rainsilent

I really like the new look.

I said it in chat but I'll also say it here for everyone to see for eternity. Defense in the finals, paging defense in the finals please. Joking aside congratulations to Bouncer on the championship and peek on a great playoff run against the odds of his goaltenders. It almost ended just like it did between the Blackhawks and Flyers in the 2010 cup finals. It was a great show to watch too.

So I may have had a rather busy Friday and forgot to put up a match up preview for the finals. Oops. Well your getting one late anyways. #3 Sheshegwaning Dragons vs #2 West Chicago Hawks Regular season series: 2 wins Dragons I think this is likely to be a close series even though one game has already been played. The Dragons have the better offensive team talent wise while the Hawks play a more complete team game that emphasizes strong defensive play. If the Dragons had a goalie I felt like I could trust I would say that this is the match up of the two best teams in the league. Outside of the net it certainly is in my mind. I am really looking forward to seeing how this series plays out. Honest confession: I'm pulling for the Hawks in this one for the simple fact that he has his entire team playing in a way I wish I could get my team to play. Either way, best of luck to both teams.

In the past it was canceled and the player had to be resigned after the trade.

Conference Finals East: #3 Sheshegwaning Dragons vs #4 Sault Ste Marie Battlin Bears Regular season series: 1 win Dragons, 2 Wins and 1SO win Battlin Bears On paper this seems like a rather lopsided match up. The Dragons have incredible offensive and defensive depth. Their one concern is goaltending. This team is currently looking a lot like the 09-10 Philadelphia Flyers as a result. On the other side is the Battlin Bears. A team where no player really jumps out at you yet it is a solid overall team. Its playoff run is being pushed along by excellent play by its defensive core. I think this series is going to be decided by the goalies. Neither team has an all star starter but both of them still have a capable #1 option. Whichever #1 outplays the other is going to very likely decide the series. West: #1 Kegashka Prairie Stars vs #2 West Chicago Hawks Regular season series: 3 wins Prairie Stars, 1 win Hawks Both teams swept through the opposition in the prior rounds to get to this match up. The Prairie Stars have gotten here off of the play of their best players who have been dominant. The Hawks have gotten to this point through their entire team dominating the other team. The Prairie Stars are more top heavy talent wise but have more top end offensive talent to show for it. I think this series is going to come down to if the team effort by the Hawks can be enough to beat the effort of the best players of the Prairie Stars.

Thanks. I was genuinely expecting to lose the series before it started. I put that would be upset alert there for a reason. Losing it in OT fashion doesn't bother me much at all. I'd rather that than any other result. I personally had the Nightmare as the 4th best team in the conference. In comparison I don't rank my team better than 7th on the best day and it is technically the 12th most talented roster in the East. The final team making up that top 4 in my book didn't make the playoffs. Well, they made the wrong playoffs if you will.

Round two: No regular season stats anymore because it is the second round of the playoffs. #2 Red Tide vs #3 Dragons Regular season series: 1W and 1OTW Red Tide, 2W Dragons. The two best teams in the East face off. It was a close series in the regular season and it will likely be close in the playoffs so long as the goaltending for the Dragons holds up. If it doesn't this is very likely to be a short series. #4 Battlin Bears vs #8 Nightmares Regular season series: 2SOW Battlin Bears, 2W Nightmares. The two wins by the Nightmare were the last two meetings between these two teams and the games weren't close. I still think this is going to be a close series though however the Battlin Bears are the underdogs in my mind as I think the Nightmares have the better team. #1 Prairie Stars vs #5 Wolverines Regular season series: 2W Prairie Stars, 2W Wolverines The regular season series between the two was a split and the entire series was actually close. The Wolverines has the offense to keep pace if it becomes a scoring race. The real question is if the Prairie Stars can take control of the games with their more complete team. #2 Hawks vs #6 Tomahawks Regular season series: 2W Hawks, 2W Tomahawks Another series that was split however the series was rather lopsided with a win for each team that wasn't close at all. The Tomahawks were a great 5 on 5 scoring team while the Hawks struggled to score 5 on 5. I think this is going to be another close series determined by whatever team happens to play better 5 on 5.

If the assistant in the game reports isn't mentioning fatigue as a problem it isn't the problem. Personally I think the scoring at the GHL level is down a bit much. The best scorers struggle to reach a point a game pace here whereas at the NHL level you have Crosby, Malkin, McDavid, et cetera with regularity above that. Personally I wouldn't be too worried about his perceived down scoring stats. Granted this game doesn't have to strictly follow the NHL patterns of scoring. I just think it should be within the realm of possibility to see the best offensive players beat a point a game nearly every season. Currently it is a significant achievement to get a point a game by the end of the season.

East: #1 Cedar Rapids Minutemen vs #8 Netherhill Nightmares. 45-7-2-26 151pts / 32-10-10-28 126pts Regular season stats: Minutemen / Nightmare Goals for: 255 (4th) / 237 (13th) Goals against: 191 (3rd) / 220 (12th) PP: 21.8% (8th) / 21% (11th) PK: 86.1% (3rd) / 78.5% (18th) Shooting %: 9.8% (1st) / 7.8% (18th) Save %: 92.7% (4th) / 92.3% (12th) PDO: 1.025 (1st) / 1.002 (12th) CF: 1245 (24th) / 1342 (14th) CA: 1151 (3rd) / 1321 (13th) Corsi %: 52% (8th) / 50.4% (14th) Season match up: 3 wins Minutemen, 1 OT win Nightmare. Statistically this was a close match up during the regular season with only one game being decided by more than one goal. As a result, I expect this match up to be a lot closer than the statistics may otherwise say. The Nightmare are a solid overall team that aren't to be discounted due to their 8th seed. Combine that with the fact that the Minutemen played well above expectations for the season (especially with a shooting% and PDO so abnormally high when CF is taken into account) and I would give this match up a serious consideration for upset alert. #2 Slaughterville Red Tide vs #7 Lake Valley Bulldogs 46-4-3-27 149pts / 35-10-4-31 129pts Regular season stats: Red Tide / Bulldogs Goals for: 266 (2nd) / 255 (5th) Goals against: 200 (6th) / 245 (21st) PP: 19.8% (16th) / 22.8% (5th) PK: 79.1% (16th) / 81.1% (12th) Shooting %: 9.2% (4th) / 9.7% (2nd) Save %: 93.2% (1st) / 91.2% (24th) PDO: 1.024 (2nd) / 1.008 (10th) CF: 1535 (1st) / 1302 (19th) CA: 1202 (7th) / 1420 (21st) Corsi %: 56.1% (2nd) / 47.8% (21st) Season match up: 3 wins Red Tide, 1 win Bulldogs. The season series was notably in favor of the Red Tide as one game was on the verge of a blowout while another was an out right blowout. The Bulldogs are going to have to find a way to improve their 5 on 5 play defensively or this could be a short series. The middle of the pack special teams for the Red Tide could potentially keep the Bulldogs in the series and appears to be the most likely reason for the series to drag on. #3 Sheshegwaning Dragons vs #6 Big Delta Stealheads 44-3-11-22 149pts / 36-7-7-30 129pts Regular season stats: Dragons / Stealheads Goals for: 263 (3rd) / 239 (12th) Goals against: 205 (8th) / 199 (5th) PP: 24.9% (2nd) / 16.6% (22nd) PK: 86.3% (2nd) / 83.9% (6th) Shooting %: 8.9% (7th) / 8.8% (8th) Save %: 92.4% (9th) / 92.3% (10th) PDO: 1.013 (4th) / 1.012 (5th) CF: 1466 (3rd) / 1313 (18th) CA: 1261 (9th) / 1098 (2nd) Corsi %: 53.8% (4th) / 54.5% (3rd) Season match up: 1 win Dragons, 3 wins Stealheads. This matchup is my official upset alert for the East. Outside of the poor powerplay of the Stealheads these two teams are statistically near mirror images. The question is if the current goaltending for the Dragons can hold up to the quite potent offense of the Stealheads? The Dragons shipped out the goalie they had as their starter for most of the season. This is going to be either a lopsided series due to poor goaltending or one heck of a close series. #4 Sault Ste Marie Battlin Bears vs #5 Mango Duhawks 43-4-3-30 140pts / 37-7-6-30 131pts Regular season stats: Battlin Bears / Duhawks Goals for: 232 (14th) / 226 (16th) Goals against: 209 (9th) / 216 (11th) PP: 19.1% (18th) / 19.8% (17th) PK: 85.9% (4th) / 77.1% (23rd) Shooting %: 7.9% (16th) / 8.1% (13th) Save %: 91.8% (16th) / 92.1% (15th) PDO: .997 (17th) / 1.002 (13th) CF: 1388 (9th) / 1382 (10th) CA: 1293 (10th) / 1323 (14th) Corsi %: 51.8% (9th) / 51.1% (10th) Season match up: 2 wins Battlin Bears, 2 wins Duhawks. This is very likely to be a close series. The regular season games were. Based upon the regular season stats I think it is most likely to be decided by the PK of each team. The Battlin Bears had one of the best. The Duhawks had one of the worst. In every other way these teams are very close statistically. It could be a short series due to the PK difference but the Battlin Bears PP is too iffy for me to fully buy into the poor PK of the Duhawks as being as significant a drawback as it likely should be. West #1 Kegashka Prairie Stars vs #8 Eastern Outlaws. 47-11-2-20 165pts / 34-7-7-32 123pts Regular season stats: Prairie Stars / Outlaws Goals for: 246 (10th) / 214 (18th) Goals against: 164 (1st) / 204 (7th) PP: 22.3% (7th) / 18.5% (19th) PK: 82.6% (8th) / 77.8% (20th) Shooting %: 8% (15th) / 7.7% (19th) Save %: 93% (3rd) / 93.1% (2nd) PDO: 1.010 (7th) / 1.009 (9th) CF: 1403 (6th) / 1344 (13th) CA: 1223 (8th) / 1181 (5th) Corsi %: 53.4% (5th) / 53.2% (6th) Season match up: 2 wins and 1 SO win Prairie Stars, 1 wins Outlaws. The Outlaws are a solid team with very good goaltending and team play. Everything else about them is below average. On the other side is the Prairie Stars with the best record in the league but rather underwhelming stats for a team that more or less ran away with the best record by 14 points. Almost everything about them is good but only the 5 on 5 goals against is truly great. I would have expected more statistically with such a record. In terms of the match up the big question is can the Outlaws score and can their special teams be better than it was in the regular season? Against the Prairie Stars it is going to be tough as their two wins were big ones over the Outlaws. #2 West Chicago Hawks vs #7 Scandinavia Steelers 42-7-8-23 148pts / 35-9-5-31 128pts Regular season stats: Hawks / Steelers Goals for: 249 (8th) / 200 (25th) Goals against: 183 (2nd) / 194 (4th) PP: 24.1% (3rd) / 20.2% (15th) PK: 82.5% (9th) / 87.2% (1st) Shooting %: 7.6% (20th) / 7.4% (22nd) Save %: 92.5% (6th) / 92.5% (7th) PDO: 1.001 (14th) / .999 (16th) CF: 1448 (5th) / 1184 (25th) CA: 1389 (16th) / 1160 (4th) Corsi %: 51% (11th) / 50.5% (13th) Season match up: 4 wins Hawks. The Steelers are a bit of a mystery to me. They have a very good group of forwards but the team struggles mightily offensively. They didn't do well against the Hawks in the regular season because of it losing all four games. On the same token the Hawks offense under performed as well 5 on 5 with a very poor shooting percentage themselves. This could be a series dragged on by the stingy defense of the Steelers facing off against the lackluster 5 on 5 offense of the Hawks but the Steelers have to find a way to score to do it. This series is going to come down to if the Steelers can find some offense or not. #3 Enigma Rage vs #6 Vauban Tomahawks 42-5-5-28 141pts / 36-9-6-29 132pts Regular season stats: Rage / Tomahawks Goals for: 248 (9th) / 253 (6th) Goals against: 230 (15th) / 222 (13th) PP: 22.9% (4th) / 17.7% (21st) PK: 83.3% (7th) / 81.8% (11th) Shooting %: 8.8% (9th) / 9.5% (3rd) Save %: 92.1% (14th) / 92.3% (11th) PDO: 1.009 (8th) / 1.018 (3rd) CF: 1354 (12th) / 1319 (16th) CA: 1198 (5th) / 1313 (11th) Corsi %: 53.1% (7th) / 50.1% (15th) Season match up: 1 win Rage, 2 wins and 1 SO win Tomahawks This series is my upset alert for the West. The Rage are a very good statistical team overall. Its one statistical blemish is its 5 on 5 goals against. The Tomahawks are a good team themsleves with one very good strength. 5 on 5 goals for. It is the biggest weakness of one team against the biggest strength of the other team. This has the potential to be a very close series that could also go heavily one way or the other. If the Tomahawks can continue their 5 on 5 excellence it will be trouble for Rage. The Rage have the special teams to otherwise win the series if not keep the games close. #4 Ithaca Ricochet vs #5 Yonker Wolverines 40-7-4-29 138pts / 41-4-3-32 134pts Regular season stats: Ricochet / Wolverines Goals for: 253 (7th) / 269 (1st) Goals against: 213 (10th) / 241 (20th) PP: 21% (12th) / 22.8% (6th) PK: 80% (14th) / 75.2% (27th) Shooting %: 8.4% (11th) / 9.1% (5th) Save %: 91.6% (18th) / 90.6% (27th) PDO: 1.000 (15th) / .997 (19th) CF: 1452 (4th) / 1474 (2nd) CA: 1503 (25th) / 1541 (27th) Corsi %: 49.1% (17th) / 48.9% (18th) Season match up: 3 wins Ricochet, 1 win Wolverines This is the series that I am most looking forward to. It has the greatest potential for some wild games. Each of the four games in the regular season was. For one team you can forget about defense. It doesn't exist. Its not a thing. The other team is a team that plays a high tempo style of play given the lot of shots for and against 5 on 5. I'm excited for this series simply because it is very likely going to be a lot of speed, shots and general back and forth, high tempo action. Who is going to win? Who cares? It is going to very likely be one heck of a show.

Part of the reason my Buzzer team started at the bottom was that it gave me the chance to play with that stuff. From that the conclusion that I have come to is don't bother worrying about it. Team composition and talent is so much more an important thing. Start of the season for my Cage team my WI was blue. Now it is green and I never made a trade. No clue as to why that happened. Don't care either as I don't see it as that relevant. Especially following me messing with it for 4 seasons with my Buzzer team.

As last seasons playoffs showed, anything can happen. In terms of playoff rankings it is now official that my team will be the 1st seed in the East. I'm a bit shocked to say the least. I was expecting a middle seed at best . Especially with a number of teams got notably better.

I'm skipping on one and two because one got answered pretty much spot on and two I just ignore. I pretty much always have. That said I wanted to add on to three and four here if I may. I have no idea how to deal with underestimation. I have no idea what triggers it. I saw Rasputin's idea as for why and while I have no solid proof to otherwise I've not seen it work that way a few times myself. As for struggling to gain possession in the neutral zone it doesn't mean much ultimately. Watch a NHL game and note how many times there is a loose puck in the neutral zone and how often there is a fight for it. It isn't that often. Most NHL teams start a majority of possessions in their own end. I completely overlook this in the assistants notes. As I do the team focus hurt team momentum. I've changed the focus every way possible for a game and seemingly no matter how I changed it up it wouldn't go away. There is no reason for you to apologize. I think it is safe to say that we all have experienced that frustration to some degree. We all will again too. I went through it for the first quarter of the season with my buzzer team. All because my goalies got off to a cold start. Granted I also knew that I had a flawed team because I didn't have a good playmaker on my team which hurt my offense but theoretically my team still should have been decent. Instead it completely flopped. There are going to be moments of frustration. The difficulty is in piecing together what and why. Some of it we don't, and maybe never will, understand. However real GMs go through the same thing in real life. We all can name teams in all kinds of sports that had a lot of talent and underachieved or the opposite.

Welcome back!

It isn't that simple though. Having too many determined and heroic players can be counterproductive in real life. Look at Johnny Gaudreau. He is definitely a heroic type. However if things go bad for him or the team he has a very bad habit of trying too hard to do things on his own which ultimately ends up being counter productive in helping him and the team have success.

Yes, you have to have puck possession to get a shot. However that isn't really what corsi is telling you. Going back to Carolina as for why. Carolina, since they became "good" statistically corsi wise, has had the mentality of shoot the puck from anywhere, anytime. They weren't dominating possession of the puck so much as they were throwing a lot of bad shots at the net. The net result of that was averaging ~35 shots a game for with ~27 against. This served to heavily bloat the corsi and offensive zone face-off numbers of the team even though they were actually mid pack, at best, puck possession wise. Thus Carolina was gaming the statistical system to look good when they really weren't that good at all. This is why I think the actual puck possession % is the most important team tracking stat. It will actually tell you if you are getting dominated, if the game is close or if you happened to be playing "Carolina" that game.

Not necessarily true. Remember that corsi is strictly counting shots for and shots against. It actually has nothing to do with puck control directly. It is a statistical assumption that the team taking more shots has the puck more. As for how this applies here? The same as it applies to my team. My team isn't near as talented as yours or the many others that sit at the top of the standings. Yet I have good corsi numbers too. That team is another example, just like mine is, of getting the right players that they need for their system but with two flaws sinking that team. Lack of goaltending and lack of scoring. They have a talented enough team to fight for a playoff spot if they had a good goalie. I have yet to look at the games that team has played so I can't say if they are true puck possession monsters but they have a good enough group talent wise that they can be a solid puck possession team.

Easy. Remember how good the Carolina Hurricanes have been the past ~7 years in the NHL? No? Well that is odd since over that time they were easily one of the best corsi teams over that time frame almost every year. As usually were the LA Kings. The problem for them was one of the worst team shooting percentages combined with save percentages. Proof that controlling the puck does nothing for you if you can't score and/or stop the puck. They are a talented team. They just aren't doing enough of both to win with regularity. By the way my team is at risk of going the route of the LA Kings.

On the final day of the regular season 3 teams were all within 1 point of each other fighting for 1st place in the league. It was all going to come down to the last game for each team to decide who would finish 1st. At the start of the day the Laporte Red Raiders were holding 1st with 177 points by virtue of goals scored at 382. They had 52 regulation wins on the season at this point. Tied with them was my team, the White Mountain Winterhawks, with 177 points. My team had 312 goals and 55 regulation wins up to this point. We were both in the same conference. The third team, in the other conference, was the Red River Rockettes with 176 points. They had 343 goals scored and 55 wins so far on the season. If the Red Raiders won their last game of the season in regulation they would win 1st no matter what. In fact they just needed to tie in points to win because the first tiebreaker is goals scored. They were facing the 8th placed team in the East. To get 1st I had to get at least a point and nobody else tie my team in points. I was facing the 14th team in the West. For the Rockettes to get 1st they either needed to tie my team in points or get more points than the Red Raiders. They were facing the 8th team in the East. The Red Raiders lost in OT 5-4. This meant that my team needed to win in OT to pull ahead of them and a win in regulation would mean that I would win altogether. My team would win in OT 3-2 after losing my 1st line C a minute and a half into the game. This meant that if the Rockettes could win their game outright that they would finish 1st. Win they did as they ended the game with a 5-1 victory tying my team for points while scoring more goals on the season thereby holding the 1st tiebreaker of more goals scored. Congratulations to Jonathan D on finishing 1st on a very exciting finish to a season that came down to the very last game. A few extra notes; With that win on the last day the Rockettes held pretty much every imaginable tie breaker over me having more regulation wins and a better GF/GA differential as well. With 4 days left I was 9 points behind the Red Raiders and considered myself out as I had to win at least 3 of the last 4 just to tie whereas if the Red Raiders won even one game they would finish better than me by virtue of the first tiebreaker. The Red Raiders managed to go 0-0-1-3 in their final 4 games and 4-0-1-6 in their final 11 games of the season after beating my team 5-1 in game 68 of the season. My team went 7-1-1-2 over its final 11 after that loss. The Rockettes went 7-0-1-3 in their final 11.

So. I take it nobody wants to win this season?

20 games is enough. Depending upon play 10 games could be enough.

Since you want to see it.

I am just guessing here but I would think mostly tactics by a ratio of 2 to 1 no matter what.

I can't answer what you are asking but I figured that I would throw a few points into here as well. Yes, the player role makes a difference in training from what I understand. However, team tactics play a bigger role if I understand correctly. In terms of the growth of individual skill, it has been changed as well on a player by player basis. As a result, not all players will grow the same rate for every skill. In the prior version of the game, there was little difference in the growth rate between players as a result. On top of that, not all players have a skill cap of 99 for every skill anymore. The combination of the two made it pretty impossible to distinguish elite players from the rest in the past iteration of the game. That said I think it is more than safe to say that we are all still learning the details of the "new" development system.

Take a picture of the standings now because you will never see it again nor will you believe it if you were told about it in the future.

If you know how to force a trade with the AI you can still get the AI to accept bad trades. That said preying on managers that don't know how to tell a bad trade seems to be easier. The thing is those managers already traded most of their quality away.