Challenge 17: The Sarnia Sting (Discussion Thread)

bestrafer7 · Post by **bestrafer7** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 4:42 pm

bruins72 wrote:I love how players turn out differently for everyone. It adds some spice to the game.

Unless you get the bad ones.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 4:44 pm

bestrafer7 wrote:
bruins72 wrote:I love how players turn out differently for everyone. It adds some spice to the game.
Unless you get the bad ones.

Sure, that can be bad but it's rare that you get all bad ones. Usually, you'll see I might have Player A turn out good but Player B will be a disappointment while you might get better results out of Player B while Player A just doesn't do much for you.

Post by **timmy_t** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:15 pm

bruins72 wrote:I love how players turn out differently for everyone. It adds some spice to the game.

I agree! I would honestly say this is challenge has been the most enjoyable one I've ever been in.

bestrafer7 · Post by **bestrafer7** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:15 pm

timmy_t wrote:
bruins72 wrote:I love how players turn out differently for everyone. It adds some spice to the game.
I agree! I would honestly say this is challenge has been the most enjoyable one I've ever been in.

I wish we would have waited for the Edmonton Oilers challenge until next season because that would been fun to try and turn the team around with Hall and Svensson.

Toronto could be challenging, but their was already a Maple Leafs challenge.

A Prince George Cougars challenge would be fun. They just picked 1st in the Bantam and CHL import draft. Alex Forsberg and Martin Marincin could be fun players to build around. Edmonton Oil Kings in the WHL would be another team.

OHL is my favorite CHL league, but I think I prefer the NHL better because you have more players to bring in, but then again, it seems like everyone does too well at those challenges.

I think the best option for Challenge 18 would be the Tampa Bay Lightning. Atlanta, New York or Buffalo would be other funs teams to do a challenge with.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:09 pm

A lot of people ended up turning around the Oilers with Hall and Svensson. We had a whole bunch of people bomb in season 1 and draft Hall.

We'll have to look at the teams once the regular season start and once Lidas makes a new DB. We should be able to find a good NHL team to use in that one and Lidas had a good idea for a way to make things interesting with a Cap penalty to force us to trim our rosters. We could use a good team but be forced to get waive several good players. It should be interesting!

Post by **timmy_t** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 7:07 pm

bruins72 wrote:... We could use a good team but be forced to get waive several good players. It should be interesting!

I'm up for it!

bestrafer7 · Post by **bestrafer7** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 8:28 am

bruins72 wrote:A lot of people ended up turning around the Oilers with Hall and Svensson. We had a whole bunch of people bomb in season 1 and draft Hall.

We'll have to look at the teams once the regular season start and once Lidas makes a new DB. We should be able to find a good NHL team to use in that one and Lidas had a good idea for a way to make things interesting with a Cap penalty to force us to trim our rosters. We could use a good team but be forced to get waive several good players. It should be interesting!

I like the idea. Tampa is looking like a mighty fine candidate with the recent acquisition of Gagne.

Post by **Manimal** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:07 pm

bruins72 wrote: We'll have to look at the teams once the regular season start and once Lidas makes a new DB.

There is going to be a lot of time between the end of this challenge and when the database comes out.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:56 pm

Manimal wrote:
bruins72 wrote: We'll have to look at the teams once the regular season start and once Lidas makes a new DB.
There is going to be a lot of time between the end of this challenge and when the database comes out.

I wasn't sure what the timeline was. Enough time for another challenge possibly, like 2-3 months? We'll have to start thinking about something to run if we're going to have enough people around that are interested in participating. Things are pretty slow here in August.

Post by **Manimal** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:58 pm

bruins72 wrote:
Manimal wrote:
bruins72 wrote: We'll have to look at the teams once the regular season start and once Lidas makes a new DB.
There is going to be a lot of time between the end of this challenge and when the database comes out.
I wasn't sure what the timeline was. Enough time for another challenge possibly, like 2-3 months? We'll have to start thinking about something to run if we're going to have enough people around that are interested in participating. Things are pretty slow here in August.

My advice is get something going for two months, perhaps. It will most likely take that long to get the new database set up. We don't want to release a half-full version

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 9:29 pm

Makes sense to me!

Post by **timmy_t** » Sun Jul 25, 2010 6:09 pm

I've just finished game 40 in season four. Even thought my record is xx-xx-x-x, I'm having a rough stretch right now. I can't get any lines to consistently score, I can't score on the powerplay, I can't stop the opposition's powerplay, and I kinda-sorta figured out that bigger players hit more. (four of my defenseman are only about 170 lbs, ugh!)

To make it worse, my top three players (in my mind at least

) are away at the World Juniors. I have a defenseman from Kazakhstan (unknown regen), a center from Sweden (Forsberg regen I think), and an American left winger (maybe Keith Tkachuk

or Trent Klatt

) that are playing for their respective teams. I also drafted Arturs Irbe's regen in last year's Import draft playing for Latvia (he won't come to the U.S., but I was hoping that his NHL team would sign him and send him to me... muah ha ha

Mid-Season Rankings came out for the NHL Draft. I have 8 players ranked:

#4 Sal Belfour (USA) LW 6'1" 198 lbs
#13 Egor Dubrovsky (KAZ) RD 6' 227 lbs
#20 Calum Ireland (CAN) RW 6'1" 180 lbs
#21 Justyn Van Leusen (CAN) LD 6'2" 160 lbs
#33 Jean-Yves Adair (CAN) C/LW 6'3" 198 lbs
#103 Marcello Benoit (CAN) RW/LW 6'1" 189 lbs
#137 Scott Draper (CAN) RW/C 5'11" 156 lbs
#161 Robert Laplante (CAN) RW 6'1" 211 lbs

I'm hoping to get back on track and finish strong. I'm not sure if I'll play another season before Aug 10th, but I'll try.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 1:05 pm

Debating on doing an 8th season. I've been doing them at work because I can. And right now I'm recovering from surgery so I definitely have time to finish it and possibly even a 9th season. The problem is that I see most people are only the first few seasons. The closest person has not even started a 5th season.

I think I will end my challenge at 7 seasons and just go back one of my other saved seasons, and wait for the next challenge.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 3:16 pm

bruins72 wrote:So October has rolled around and ISS released their preliminary rankings.

Francisco is ranked 29th. Of course, he's one of the guys we had when we started the game. He's played every game for us in each of the two season, putting up 41 points in his first season and 72 in his second. He's got 4 point in 4 games so far this season. He's playing on the 1st line and the 1st PP unit.

Lindsay Germain is raked 166th. Germain is the goaltender I picked in the 4th round of the 2007 draft. He played in 25 games in the 07-08 season. He had a record of 14-7-3 with a 3.24 GAA and .885 SV%. In 4 games so far this season he has a record of 4-0-0 with a 1.97 GAA and a .922 SV%. I'm expecting him to the our #1 goalie this season.

Simon Richard is ranked 182nd. Richard is a right defenseman I picked in the 1st round (11th overall) of the 2007 draft. He's a skilled defenseman with 1st line potential. He played just 6 games for us in 07-08, scoring a goal and logging 17 PIMs. He played 54 games for the Legionnaires in 07-08 and put up 70 points with a +48 and 80 PIMs. He's made the jump to the main roster this season. In 4 games so far this season he just 1 assist, a +2, and 4 PIMs.

The NHL's draft is top loaded with European talent this year. There are just 6 North Americans (4 from Canada and 2 from the US) in the top 30 of ISS rankings.

So I finally found some time to play my challenge team again. It's mid-season ISS rankings time.

Francisco is now ranked 41st. He dropped from 29th. He hasn't been as good this season. He's got 30 points in 38 games so far.

Germain dropped to 169th. This I don't understand. He's having a great season. He's got a record of 22-6-1 with a GAA of 2.15 and a .924 SV%. I would have figured his ranking would have gone up.

And Richard's ranking went up from 182nd to 179th. Not much but at least it's an improvement. He's got 24 points in 38 games and a +10. Not bad for a defenseman.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 2:43 pm

We've got just about a week left on this challenge! Time to wrap up any unfinished seasons. I know I've got to try and get season 3 done.

Post by **McQwak** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 4:03 pm

Yeah, I'm finishing only my 1st season

Will post records this week, hopefully.

Post by **timmy_t** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 10:23 pm

I'm a little over a quarter finished with season five. I think I remember batdad saying that you would need to have 5 seasons to really see how you are as a GM because all of the players would be ones you drafted.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my team, but I was really disappointed when my players would get signed by their NHL team. I wasn't really prepared for that in this season, and I have a huge hole down the middle.

The one thing that surprises me is how the challenge activity dropped off the map a couple of weeks ago.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed Aug 04, 2010 6:29 pm

I think challenge activity dropped off so much because we're right in the middle of the summer and hockey isn't on many people's minds right now. The draft is done and so isn't the initial free agent frenzy. Things will probably get a little more active around here in September when training camps start.

Post by **batdad** » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:07 am

Yeah in junior 5 seasons is the key to how you are really doing as a GM/Scout etc. I really wish I had more time but I just do not right now.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 3:19 pm

Same here. I'm desperately hoping to finish season three today. I'm through with the regular season. I just have the playoffs to get through and then to get to July 1st.

Post by **McQwak** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 4:12 pm

Me too. I'm finishing the first season today and will post records.
I sucked in it

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 4:27 pm

That first season is rough!

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 9:25 pm

bruins72 wrote:
bruins72 wrote:So October has rolled around and ISS released their preliminary rankings.

Francisco is ranked 29th. Of course, he's one of the guys we had when we started the game. He's played every game for us in each of the two season, putting up 41 points in his first season and 72 in his second. He's got 4 point in 4 games so far this season. He's playing on the 1st line and the 1st PP unit.

Lindsay Germain is raked 166th. Germain is the goaltender I picked in the 4th round of the 2007 draft. He played in 25 games in the 07-08 season. He had a record of 14-7-3 with a 3.24 GAA and .885 SV%. In 4 games so far this season he has a record of 4-0-0 with a 1.97 GAA and a .922 SV%. I'm expecting him to the our #1 goalie this season.

Simon Richard is ranked 182nd. Richard is a right defenseman I picked in the 1st round (11th overall) of the 2007 draft. He's a skilled defenseman with 1st line potential. He played just 6 games for us in 07-08, scoring a goal and logging 17 PIMs. He played 54 games for the Legionnaires in 07-08 and put up 70 points with a +48 and 80 PIMs. He's made the jump to the main roster this season. In 4 games so far this season he just 1 assist, a +2, and 4 PIMs.

The NHL's draft is top loaded with European talent this year. There are just 6 North Americans (4 from Canada and 2 from the US) in the top 30 of ISS rankings.
So I finally found some time to play my challenge team again. It's mid-season ISS rankings time.

Francisco is now ranked 41st. He dropped from 29th. He hasn't been as good this season. He's got 30 points in 38 games so far.

Germain dropped to 169th. This I don't understand. He's having a great season. He's got a record of 22-6-1 with a GAA of 2.15 and a .924 SV%. I would have figured his ranking would have gone up.

And Richard's ranking went up from 182nd to 179th. Not much but at least it's an improvement. He's got 24 points in 38 games and a +10. Not bad for a defenseman.

Francisco was ranked 40th overall in the Final ISS rankings. In season 2 he was strong but his play really seemed to dip in season 3. He finished the season with 44 points in 63 games. He's also injured going into round 2 of the playoffs after playing only 2 games in the first round.

Germain moved up to 151st overall in the Final ISS rankings. He had a great season with a record of 36-10-3 with a .916 SV% and a 2.30 GAA. His average rating was 8.45. Germain will be my starting goalie again next season as long as an NHL club doesn't snatch him from us.

And Richard made a huge jump! He went from 179th up to 63rd overall! This was his first full season with the Sting and he was a regular in the lineup. He had 39 points in 68 games, with 19 of those points being goals. He was also a +19 and had an average rating of 7.54. He had 20:07 ATOI.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue Aug 10, 2010 9:42 pm

Ugh! I don't think I'm going to get my end of season 3 stats in on time. I'm in mid-May, won the Robertson Cup, did the OHL Priority Draft and just need to get through to the Memorial Cup and then July 1st so I can get my screenshots... but I'm leaving work in 20 minutes and won't be able to play at home. I'm loving this challenge but time has been so scarce for me lately.

Post by **Manimal** » Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:33 pm

bruins72 wrote:Ugh! I don't think I'm going to get my end of season 3 stats in on time. I'm in mid-May, won the Robertson Cup, did the OHL Priority Draft and just need to get through to the Memorial Cup and then July 1st so I can get my screenshots... but I'm leaving work in 20 minutes and won't be able to play at home. I'm loving this challenge but time has been so scarce for me lately.

Could you do it tomorrow? I believe I speak for the lot of us when I say you could grant yourself one day. After all, you are the one running the challenges