sneaky about it, thinking that I could put Huhtala on waivers for an hour or so and recall him if I didn't sign Rackley (I actually made a suggestion quite some time ago that players should stay on waivers for at least 2 days before being able to call them back so don't judge me 😀).  But being on the East Coast, USA makes that plan difficult as free agents happen sometime between 2-4am.  Well around 1am I threw on on waivers and within 10 minutes someone claimed him.   To add insult to injury, my 10.1M bid was not enough to get Rackley as someone else ended up bidding 12+M (thanks Peekaboo... jerk).  So my high risk, high reward plan backfired greatly.  My offense really struggled last season and that was a big reason as I never managed to replace him.  I think the team that put the waiver bid reached out the following day and asked why I had put him on waivers and I explained my reasoning.  I'm pretty sure the other manager either offered to remove the claim or offer some type of trade for him, but I refused stating that I knew it was risky and that I should live with it and let it play out.  Think he ended up with 7-8 bids and eventually went to another Eastern team.  That team ended up relegating last season and I jumped on the chance to get him back... and it's a good thing because over the first 8 games he leads my team in points (7+4) with a +5 and 80 performance.  We are currently 5-0-2-1, but would probably be 1-0-2-5 without him.
Good times.

"Tomorrow is the Steal Heads, boys!  Everyone in AAHL is getting called up!"

A while ago someone had mentioned a high (non goalie) performance rating and I forget what it was.  Today, Terho Huhtala had a performance rating of 88.  That might be the highest single game performance I've ever had from a skater position.
Interesting story around Huhtala.  I acquired him in an early season 2 trade that sent an all star goalie out West in exchange for Huhtala, Amick and a GHL 1st.  The jury is still out on whether it was a bad trade or not as I still feel like the goalie doesn't perform up to his rating, but on paper I probably shouldn't have made it.  I was hesitant to acquire him given his low Defense and Spirit, but he quickly became one of my top scorers in season 2 and always seemed to score in big moments (I guess that Heroic trait means something afterall).  Going into season 3 free agency, one of the games best forwards, Joesph Rackley, became available via relegation.  I decided to make a play for him, but needed to clear some cap first.  Huhtala became the odd man out and the only option was waivers.  I knew it was a giant risk as it left me with a smidge over 10 million to bid.  But... I tried to be sneaky about it, thinking that I could put Huhtala on waivers for an hour or so and recall him if I didn't sign Rackley (I actually made a suggestion quite some time ago that players should stay on waivers for at least 2 days before being able to call them back so don't judge me 😀).  But being on the East Coast, USA makes that plan difficult as free agents happen sometime between 2-4am.  Well around 1am I threw on on waivers and within 10 minutes someone claimed him.   To add insult to injury, my 10.1M bid was not enough to get Rackley as someone else ended up bidding 12+M (thanks Peekaboo... jerk).  So my high risk, high reward plan backfired greatly.  My offense really struggled last season and that was a big reason as I never managed to replace him.  I think the team that put the waiver bid reached out the following day and asked why I had put him on waivers and I explained my reasoning.  I'm pretty sure the other manager either offered to remove the claim or offer some type of trade for him, but I refused stating that I knew it was risky and that I should live with it and let it play out.  Think he ended up with 7-8 bids and eventually went to another Eastern team.  That team ended up relegating last season and I jumped on the chance to get him back... and it's a good thing because over the first 8 games he leads my team in points (7+4) with a +5 and 80 performance.  We are currently 5-0-2-1, but would probably be 1-0-2-5 without him.
Good times.

Ah, Rackley...
Yeah, I like Huthala, he's on my (well, not too short) shortlist for quite some time. I think I did try to claim him last season as well, hehe.
Anyways, nice performance and rarely (if at all) seen by skater  

Good memory.  Stang had a career series against me in the season 2 playoffs.
Slight misperception, though, as I don't rage.  At least not a serious rage as I tend to enjoy when non-standard events occur.  I do remember pointing it out and giving my team the hairdryer treatment because of it.  But at this point I've come to realize that a CHL team would take us out in the playoffs (specifically 3 games to 1).
Fairly certain the game coding goes something like
=IF(AND(Manager="Paul T",Game="Round 1 of Playoffs"),Lose series 3-1,jump to rest of code)