rainsilent

I plan on having a go at providing for at least one topic this weekend.

Welcome back you two.

Well, I tend to like your looks so don't ask me to decide. The current two iterations look nice too.

Problem is that I don't think that managers are going to have to deal with serious cap issues still. I say that because I think players are not going to demand salaries based upon their skills and instead demand based too much upon where in the lineup they played. This was the issue in the past that allowed teams to collect top end talent and then keep it. I agree that in the ballpark of 9-10 is about what you should have to pay for a McDavid esque player in this game with where the cap is as that is about right. I just hope that those players on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines of the top teams that have grown beyond where they are in the lineup are asking for salary reflecting that fact thus creating that cap crunch issue. Early indications aren't showing that to be the case yet.

NHL doesn't translate when the cap here is 10 million lower and player demands are roughly 2/3rds of NHL equivalent demands.

Deals like that were rare as all going back to the old build. That is ridiculous money to be throwing at one player.

Congratulations Erzac. It is good to see you win one. Well deserved.

I would have gone to my last games data and checked the detailed results but it has been too long so I can't. That said I think it is pretty much the same thing. Edit: This does not mean that there isn't some kind of out of position penalty or something of the like.

I can see quite a many players starting off of the bat from this draft. At the current moment, low 80s is more than workable in most lineups. In fact, I would dare say that a few managers can get all of their picks playing right now. Most notably the Rage's 3 picks could all be starting off of the bat and be productive.

Someone who is cocky thinks too highly of themselves without justification. Confidence is someone who thinks highly of what they are capable of because of what they have done. The line being referred to by the saying you heard is if someone actually has the skill to back up what they are saying because a cocky person is trying to pass themselves off as confident.

Sorry. I don't specifically know how much of a difference it makes to have them playing a lot vs a little. I don't think anyone does outside of Anders because testing that would be impossible. Outside of the known note that they get better faster if they are happy with their performance I am not sure that it matters. That said if you are concerned about playing time try not to have too many players above them on the minor team is the best that you can do. That said I think the easiest solution would be just having the ability to have an organizational depth chart and the minor team would go off of that.

Best luck rest of the playoffs too.

Congratulations to Erzac on a good series. Every game was very close and decided on one goal.

I echo the welcome back. In regards to demotion, I said this somewhere that I actually currently see demotion as an advantage, especially if you don't have a strong team, because of all of the very meh 3-4 year contracts that a lot of GHL teams have. In fact, for a few days, I was seriously debating trying to deliberately do exactly that when I got this team. Had my second line not carried my team through the first month of the season at the top of the standings and I would have been fighting for a playoff spot like I thought I would have been I would have gone ahead and been a seller. Ideally, you would quickly turn your team around so that you are back in the GHL by season 3 or 4. As a result, you could potentially gather a number of young players to build a team around. On top of it a number of players might be hitting FA too that would make good role players to fill in any gaps. All this while you likely pick low to mid in the draft for a year or two in the GHL while you build up your younger players. Edit: The best time to take advantage of this though was this season. While it practically can still be done in the future you become more limited in what you can do in total as there are less bad contracts you can potentially use to your advantage when demoting.

So far as I understand it the training fully does this.

I did indeed. A cocky person still isn't naturally confident. Case in point how many stories are there of someone saying that they can do something when they know they can't and later on admitted as such. I could be cocky as all saying that I can score a goal on Tuukka Rask for example however I have absolutely no confidence that I could actually score that goal. How many times do you hear a fan say that they could have made a better play than a player of a given sport? Like I could have hit that shot, made that pass, save, whatever. I feel fairly sure in saying that most of those fans can't back up what they are saying and know it. Cocky isn't the same thing as confidence. On the inverse when you see someone that is confident in something are they being cocky too?

Best overall defensemen. It wouldn't be too bad an idea to offer another reward for most points by a Dman. As for defensive you can sort by blocks and takeaways. Not a lot of forwards would likely show up though. Thus the time consuming task of searching through each team would have to be done. Thus if you want I'd be willing to do that.

I'm not sure +/- should be a factor at all in the calculations. Also for defensive forward I'm not sure points should be a factor either. Either way great work.

Player roles and line set ups. Snipers and power forwards seem to be the biggest shot takers. Having the line they are on be offensively focused will encourage more offense. Beyond that, it comes down to how your team plays relative to your opponent.

As I think any team would want their best shooter taking every shot in the game however when has that happened in an NHL game? I've seen instances where Brooks Orpik takes a shot on goal even though Alex Ovechkin is on the ice. The reality is that if a player finds themselves in a good shooting position then they should take the shot because you don't know if you will even get a better shot chance in that same offensive zone time.

Take shots away is a rather poor way of looking at it. Explaining why would be getting real deep into probability mathematics that doesn't go into answering your question so I won't give you a full explanation. Suffice to say the answer is no with a short explanation that the shot a given player takes no one else was going to take. Basically, unless you have a way of finding out if your team is doing this: Don't worry about who specifically is taking however many shots.

Big Games is over rated in my opinion. A nervous or anxious player with a cocky ego can be just as clutch as a heroic or determined player. I don't go for any one thing over another as much as I try to find a balance and then keep it. If my team has high team work and winner instinct and I lose someone I try to make sure that what I get to replace them isn't too different than what I lost in terms of ego and clutch traits to avoid too drastic a swing. The only time I key on any one trait is when looking at player development so I can try to guess how much actual potential the player has left in them. If they are growing a lot with lazy they likely are world class talents. If they are growing moderately with ambitious they likely aren't better than a B prospect.

It is indeed uncertain. That said for just one game I would scout the other team too and see what they have been using and use that to also factor into the decision. If they happen to be using current tactics that are better against one over the other that would also carry some weight into it.

Anxious and uncomfortable is relating more to how they handle pressure. It is possible to have a confident player that doesn't handle pressure well. Thus those two things are comparing two different characteristics of a player that don't directly relate.

Chemistry between players is a bit of a thing actually. Some players will just work with others better. It's not that big a thing because too much of this is easily a bad thing. This is as I understand things currently and I could be wrong. In terms of more tactical options line wise for individual players that would be interesting. As for different lines while it might not be exactly as you mean an energy line will throw their bodies around more. As for player development Paul I think Peek is more talking about the fact that many younger players, once they hit about 20-21 their development suddenly stops to a crawl. It is a consistent thing across most players in 2 game worlds that I have noticed. It might be because the players are reaching their skill cap that we cannot see however if that is the case a 21yo 81 overall player should not be listed as showing great potential with excellent trade value for the GHL for example. Also in terms of preventing what we had before remember that each player has a growth cap for each skill. Not every player can get to 90+ in everything anymore.