Date: Wed Nov 29 09:32:39 2006
Sender: Jay Schlegel
No messages on this board for two weeks...
Date: Thu Nov 30 08:39:38 2006
Sender: Sloan Hamilton
In a lot of the sports, the message boards are filled with things like "If I
want my team to do such and such, what changes could I make?" In ECHL, what's
the use? Nothing seems to make much of a difference. I've got one more thing
I'm going to try next season before I lose my patience.
Date: Thu Nov 30 11:03:46 2006
Sender: Matthew Reid
I find especially in the college leagues that talent plays a much larger role
in the performance of the team and it is harder to pull the big upset. What
exactly is the problem you are having Sloan? I know you can very drastically
change the way a team operats so hopefully I can help you out if you can be a
little more specific.
Date: Thu Nov 30 14:50:30 2006
Sender: Sloan Hamilton
I'm pretty much stuck with "3" at every setting. Ever since the change that
fixed the 5 aggro 5 backchecking thing, I've been playing catchup. I used to
basically play defensemen at center and it won me 3 championships, but that
doesn't work anymore, so next season I'm going to try putting my best scorers
at center...seems to be what Bob is up to. What it looks like to me is hockey
isn't so much about getting the settings right, it's about getting the right
talent at the right position. I'm still very frustrated, but glad to see people
are checking this board...
Date: Thu Nov 30 22:25:04 2006
Sender: Matthew Reid
I go with a different approach. I usually dont care where I put my forwards
but I make sure centers for the most part are the better playmakers.
For instance I love centers with high AG PS and PC. I find the AG/PC
combination is deadly on winning faceoffs and the PS i like for being able to
distribute the puck easily. If that player also has a SH of 8-10 to boot, then
bonus but i'm keeping him at center.
For instance is we look at my current SMFHL team:
The following three are my centers:
210 K.Oreol 4 3 8 5 8 8 7 22 7 -3 -1.15 100 C 30 -- A A C
225 S.Cowan 2 3 8 5 7 8 7 23 0 -1 -0.48 100 C 25 -- A A C
892 E.Vesey 1 10 4 2 9 8 6 22 8 7 2.27 100 C 29 -- A A C
Vessy is my prototypical center, the other 2 dont have the AG I would perfer
but their PS and PC are definitely good. Also, they are all good skaters and
the two that lack AG make up for it in INT which i think is an intangible that
people usually overlook.
1673 D.Cunningham 8 12 3 1 4 7 6 24 4 -3 -1.00 100 C 39 -- B B W
Is a player who i had for 16 years and 11 of which he played at center. He is
39 now and has declined greatly but even a shell of his former self you can see
he has the AG PS and PC.
Quickly taking a look at your college team, you're only line that seems to be
clicking is the 2nd line. I'm not a big fan of Olsen as starting 1st line C,
his 2 passing is just too limiting. The problem is I dont really see a
prototypical center on your squad. Again I will say that from my personal
experience, in the college leagues talent does play a huge role but you can
work around it.
For instance, I would rather see Arnold at center and Olsen moved to the wing.
Then you can keep that line intact and see if that helps. I would also suggest
Mehigan or Hubert at center aswell.
As far as the other line settings they really are line dependent. If you have
a fowards with good speed and CH, I would dumo and chase more often that not.
Good passing and Speed? try long neutral zone passing. I have never been a fan
of a lot of passing in the offensive zone because I am of the mindset that more
shots on goal no matter how trivial or weak can always create something. My
passing will only be set higher than normal for PP lines, and even then, thats
only if my passing is exceptional. Sometimes I will sit a better talent for a
lesser talent when the lesser talent fits the overall style of the line much
better of gives me a component that the line would otherwise be missing (a
shooter or passer would be the only 2 things I would consider primary). Bad
speed and Bad CH? use neutral zone regroup more often. I hate pinching unless
I have a defenseman with a nasty shot or I have smart forwards to realize the
dman will be pinching and can backoff and support his play deep in the zone.
As far as the big 3 Aggression Trap and Backchecking go.. I dont have any huge
results. I have two teams and i still keep them high, one team overachieves
and the other underachieves so I'm not 100% sure what the correlation is but I
would suggest taking a look at some of the better teams and see what they are
doing. I really havn't experimented as much as I should have with lowering the
settings.
Anyways this ended up being way longer than i had originally intended but
hopefully it helps somewhat.
Date: Fri Dec 1 08:20:22 2006
Sender: Jay Schlegel
Matthew, your thoughts are very helpful. But I also will echo what Sloan said
about line settings. Yes, I can/do tinker with which players are on which
lines and at which positions. But do my line settings actually make any
difference? ANY difference at all?
In the old days, it made a difference only if you didn't play the
high-Trap/high-Agg setting. Now there doesn't seem to be much difference
changing line settings on a game-to-game or period-to-period level. I think
that this is by design -- I think the sim is designed to be mostly a season
simulation, not a moment-by-moment game simulation, at least for hockey.
I did experiment with this a bit during the ECHL season. The particularly
frustrating thing is getting totally outshot and outplayed when the scoring
line comes on the ice, by teams of comparable talent (which all seem to have
'3' settings for every option on every line).
Now, perhaps this IS realistic. I've not played hockey to know whether the
coach can go into the locker room and say to the troops to be more/less
aggressive or to do more/less trapping/passing/whatever and have it make a
difference. I do know the coaches will change up their line combinations to
try to get more scoring. However, in this sim it seems that when one puts
players out there for more than 20 minutes a game they get 'too tired' and
aren't as effective (and not because they've been hit hard and shaken up).
Date: Fri Dec 1 12:06:37 2006
Sender: Sloan Hamilton
Thanks for that response, Matthew. I had seriously considered moving Arnold to
center, but would have overlooked Mehigen or Hubert. What you say about
aggression in a center makes sense.
I completely agree with you, Jay. The most frustrating thing is seeing such
random results that changes are impossible to track.
Date: Tue Dec 5 09:42:48 2006
Sender: Michael Schoknecht
Matthew, great response! Thanks for the tips.
Count me in with the frustrated ECHL coaches although I seem to be a little
better off than Sloan and Jay (Go WCHA!). My question involves Sk in regard to
centers. Bob seems to highly value it in centers and while you didn't cite it
as an important attribute, all your centers have great Sk. So is it needed? I
have been moving better Sk to center in recent seasons with some success, but I
am not sure if that is just luck or not.
Date: Sun Dec 10 09:54:32 2006
Sender: AJ Perko
this is going to be rough to figure out.....
Date: Sun Dec 10 16:03:06 2006
Sender: Matthew Reid
Hey Michael,
Sorry i didnt response earlier, work has kept me away from the forums for
several days. To answer your question, i'm sure everyone has a certain style
of player they like. I prefer all by forwards to be fast and usually
unknowingly gravitate towards high speed players. So I do value high SK in a
forward, but i havn't played around much with wings or centers having different
speeds. Typically my centers are fast. The only slow people i keep on my team
are power forwards who can score and defensemen.
Noone has really exploited my lack of speed on the blue line yet but I know
first hand that a dump and chase strategy against 1or2 SP dmen is effective.
And AJ, I'm sure it's not very difficult. I'm been in Del hockey since forever
it's not to say that I know the best method for coaching. Infact i'm sure I
dont and I do believe that coaching has a greater effect than what Michael or
Jay believe, however that could be the different in talent between a pro and
college player.. I just know what has worked for me in the past.
But as usual, if you have any questions i'm more than happy to throw my
experiences out there.
Date: Mon Dec 18 09:56:55 2006
Sender: Jay Schlegel
Matt, it's good to have you back in ECHL so we can learn from you first hand,
and compare notes on what does/doesn't work.
Date: Tue Dec 19 16:42:40 2006
Sender: Matthew Reid
Well I took Bowling Green so it should be a fun building process. Not much to
work with this season in terms of scholarships or points but hopefully I can
get this project turned around in a few seasons and be competative.
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