How not to be one of the top-3 most penalized teams?

[Kekkonen]

Only my enforcer is set to aggressive, only my 4th line is a crash line set to hitting hard, and yet I'm almost always among the 3 most penalized teams (the only time I wasn't, I was 4th). I'm also usually very close to last in power play opportunities, despite having a good team (2 President's Trophies in the last 3 seasons, in the 3rd I lost out to the Leafs [!] by 1 point; I'm also the defending Stanley Cup champ).

[Kekkonen]

Need I add that at times I'm [Unh] -- 'feels like the referees in NHL are victimizing him'?

[hluraven]

Do you lead in both minor and major penalties, or are fighting (for example) penalties skewing the total PIMs. I tend to lead the league in PIMs and it is usually down to fighting majors, which is odd as I normally only allow one player to fight and that is allowed not encouraged. The rest are not allowed. I normally have Cairns as a bottom pairing Dman and he always leads the league in PIMs despite not being set to aggressive.

[Kekkonen]

I don't get many fighting majors. Ever since Boogaard made a new NHL record in PIM in one season in 2006-7, I haven't had players topping the league in PIM. Right now, 23 games into the 2011-12 season, my most penalized player is Ryan Wilson, who with 59 minutes is 14th in the league (25 of those are due to a game misconduct).

I do have a tough, aggressive team, but what leaves me [Unh] and feeling victimized is the fact that I'm almost always getting at least twice as many minors per game as my opposition.

[Shadd666]

It may have to deal with your coaches 'level of discipline' skills. If they're all weak or average in this area, you should take a lot of stupid penalties (elbowing, tripping, etc). It's always good to have 2-3 (or more) coaches with a high level in 'level of discipline' (ie 15+) to reduce the number of penalties.

Hope that helps

[Kekkonen]

Good suggestion. Lemaire is still my head coach, he has 17 in discipline. The rest are all 12-13.

[Shadd666]

Try to get one or two ass't coaches with higher level of discipline Especially your technical coaches (those used to coach off.skills, def.skills, tactics, and shooting). Man management should help too, and also maybe motivating.

But loads of bad penalties is generally due to a low level of discipline in the coaching staff

[hluraven]

Might be something in the tactics, I think gap control being set too tight can cause a lot of minor penalties for hooking etc

[Kekkonen]

'Normal' probably isn't too tight.

[Shadd666]

I usually use a tight gap control. I tried 'normal' once and had more penalties, because my players were too far from there opponents, and so slashed and hooked them often often. However, i didn't stay long with a normal gap control, so they may have correct this issue given the time...

With a tight gap control and 2-3 coaches at 15+ in level of discipline, i usually have 16-17 penalty minutes, even with 3 enforcers allowed to fight. When i have no enforcers in my team, i tend to be around 10-12 minutes, in the bottom 3 of the penalized teams.

[Danny]

I think sometimes it's just random, no matter what you do it won't go away and then might disappear automatically without you doing anything.

In my fantasy drafted team I had before I started over again I was the 4th most penalized teams, changed only 1 player for the next season, didn't change any coaches or tactics or personal settings and I dropped to 30. Well, might've been also 28 or 29 at the end of the season since I checked about 10-15 games before the end of the season.

Another thing, Savard had 130 penalty minutes for me, only in the regular season mind you, apart from 3 majors all minor penalties, and I've got all coaches 15+ in discipline. He wasn't set to aggressive play or anything and I had 3 enforcers all season long in the line up so it can't really be down to getting hit and frustrated and taking retaliation penalties. Before that he was usually around 30...

Sorry I guess that's very little help for you but as you see you're not the only one witnessing weird things going on. Happens every now and then

[Shadd666]

I don't think it's randomed... The locker room should have an influence on how the team play, so changing one player can sometimes be the solution.

Also, keeping the same team should have tons of penalties if you're always changing your lines, as players won't be used to play on the same line, and so make mistakes they try to correct...and make a foul.

Keeping the same coaches, all with a high level of discipline, isn't a guarantee of success. If their adaptability is low, there should be some conflicts about how to play the game, and so the players are lost on the ice, try to improvise, and it results in many penalties... After one season, the coaches learned to know each other better, build a more coherent strategy, and so the players know what to do and don't take stupid penalties.

Age and experience of the players should also be a factor...

In fact, like in nearly every aspect of the game, there are tons of factor to take into consideration. It's not randomized. But sometimes it's hard to find why everything goes wrong...just like in real life

[Danny]

Yes I know all those things. And since they don't apply in my case I said it's random.
I never change lines, my coaches have high ratings pretty much everywhere, I keep my coaches usually for a long time (and this "problem" occured in the 3rd season after the second was normal, which also nullifies the age and experience argument).
I just think some things are simply generated randomly to keep the game more realistic, just like the game seems to simulate your top scorer having a slump every now and then even if you don't change anything, his morale is still very high and he scored 50 in 50 before.

There is no explanation why an Ovechkin starts hitting everything but the net all of a sudden and then goes back to normal in a few weeks, at least nothing that can be easily simulated in a computer game, such as personal problems and the like, that's why I think the game just does things randomly at times to simulate this. I hope that made a bit of sense

[Shadd666]

Oh! I understand your point better Yeah, for those kind of things, there may be some randomized things. Well, i don't know if it's really randomized or run by a complex mathematical formula, but for us gamers it seems randomized

For the goalscorers (and in fact every single player) that are sometimes hot, sometimes cold, and sometimes normal, i find it impressive how realistic it is in the game. In the same way, every single team has a period when nothing's going on, and then it goes back to normal, just like irl. I believe those effects have been really hard to code and adjust.

Strange that you had far more penalties while doing the exact same things, with the exact same players, tactics, and coaches... Maybe the guys were too fed up to see each other every morning at practice and so start to be more aggressive :d

[Kekkonen]

I usually use a tight gap control. I tried 'normal' once and had more penalties, because my players were too far from there opponents, and so slashed and hooked them often often. However, i didn't stay long with a normal gap control, so they may have correct this issue given the time...

I have to say that tight gap control is something I never tried, simply because I thought I'd never see my team at full strength if I did. It's something I should definitely try. Not now, though; I have a pretty good streak going in 2012 despite getting penalties left and right, and a red-hot Ovechkin (whom I got for Gaborik and picks) has 26 goals in 24 games. If I can get him to the 50/50 club, then I can experiment.

[Danny]

Just a wild guess here, you might have too many players who have a natural tendency to play aggressive, I've actually never tested myself how very aggressive players behave if you set their style to "normal" instead of "aggressive", means I don't know whether the setting or their natural instincts are the key factor here, but you might want to have a look.
Another thing is skating, I tend to believe that just like in real life teams with too many bad/average skaters take a ton of hooking/holding minors.

[Shadd666]

Kekkonen: Sure, don't change a team that wins! I've had average results with normal gap control, pretty good ones with a tight one, but awful ones with very tight. However, it depends of your players, coaches, tactics, etc...

Danny: good point about skating. Slow players are more likely to get called for hooking/holding penalties. Aggressive players remain aggressive, even with a normal aggressivity. They try not to be too aggressive, but their natural instincts are coming back from time to time, with an ocean of elbows, roughing and useless slashes in the offensive zone. And of course, the more you have aggressive players in your team, the more you'll take stupid penalties.