Mint-Syrup

In Silver, Montmorency Waterfalls has quite an advantage (13M) although it doesn't translate to them dominating. There's also my team, Valleyview Pharaos, with basically Argus Nygaard over the cap (1.7). The other player I contracted was a rookie.
 
The relegated teams in Bronze seem to be more discreet. The Textline Timberwolves are within the cap. The North Shore Jaws are 2,5 over a cap of 5M, yet are not dominating either.
 
In Iron, the Pelee Island Pirates are 800.000 over the 1.5 cap. The White Mountain Patriots are only 150.000 and it shows with a rough start in the season.
 
In Lower Iron, the Hamilton Lion Hearts are dominating with 150.000 over the 900.000 cap. The Buzz Rats are within the cap.

This is a general user guide. For now it will be split up into 4 sections but I am saving room for one more just in case. Please know that this is never complete and is always an ongoing project with the work in progress label as nobody except for Anders knows everything about this game and even the best of us are constantly learning about this game. This will be bare to start with but I plan on having most of it filled to some degree within about a week or two depending upon the time available to me.
 
The 4 sections will be as follows. Team Basics, Player Basics, Team Advanced and Player Advanced. The 5th I am saving for something unforeseen or not thought of in advanced and may eventually just be used as a frequently asked questions list. If I end up needing more than 5. Umm... Oops. I'll make it work.
 
 
 
Team Basics
 
This section is all about the very basics on how to run a team. The topics covered here will be roster, cap, line and tactic basics. The very first thing to do is learn your team. Since player basics is the second part we will be getting more in depth with the player part there and we will skip to the roster in general.
 
Roster basics: The most obvious thing is that you need 18 skaters and 2 goalies at minimum. In an ideal situation you would also want 2 or 3 forwards and 1 or 2 defensemen as scratches in case of injury. Injuries happen. It is inevitable. It is best to be prepared for when it does happen so you aren't scrambling when it does. Beyond this part, in which many have probably rolled their eyes at, the only other things to really address here is team spirit and team reputation. Team spirit has 3 things underneath it. Confidence shows exactly how confidant your team is in its play. It will be more likely to grow with positive overall team results. Teamwork shows how well your team plays together. Winner instinct is basically a teams "it" factor. Does the team have "it" in them to consistently pull out wins in meaningful games.
 
Cap basics: A GHL team has a cap of 60 million to play with. SHL 15 million, BHL 4.5 million, IHL, 1.5 million and LIHL 750k. Every player has a contract that lasts a certain number of seasons. Contracts can have clauses as well. a Promotion clause means that the if the player remains on the team and the team promotes to a higher league the salary of the player will go up in proportion with the new salary. A one way clause means that the player will not go down to a lower league no matter what.
 
Line basics: Each forward line needs 3 skaters. Each defensive line 2 skaters. For the C position any skater can play it so you want to be playing the players with the best face off rating regardless of position. Also you want your best shooter not playing at C to be on the side opposite their handedness. This is called playing the off-wing. It allows this player to get better quality shots on net.
 
Tactic basics: Team tactics work in a rock, paper, scissors fashion. Each offensive and defensive system has strengths and weaknesses. However these tactics have a say in how your players develop, how your team performs and the team has to get familiar with the team tactic. When it comes to team tactics it is best to choose one based upon how you want you team to play in the long run. This is because when you change team tactics there is a "learning" period that the team has to go through and it will perform worse in the process. The players will adapt to the system. Line tactics (aka line settings) however do not work in a rock, paper, scissors fashion. Rather there basically are instructions to the players on how to play within the team system. Also they can be changed game to game without worry of change in the quality of team play.

Player Basics
 
This section is all about the basics you need to know about your players. Player skills and roles combined into one, profiles and training will be covered here.
 
Player skills and roles: First I am going to break down the players into 3. Forwards, defensemen and goalies. The reasoning relates to one skill. Faceoffs. Anybody can play the center position. However you want the most highly skilled players at faceoffs to be taking faceoffs no matter if they are a center or forward. On that note faceoffs shows how good a player is at faceoffs.
 
Skating shows how good a skater the player is. The importance of this skill is relevant to the team tactics you choose to use. That, along with other such information, will be covered later. Passing and puck handling show how good a player is at passing and puck handling. Combined these two skills are used to determine how good the player is at playing in a playmaker role as a forward. Shooting is about how good a shooter the player is and alone is used to determine how good the player is at playing a sniper role as a forward. Defense shows how good the player is at defense and is used to determine how good the player is at in playing the two way role as a forward. Physical is a representation of how physical the player plays. This is used to determine 2 roles. In the power forward role physical is combined with shooting and passing to determine how good the player will be for that role as a forward. A power forward is a forward that plays physical and has offensive skill. Physical is also used in combination with the players actual size (height and weight) to determine how good of an enforcer role the player can fill as a forward. Spirit, according to the old help system was a determination of how willing the player was to block shots and how hard the player back checked. Basically I sum it up as how much the player is willing to put into each game in terms of giving it all for the team. In terms of player roles this is used to determine how good a player would be as a grinder in the forward role. Endurance shows how much the player can do before getting tired.
 
You may have noticed that I didn't include defensive player roles. The reasoning is simple. I don't think they work quite the way they should. So far as I can tell for a defenseman to be good at the two way role a defender has to be good in a defensive or offensive role first. There is a reason that I think this. I have never seen a defenseman that was only good at being a two way. However all the time I see a defender that is good at being offensive or defensive. If a requirement for one role is to be good at another first i don't think something is right.
 
The question then inevitably turns into what skills are most important for my forwards/Dmen? Well that is mostly determined by what team tactics and to a lesser degree line tactics you chose to use which again will be covered later. However I will say a few things now that I think are more basic. First will be the concession that, arguably, the most important skill for a majority of your defensemen is defense and everything else is secondary. Second that you will need some passers, scorers and pk players. Also right handed players are more likely to score more than left handed players. If you see two players with 85 in shooting with one being left handed and the other right the right handed player will be more likely to score more goals. So far as I can tell that is the only difference between right handed players and left. That being said you don't need to have but maybe one or two right handed shooter. Also player overall means nothing outside of base values for contract negotiations with players. The players individual skills are much more important than a players overall. An 85 overall player is not instantly better than an 81 overall player because of higher overall. Height and weight seem to not matter too much however the game ratings given to players is biased to physical players.
 
What about goalies? Goalies have their own skills so covering them separately seemed to be appropriate. Also there is an order of importance for skills when it comes to goalies that will pretty much never change. So here are the goalie skills grouped in order of importance and what they show. (And before anyone gets upset about me revealing something so "important" this stuff should be obvious to everyone outside of managers relatively new to hockey management games that know nothing about hockey. Also this is a guide. A guide is meant to help a player get better. A good game guide gets into the details of a game so players can understand what and why things work the way they do in game. Moving on.) Reflexes, positioning and athletics. These are the three skills that directly relate to a goalies ability to make saves and that is the primary function of your goalies. Reflexes show how quickly your goalie can react, positioning how well the goalie is at positioning themselves to the puck relative to the net and athletics is how mobile the goalie is. Puck control and spirit. These are two "modifier" skills. Puck control is how well the goalie can control their rebounds and spirit is again how all out the goalie is willing to go. The last two skills pretty much don't matter. Endurance and Puck handling. Puck handling is how well the goalie can play the puck. Endurance seems to mean nothing on a goalie since all goalies seem to be able to go the same number of games before getting tired. Also goalies that are tired seem to show no drop off in play due to fatigue.
 
Player Profiles: First it needs to be said that there are 2 hidden traits. Potential and greed. Potential is how good the player can be. Greed is how much money the player wants. The visible traits are ego, dirty, leadership, big games and ambition. Ego is how big of an ego the player has. Players with bigger egos can potentially be locker room problems. Dirty is how dirty the player plays. The more dirty they play the more likely they are to take penalties. Leadership is how good of a leader the player can be. Big games is how well a player can handle pressure. Ambition is how much desire the player has to be the best they possibly can be.
 
Training: Training can be focused one of three ways. Offensive, general and defensive. The differences between them is dictated by the team tactics you choose as those dictate what your players focus on training the most. Intensity is how hard the player trains. There is no reason to not be training on hard. Even if a player is all 99 they should be training on hard because it helps them keep that rating. Hard intensity training can also help delay a players regression due to age. If a player is getting tired give them less playing time so you can keep them on hard training.