Lada Togliatti
Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:13 pm
There's not going much around here last days, so I decided to liven up things a little bit with adding my story. My english is not perfect, but it's definetly good enough for you to understand me. I won't go in details for every game, I'll just try to present my team and more exeptional games. OK, here we go...
I started the game with normal database and with Russian league encanched plus NHL, Austrian, Canadian, Czech, Slovak, Swedish and Finnish leagues on standard. My goal was (and it still is) to start at decent team in Russia and end up as Stanley cup winner eventually. When I achieve that, I will retire. I decided to go with Lada Togliatti, since I don't like Moscow and Lada was the only decent team in Russian Superleague that I was familiar with. My board gave me about 16M Euro to spend on new players, which is more than enough to strenghten the team on all areas I would needed. I was glad to see that the board expects playoff qualification, since I decided by myself that I would go at least to the finals of the Russian Superleague.
My fist task was to research the squad. In comparison to the other teams I realised, that there are no "stars" in my team (no ex-NHL players and no big names). I was happy with that, because I wanted to create a deep team and not building on a few exeptional individuals. Anyway, after looking on free transfer market, I decided to offer a contract to three NHL veterans, left wings Vitali Yachmenev and German Titov and defender Igor Kravchuk. Before the preseason I signed another defender, 20 years old Maxim Kondratiev, who already played in Lada when he was a junior, but left two years ago. He was smart enough to come back after one year pause. I also needed a backup goalie, since I had only 20 years old Vasili Koshechkin, who is a big talent. After a few trainings I realized that he is a bit too young and inexpirienced, so I actually bought a starter between the pipes, Alexandr Eremenko from Amur for 110K Euro. That was it for preaseason, although I found out that my teams lacks young talents and some defenders, which I added later on.
I have created some exebition games away from home, beating CSKA 5:3 and Kazzinc Torpedo (KAZ) 5:1 respectively. I organized home tournament, Lada Cup 2003 and invited one of the best Czech teams Pardubice, Swedish team MODO and Slovenian team HK Acroni Jesenice (personal decision of GM). Pardubice won it easily with three wins and 17:2 goal difference, MODO finished second with 4 points, we came third after two loses (1:2 against MODO and 1:5 against Pardubice), which was quite a dissapointment, since we only managed to win against outsiders HK Acroni Jesenice, which finished last with 2:21 goal difference.
On the first day of the Russian Superleague we hosted Neftekhimik and we only managed to get one point, after conceding a game tying goal 10 seconds before the end of the game. After that we managed to achieve three straight wins (SKA 4:3, Salavat Yulajev 8:1 and Severstal 2:0). After that we expirienced the bitter part of the hockey with our first defeat agains Sibir (2:5) at home.
Meanwhile I strenghted the team a little more. I bought young talent Evgeny Isakov for 80K, who I sent to our junior team, from Khimik came Konstantin Kasyanchuk, which turned to be a solid backup player and veteran Albert Malgin (*I just couldn't resist buying him, since he was the greatest foreign player who ever played for my local team about 11 years ago IRL*).
I have also brought in some new backroom staff from around the world, Americans Dan Schneider (Head Coach), Chris Dashney and Jon Clark (Assistant Coaches), Finnish assistant coach Harri Kallio and two Russian AC's Alexandr Semin and Andrei Rozakov.
Some interesting games happend, etc. big loss against Dynamo Moscow (3:3 afer 47 minutes and 3:7 at the end of the game), nice win against SKA at home (being down 2:4 after first period, but managed to score six times in second... at the end I won it 9:5) and just two days later exact same loss against Salavat Yulayev (I was leading 4:3 in 27th minute, but then conceded six goals in the row) and the very last one, win against Torpedo Nizhny 12:1, after scoring 7 powerplay goals in 15 penalty minutes they've got (5 minors and one major).
Meanwhile I signed another ex-NHL star from Russia, Oleg Petrov, after scout suggestions I brought in Evgeny Lapin, after deciding that goalie area needs more expiriences I bought Aleksandr Fomichev and last but not least, I bought considerably young, but expirienced defender Evgeny Korolev.
After 27 games in Russian Superleague I'm sitting on a second place 6 points behind Lokomotiv Yaroslav (two wins), and 4 points in front of Metallurg Magnitogorsk. I'm exeeding boards expectations by 6 wins (CSKA on 8th place is 17 points behind), which is enough that they are delighted with my overall performance as GM.
My lines after some tweaking are:
German Titov-Aleksandr Skugarev-Jan Pardavy
Evgeny Lapin-Mikhail Sevostyanov-Oleg Petrov
Vitali Yachmenev-Aleksandr Nesterov-Igor Grigorenko
Oleg Belkin-Aleksandr Titov-Sergei Sevostyanov
And my defencive pairs are:
Igor Kravchuk-Filipp Metlyuk
Igor Korolev-Maxim Kondorvatiev
Vladimir Malenkykh-Ladislav Cierny
Aleksandr Lyubimkov-Andrei Esipov
Starting goalie is Aleksandr Fomichev, his backup is Vasili Kosheckin.
Some stats (best five scorers):
Skugarev 27; 16+19 35
German Titov 27; 10+17 27
Igor Grigorenko 26; 12+11 23
Jan Pardavy 20; 17+4 21
Mikhail Sevostyanov 20; 6+14 20
Best league scorer is nobody else than Ovechkin (12+32), followed by two veterans, Sergei Berezin (19+19) and Dimitri Kristich (21+15).
Goalies:
Aleksandr Eremenko 15; 2.91 0.900
Vasili Kosheckin 15; 2.24 0.919
Aleksandr Fomichev 3; 3.04 0.908
OK, that's it for now, this story was ment to be more poetic (more real), but I just couldn't be bothered with it yet, since I'm not sure what response will it get...
I started the game with normal database and with Russian league encanched plus NHL, Austrian, Canadian, Czech, Slovak, Swedish and Finnish leagues on standard. My goal was (and it still is) to start at decent team in Russia and end up as Stanley cup winner eventually. When I achieve that, I will retire. I decided to go with Lada Togliatti, since I don't like Moscow and Lada was the only decent team in Russian Superleague that I was familiar with. My board gave me about 16M Euro to spend on new players, which is more than enough to strenghten the team on all areas I would needed. I was glad to see that the board expects playoff qualification, since I decided by myself that I would go at least to the finals of the Russian Superleague.
My fist task was to research the squad. In comparison to the other teams I realised, that there are no "stars" in my team (no ex-NHL players and no big names). I was happy with that, because I wanted to create a deep team and not building on a few exeptional individuals. Anyway, after looking on free transfer market, I decided to offer a contract to three NHL veterans, left wings Vitali Yachmenev and German Titov and defender Igor Kravchuk. Before the preseason I signed another defender, 20 years old Maxim Kondratiev, who already played in Lada when he was a junior, but left two years ago. He was smart enough to come back after one year pause. I also needed a backup goalie, since I had only 20 years old Vasili Koshechkin, who is a big talent. After a few trainings I realized that he is a bit too young and inexpirienced, so I actually bought a starter between the pipes, Alexandr Eremenko from Amur for 110K Euro. That was it for preaseason, although I found out that my teams lacks young talents and some defenders, which I added later on.
I have created some exebition games away from home, beating CSKA 5:3 and Kazzinc Torpedo (KAZ) 5:1 respectively. I organized home tournament, Lada Cup 2003 and invited one of the best Czech teams Pardubice, Swedish team MODO and Slovenian team HK Acroni Jesenice (personal decision of GM). Pardubice won it easily with three wins and 17:2 goal difference, MODO finished second with 4 points, we came third after two loses (1:2 against MODO and 1:5 against Pardubice), which was quite a dissapointment, since we only managed to win against outsiders HK Acroni Jesenice, which finished last with 2:21 goal difference.
On the first day of the Russian Superleague we hosted Neftekhimik and we only managed to get one point, after conceding a game tying goal 10 seconds before the end of the game. After that we managed to achieve three straight wins (SKA 4:3, Salavat Yulajev 8:1 and Severstal 2:0). After that we expirienced the bitter part of the hockey with our first defeat agains Sibir (2:5) at home.
Meanwhile I strenghted the team a little more. I bought young talent Evgeny Isakov for 80K, who I sent to our junior team, from Khimik came Konstantin Kasyanchuk, which turned to be a solid backup player and veteran Albert Malgin (*I just couldn't resist buying him, since he was the greatest foreign player who ever played for my local team about 11 years ago IRL*).
I have also brought in some new backroom staff from around the world, Americans Dan Schneider (Head Coach), Chris Dashney and Jon Clark (Assistant Coaches), Finnish assistant coach Harri Kallio and two Russian AC's Alexandr Semin and Andrei Rozakov.
Some interesting games happend, etc. big loss against Dynamo Moscow (3:3 afer 47 minutes and 3:7 at the end of the game), nice win against SKA at home (being down 2:4 after first period, but managed to score six times in second... at the end I won it 9:5) and just two days later exact same loss against Salavat Yulayev (I was leading 4:3 in 27th minute, but then conceded six goals in the row) and the very last one, win against Torpedo Nizhny 12:1, after scoring 7 powerplay goals in 15 penalty minutes they've got (5 minors and one major).
Meanwhile I signed another ex-NHL star from Russia, Oleg Petrov, after scout suggestions I brought in Evgeny Lapin, after deciding that goalie area needs more expiriences I bought Aleksandr Fomichev and last but not least, I bought considerably young, but expirienced defender Evgeny Korolev.
After 27 games in Russian Superleague I'm sitting on a second place 6 points behind Lokomotiv Yaroslav (two wins), and 4 points in front of Metallurg Magnitogorsk. I'm exeeding boards expectations by 6 wins (CSKA on 8th place is 17 points behind), which is enough that they are delighted with my overall performance as GM.
My lines after some tweaking are:
German Titov-Aleksandr Skugarev-Jan Pardavy
Evgeny Lapin-Mikhail Sevostyanov-Oleg Petrov
Vitali Yachmenev-Aleksandr Nesterov-Igor Grigorenko
Oleg Belkin-Aleksandr Titov-Sergei Sevostyanov
And my defencive pairs are:
Igor Kravchuk-Filipp Metlyuk
Igor Korolev-Maxim Kondorvatiev
Vladimir Malenkykh-Ladislav Cierny
Aleksandr Lyubimkov-Andrei Esipov
Starting goalie is Aleksandr Fomichev, his backup is Vasili Kosheckin.
Some stats (best five scorers):
Skugarev 27; 16+19 35
German Titov 27; 10+17 27
Igor Grigorenko 26; 12+11 23
Jan Pardavy 20; 17+4 21
Mikhail Sevostyanov 20; 6+14 20
Best league scorer is nobody else than Ovechkin (12+32), followed by two veterans, Sergei Berezin (19+19) and Dimitri Kristich (21+15).
Goalies:
Aleksandr Eremenko 15; 2.91 0.900
Vasili Kosheckin 15; 2.24 0.919
Aleksandr Fomichev 3; 3.04 0.908
OK, that's it for now, this story was ment to be more poetic (more real), but I just couldn't be bothered with it yet, since I'm not sure what response will it get...
