Next Challenge?

[m0fownz0r]

My goal is for things to be opened up a little bit. I don't want to force people to go with youth or to rush young players into the lineup. Ideally we'd have a more balanced approach. I think that the game's trading has been tweaked enough that we shouldn't be able to exploit it with these kind of trades or signings.

I like this idea. Along with FA signings it makes for a far more diverse teams, imo.

[CJ]

I'm thinking we use the 98DB again but I'll sim forward about 5 years.

That's when all the great drafts start..

[Peter_Doherty]

I like this alot

[Asher413]

Had a challenge thought in the car today...

I kind of liked the no first round pick thing a challenge or two ago. It kept from the 'quick' fix in a loaded draft- depending on the year you sim to a Crosby/Ovi kind of player makes it much easier.

An alternative is you have to trade down out of the top 5 or something like that (Ex: you get a #2 overall, you MUST trade picks with the #6 team to move down... maybe you are allowed to take another asset but must swap 1sts.

[bruins72]

That would be quite a challenge. I think it might be a little tricky to enforce though.

[bruins72]

Hi guys! Sorry for the delay in getting a new challenge going. I've been getting slammed at work and don't really have free time at home (wife and kids actually expect me to pay attention to them ). Nino has been hard at work tweaking and updating some stuff on the 98 DB, which is what we'll be using. Hopefully I'll be able to get a new challenge started next week.

[Kopi]

Want to know when will be results for NYR challange?

[bruins72]

I'll ask Archi if he can get some challenge results calculated and posted.

[Kopi]

I'll ask Archi if he can get some challenge results calculated and posted.

thank you Bruins.

[MWE]

I'll ask Archi if he can get some challenge results calculated and posted.

Excellent i'll get to see how bad I've played

[archibalduk]

Sorry guys. I let this one slip for the past six months. I have updated the standings and will award the trophies later this week.

[m0fownz0r]

I can feel the next challenge save game being simulated right about now...

[bruins72]

Yup! I had it simming last night. Unfortunately, I forgot to put it on the cloud this morning before leaving work, so I can't access it until tonight.

[bruins72]

So I got a great simmed forward save from Nino and I'm looking at how we're going to work the rules on this challenge.

We'll be using a game that's been simmed forward to April 1st 2003. We won't be allowed to do anything except scout the draft, re-sign your players with expiring contracts, and then run our draft at first. Once July 1st hits, we'll be free to get to work (trading players, hiring and firing staff, and so on), and signing players whose rights you own but don't have under contract yet.

Trades:
1 for 1, 1 for 2, 2 for 1, and 2 for 2 deals allowed.
Any players involved in trades must be under contract. No "player rights" trading allowed!
There will be no age restrictions on players traded this time. In the past we limited it to younger players.
Draft picks are allowed as components of the deal, except 1st rounders.

Budget:
The league has a salary cap of $48M. The team we'll be taking over has $36.4M in contracts but the Averaged Club Salary (which is what the cap looks at) is only $22.8M. I think we should keep the team under a very tight budget since we're allowing trading without age restrictions. Does $30M for a team budget sound fair? That's far under the cap. Maybe $32? I'd really like some feedback on this. It's one area I'm really unsure of.

Others Points:
No waiver claims allowed!
UFA signing is allowed. Either 2 players for $525k or less OR 1 player for $1M or less allowed each season.
No restrictions on staff hiring and firing other than you have to wait until July 1st of that first season to do any of it. After that, it's open season!
You may run your AHL affiliate. You don't have to coach the games for your affiliate. You can even "Go On Vacation" with your AHL GM and check in occasionally. What you do there is totally up to you.
You must coach your NHL games and you may NOT go on vacation with your NHL GM.
Standard stats logging and screenshots will be required.

So that's about it that I can think of. Is there anything I may have overlooked? I'd really love some feedback on what you guys think about these rules for this challenge before I launch anything.

[nino33]

So I got a great simmed forward save from Nino and I'm looking at how we're going to work the rules on this challenge.

We'll be using a game that's been simmed forward to April 1st 2003. We won't be allowed to do anything except scout the draft, re-sign your players with expiring contracts, and then run our draft at first. Once July 1st hits, we'll be free to get to work (trading players, hiring and firing staff, and so on), and signing players whose rights you own but don't have under contract yet.

I'm not sure if it applies (if the Blackhawks even have are any unsigned prospects) but what about players whose rights might expire on July 1st?

Budget:
The league has a salary cap of $48M. The team we'll be taking over has $36.4M in contracts but the Averaged Club Salary (which is what the cap looks at) is only $22.8M. I think we should keep the team under a very tight budget since we're allowing trading without age restrictions. Does $30M for a team budget sound fair? That's far under the cap. Maybe $32? I'd really like some feedback on this. It's one area I'm really unsure of.

Interesting...I wonder if not having a Salary Floor is an issue? I didn't add one as to do so I'd have needed to create/add players to the 3 teams with only 9 players at startup (which I wanted to do, but it along with a few other things were things I just didn't get to)

For some context, here's the current Average Club Salary (in millions) for each team on April 1, 2003...
Blackhawks $22.8
Bruins $29.3
Sabres $27.6
Flames $33.2
Hurricanes $37.5
Avalanche $46.1
Blue Jackets $25.2
Stars $37.9
Red Wings $39.6
Oilers $35.9
Panthers $37.7
Kings 36.8
Might Ducks $44.5
Wild $31.4
Canadiens $45.8
Predators $34.8
Devils $40.8
Islanders $34.3
Rangers $40.8
Senators $42.2
Flyers $44.8
Coyotes $35.3
Penguins $42.2
Sharks $34.5
Blues $43.0
Lightning $35.0
Maple Leafs $46.0
Canucks $36.4
Capitals $37.8

In the 2002-03 regular season eleven teams had over 100 points: Penguins (111), Red Wings (109), Devils and Flames (106), Canadiens (103), Maple Leafs (102) & Stars (101)

The worst five teams by points in the 2002-03 season were: Blackhawks (48), Kings (57), Hurricanes (63), Wild (66) & Capitals (69)


Maybe have a graduated Team Budget? One that starts at a certain number, and then increases after a certain number of years? maybe even increases a couple times?

[bruins72]

That's a good point about the players with expiring rights. Those players will have to be allowed to be signed. I don't want anyone losing unsigned prospects.

As for the budget... the Blackhawks (and the cat is out of the bag... that's who I'm planning to use) have an extremely low salary total right now. I'd rather not have a sliding scale or changing budget from season to season because it complicates things, which opens up more room for error for the participants. If we allowed maybe $34m that would allow us to grow towards the middle of the pack in salaries for the league but not be too high. We won't be able to add too much salary by UFAs so the only real way to add salary is via trades and/or by re-signing your players with raises. I think with a number like $34M it's conservative enough to make things challenging but still allows us to let our team grow.

[nino33]

the Blackhawks (and the cat is out of the bag... that's who I'm planning to use)

Sorry

[bruins72]

That's ok. Only a few of the die-hard regulars read this thread, I think.

[CJ]

You could both still edit the posts without anyone noticing.

[m0fownz0r]

You could both still edit the posts without anyone noticing.

too late!

[Peter_Doherty]

I really look forward to this, i like the rules Set the internal cap to whatever you feel like honestly,

[MWE]

£34m sounds good for the cap

Blackhawks look like they would be a good challenge.

[Peter_Doherty]

I'll try to build a team purely on speed and skill like Team NA and Pens

[m0fownz0r]

Hey Bruins, do we get any decent 1st round picks? It seems loaded

[bruins72]

In our 1st season (we are starting with our draft) you'll have 2 first round picks. One of them is a top pick. The second pick (from the Senators) is a latter first round pick.