Challenge 17: The Sarnia Sting (Discussion Thread)

Post by **joehelmer** » Sat May 22, 2010 7:56 pm

I just had my Import Draft and I choose Swedish center Viktor Rask, I hope he will be good for me and hopefully he will fill the big hole that Arniel left.

Crayn · Post by **Crayn** » Sat May 22, 2010 8:00 pm

Ah, of course. I'm so stupid haha.

Marsac · Post by **Marsac** » Sun May 23, 2010 9:37 am

First season done, we swept Guelph in the first round but were no match for the Windsor powerhouse.

I thought people were exaggerating when posting about the weak draft (much like people complain about the first two NHL drafts) but wow, I didn't find a single offensive player I liked so I pretty much just drafted for size. The import draft looked great but neither the center or the goalie I drafted want to sign with me. The center even wants to play major junior hockey, but he is unwilling to move to a team in North America? Ass. I didn't really expect the goalie to sign, my hope is that he will be drafted by a NHL club (there are 5 of them interested in him) and sent to us. The center was drafted 69th overall by the Islanders so there's still some small hope there I guess,

We had two players drafted by NHL clubs, Rogalski at 137th (ranked 135) overall to the Sabres and Chiarlitti at 131st (ranked 136) overall to the Bruins.

As for awards, Campbell surprisingly won OHL Goaltender of the Year while Arniel won the Red Tilson Trophy, was runner-up for the OHL Star Player Award and was named to the CHL All-Star Team.

It might be tough to improve on last season without Arniel and Neal, hopefully some of the players develop enough over the summer to keep us in the running.

Post by **Manimal** » Sun May 23, 2010 1:33 pm

Marsac wrote:First season done, we swept Guelph in the first round but were no match for the Windsor powerhouse.

I thought people were exaggerating when posting about the weak draft (much like people complain about the first two NHL drafts) but wow, I didn't find a single offensive player I liked so I pretty much just drafted for size. The import draft looked great but neither the center or the goalie I drafted want to sign with me. The center even wants to play major junior hockey, but he is unwilling to move to a team in North America? Ass. I didn't really expect the goalie to sign, my hope is that he will be drafted by a NHL club (there are 5 of them interested in him) and sent to us. The center was drafted 69th overall by the Islanders so there's still some small hope there I guess,

Keep trying to sign him. Perhaps with a different status. In my test game before this challenge I had to ask my import several times until he signed with me

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Sun May 23, 2010 7:40 pm

So I finally had a winning quarter in season 3. We went 10-7 in games 18-34, losing our last 3.

Our team is finally starting to click and I think we will finally get to the playoffs this year. I had three player playing for thier junior teams this year. Elsborg played for Denmark again. Cizek played for the Czech U20 team and Ritchie is playing for Canada.

My '08 picks are doing amazing. Schell is battling for the lead of the team in scoring with Ritchie. And is also close to the lead league in Goals.

Post by **visualdarkness** » Sun May 23, 2010 7:57 pm

What is wrong with the reffing in this league? I usually get at least 13 penalities against my team and every complaint after the games have been successful....

jbsnadb · Post by **jbsnadb** » Sun May 23, 2010 11:27 pm

Unfortunately, I have never seen complaining successfully to actually matter. It just makes me feel better.

Both Chiarlitti and Rogalski were ranked at the end of the season (Rogalski was unranked midway through) but neither was drafted.

I too took Rask in the import draft (9th overall) and he had a great training camp (3-6-9, 8.53 AvR) in 7 exhibition contests. Two games in he has 1 assist as a third line centre playing on my (much-improved so far) first PK unit with some PP time sprinkled in. He may bump up, but I am relying on him in a more defensive role for now.

I also unloaded Hottot to Kingston for Clark Seymour, who should shore up my blueline and PK as well.

Early on, we look like this:

Kerbashian Preisinger Ritchie
Francisco O'Quinn Tress
Kavaratzis Rask Campagna
Milligan MacQueen Alderson

Chiarlitti Sullivan
Rogalski Vaughan
Zupanic Seymour

Campbell
Raymond

Tress was my 4th round pick, while Vaughan was selected 3rd overall. Milligan had 2 goals and 2 assists in preseason to earn his slot. Campagna can be good defensively, but is inconsistent. I'm VERY young on RW, so I'll be working them in slowly over the year in more limited roles.

jbsnadb · Post by **jbsnadb** » Mon May 24, 2010 1:57 am

Woo hoo!!!

Seven games into season two, and we're off to a great start at 5-1-1. Our power play is up near 19% after a weak start (5 PPG and a shorty highlighted a 6-3 win in game seven) and the PK is really clicking at around 90%.

Best of all, we're #6 in the CHL Top Ten and leading the table.

Four Sting players are ranked for the draft:

Campbell - 69th
Rask - 89th
Ritchie - 128th
Chiarlitti - 184th

Post by **CatchUp** » Mon May 24, 2010 4:21 am

Hm - I had Arniel win the Red Tilson in the first season. Anyone else win any end of season player hardware?

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Mon May 24, 2010 5:32 pm

In my first season Arniel won the Eddie Powers (most goals) and the Leo Lalonde (top Overager).

In my second season no one won anything but Liljegren was 3rd for the Emms family trophy (Rokkie of the year) I have a feeling Schell will be winning that one this year.

toddpaul · Post by **toddpaul** » Tue May 25, 2010 12:05 am

CatchUp wrote:Hm - I had Arniel win the Red Tilson in the first season. Anyone else win any end of season player hardware?

Arniel also won the Red Tilson in my game. He also led the league in points by 20+ in season one, but for some reason wasn't awarded the Eddie Powers Trophy for the most points.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Tue May 25, 2010 4:00 am

Eddie Powers goes to most goals not points.

toddpaul · Post by **toddpaul** » Tue May 25, 2010 5:38 am

Wiki

OHL

Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin tied for the lead this year with 106 points.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Tue May 25, 2010 11:02 am

Yes, but the EHM game is programed to award it to the player with the most goals not points.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue May 25, 2010 4:17 pm

I finally finished my first regular season but I've still got to run my playoffs. I finished 6th in the Western Conference. My first round opponent is Plymouth, who finished 3rd. I've got my fingers crossed... but I'm not holding my breath!

Post by **joehelmer** » Tue May 25, 2010 8:27 pm

I'm now finished with my second season. After some ups and downs, as always, I ended up at 4th place in the Conference and in the first round I faced Owen Sound who was 5th after the regular season. I won that series with 4-2 in games, in the second round I was to face the conference winners Windsor Spitfires. I hoped I would threaten them a little bit, but a certain Taylor Hall made sure that I wouldn't. I started even to sing "I hate Taylor" quiet for myself when he scored or made a pass to a goal.

I said earlier that I hope that I would find a replacement for Arniel and it seems like I have done it in Victor Rask, my first pick in 2007 CHL Import Draft, who made most assists and points of the players in my team. I hope he will stay with me for all his junior years, but I think he will be picked up to the NHL for the fourth season, if not for the third one.

Here's the final rankings for my players in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft:
16. Brett Richie
26. Victor Rask
118. Shayne Campbell

Ippo · Post by **Ippo** » Tue May 25, 2010 8:54 pm

Finished my second season yesterday and made it to the playoffs, but got sweeped by Owen Sound in first round, didn't really stand a chance against them. I was a bit worried who would replace Arniel in 2nd season, but luckily Mitch Zion improved his game significantly and played a great season.

Then came the draft, and what a deep draft it was. Even my last round pick was about the same level as 2007 1st round pick. From 15 picks I signed 9 players before 3rd season and my team is quite young right now. At the same time I got rid of some of those overage players, including Preisinger who was poor most of the time. Now my line-up looks like this:

Francisco-Zion-Ritchie
Horn-Dupuis-Provencher
Pisani-Beggren-Franzen
Campagna-Stoughton-Hottot

Flemington-Clermont
Zupancic-Sandbeck
Chiarlitti-Drydak

Campbell
Bird

Especially the 2nd line is full of youngsters, Horn and Dupuis are 15 and Provencher is 16. So far they've done well, offering some solid secondary scoring. Hopefully they can keep it up, but that remains to be seen.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue May 25, 2010 9:13 pm

bruins72 wrote:
bruins72 wrote:The ISS just released their first set of rankings for the NHL draft. Rogalski was ranked 33rd. Chiarlitti was ranked 123rd. So far (5 games into the season), Chiarlitti has a point per game for us. He's out-performing Rogalski. I wonder what their rankings will look like mid-season?
Mid-season ISS rankings came out. Rogalski dropped to 41st. Chiarlitti dropped to 129th.

I'm hurting their draft rankings.

And the final ISS rankings have come out now.

Rogalski climbed back up most of the way. He's now ranked 34th overall. Chiarlitti has climbed back to the 123rd ranking that he started with. Now I'm interested in seeing where they get taken. Of course, I still have to get through the playoffs. I'm currently leading my series with Plymouth 3 games to 2.

Johnnyluc · Post by **Johnnyluc** » Tue May 25, 2010 9:13 pm

Finished the third season and was able to win the Memorial cup.

Things went as expected, and I was able to pretty much run threw the playoffs until the Final against Kingston.

The surprise, (or disapointment) was that I lost both Nathan Chiarlitti and Rogalski mid series to pro contracts, but I was lucky that Kingston lost Gudbranson and Werek. We won in game 7 OT.

At the Memorial Cup we went 1-1-1 in the round robin, mainly due to loosing Campbell to an inujry for the middle two games. We where able to get him semi healthy enough to play the semi finals and finals, and we where able to win the Cup in season three, which was a year ahead of my goal.

Drafted in the Import draft

Kirill Fedorov
Drafted 3rd overall to the NY Islanders, hope that he gets assigned next year

Arkady Shin
Drafted in the second round by the Blackhawks, hope that he gets assigned next year.

Drafted in the OHL Draft
Jean Piere Nelson - should be my top defenceman in a few years

Ranked for the NHL Drafts
Riendeau - 7th overall
Simon Belanger, 31st Overall
Marchel Jech, 44th Overall
Dunc Bell, 83 Overall

Riendeau is out for 3 months, so that could see his stock fall

Heading into season 4, my lines are as follows.

Fransisco - Quine - Ritchie
Zion - Riendeau - Gortz
Campagna - Lefluer - Bell
Milligan - Richer - Kavartzis

Belanger - Jech
Nelson - Sefton
Zupancic - Kang

Campbell
Phillips

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue May 25, 2010 9:40 pm

I beat Plymouth in the first round (4-2) and now I'm set to take on Windsor in the second round. I can't catch a break!

Post by **joehelmer** » Tue May 25, 2010 9:47 pm

bruins72 wrote:I beat Plymouth in the first round (4-2) and now I'm set to take on Windsor in the second round. I can't catch a break!

Just close down Taylor Hall, which I didn't, and you should do okay.

Post by **batdad** » Tue May 25, 2010 10:42 pm

I have finished up my regular season for year 1. We finished in 1st, 1 point ahead of Erie, but well ahead of anyone in the other conference.

I am excited to say...I do not have a single 20 goal scorer. In fact, my leader at the end of the season has exactly 1 more goal than he had at the 51 game mark! Wow...1 goal in the last 18 games. Atta boy!

That being said I did rest the guys down the stretch from games a bit. My top two lines only played 2 of the last 5 games (um yeah..the 2 against Windsor)

Sullivan was 2nd in points, tied for 2nd in goals and led the team in plus minus.

First round set to begin!

Bring on Saginaw for the umpteenth time in the last 2 weeks!!!

Post by **batdad** » Tue May 25, 2010 10:49 pm

BWAH! Best part of my game...Windsor gets London first round

Post by **batdad** » Tue May 25, 2010 10:51 pm

Actually not true..I just noticed. Taylor Hall is out for 10 days because of a twisted knee, which um...oops Kyle Neuber caused when I set him on encourage/berserk/check Taylor Hall in the last 2 games we played Windsor.

I feel bad...so bad.

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Wed May 26, 2010 1:25 pm

So I just finished the regular season (#3). I'm not impressed with my team down the stretch. We were doing well mid-season but th elast quarter we bombed and nearly fell out of the playoffs. Our team got into a bad habit of allowing late 3rd period goals, and blowing late leads.

We had a game against Ottawa that we were leading 2-0 after 2 periods. Ottawa got themselves back in early in the third. We held them off for the rest of the peroid an then they scored two goals 30 seconds apart IN THE LAST MINUTE. GAH!!!

Also interesting to note, in this third season Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin and Cam Fowler are all still with thier junoir clubs, and not even on loan from the NHL clubs. But Hall and Fowler were both signed to AHL contracts at the end of the regular season. I lost Ben O'Quinn to the ECHL's Cincinnati Cyclones.

So we finihsed 7th in the west and fill face London in the first round. We split the season series 2-2 and outscored them 12-11. So maybe that's something we can build on.