rainsilent

Did you change up your defensive tactics? Was it aggressive forecheck last year? Edit: Your goalie confidence isn't helping at all though. That is for sure. I know you want to win every game koekefix but you have to be patient. Especially early in a season as there will be very wacky results at least partly due to the reset in team and player confidence. Also pretty much every season your team gets off to slow starts for some unknown reason.

Not sure how much he was actually under performing considering your team plays a more offensive game. I thought of his stats as slightly below what they maybe should have been save % wise given the offensive nature of your team.

koekefix I think everyone but Yann is trying to figure out how to resolve the goaltending/defensive performance.

I am in agreement with you on the jump. It is a bit odd to go nearly 2 million in demands when the player was with the top goalies earlier as well. However it still should be expected for him to be asking around that much anyways. Just like then he is among the best. The only difference is that his overall is higher. You do have a major point that you didn't push home that does honestly bother me quite a bit. The fact that the NHL has more than 10 million extra in cap space compared to GHL teams yet the players here are demanding the same relative NHL level contracts in terms of pay. That takes an already difficult cap situation and makes it significantly tougher. The contract demands really should be scaled down a bit to fit our cap in my mind. As for the D issue I haven't seen any. At the same time nobody has even been able to come close to identifying a clear issue causing it much less apparently try. The only thing I have come up with is offensive confidence seems to build faster than defensive confidence. That leads to a runaway effect where offensive play gets stronger while defensive play struggles. However this has only been a one season observation. That isn't a trend by any stretch. If it drops this season then it may be that last season was more an anomaly. Again though we need consistent data over time. 1 season doesn't provide that.

I get that part but we don't know how often that happens. I'm not saying there isn't a problem. Top players are seemingly demanding a lot almost out of the blue no matter how good they were the year before.The reason why I said that it isn't a big problem is that you should be expecting it. A top player is asking for top money and you are complaining. 2 years ago when he was released and you grabbed him he was definitely a top 20 goalie as the best goalie in game was I think 87 or 88 and Bublik was an 85. To be surprised that a high end player would ask for a lot is just making yourself to be a fool though. Personally I think the new contract system coming could potentially go into fixing the issue to a degree as it may stabilize the players contracts demands with what it does. Which to me also reduced the critical importance of it. Also frankly you and koekefix have all star quality teams and should be dealing with serious budget issues like Chicago has continuously for a number of seasons. You are just starting to feel that pinch. You two aren't the only two either. A number of the top teams in the GHL have been abusing the contracts and eventually some tough decisions are going to have to be made sooner or later. Personally I don't see Bublik asking for less than 7 no matter what. And he shouldn't. He is the #2 goalie in the entirety of Biscut in overall. If you do let him go and he gets signed for less than 7 I'm going to be sending a message to Anders because that is a problem. The bigger issue to me is the bigger discrepancy between offense and defense. Last year goals against per game per team rose nearly half a goal per from the year prior across the board. Will goals stay unusually high this season or will they come back down?

The same with many players that I have watched. They ask a little more for a few seasons then ask for nearly double compared to the past seemingly randomly. The problem is we don't know what is causing it. In the end though it isn't exactly an overly big problem. We are talking about higher end players suddenly asking for more rather than role players jumping up in prices. It would be nice for it to be more linear but even in life there is randomness. Basically know that higher end players will ask for more and when they do it may happen seemingly at random.

Top goalies, and players in general, are quite a bit expensive and will become even more so supposedly when the next big update comes around as players with lower greed traits are asking for way too little for their skill currently and that will be changed thankfully.

You do realize there are only 2 defenders that even fit your listed requirements right? Unless you are rather lax but then it is still less than 10 total. Not trying to be rude just giving you an FYI in case you didn't realize how few there were that come close to your listed requirements. As for my team I have G Megginson on the block. I am not looking for anything specific in return outside of short term on the returning contract(s).

I think the greed trait could and really should stay as there are players in real life that are willing to take noticeably less than other equivalent players and the "home team discount" is a real observable thing but the difference between loyalist and mercenary needs to be smaller for sure. I don't know the current mathematical spread difference between Loyalist and Mercenary but for argument sake let us assume it is 50% meaning a Loyalist demands 50% of what a Mercenary would. I think it would be a lot more realistic at about 15%. I could do the rough math of the difference of what the current difference might be with the example I am about to provide but there is no actual way to show I am right however it is obviously a significantly higher percentage. So example time. One of the best shooters and overall players in the Biscuit GHL is a mercenary and demands close to 9 million. Using him as the basis of best players overall I can show the difference between what Loyalist would look like with the differences of 10 and 15% off. 10% of 9,000,000= 8,100,000 15% of 9,000,000= 7,650,000 For the heck of it I will add 3 more percentages: 12.5%, 17.5% and 20%. 12.5% of 9,000,000= 7,875,000 17.5% of 9,000,000= 7,425,000 20% of 9,000,000= 7,200,000 Personally I see 20% as a bit of an extreme but not so unrealistic that it isn't acceptable and should still be considered. However I do see 10% as too extreme the other way as in too small of a difference. That is just me though. How would this work with the 5 sets of the greed trait? Simple. With Loyalist at 10% and mercenary always at 0 the other three (Team player, professional and Individualist) would have to be 2.5%, 5% and 7.5% respectfully. With Loyalist at 12.5% the other three would have to be 3.125%, 6.25% and 9.375%. At 15%; 3.75%, 7.5% and 11.25%. At 17.5%; 4.375%, 8.75% and 13.125%. Finally at 20%; 5%, 10% and 15%. Now this obviously will prevent too unrealistically low salary demands however how does this prevent very high offers from skewing the market causing things to go out of control? This acts as a grounding basis where the player demands are. The human managers can still offer higher than market value without distorting the market all together.

A couple of things to point out. 1. All players without a promotional contract can be cut for free when you promote. This also holds true in trades when you trade with a lower league team. If you acquire a player from the league below you that does not have a promotional contract you can cut them for free. 2. Promotional contracts will go up based upon what % of the cap space the players contract takes up. For example a player with a 2 million dollar contract in the SHL will have an 8 million dollar contract in the GHL when the team promotes. Why? 2/15 = 8/60. With that in mind you may want to make sure you have the cap space you are thinking you may have. Also make sure the players with promotional contracts are actually worth holding on to if you (more accurately for you Steve, when) promote. If not trade them late in the season for either players with expiring contracts or players without promotional contracts and remember to not be greedy. You are trying to get rid of players you will not want or need when you promote. You are not trying to trade to acquire players to keep. Trading for a player you will keep would be a great bonus but it should not be what you are looking for as what you are looking for is a balanced trade to get rid of contracts you don't want to hold on to when you promote. Personally I am with Steve here although I must say I do see a bit of an issue. The issue is not the salary cap. The issue is with the contracts of what would be high end SHL players are demanding in comparison to their demands from GHL teams instead. Understandably they aren't the same and they shouldn't be. Such players are playing bigger roles where they should demand more money. It also really helps to prevent stacking SHL teams. However they also are too far apart in my opinion. A typical high end SHL goalie will normally want 2 million or so with a promotional clause attached. That is the equivalent to, as shown above, an 8 million dollar contract in the GHL for what would be in the GHL more likely a good but not great starter which should be earning about half of that in GHL terms. This however isn't an actual issue with the game. This is actually a lack of player knowledge and foresight issue. There are so many managers in this game that I have seen throw around 4+ year contracts to players that should never be getting anything more than 2 year contracts. As for the issue Steve pointed out about the difference between his top SHL team and even mid tier GHL teams that kind of should be the case but there is a problem there. Granted this problem will go away with more players in the higher leagues but in the league me and Steve are in a lot of the better GHL players that at one time were available on AI teams controlled by either the AI or the manager was on vacation have been poached for poor quality returns by other players. I don't doubt this is going on in nearly every league and it definitely isn't one manager but it would mitigate the issue if the AI would be more strict by what they would accept in return for trades. I'm not sure how best to do that. Partly because there are still instances where some players have too high a trade value in relative to their actual worth. This player for instance: http://www.gameplanhockey.com/player?gpid=4190. If it does not pull him up it is a 31yo 80 overall forward with an excellent trade value in the GHL. There is no reason for him to have such a high trade value, at least in my opinion. Using both the old trade meter and the current trade board it says offering him for the best players in the game is a fair deal, or in the board set up one that is acceptable by both boards, in a 1 for 1 trade. The best players are just shy of 90 overall in this league and the game is thinking this 80 overall 31 year old is an equal to them. This isn't near as common an issue as it was in the past but there are still a few such instances. Combine that with the AI accepting a number of lower quality and trade value rated players for 1 or a few higher rated and trade value players too often and you get how most higher end players are getting poached form the AI. I get it is impossible to actually prevent and in no way is poaching actually cheating but it is a rather unsporting move to your fellow human managers playing the game with you to poach the better players from AI teams in these manners for such poor returns. No human player (outside of one human using and trading with farm teams) would accept these kind of trades and the AI shouldn't either as much as possible.

2 massive reasons and one minor reason for the placement of Knudsen on the 4th line rather than the 3rd with Klein and Jackson. 1. If you put Knudsen on the line with Klein and Jackson there would be nobody on that line with more than 77 passing. Having nobody to distribute the puck on a line makes any shooter on said line nearly worthless. Thus you would have to put that line as defensive for any serious effectiveness from it on the whole which nullifies the great shots on that line that much more. To exasperate the problem that much more none of the players on said line would be particularly good at holding onto the puck meaning the opposing team will very likely have more puck possession against that line and with that line playing defensive by force as pointed out earlier it essentially is creating a line where the opposing team is guaranteed to have the puck in your defensive end the entire time that line is out there. Yes that line would be a shut down line but you would pretty much be wasting 2 quality shooters by not giving them any even strength chances and that line would be pinned in its own end the majority of the time. 2. You need a defensively responsible forward to go along with Stanford if you want to play him as your 4th line C over Baillie. If you went strictly by current skill Baillie would be the player to play but Stanford will develop faster if he plays and you need him to develop as fast as possible. 3. You could switch Knudsen and Jackson around in my suggested lineup without any issue as you will get the same net result for the most part either way but I put Knudsen on the 4th for as much of a physical presence on the 4th line as possible. It is based upon personal preference more than anything else though so if you would rather Knudsen be on the 3rd and Jackson on the 4th go for it. All of your lines are going to get scored on to some degree. Also more importantly your team isn't exactly the strongest defensively either. Your first line getting scored on is therefore completely irrelevant. They scored (without looking) 6 goals total and have a -10 or so as a line in 12 games. That means one of two things, or worse both. 1. Your D/G they are playing with is crap. 2. They aren't getting enough production themselves. I am heavily leaning to a lack of production as a big part of it because, simply put, 2 goals and 4 points from Lindsay is absolutely atrocious. If he so much as scored 5 more goals (if they were at even strength) in those games he would have a more acceptable 9 points and the line would be a -5 which is a lot better than -10. That is not taking into account that more offense from that line would help out defensively meaning, in theory, that some of those goals against would not have happened had the line scored instead. I actually seriously thought that your team had a chance to sneak into the playoffs thanks to your offense if it clicked (your team has a number of quality scorers the questions in my mind were if you had enough playmakers to go around and if your D could hold up) but with the hole your team dug for itself early thanks to a lack of offense it pretty much forces your focus to turn to keeping out of relegation.

The biggest issue with your team is that your first line is not scoring. It is very surprising to me to see Lindsay struggling so. I actually was expecting that Lindsay and Miettinen would have been a rather good combo but based upon all indications they weren't quite clicking if you were playing them together earlier. Miettinen and Lindsay should be ok together at worst though. Miettinen and Gates are your two best playmakers and one of them has to be playing with Lindsay on your top line. The other one should be on the second line with Pin who is arguably your second best scorer. Your team only has 3 good passers in your forward group. You need all 3 (Kukkonen being your third) in your top 2 lines if you hope to have any successful offense going. In comparison you have 5 good scorers. This is what I would have as your forward line up if I had your team. Line 1: LW Lindsay C Miettinen RW Kukkonen when healthy Line 2: LW Gates C Ilves RW Pin Line 3: LW Mook C Klein when healthy RW Jackson Line 4 LW Bernatchez C Stanford RW Knudsen Edit: I know that Miettinen and Lindsay appear to have been struggling together but Miettinen is by far and away your best C and best playmaker as well. If Miettinen and Lindsay just don't click at all you could swap Lindsay with Pin in my suggested lineup. If you do that you have to keep in mind to keep Lindsay and Pin on the same side as they are on in my suggested lineup. The fact that you don't have another solid second C that can pass creates a bit of inflexibility in your lineup. This is what I would have as your defense if it matters. Line 1: LD Goshorn RD Vandenbussche (it doesn't matter which is on which side but they are your two best defensemen and they NEED to be getting the most ice time) Line 2: LD Sommelius RD either Lynch or Bidwell 6 one half dozen the other on which Line 3: LD Schaefer RD Lynch or Bidwell whichever one is not on the second pair My PP suggestions, again if it matters. PP1: forwards a copy paste of my suggested first line with the D being Goshorn on the left and Jackson being the RD. PP2: again copy paste of line 2 with the D being Sommelius on the left and Knudsen on the right. PK again if it matters PK1: Klein and Jackson with Goshorn and Vandenbussche PK2: Here it depends upon how willing you are to sacrifice on winning faceoffs. If you don't mind losing faceoffs for the best PK forwards I would suggest Lindsay as the C with Gates as the winger. If you want to try to win faceoffs I would set it with Kukkonen and your choice of Lindsay or Gates as the other forward. Defensively it should be Lynch and Bidwell. If you want to improve your team you need 2 things the most. Another top 6 playmaking forward and a 1st or 2nd line defensive defensemen. You could go for a good playmaking forward in Alexandr Tokarev in the SHL but who to offer in return is the issue.

It is but there is a bug where 5 minute majors that aren't fighting majors don't get counted as penalties in the statistics. Your team scored 3 times on a 5 minute power play. Take those out and your power play went 2/5. Add them in and your team went 5/9 on the power play. As for your concern regarding having what happened last time you shouldn't worry. Your team is much better prepared this time. The question for your team is how will your average defense and slightly below average goal tending manage all the pims likely coming your way with 10 "undisciplined" players and opposing offenses in general. That being said I don't doubt you will be fighting for a playoff spot if your D and goal tending can hold up for the most part, which I think it will. Edit: edited for error regarding PP goals. I cant count.

History first. The 1st season was a near disaster as I was randomly given the worst team by far in the SHL. 23 games in I was dead last with 18 losses. However Anders was adding players via FA and I was adding what I could and it would show as the rest of the season I only lost 4 more games in regulation to go from last to finish 4th. Season 2 was just add to the nucleus of what I had with the aim of growing the team for an eventual run at the GHL. Surprise was to be had when I, completely unexpectedly, beat a better SHL team and GHL team in the playoffs to promote. I was planning on 1 more year in the SHL to continue growing my younger players but I wasn't going to get it. I knew going into season 3 I had to completely retool if I wanted to have a chance of staying in the GHL because my team as it was was completely incapable of competing in the GHL. Thus I signed everything I could. There was a big negative to my team however. A lot of the players I signed were very undisciplined making it almost normal for my team to be trying to kill 6 penalties or more a game. I was completely unhappy with that despite my team fighting near the top of the GHL standings so I did a near complete retool mid season to mostly end up with the team that I currently have. As for this season my team is built D first. It is arguably the deepest team defensively. The issue is that I only have 6 noteworthy scorers in my forward group. That isn't a lot of scoring depth so I really have to lean on my D and goal tending to win games this year while also hoping I avoid many injuries, especially to my scorers as the end of last season proved how much my team will struggle with injuries to my scorers. I have some pieces I can trade to address the scoring depth and there are some GHL teams that are badly in need of some positions that I am deep in that have scoring available to trade but they have to be willing to deal first. Either way I am happy with where my team is for this season. Next season is a bit of concern however but that is months away and I have time. This season first. Season goals: Make the playoffs. Biggest signing was D Mc-Govern. I needed a 2nd line D man to go with Bergstrom and got him, which was nice.

That trade offer is not worth complaining about at all OP. No it isn't a fair trade both ways but it isn't completely atrocious to be called a troll offer. it is a respectable attempt but has poor value of return for what you are giving up. This is one worth mentioning and Matt I'm not calling you out per se here but really? http://www.gameplanhockey.com/goalie?gpid=427(22yo G at 84OVR with gifted and enthusiastic for development) for http://www.gameplanhockey.com/player?gpid=14498 (25yo D at 75OVR with gifted and purposeful for development) Would you accept this offer in reverse Matt? If so lets trade Broz for Berardi then I'll accept your offer. Besides this trade being a WTF from Matt the only thing wrong with it is that the player being offered will never be near as good nor is near as valuable now much less in the future yet has the same trade value as the player being requested in return. The defender he is offering has too high a trade value. That isn't Matt's fault. PSA TO EVERYONE: Think about the trade you are offering. Would you even consider accepting the trade you are thinking about offering if the situation were reversed? If not don't bother sending it.

I've seen games where one team got over 100 PIMs+ in games. One where both teams combined were around 500 I think. Phi-Ott back in early 2000s. Granted most of that was from fighting and misconducts but I have also seen stat lines from games where one team had over 10 power plays. It is just rare. So long as it is relatively rare in game I have no issue with it.

Those such games happen in real life too. The important thing is how close are we in this game to reality when it comes to ratio on how often it happens.

I'm not a big fan of the trade restriction regarding signed players, especially for a year. A year is complete nonsense. There isn't any such restriction in any sport. To boot this game has one of the better trade systems regarding AI. Most players with high trade value have it for a reason. You are not going to get a good player from the AI without giving something respectable in return too. Human players are another matter however I doubt a lot of new players would be open to taking bad deals that the trade meter somehow says is fair. I'm not in all leagues and I cant go over all of the trades so I can't be 100% on that but in this game from what I have seen nobody is getting great players for nothing in return.

Toronto isn't as bad as claimed above but the impact Babcock has made is undeniable. Maybe have the option to hire a coach to run the small things on the team giving someone the ability to focus on managing the team. That being said how to make it so a coach doesn't provide a boost that someone that would rather be the coach would then not have access too. There are a lot of other things to discuss about the possibility of this but I have to stop here.

Nothing wrong with the idea at all. In reality there are drills that focus on one skill. If this gets looked into it should come at a cost. Focusing on one skill should hurt the overall development in the long run while gaining faster specific skill development for the given duration. I can see why Jusatin is making the suggestion but as pointed out above currently you can specialize to a limited degree and it is rather sufficient for the current game. But hey why not because the request makes sense and it would be doable. I would only ask that this not be put on the front burner unless it is a quick and easy add.

Kevin do you want either of the 75+ overall players back or are you ok without them? You would have to get them back through FA as I would release them. I was planning on either using them as backups or playing them depending upon trades.

I sent the best offer I could to both of you. I just hope this works for me like I plan.