NHL EHM Managerial Dynasty

[Karim]

This is the first dynasty I've ever attempted. It will be focused on conveying managerial strategy which some may find interesting and hopefully may entice others to try out the game. I won't be using too many tables as I find them cumbersome. I'll start out with the Calgary Flames but I haven't included that in the title just in case it doesn't work out and I need to look for employment elsewhere.

I'm running the latest version along with updated config and pundit files. I'm running a maximum database along with the NHL, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, all in enhanced mode.

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September 11th, 2003
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My first task as General Manager of the Calgary Flames was to review the budget. Having just finished reading "Moneyball", I'm hoping to bring the small-market approach of the Oakland Athletics to the NHL. This means trying to squeeze as much value as possible out of every dollar.

Ownership has imposed a player budget of $33,500,000. I'm already at $37,000,000 but have $11,500,000 in transfer funds as well as $15,000,000 in season ticket sales. A hockey-mad market is good to have. I hope to please them and ownership with at least a playoff appearance.

First, I skimmed my personnel. I prefer using around eight to ten scouts that have a known ability to judge talent and potential. I see little point in have them skilled in other areas. I have thirteen scouts and am not particularly pleased at first glance. I have no choice but to make them prove themselves as most are signed to long-term contracts. I don't have the luxury of paying guys not to work for the organization. My first task is to send every one of them to scout my unsigned prospects. Prospect development will be key to this organization and I want to get an accurate assessment early on.

Since I don't plan to go behind the bench, I need a replacement for Darryl Sutter. I first approach my assistant coaches wanting to build from in-house as much as possible but none of them are interested at this time. I then look to see who is unemployed. I'm particularly looking for a coach who is a good judge of talent, can work with youngsters, and actually has an interest in coming to Southern Alberta. The three candidates are Mike Keenan and Joel Quenneville, both unemployed, along with Dave King who is coaching in Germany.

The first exhibition game comes along at home against Carolina. My assistants act as coaches and manage a 1-1 tie. It was a disappointing start to the season though as only 9,081 show up at the Saddledome. To make it worse, I've lost Martin Gelinas for a month with a sprained MCL. This means more work for someone who wants to step up.

I glance at my roster and notice Minnesota and Nashville are both interested in depth forward Lynn Loyns. I'm not interested in actively moving him but if they approach with something decent I have no loyalty to Loyns. Los Angeles is interested in prospect Chuck Kobasew; unless Alexander Frolov is coming the other way, there's no way I'm making that trade.

I check the three coaching candidates. My first issue is salary. Quenneville wants $400,000/yr., Keenan wants $525,000/yr., and surprisingly King wants $625,000/yr. Each of them want four year contracts. I've always been a fan of Keenan and he has the attributes I'm looking for so I offer him a contract. I then find out Florida has offered him the role of Assistant Manager so I'm hoping Quenneville is still around despite St. Louis' interest in him.

I'll go with King if I have to but he's choice number three.

[Karim]

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September 21st, 2003
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To target my scouting and make it more efficient, I broke down my scouts into seven whose opinion I trust when it comes to young players, prospects and future potential draft picks. The other six have been assigned to watch the other 29 NHL squads so that I have at least an updated scouting report on every player in the league when it comes time to look for upgrades via the trade route.

Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto have all expressed an interest in rugged stay-at-home defenceman Mike Commodore. It's early and I'm not looking to make any deals at the moment. Edmonton has also expressed an interest in Rhett Warrener. The Flames and Oilers have never made a trade in either clubs' history and it isn't about to happen under my watch either.

Keenan will most likely stay in the state of Florida as now Tampa Bay has also offered him a role as Assistant Manager.

The second of only three exhibition games turns out to be a 2-1 victory at home against Phoenix in front of another dismal crowd. [I tried to play youngsters and made sure to have the coaching options set to my control over team selection and lines but the AI coach still changed the lineup on me.]

The first trade of the season sees New Jersey send their 2nd Round Pick in 2005 along with the rights to a 19 year old German forward to Edmonton in exchange for 20 year old defenceman, Jeff Woywitka, an Alberta native.

The last of the exhibiton games was a 3-1 loss in Buffalo. [I still couldn't get the players I wanted in the lineup. I tried clicking the "L" to "lock" the lines but that didn't seem to work either.]

After one of my scouts returns a report on one of my prospects, he turns in another report on a player he spotted playing for Barrie of the Ontario Hockey League. He suggests the kid could step in immediately. The kid is fifteen. This scout's contract won't be renewed.

In other news, Doug MacLean of Columbus is appointed as General Manager of Team Canada. Also, Nolan Pratt of Tampa was sent to Pittsburgh for Pittsburgh's 6th Round Pick in 2004, along with forwards Ramzi Abid (23) and Mike Eastwood (36). This appears to be a waiver draft move on behalf of Tampa. Very nice.

The United States have appointed Chris Lamoriello as General Manager of Team U.S.A. Who?

The Chicago Blackhawks ensure more season ticket cancellations by hiring Jordan Bilodeau as General Manager.

[AGH! I find out through the Transactions list that Keenan has chosen Tampa Bay. That was 3 days ago and I was not given a news message about this!] By this time, King is the only coach on my list still available but his salary demands have been reduced to $450,000/yr. Unfortunately, I will have to pay the Hamburg Freezers $750,000 in compensation. Off I go to find another unemployed coach.

I decide to offer a Head Coaching job to Paul Maurice but I'm not getting my hopes up as there's lots of interest in him. He only wants $400,000/yr. but for 4 years and I'm offering $750,000/yr. for 3 years. I'm assuming he'll choose to go somewhere as an Assistant Manager. It's looking more and more like I'll need to give an untested commodity a shot at coaching in the NHL.

[sachmo71]

Karim,

The L locks the tactics for the line. Be sure to hit OK after you select your lines, or the AI will change them on you.

[condors]

good luck!

[Johnny93g]

nice read so far.....i cant even attempt a game in the nhl with all the problems that league seems to have in the....way to frusterating for me....but ill be reading.....keep us upto date on the Leafs

Why can't Sutter coach, arent you the GM, can't Sutter coach the team?

[Karim]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

Karim,

The L locks the tactics for the line. Be sure to hit OK after you select your lines, or the AI will change them on you.

Thanks for that.

[Karim]

Originally Posted by condors

good luck!

Thanks! I could never get past the 2nd Division in CM so jumping straight to the NHL might be disastrous!

[Karim]

Originally Posted by Johnny93g

nice read so far.....i cant even attempt a game in the nhl with all the problems that league seems to have in the....way to frusterating for me....but ill be reading.....keep us upto date on the Leafs

Why can't Sutter coach, arent you the GM, can't Sutter coach the team?

Some of the things are frustrating but I play slowly so I probably won't see too many strange things happen before the next patch.

Darryl Sutter was both coach and GM so he was released when I took over.

[sachmo71]

Originally Posted by Karim

Some of the things are frustrating but I play slowly so I probably won't see too many strange things happen before the next patch.

Darryl Sutter was both coach and GM so he was released when I took over.

That's why I'm still having fun. I won't make it to the offseason for a LONGGGGGGGGG time!

[Karim]

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October 1st, 2003
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Paul Maurice has chosen to be Assistant Manager in New Jersey. [Again, I had to find out about it in the transactions screen as no news report was issued.] After another search, I decide to offer Brian Sutter another chance to coach the Flames after his unceremonious dump by former GM Ron Bremner. Sutter only wants $375,000/yr. and there are no other interested parties. I'm willing to take him for four years at this price and he accepts.

I set up my protected list for the waiver draft. I decide to leave Roman Turek and his $12.6 million contract unprotected and hope to pick up a backup goalie to Mikka Kiprusoff in the waiver draft if Turek is selected.

Now that I finally have my coaching staff in place, I try and develop a more suitable practice regimen. I want to maximize each coach's ability by letting them focus on one particular area. This will hopefully aid in development and enable me to narrow in on a coach who isn't cutting the mustard.

The Board informs me that finances are secure. The organization is looking healthy with a $20 million infusion thanks to season tickets. Despite this, my player budget remains unchanged and I'm not going to go to the board this early. I still want Turek off the books.

Initial ISS Rankings:
1. Alexander Ovechkin
2. Evgeni Malkin
3. Rostislav Olesz

Waiver Draft:
SJ take G Curtis Joseph
ATL take C Robert Reichel
CGY take F Jarkko Ruutu (unprotect F Chris Clark)
NYR take D Jiri Fischer
BOS take F Darren McCarty
CGY take F Peter Worrell (unprotect F Krzysztof Oliwa)
CHI take D Calle Johansson
WSH take G Jani Hurme [Hurme is injured for 9 months]
ANA take G Roman Turek (Yes!)
CGY take G Martin Gerber
CHI take D Philippe Boucher

I think I did well in the waiver draft. I picked up two forwards, lost none and replaced the $4.2 million Turek with the $500,000 Gerber. The problem now is deciding who will be on the 23 man roster.

Dave Lowry, Oliwa and Martin Sonnenberg get demoted. Having more depth at forward, I decide to let youngsters Kobasew (21) and Oleg Saprykin (22) have a full year at the AHL level. Although both players look better than Ville Nieminen, I can't demote Ville without putting him on waivers. The prospects are simply victims of the numbers game.

I am now only $1 million over budget which should be easy to rectify over the course of the season.

[bbor]

AI is screwed up if someone took Tureks contract.

Gerber in the waivers draft?

[sachmo71]

Originally Posted by bbor

AI is screwed up if someone took Tureks contract.

Gerber in the waivers draft?

Blame Chief Rum.


(sorry chief!)

[Johnny93g]

Im not crazy about the forwards you picked up, but dumping Turek for Gerber

[Karim]

Originally Posted by bbor

AI is screwed up if someone took Tureks contract.

Gerber in the waivers draft?

Yeah. Plus SJ took on Joseph's $8 million contract despite having a solid starter in Nabokov.

[Karim]

Originally Posted by Johnny93g

Im not crazy about the forwards you picked up, but dumping Turek for Gerber

I did an attribute comparison with each of the guys I ended up unprotecting and there was really no contest. So it may not work out but the guys I picked up had better attributes and didn't have hefty contracts.

[Karim]

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October 12th, 2003
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The first rumours of the season suggests that Minnesota is looking at acquiring Columbus defenceman Scott Lachance or Tampa's, Brad Lukowich. Meanwhile, Anaheim is looking to land the Wild's, Nick Schultz.

I decide to make Lowry and Oliwa available to anyone who wants to make an offer. As soon as I set Oliwa's status to available, six teams demonstrate an interest. I still think I have the better player in Worrell and will gladly accept a draft pick to get Oliwa's contract off the books.

My scouts are finally finished with their overview of the organizations' unsigned prospects. Outside of Dion Phaneuf and Tim Ramholt, there are maybe two or three who could become fringe players. The cupboard is indeed bare. There are some attributes that are paramount in my mind - Bravery, Determination, Team Work, Work Rate, Speed, Stamina and Strength. If a player isn't at least a 10 in these categories, I'm not interested. As a result, I have a whole list of unsigned prospects that I'm willing to throw into any deal I make because they don't have a future with this team while I am at the helm.

The first game is at Nashville. Gelinas is still injured. I'm setting the active roster and lines but leaving the tactics to Brian Sutter - for the first 10 games at least.

Here are the lines:

Simon - Reinprecht - Iginla
Nilsson - Conroy - Donovan
McAmmond - Lombardi - Ruutu
Worrell - Yelle - Clark

Regehr - Leopold
Lydman - Warrener
Gauthier - Ferrence

Kiprusoff
Gerber

Game 1: @ Nashville
It was a 3-1 loss. Yelle got the only goal with an assist to Worrell and was second star of the game. We were better in almost every statistical category except one - goaltending. Kiprusoff was atrocious and got a 5 rating. The new aquisitions played ok. Ruutu led the way with 4 hits but was a -2.

A quick check on practice and it seems everyone except Montador is responding well; a lot of green numbers indicating improvement.

I notice Turek gave up 5 goals on 20 shots in his first start for Anaheim. Meanwhile, everyone I sent down to Lowell is lighting it up. Saprykin leads the way with 5 points in 2 games.

Game 2: vs. NY Rangers
I'm not changing the lineup except I'm giving Gerber the start for the home opener because Kiprusoff's conditioning is only at 87%. I also notice that Simon is only at 83%. He'll start but I'm putting him on an intensive conditioning program.

We lose 3-1 again, in front of just under 19,000. We were outhit (unacceptable) and dominated along the boards (unacceptable). Plus, we gave up 10 powerplays, allowing one PP goal. Former Flame goalie, Jamie McLennan haunts us by being first star of the game. Regehr is third star while Iginla scored our only goal of the game. Gerber played well. We cannot lose more than two games in a row if we intend to make the playoffs. Worrell's and McAmmond's morale is already low.

I decide to get a complete physio and coach report for every player under contract. According to the staff, Lowry is washed up and Oliwa, Worrell, Ruutu, Nieminen and Commodore will struggle to hold a place in the squad. They suggest that Commodore should be traded. Not just yet.

Game 3: vs. Phoenix
Kipper gets the start. Gerber is at 89% and Leopold is at 83%, coming off 24 minutes of ice-time two days ago. [With a day inbetween games, most players at the NHL level should recover quicker.] Nieminen goes in for McAmmond who has played two uninspired games and whose morale is low.

A 6-1 victory including 3 powerplay goals and a shorthanded goal by Iginla. Ruutu had a goal and two assists for a 9 rating and first star of the game. If I could issue praise for him I probably would at this moment. The coaches may think he'll struggle but I like what he brings to the table. Nieminen got an assist in his first start of the year. Worrell won his second fight. However, the stats were not that impressive with 20 giveaways as well as being outhit and outworked along the boards.

[I get a message after simming the game that Mike Commodore has been assigned to Lowell. I didn't do this!!!]

It's good to get the first win under your belt.

[sachmo71]

A win! yeah!

[Karim]

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October 28thth, 2003
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[Gelinas has come back from injured Reserve; that is why Commodore was automatically sent down because I had an extra roster player. That is fine but I would have liked to make the choice myself.]

Of my unsigned prospects, 16 don't seem to have a chance at the NHL. I will be including these players in deals to sweaten the pot. Meanwhile, Tampa and Montreal are interested in Oliwa. I've dispatched my scouts to view their prospects. [I may be the only one here but I found it a bit frustrating that to scout a team's unsigned prospects I had to click on every one of their prospects and then the scout button. I wish along with scout --> team, we could also scout --> team prospects. I've posted this on the SI boards.]


Mark Recchi is named Offensive Player of the Week.
Jason Smith is named Defensive Player of the Week. [No points, -1 rating in 2 games?]


Game 4: vs. Edmonton
A big game against our arch rivals. Gelinas and McAmmond are in for Clark and Worrell, both of whom have low morale. I'm adding speed and skill for toughness and grit. Hopefully it works out.
A great 6-2 victory! 5 goals in the first, outshooting Edmonton 33-11 in the game. Ruutu continues his pace with a goal and an assist and a +4 as does Nieminen with two assists. Gauthier, of all people, is first star of the game with a goal and two assists and a 9 rating. Gelinas gets an assist in his first game of the year.

Donovan, Conroy and McAmmond have disappointed so far as has our penalty killing, giving up another powerplay goal. Still, it's nice to see us win handily without Iginla putting up a point.

[Has anyone figured out what transfer funds are? This isn't soccer and I wish some of that cash ($15 million) would be put toward the player budget without me having to ask the board.]

Game 5: vs. Vancouver
Kipper starts even though he's only at 89%. [Man, I hate that.] Clark goes in for Donovan.

A 2-1 OT win against a tough divisional opponent. Vancouver had the lead until 18:30 of the 3rd period, when Nieminen forced OT. Reinprecht scored the winner 7 seconds in.

Kiprusoff was first star and rightly so as we were outshot 31-22. We were outhit and had too many giveaways - a disturbing trend so far this season.

A trade was made. The Rangers trade from the farm, 21 year old G Phil Osaer to Columbus in exchange for 21 year old winger, Tim Jackman and a 7th Round pick in 2004. Jackman stepped in right away and played his first NHL game although according to my scouts, he doesn't have much to offer. A quick glance at the Rangers roster and it appears to be a depth move as the team has run into injury problems. Nice.

Game 6: @ Anaheim
This is our first back-to-back game. Gerber has to start as Kipper is at 77%. Warrener is at 70% and Nieminen is at 71%. [You never hear about guys being scratched because they are tired unless they are coming off an injury.] I have no choice but to sit them out. Montador goes in on defence while Donovan goes in for Nieminen.


A 3-1 loss. J.S. Giguere played great and Joffrey Lupul had a hattrick. This was by far our worst game of the year as we were outhit 18-8 and lost against the boards 62%-37%. Short of changing the tactics on my own, I'm not quite sure how to remedy this yet.

Minnesota sends minor-league goalie Frederic Cloutier and a 2nd Round Pick in 2004 to Florida in exchange for the rights to prospect defenceman Drew Bagnall and defenceman Andreas Lilja.

Game 7: vs. Colorado
Another tough game against a divisional opponent. Warrener is still only at 80% and Nieminen at 81%. Yuck. I've demoted Conroy to the third line.

A 4-1 win. It clearly seems to be tougher for us to win on the road early in the year. McAmmond finally comes through with a 3 point night as well as Clark with a goal and an assist. Not bad coming from the 4th line. Gauthier won a fight against Forsberg. Foppa started it after the game was out of reach. I'd have paid to see that. Iggy's characteristic slow start to the season is apparent as he hasn't done much of anything so far this season.

Dave Scatchard wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Sergei Gonchar wins Defencsive Player of the Week.

[Devils88 and JeffR have made several great titlebars for almost every league in the game. There's also alternative NHL titlebars that are quite funky, I think made by TWolf. Check them out if you get the chance.]

[I've noticed the tactics are all on default/normal. I'm guessing the AI is not making any changes whatsoever? It's hard relying on the AI but the clickfest that is involved in making lineup changes if a big turnoff.]

Game 8: @ Atlanta
We're now on a 3-game road trip and I'd really like to establish something on the road. Gerber starts today against Atlanta and Kipper will play in Carolina tomorrow. Donovan is out, Nieminen is in. Warrener is finally back to 100%.


We get a good start to the road trip with A 4-3 win - all 4 goals on the powerplay. I made some changes there and it is good to see it work. Iginla plays the full 2 minutes while McAmmond goes in on the second unit; it seems he might be sort of a specialist in that area. Leopold had a great game with 3 PP assists.

Game 9: @ Carolina
Donovan in for Clark; strictly a conditioning move. [I see the AI has already substituted Nilson in for Iginla on the 2nd PP unit. It seems I can't place Iginla on both units.]


A 4-2 loss giving up four straight goals before getting our heads in the game. A lot of '6's in the ratings; I'll chalk it up to back-to-back games on the road.

I decide to offer a contract to Swedish defensive prospect, Jonas Frogen. He's 23 and looks ready to make the next step. He's about the only prospect I have that has double-digits in almost every attribute. Although he's struggling recently (a lot of 6 ratings), I think it's worth the gamble. Plus, he only wants a three-year deal @ $220,000/yr along with a $95,000 signing bonus and a 15 assist bonus of $19,500. I'm offering that but I want a two-way clause because he might spend a year in the minors. What I find interesting is that the Board is willing to sign him for up to $2.3 million.

I also try and deal Oliwa (no team is longer interested) and a couple of unsigned prospects I'll never sign for unsigned Montreal prospect F Michael Lambert, a 4th round selection from two years ago. Three different variations get rejected. [Trading is cumbersome. I wish there was a button that would start with the principles that were rejected rather than me having to start all the clicking right from the beginning. It would also be nice to have some feeback, even if it was only verbal clues like "Not a chance!", "We're not interested in such a deal now", "Keep dreaming!", etc., etc. This is one area that definitely needs work for the next version.]

Game 10: @ Toronto
Kipper 91%, is in. Clark is in for Donovan. It seems a 6 rating drops a player's morale. Lydman and Nilson have low morale but are too important to remove from the lineup. I have enough team toughness that Worrell is not getting much action. Conroy is demoted to the fourth line; if this keeps up, I'll trade him before the deadline.

We get whipped 4-0, our first shutout against of the year, managing a pathetic 11 shots on goal. No one played well. Our new, worst game of the year.

Here's our roster after 10 games:

No Name			  GP G A P +/- PIM SOG  Sh  AvR 
17 Clark, Chris	   8 1 2 3  4   15  10 10.0 6.75 
22 Conroy, Craig	 10 0 1 1 -4	2   9  0.0 6.30 
16 Donovan, Shean	 7 1 0 1 -3	0   8 12.5 6.57 
21 Ference, Andrew   10 0 3 3  4	0  11  0.0 7.20 
3 Gauthier, Denis	10 1 2 3  0   22   6 16.7 6.90 
23 Gelinas, Martin	7 1 1 2 -2	0  11  9.1 7.00 
1 Gerber, Martin	  3 0 0 0  0	0   0   -  7.33 
12 Iginla, Jarome	10 4 2 6 -1   10  30 13.3 7.20 
34 Kiprusoff, Miikka  7 0 0 0  0	0   0   -  6.86 
4 Leopold, Jordan	10 1 4 5  0	0  12  8.3 7.00 
18 Lombardi, Matthew 10 3 0 3 -1	8  20 15.0 7.10 
32 Lydman, Toni	  10 0 1 1 -1	0   6  0.0 6.70 
37 McAmmond, Dean	 9 2 3 5  4	2  12 16.7 6.78 
5 Montador, Steve	 2 0 0 0  1	0   1  0.0 7.50 
24 Nieminen, Ville	6 1 3 4 -1	2   8 12.5 6.67 
26 Nilson, Marcus	10 0 2 2 -3	4  13  0.0 6.80 
28 Regehr, Robyn	 10 1 5 6  1	4  10 10.0 7.70 
27 Reinprecht, Steve 10 5 1 6  4	6  20 25.0 7.10 
10 Ruutu, Jarkko	 10 2 4 6  2   37  21  9.5 7.00 
15 Simon, Chris	  10 2 4 6  1   19  23  8.7 7.30 
44 Warrener, Rhett	8 0 0 0 -2	8   6  0.0 7.38 
9 Worrell, Peter	  3 0 1 1  0   14   2  0.0 6.00 
11 Yelle, Stephane   10 2 2 4  4	8  10 20.0 7.20

[Who cares about Shot Percentage? I'd rather see hit and giveaways/takeways. Why did it default to alphabetical listing? I clicked on point total before "printing".]

Here are the standings after 10 games:

Eastern Conference
Pos Team		Pld Won Lst Tie OTL Pct GF GA Pts 
1st Boston	 10 7 3 0 0 0.700 41 28 14 
2nd NY Islanders 8 6 2 0 0 0.750 32 23 12 
3rd Tampa Bay	 9 5 4 0 0 0.556 36 30 10 
4th NY Rangers	7 5 2 0 0 0.714 28 20 10 
5th New Jersey	8 5 3 0 0 0.625 27 20 10 
6th Ottawa	 10 5 5 0 0 0.500 28 25 10 
7th Washington	8 4 3 1 0 0.563 18 18 9 
8th Buffalo 	 7 4 2 0 1 0.643 22 24 9 
---------------------------------------------------
9th Philadelphia 7 4 3 0 0 0.571 22 26 8 
10th Atlanta	 9 4 5 0 0 0.444 32 38 8 
11th Toronto	 10 3 6 1 0 0.350 28 35 7 
12th Carolina	 6 3 3 0 0 0.500 22 18 6 
13th Pittsburgh	8 3 5 0 0 0.375 18 26 6 
14th Florida	 8 2 6 0 0 0.250 19 31 4 
15th Montreal	 9 2 7 0 0 0.222 18 32 4

Western Conference
Pos Team	 Pld Won Lst Tie OTL Pct GF GA Pts 
1st Los Angeles 9 6 3 0 0 0 31 22 12 
2nd Minnesota	8 6 2 0 0 0 26 18 12 
3rd Nashville 10 4 2 4 0 0 29 28 12 
4th San Jose	10 5 3 2 0 0 32 29 12 
5th Dallas	 8 5 2 1 0 0 29 14 11 
6th Detroit	 9 5 3 0 1 1 40 33 11 
7th Calgary	 10 5 5 0 0 0 27 25 10 
8th Vancouver	9 4 4 0 1 1 34 31 9 
------------------------------------------------
9th Anaheim	 9 3 4 1 1 1 30 32 8 
10th Colorado	 8 3 3 2 0 0 21 23 8 
11th Edmonton	 9 2 3 4 0 0 22 22 8 
12th St. Louis	8 3 5 0 0 0 21 25 6 
13th Phoenix	 9 2 6 1 0 0 19 31 5 
14th Chicago	 8 1 4 3 0 0 15 30 5 
15th Columbus	 8 1 5 2 0 0 22 32 4 

[I'm not sure what happened with the win percentages or alignment. It all lined up nicely in the advanced editor.]

Here are the Top 10 Goal Scorers:

Pos Player Nation GP Gls
1st Brenden Morrow Dallas 8 9
2nd Zigmund Palffy Los Angeles 9 8
3rd Scott Mellanby St. Louis 5 7
4th Dave Scatchard NY Islanders 8 7
5th Martin St. Louis Tampa Bay 9 7
6th Joe Thornton Boston 10 7
7th Eric Belanger Los Angeles 9 6
8th Todd Bertuzzi Vancouver 9 6
9th Andrew Brunette Minnesota 8 6
10th Jean-Pierre Dumont Buffalo 7 6

Here are the Top 10 Assist Leaders:

Pos Player Nation GP Asts
1st Sergei Gonchar Boston 10 11
2nd Derian Hatcher Detroit 9 8
3rd Vincent Lecavalier Tampa Bay 9 7
4th Ben Clymer Tampa Bay 9 7
5th Alexander Mogilny Toronto 10 7
6th Keith Tkachuk St. Louis 8 7
7th Ilya Kovalchuk Atlanta 9 7
8th Kenny Jönsson NY Islanders 8 7
9th Nicklas Lidström Detroit 9 7
10th Daniel Briere Buffalo 7 6
[Why isn't there an option to print the Points Leaders?]

Top 10 Average Ratings:

Pos Player Nation GP Av R
1st Ed Jovanovski Vancouver 9 8.11
2nd Marty Turco Dallas 7 8.00
3rd Sergei Gonchar Boston 10 8.00
4th Dave Scatchard NY Islanders 8 7.88
5th Alexei Yashin NY Islanders 8 7.88
6th Mark Recchi Philadelphia 7 7.86
7th Jeremy Roenick Philadelphia 7 7.86
8th Ruslan Salei Anaheim 6 7.83
9th Joe Thornton Boston 10 7.80
10th Chris Therien Dallas 4 7.75

Other League Notables:

Average Attendance:
1) Detroit - 20,051
16) Calgary - 17,603

Goals For Average:
1) Detroit - 4.44
21) Calgary - 2.70

Shots on Goal Average:
1) New Jersey - 34.50
21) Calgary - 24.90

Goals Allowed Average:
1) Dallas - 1.75
6) Calgary - 2.50

Shots on Goal Against Average:
1) Edmonton - 22.33
13) Calgary - 26.10

Penalty Minutes Average:
1) Atlanta - 17.11
3) Calgary - 16.10

Power Play Percentage:
1) Philadelphia - 25.71
11) Calgary - 17.07

Penalty Killing Percentage:
1) Tampa Bay - 96.55%
12) Calgary Flames - 87.04%

(If anyone has specific questions, feel free to ask.)

[Johnny93g]

Dont feel bad about the last game....you guys never had a chance

I agree with everything your saying about the game, infact, ive pretty much shelved it until the patch.....It's back to the original ehm for me

[Karim]

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November 1st, 2003
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Montreal has accepted my trade. I get the rights to LW/C Michael Lambert (19) in exchange for LW Krzysztof Oliwa (30), and the rights to G Andrei Medvedev (20), D Jan Vodrazka (26) and former-NHLer RW/LW Niklas Andersson (32). It's a 4-for-1 deal but none of these four players were going to play for the Flames whereas barring something unforeseen, Lambert will suit up for Calgary in a few years. [It turns out that Total Player Salaries under Finances does not include the salaries of players on the farm. At least, Oliwa's $500,000 salary has not been deducted from the total.]

Alexei Yashin (Ott) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Ed Jovanovski (Van) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

Game 11: vs. Tampa Bay
I've decided to take a more hands-on approach by adjusting team orders, tactics and player instructions, despite how cumbersome it is. I just don't trust the AI. Donovan is in for Clark. Gerber gets the start.

A 6-2 win using my tactics. The Board informs me that they are pleased with the win. As expected, the type of play I wanted improved - high forecheck, 36 shots on goal, 19 hits and 59% boardplay. No one was rated lower than 7. Regehr was 1st Star with a goal and three assists.

Jonas Frogen accepts my offer with a Two-Way Clause and will join the team next year. More depth on defence never hurts.

Jeremy Roenick (Phi) wins Offensive Player of the Month.
Ed Jovanovski (Van) wins Defensive Player of the Month.
Josef Boumedienne (Wsh) wins Rookie of the Month.

Game 12: vs. Florida
Both Regehr and Leopold at at less than 90% but I'm not making any lineup changes other than giving the start to Kiprusoff.

A 2-1 OT loss. Conroy gets the only goal, unassisted.

My scouts have finally finished scouting every NHL club for 5 games. At least I have an updated book on every player currently in the NHL. [I've read that scouting reports are not saved after the year is over. That is a poor design decision.] I've dispatched the scouts to 13 different nations to find unsigned prospects that may be worthwhile. [It takes 1 minute on my machine once I click on "Yes" - 1.4 GHz Athlon AMD, 1GB RAM. 13 minutes just to assign scouts to various nations. This was after I gave up wasting time trying to scout individual unsigned prospects. Trades, scouting and tactics are the areas that need to be better designed in terms of ease of use.]

[bbor]

Karim..you're a bastard.

I'm buying this game now.

[Karim]

Originally Posted by Johnny93g

Dont feel bad about the last game....you guys never had a chance

I agree with everything your saying about the game, infact, ive pretty much shelved it until the patch.....It's back to the original ehm for me

I enjoyed the original but it got silly after a while. I was able to bring in anyone I wanted by trade and ended up winning 3 Cups in a row with Calgary. The best thing was that it was freeware.

[Karim]

Originally Posted by bbor

Karim..you're a bastard.

I'm buying this game now.

I thought you already had, or were at least waiting for it? Were you waiting until September?

There are certain problems right now. Ignoring interface issues the main ones are:

- salaries & free agency (Ottawa had a payroll over $160 million; Varada was making $27.5 million/yr.; some of the signings shenanigans have already been documented)

- draft (Not too many have documented the long-term trends but apparently there are no 1st round busts; every player gets in 800-1000 games in the NHL)

The former is being addressed somewhat in the second patch; no word on the latter.

In a perfect world these things wouldn't have appeared but it's more than solid for a first release when you consider the depth. Most of it I'm sure SI will tune in a second or third patch.

I know I'm enjoying it and have been waiting since Hockey League Simulator 2 for a hockey sim of this magnatitude.

[Karim]

If anyone knows how to line up columns for standings and rosters, please post here and let me know.

Thanks.

[Karim]

November 8th, 2003

The first media story of any substance appears. A writer for a Finnish newspaper suggests that if he was in charge of the team Ilves, he wouldn’t tolerate the complacency of forward Vesa Viitakoski. Viitakoski is a former Flame, although he saw only a handful of games; he’s one of my older unsigned prospects (32) I’m looking to unload.

Game 13: @ Edmonton
This is the first test of road tactics. I don’t really want to change the style of play but I may be a bit more conservative with lines that don’t have much offensive upside. I also won’t be asking the penalty killers to do much more than maintain the box and clear the puck.
Although Kiprusoff is at 90%, Gerber gets the start because he’s at 100% and his morale is Superb. Worrell finally returns to the lineup in replace of Nieminen who is slumping. The usual platooning of Donovan/Clark sees Clark back in the lineup.

The result is a 2-0 shutout victory, our first shutout of the season. Worrell, of all people, gets both goals, both unassisted. Not surprisingly there was 52 minutes of penalties in this matchup of rivals. [Knowing SI, little touches like this are more than likely not a coincidence.]

Keith Tkachuk (Stl) is the Offensive Player of the Week.
Martin Gerber (Cgy) is the Defensive Player of the Week.

After Gerber’s great play of late, I decide to get the coaches’ reports on him. They’ve all changed their minds and think is now a useful depth player. Two of my five coaches have also changed their minds about Jarkko Ruutu.

Pittsburgh trades the rights to forward Cam Paddock to Detroit along with their 3rd Round Pick in 2004 originally from Calgary in exchange for young defenceman Niclas Kronwall.

[Oliwa’s salary has now been removed from the books. It looks like the accounts are managed at the end of the month.]

Lydman and Simon are struggling to regain their conditioning. I’m going to give them the next two days off to hopefully improve on matters.

Another report appears regarding Viitakoski. Apparently the call-in-shows in Finland are lit up with people upset with the GM’s support of this player.

Game 14: @ Colorado
This is the first of back-to-back games on the road against tough divisional opponents. Mikka previously played well in our 4-1 win against Colorado earlier in the year so he gets the start. Gerber will play tomorrow in Vancouver. Lydman is only at 84% while Simon is at 80%. If they play today, they won’t play tomorrow, but how effective will they be at around 80%? If I take these two out, that means I have to scramble all the lines. Yuck. I’ll leave them in but am not confident that it’s the best thing to do.

Not unsurprisingly, we lose 6-3. Kiprusoff got a 5 rating and Conroy, former two-time Selke finalist, was a -3. Time to ship his ass to L.A. (or somewhere else). I’m going to start thinking about a package deal with Conroy and two other assets for a top-six center.

A news report indicates that Slava Kozlov will be out for 7 months with a fractured skull.

A look at our roster reveals some interesting things. Robyn Regehr is enjoying the team’s style of play as does Rhett Warrener and Stephane Yelle. Jarome Iginla is also enjoying the style of play and thinks I am extremely competent as does Marcus Nilson. 8) Nilson, in particular, is proud of the team’s league position and has generated interest from Pittsburgh. A lot of love all the way around.

Game 15: @ Vancouver
Montador is in for Warrener and Donovan is in for Simon. Both players are only at 76% condition. Since two regulars have to be out, I’m going to shake the lines up. [It took about 5-10 minutes to set all the player instructions. It would be much easier, as Maple Leafs pointed out, to have player instructions "locked" to the player, rather than have it set by position.]

We gave up 3 PP goals and were shelled 6-0. Jordan Leopold got a game misconduct in the first for kneeing Markus Naslund. Andrew Ferrence ended up with over 30 minutes of icetime. We had 41 penalty minutes and gave up 9 PP opportunities. Both Shean Donovan and Leopold ended up with a ‘5’ rating. I’m tempted to criticize Donovan but don’t want to criticize Leopold so I back off.

It’s quite clear we have consistency issues. Among our regulars, Nilson, Lydman, Donovan, Clark, McAmmond and Conroy don’t seem to show up every night. Some are worse than others. I’m not sure exactly what to do yet. We are still in a playoff spot but these last two losses against divisional opponents really hurt. I’m leaning towards going back to having the coach deal with tactics just to speed things up on gameday.

I do a player search and narrow it down to a page of centers. I then click on only those who are interested in playing in Calgary and I’m left with Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Jeff O’Neil and Dave Scatchard. They are all "Deemed Untouchable" by their teams except for Brad Richards. That’s my target.

[sachmo71]

Richards to Calgary, eh? Nice move.

[Karim]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

Richards to Calgary, eh? Nice move.

It will be if I can pull it off. It's only 15 games in and I suspect this would be the type of deal where real GMs often say "takes months to get done." I'll be starting to throw names Tampa's way.

I'll have to be patient because this will take months to get done.

[bbor]

Nope...i don't own this game yet....still heavily involved in CM

I 'm hoping everything will be worked out by the time i buy the game.

[Karim]

----------------------------------------
November 18th, 2003
----------------------------------------
I've made what would be considered a blockbuster offer to Tampa for Brad Richards, just by the sheer number of components involved. I've tried to address their team needs in the process. I'll be very surprised if they accept.

Since players' conditioning is dropping, I need to start reducing the number of times we practice, especially players with poor conditioning or who play a lot of minutes.

I've also gone back to just deciding who will play and the line combinations. I'm leaving tactics and individual instructions to the coach. [I am not sure if this is registering. I can't reset everything to "normal" and I see that Team Instructions are the way I've left them which impacts almost each line as well.]

The Calgary Flames have sent:

F Craig Conroy (32)
F Oleg Saprykin (22)
- the rights to F Ruslan Zainulin (21)
- the rights to F Yuri Trubachev (20)
- the rights to F Andrei Taratukhin (20)
- the rights to F Vesa Viitakoski (32)
2004 4th Round Pick (originally from Carolina)
2004 7th Round Pick (originally from NY Rangers)

in exchange for:

F Brad Richards (23)
- the rights to F Nick Taransky (18)
2004 2nd Round Pick

Arguably I overpaid; I'm still testing the limits of the AI. I sent a 4th and 7th for a 2nd. I sent four prospects for one, and two players for one. Still, I think Richards will provide more than Conroy and Saprykin combined, Taransky is the type of player I'm looking for, none of the prospects I gave up are, and I get a 2nd rounder for this year's draft which I did not have before. Zainulin will never make the NHL, Trubachev is a small perimeter player and Viitakoski is 32. Taratukhin will play but I don't think will be much better than Saprykin. Plus, Conroy is an UFA after this season who I wasn't going to resign; Richards is locked in for three years. In total I saved an additional $900,000. I'm pleased but the fans would probably jump down my throat considering how much we gave up.

I should have also asked for the rights to D Mike Egener who plays for the Calgary Hitmen and would have probably gotten him too. I had his name written down but simply missed the boat.

Speaking of Major Juniors, here are scoring leaders from around the CHL.

OHL
St. Michael's is in 1st
Robbie Schremp leads the league with 13 goals and 23 points

WHL
Calgary is in 1st
Johnny Boychuk (a defenceman!) leads the league with 19 points
Aaron Richards leads the league with 12 goals

QMJHL
Gatineau is in 1st
Michael Lambert (whose rights I traded for) leads the league with 11 goals and 20 points
Sidney Crosby is 3rd with 11 goals and 18 points in 24 games

[I really wish I could view the NCAA.]

I get a report that Leopold has been suspended for 3 games after kneeing Naslund in our 6-0 "humiliating defeat." In the process, Naslund suffered broken ribs and is out for 2 months.

Damn! As soon as the trade is confirmed, Iginla becomes unhappy. It says he thinks the team needs strengthening to maintain its league form. This is either a response to trading Conroy because A) Iginla thinks we are a weaker team now; B) Conroy was one of his closest teammates; C) a reaction to losing 6-0. Arguably it could be all or any of the above. It turns out that Yelle and Nilson are also unhappy for the same reason.

Well, I can't just go out and make another trade for the sake of making a trade. If we struggle some more, maybe Kobasew will be called up but it's not something I want to do. I'm going to give it some time and maybe the team will gel with the addition of Richards.

Another cool feature! I have Mike Richards, an unsigned Philadelphia prospect, on my shortlist. He says he feels pressured by the interest being show in him. I wonder if that's a hint he can't handle pressure very well.

Game 16: vs. Vancouver
We owe Vancouver some payback. Kipper gets the start. Nieminen and Worrell are in, Donovan and Clark are out. Tactics have been handed over to Brian Sutter. After all, I brought him in to do just that. If I did all the tactics, it would have been a waste of money to hire a coach.

We score 5 goals in the first and hold on to 5-4 win, giving up two PP goals in the third. 19 hits and 59% along the boards - just the way I like it. McAmmond is first star with 3 assists and a 9 rating. Richards scores in his debut and gets an 8 rating and second star. Kiprusoff only gets a 5 rating. Both of our goalies had trouble against Vancouver in this home-and-home series.

[One thing I don't like is that Richards' profile only shows season totals from his time in Calgary, not totals from the regular season overall. I need to go to the 'History' tab to see that. There doesn't appear to be any way to change this either.]

Paul Kariya (Col) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Johan Hedberg (Van) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

Game 17: vs. Minnesota
No change in the lineup except that Gerber gets the start because Kipper is only at 87%.

We lose 5-3 giving up a PP goal, SH goal and EN goal. Richards was first star with 2 goals and an assist. 23 giveaways; Minnesota's trap was working to perfection. Gelinas and Nilson were each a -3.

The Wild are interested in Montador. Ever since he started playing in place of Leopold, his attributes have shown an improvement. He looks like a candidate to replace Gauthier.

Game 18: vs. St. Louis
Clark is in for Nieminen. Nilson has been promoted to the 2nd line; I really need him to get out of the funk he's in. He has all the attributes but has yet to score a goal this year.

We lose 3-1. All ratings are 6 and 7. Iginla scored the only goal, played over 25 minutes but was a -2. This is a 2 game losing streak. We have to put the fire out but we're going on the road against some tough teams.

L.A. has place Brad Chartrand on waivers. [At least I was informed about it rather than having to check the waiver wire.]

A brief browse around the league show some interesting things.

Western Conference
Colorado has a lot of unhappy players who think the team needs strengthening. This despite them being right in the hunt. San Jose also has a couple of unhappy players, namely Curtis Joseph, who have lost confidence in the General Manager's ability. Alexander Korolyuk feels the media has been overly critical of him. [I haven't seen any stories in this regard.] Detroit is in disarray. Niklas Lidstrom feels that the team needs help, Jason Wooley feels the GM should be more patient with his staff, Derian Hatcher is considering his options and both Brett Hull and Brendan Shanahan has lost all confidence in his GM's ability. Steve Yzerman feels the team could be better and would like to sign a new contract to end his playing career in Detroit. St. Louis has nine different players questioning their GM's ability and Al MacInnis wants to prove the media wrong for the fans. Geoff Sanderson is whining in Vancouver saying he won't resign with the team. Edmonton has injury problems with five guys on IR.

Eastern Conference
There is less going on in the Eastern Conference. Nikolai Khabibulin and Martin St. Louis don't think Tampa Bay is strong enough. Los Angeles is interested in Jaromir Jagr. Washington has 5 guys on IR. Peter Schaefer wants out of Ottawa. Six different Montreal players think the GM is incompetent (Bob Gainey?) and surprise, surprise, Saku Koivu is injured.

[Karim]

--------------------------------
December 1st, 2003
--------------------------------
I've made some custom practice sessions that differentiate between defenceman and forwards. Defenceman have a more all-round training regime whereas forwards have intensive skill and shooting but light conditioning. We'll see how it goes.

Ottawa send defenceman Zdeno Chara (26) to Anaheim for a 2004 1st Round Pick and the rights to Michigan State forward Drew Miller (19). Ottawa is currently out of the playoffs but I don't see why they make this move. [It also show me that high-end players can be had for much less than I gave up and that the AI values draft picks.]

Bill Guerin (Dal) wins the Offensive Player of the Week.
Chris Osgood (Stl) wins the Defensive Player of the Week.

Game 19: @ Philadelphia
Kipper starts. Leopold is back and Montador goes in for Gauthier. Donovan goes in for Clark. We need a win but morale among the forwards is low.

A 2-2 tie, our first tie of the year, despite being outshot 46-23. Our fourth line of Worrell-Yelle-Donovan gave up both goals.

A news report indicates that Detroit fans are furious after the team lost 4-1 to St. Louis. Fans believe that the players are not showing sufficient commitment on the ice.

Also, although Pittsburgh is currently in a playoff position, the media thinks its a long shot that they will actually make the playoffs.

Ken Holland has been fired! The players revolt I mentioned earlier is the main cause it appears.

Apparently, the Oilers are interested in my farm hand, Lynn Loyns. With this media report it seems his status has changed to hot prospect for the future. I deny that Loyns is on the block.

I make a brief player search. Brendan Morrow is a guy I've always liked but he's untouchable by Dallas; rightfully so as he's ripping up the league in his best season to date. Erik Cole seems to be a poor man's version of Morrow so I send scouts to take a look. I'm not actively interested in doing something now as it's too soon after the Richards trade but Yelle, Nilson and Iginla are still unhappy, thinking that the team isn't strong enough.

Game 20: @ New Jersey
Chalk this one up as a loss. Regehr and Warrener are out of gas and Gerber has to start because of Kiprusoff's condition. I think I'm going to demote or trade a forward and bring up Commodore. My defencemen get tired quicker and I think it would be wise to carry 8.

Wow! A 1-1 tie on the road against the best team in the league. Gerber was outstanding.

Game 21: vs. St. Louis
We're on a 4-game homestand that is crucial. Gerber gets another start after his great game in New Jersey. Regehr is out because he is tired. Otherwise, the lineup seems to have finally run itself into form.

A very good 7-2 victory. No one had a big night as everyone contributed. This was probably our best victory of the year. We outshot St. Louis 31-20 and were 27-8 in takeaways. Is there a goaltending controversy in Calgary? Gerber played great again.

The customized practice sessions I've done separating forwards from defence seems to be paying off a little. Attributes have increased for more players.

Scouts come back telling me that Erik Cole would be a good signing. Gee thanks. I'll file that one for later.

Bobby Clarke is at it again. Philadelphia trades the rights to G David Tremblay (18), the rights to D Jussi Timonen (20), and a 3rd Round Pick in 2004 to the New York Islanders in exchange for D Roman Hamrlik (29). I suppose it makes sense if the Islanders weren't going to resign Hamrlik who is an unrestricted free agent after the season.

Mark Recchi (Phi) wins the Offensive Player of the Week.
Adam Foote (Col) wins the Defensive Player of the Week.

I receive my first trade proposal. Los Angeles is offering F Steve Kelly (27) for F Chuck Kobasew (21). This is a joke, right?

Game 22: vs. Anaheim
I decide to go with Kiprusoff for fear that his morale may decrease if I stay with Gerber. We play in two nights and no doubt Kipper won't be in condition to play so Gerber will see action again quickly. Regehr is back in and Montador stays in instead of Gauthier.

Back-to-back 7-2 victories and the Board is pleased! Richards gets a hattrick but will be out 10 days with a thigh strain. Kipper only gets a '6' rating, allowing 2 goals on only 14 shots. But I guess that's better than Turek's '4' rating, allowing 7 goals on 28 shots.

Farjestad has fired its GM, former Flame, Hakan Loob. [I'm tempted to offer him a job as Assistant Manager but there really is no point. Unlike CM, where the Assistant Manager can manage the reserve and youth squads, I'm not sure what this role does in EHM. I don't plan to go on Vacation and so it doesn't make sense to add another staff member.]

David Poile has been hired by the Red Wings. [This is just plain wrong and clearly a leftover from the CM3 design. In hockey, a GM just doesn't jump ship like this. Now Nashivlle has to look for a new GM.]

I get a proposal from Atlanta for Chuck Kobasew. They are offering Daniel Corso (25) and the rights to defenceman Tyler Boldt (19). Kobasew is so much better and not going anywhere. I decide to alter his status to untouchable.

Game 23: vs. Phoenix
Gerber starts. With Richards' injury, the extra roster spot goes to Donovan. Reinprecht moves to the first line and I'm trying McAmmond at center on the second line.

A 4-4 tie. We outshot Phoenix 41-24 but gave up two PP goals. Clark has a 3 point night. Gerber and Montador come back down to earth with '6' ratings. Donovan is a no-show once again.

Phoenix sends the rights to D Marcus Smith (20) and a 6th Round Pick in 2004 to Minnesota in exchange for the rights to D Georgi Misharin (18) and C Rickard Wallin (23). Nothing earth shattering here and seems to be fair on both sides.

Montreal who is well out of the race sends future UFA F Alexei Kovalev (30) to Los Angeles for F Scott Barney (21), D Tim Gleason (20) and a 1st Round Pick in 2004. Nice!

I decide to make a bid for Erik Cole. I see Chicago is also interested.

Game 24: vs. San Jose
Kipper gets the start. No lineup changes.

A 4-1 win to make us undefeated on this four game homestand - exactly what we needed. The Board is pleased. McAmmond seems to be relishing his role as 2nd line center. I may keep him there, move Reinprecht to 1st line LW, and drop Simon to 2nd line LW when Richards comes back. Ruutu has two goals and is 1st star. I really like the guy.

F Peter Forsberg (Col) is Offensive Player of the Month.
G Chris Mason (Nsh) is Defensive Player of the Month.
F Nathan Horton (Fla) is Rookie of the Month.

Three trade proposals to Carolina have been rejected. I'm trying not to get schooled this time but I wish there was some sort of feedback.

At the end of November, here are the standings: [I really don't know how to post this. I tried used the 'Code' tags but that doesn't line up the columns. I tried posting the HTML code the game generates but I got pages of blank space. If anyone knows what's going on or better yet, an easy way to post standings and rosters, please let me know.]

Eastern Conference
1st Buffalo 31
2nd New Jersey 30
3rd Carolina 28
4th Tampa Bay 28
5th Boston 27
6th NY Islanders 27
7th Florida 26
8th Philadelphia 26
--------------------
9th Ottawa 25
10th NY Rangers 24
11th Atlanta 24
12th Pittsburgh 22
13th Washington 19
14th Toronto 18
15th Montreal 11

Western Conference
1st Dallas 35
2nd Nashville 30
3rd Colorado 28
4th Los Angeles 28
5th Minnesota 27
6th Calgary 26
7th Anaheim 26
8th St. Louis 24
-------------------
9th Phoenix 23
10th San Jose 21
11th Vancouver 20
12th Detroit 20
13th Edmonton 18
14th Chicago 17
15th Columbus 15

The roster:

No Name GP G A P +/- PIM SOG Sh Av R
--------------------------------------------
17 Clark, Chris 17 3 4 7 5 40 19 15.8 6.71
16 Donovan, Shean 13 1 0 1 -8 2 14 7.1 6.31
21 Ference, Andrew 24 1 5 6 8 4 20 5.0 7.08
3 Gauthier, Denis 20 1 2 3 1 53 11 9.1 6.90
23 Gelinas, Martin 21 4 5 9 1 2 37 10.8 7.00
1 Gerber, Martin 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 7.10
12 Iginla, Jarome 24 11 8 19 3 20 85 12.9 7.42
34 Kiprusoff, Miikka 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 6.79
4 Leopold, Jordan 21 1 6 7 5 17 20 5.0 6.95
18 Lombardi, Matthew 24 7 3 10 -1 14 36 19.4 7.00
32 Lydman, Toni 24 0 5 5 8 2 23 0.0 6.88
37 McAmmond, Dean 23 4 10 14 14 10 48 8.3 7.04
5 Montador, Steve 12 1 4 5 3 4 11 9.1 7.33
24 Nieminen, Ville 15 1 4 5 -1 12 17 5.9 6.47
26 Nilson, Marcus 24 0 8 8 1 12 26 0.0 6.88
28 Regehr, Robyn 23 2 11 13 1 25 23 8.7 7.52
27 Reinprecht, Steve 24 10 6 16 12 16 46 21.7 7.17
13 Richards, Brad 7 7 1 8 7 2 20 35.0 7.71
10 Ruutu, Jarkko 24 6 8 14 8 79 65 9.2 7.17
15 Simon, Chris 23 6 10 16 8 39 64 9.4 7.30
44 Warrener, Rhett 20 0 2 2 5 27 23 0.0 7.40
9 Worrell, Peter 10 2 1 3 -3 33 8 25.0 6.50
11 Yelle, Stephane 24 4 4 8 3 10 28 14.3 7.08

[I don't know if I'm going to bother showing the roster any longer. Not only does it not list by points but Richards' total is his total with Calgary, not his regular season total. Things like this should be obvious, no?]

Average Attendance:
1) Detroit - 20,052
18) Calgary - 17,287
30) Atlanta - 14,866

Goals For Average:
1) Dallas - 3.74
12) Calgary - 3.04
30) Montreal - 1.96

Shots on Goal Average:
1) New Jersey - 31.45
14) Calgary - 27.38
30) Montreal - 21.68

Goals Allowed Average:
1) New Jersey - 2.18
12) Calgary - 2.71
30) Detroit - 3.74

Shots on Goal Against Average:
1) Carolina - 22.70
14) Calgary - 26.42
30) Montreal - 31.28

Penalty Minutes Average:
1) Calgary - 17.71
30) Vancouver - 8.72

PP Percentage:
1) Philadelphia - 23.96
25) Calgary - 10.00
30) Atlanta - 6.86

PK Percentage:
1) Colorado - 96.20
15) Calgary - 86.26
30) Columbus - 79.78

Brendan Morrow is leading the league in scoring with 29 points in 23 games. Joe Thornton is leading in goals with 18 in 24 games. Sergei Gonchar is the top scoring defenceman with 22 points in 24 games. Joffrey Lupul is leading all rookie scorers with 10 goals and 16 points in 25 games. Kevin Weekes is leading with a 1.70 GAA, Marty Turco is leading in wins with 14 and Chris Mason of Nashville is leading in save percentage at .934.

[Karim]

December 13th, 2003
---------------------
I have made an offer to Carolina for a prospect. They've countered wanting Mike Commodore. I check his attributes and they are quite impressive; he has a 8.32 average rating in the AHL. As a result, I think he could fetch more and I make a counter counter-proposal to include Erik Cole.

We now embark on a tough 3-game roadtrip.

Game 25: @ Minnesota
Kipper gets the start and no change in the lineup.

We lose 2-1 giving up both goals on the PP and we're outshot 31-14.

Game 26: @ Colorado
Gerber starts. Gauthier in for Leopold who is gassed.

We lose 2-3 being outshot 34-17 giving up another PP goal. Kipper kept us in the game. Ever since Richards went down, we can't generate any offence.

Game 27: @ Vancouver
Kipper starts. Worrell is in for Donovan who has done nothing except put up a string of '6s' since Richards has been out.

A good 3-0 shutout to stem the losing streak except for the fact that Warrener is out for about two weeks with a knee strain. I'm glad I didn't trade Commodore. Some of the best moves are the ones you don't make.

Ken Holland has found work in Nashville.

The Calgary Flames trade F Shean Donovan (28) and the rights to D Jayme Filipowicz (27), D Dimitri Kokorev (24), F Jesper Mattsson (28), F Niklas Sunblad (30) and F Jeremy Brown (29) to the New York Rangers in exchange for F Jed Ortmeyer (25). [Interestingly, I've confirmed the trade but have a game to play and Donovan is still available to me.]

Game 28: vs. Colorado
Gerber gets the start. I'm dressing 7 defencemen. Worrell sits.

We get blown out 4-0 at home. Everyone played like crap. Iginla had his worst outing of the season, with a '6' rating.

Marius Czerkawski is out for 4 months with a separated shoulder.

Richards is finally back; we went 2W-3L-1T without him. I suppose it could have been worse.

Marion Gaborik (Min) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Garth Snow (NYI) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

I've noticed that Martin Gerber's goaltending attributes have increased. Nice to see.

Game 29: vs. Montreal
Kipper starts. Gauthier, Nieminen and Worrell are healthy scratches. I've moved Reinprecht up to the first line to play with Richards and Iginla. Simon moves down.

We win 4-2. Richards continues right where he left off with a goal, an '8' rating and 2nd Star of the game. Ruutu still awards the faith I've shown in him with a goal and an assist and a +3. The second line of Simon-McAmmond-Ortmeyer didn't click at all and were a -1.

Quite a few trades are being made with the Christmas roster freeze coming up.

Toronto trades the rights to D Lubomir Velebny (21) and a 3rd Round Pick in 2004 to Phoenix in exchange for the rights to D Severin Blindenbacher (20).

Edmonton trades D Scott Ferguson (30) and D Steve Staois (30) to Dallas in exchange for F Antti Miettinen (23) and a 1st Round Pick in 2004. Looks like Edmonton's giving up on the playoffs.

Todd Harvey has been placed on waivers. I'd take a flyer on him but not at $1,300,000.

Game 30: vs. Toronto
Toronto is struggling this year and we owe them a loss after losing 4-0 to them earlier in the year. Gerber starts. Gauthier's in for Commodore.

We win 4-2. Nilson scores his first goal of the season. It looks like the 4th line of Nilson-Yelle-Clark is showing some chemistry. We still give up a PP goal. I think I'm no longer going to play regulars on the PK unit.

[Karim]

December 18th, 2003
-------------------
I want to make a contract offer to Sebastien Bordeleau, a former NHLer now playing in Switzerland. He has a NHL-release clause so I won't have to pay compensation. [However, he can't come over until next year but he still wants to be paid for this year.] I decide to wait until June.

I send my scouts to look at Sheldon Souray, Nikolai Zherdev (who is surprisingly not deemed untouchable) and Mark Bell. I don't think I'm going to be able to pry Erik Cole out of Carolina.

Game 31: @ Los Angeles
Kipper starts. Commodore is in for Montador. Richards moves to the left side so the number one line is Richards-Reinprecht-Iginla. I take Richards and Iginla off the penalty kill and insert Clark and Ortmeyer. I have to shake up the PK as it's one of the worst in the league.

We lose 5-2. It seems to be a fairly even game except for the fact that Kiprusoff played poorly. We didn't give up a PP goal but everyone was -1 except for Lydman who was -3.

Vincent Lecavalier (Tam) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Derek Morris (Pho) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

My scouts have finally finished scouring the world looking at all of the NHL's team unsigned prospects. I've finalized a list of players I'd be interested in.

Goaltenders
Konstantin Barulin, SKA - Russia (Stl)
Stefan Liv, HV71 - Sweden (Det)
Henrik Lundqvist, Frolunda - Sweden (NYR)

Defencemen
Johnny Boychuk, Moose Jaw - Canada (Col)
Nathan Saunders, Moncton - Canada (Ana)
Brent Seabrook, Lethbridge - Canada (Chi)
Shea Weber, Kelowna - Canada (Nsh)
Markus Kankaanpera, Jokerit - Finland (Van)
Denis Grot, Lokomotiv - Russia (Van)
Erik Lewerstrom, Nybro - Sweden (Pho)

Forwards
Anthony Stewart, Kingston - Canada (Fla)
Marc-Andre Bernier, Cape Breton - Canada (Van)
Colin Fraser, Red Deer - Canada (Chi)
Randall Gelech, Kelowna - Canada (Pho)
Ryan Getzlaf, Calgary - Canada (Ana)
Franz Nielsen, MIF - Sweden (NYI)
Michael Tessier, P.E.I. - Canada (Buf)
Ted Vandermeer, Tri-City - Canada (Ana)
Patrick O'Sullivan, Mississauga - Canada (Min)
Milan Kopecky, Slavia - Czech Republic (Phi)
Petr Prucha, Pardubice - Czech Republic (NYR)
Jarkko Immonen, JYP - Finland (NYR)
Jens Karlsson, Frolunda - Sweden (LA)
Ossi Louhivaara, KooKoo - Finland (Ott)
Masi Marjamaki, Moose Jaw - Canada (Bos)
Ilkka Pikkarainen, Albany - USA (NJ)
Alexander Steen, Frolunda - Sweden (Tor)
Alexei Shkotov, Quebec - Canada (Stl)
Tomas Troliga, Calgary - Canada (Stl)
Yared Hagos, Timra - Sweden (Dal)
Magnus Kahnberg, Frolunda - Sweden (Car)
Joel Lundqvist, Frolunda - Sweden (Dal)
Jonas Nordquist, Lulea - Sweden (Chi)
Mattias Wennerberg, Modo - Sweden (Chi)

This was an exhausting process in terms of clicking, reviewing scouting reports, making player comparisons, reviewing stats, etc., but now that it's done I have an accurate assessment of unsigned prospects world wide and it should save time from here on out.

Now it's time to start thinking about the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Six of my scouts won't be participating in making assessments as I don't trust their judgement. I'm going to send the remaining seven scouts one at a time to bring back a list of players they think we should draft. I will then save and print all seven lists, read scouting reports, review statistics and come up with a prospect ranking of my own. For me, this is one of the most enjoyable aspect of any sports management simulation.

Game 32: @ Edmonton
Gerber starts. Montador goes in for Commodore. I drop Richards to the second line and reunite the Simon-Reinprecht-Iginla line. I'm hoping this returns Simon to form and maybe spreads the scoring around a bit.

Ouch. We get killed 8-3 by our arch rivals and drop out of a playoff spot. Gerber got pulled after allowing 3 goals on 4 shots in only 9 minutes. He ended up with a '4' rating but Kiprusoff didn't do much better the rest of the way and ended up with a '5' rating as did Clark and Ference. I criticize Gerber's poor performance and admits he wasn't prepared.

Tampa Bay trade Dmitry Afanasenkov to Chicago in exchange for a 4th Round Pick in 2004 (originally from Colorado) and G Adam Munro (21).

Game 33: @ Minnesota
This could be the 3 losses in a row I've been trying to avoid all year. Regehr is out as he's only at 70%. I decide to let Brian Sutter set the lines. These are his line combinations:

Reinprecht-Richards-Iginla
Gelinas-Yelle-Ruutu
Simon-Lombardi-Nilson
McAmmond-Clark-Ortmeyer

Gauthier-Commodore
Lydman-Ference
Leopold-Montador

Kiprusoff [Starting at only 75% condition?]
Gerber

We lose 2-0 only managing a disgraceful 16 shots on goal. To make matters worse, we've lost Iginla for about 10 days due to a twisted knee. We've dropped down to 10th in the Western Conference.

Things are unravelling.

[Johnny93g]

I never had a problem postin the standings, but the rosters and the stats were screwed up....I just used spacebar in notepad to get the spacing right, and line everything up accordingly.....

The output for stats doesnt include goalie stats(the only reason why I can think of is they plain forgot about goalies) so could you post those, as it seems Kipper is losing his job....

And dont touch Steen.....let him grow and become great in Toronto....we need to keep the kids around

[Karim]

Originally Posted by Johnny93g

I never had a problem postin the standings, but the rosters and the stats were screwed up....I just used spacebar in notepad to get the spacing right, and line everything up accordingly.....

The output for stats doesnt include goalie stats(the only reason why I can think of is they plain forgot about goalies) so could you post those, as it seems Kipper is losing his job....

And dont touch Steen.....let him grow and become great in Toronto....we need to keep the kids around

Thanks, Johnny. Part of the problem may be because I was copying from Wordpad instead of Notepad. There may have been some extra spacing being copied.

Steen's on my list, but it's a long list. There are others I'd target well before him. For whatever reason, Toronto is really struggling in my career.

Here are a stat comparison of Kipper and Gerber:

G Mikka Kiprusoff (27)
20GP - 9W - 9L - 1T - 1197Mins - 50GA - 2.51GAA - 0.903SV% - 1SO -6.85AvR
 
G Martin Gerber (29)
14GP - 5W - 7L - 2T - 797Mins - 40GA - 3.01GAA - 0.894% - 1SO - 6.86AvR

I think Gerber's stats are a little misleading because of his last start against Edmonton. I wasn't planning on playing him so much but because of the way conditioning is done (which I think will be fixed in the patch), I have no choice. Maybe I'll just ignore it.

[Karim]

Last attempt at a roster:

Name			  GP  G   A   P   +/-  PIM  SOG  H   GA  TA  Av R 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Richards, Brad	28  15   9  24  13	8	68  12  12  35  7.36
Iginla, Jarome	33  12   8  20   1   24   104  30  26  40  7.30
Ruutu, Jarkko	 33   8  12  20  12   96	83  30  35  33  7.24
Reinprecht, Steve 33  11   6  17  11   18	52   9   8  43  7.09
Ortmeyer, Jed	 33  10   7  17   8   14	51  21  21  14  6.75
Simon, Chris	  32   7  10  17   3   65	77  21  23  19  7.13
McAmmond, Dean	32   6  11  17  13   10	61   4  11  28  6.91
Gelinas, Martin   30   7   6  13   5	4	52   9  13  20  7.03
Regehr, Robyn	 31   2  11  13   1   31	28  66  75  19  7.39
Yelle, Stephane   33   5   7  12   4   16	37  26  22  26  7.03
Lombardi, Matthew 33   7   4  11   1   18	48  16  15  24  6.97
Clark, Chris	  26   5   6  11   3   62	35  17  11   8  6.73
Nilson, Marcus	33   2   8  10   0   14	45  16  25 29 .82
Leopold, Jordan   28   1   7   8   5   17	30  36  22   9  6.82
Ference, Andrew   33   1   7   8   8	8	32  36  42  24  7.06
Nieminen, Ville   19   3   4   7   0   16	22   5   6  14  6.47
Lydman, Toni	  32   0   7   7   6	2	34  34  37  27  6.91
Montador, Steve   20   1   5   6   5   10	14  26  26  11  7.25
Worrell, Peter	11   2   1   3  -2   35	10   7   6   4  6.55
Gauthier, Denis   27   1   2   3   2   61	12  48  40   9  6.85
Warrener, Rhett   23   0   3   3   5   31	24  43  42  27  7.39
Commodore, Mike	4   0   0   0  -1	0	 3   5   5   2  6.25

[klayman]

Nice job Karim!

You do realize I will have to post an Oiler dynasty to rid the board of this evil Flames taint that you have brought upon us all now, don't you?

[Karim]

The Greasers just lit me on fire beating us 8-3 and it's caused a morale problem on the roster. That should be enough to keep you satisfied.

[Karim]

December 18th, 2003
-------------------
From bad to worse; Matthew Lombardi will be out for 3 weeks after suffering a groin strain in practice.

Game 34: vs. Detroit
Desperate to stop this three game losing streak, I decide to get involved in tactics again.

[I still am not going to bother with individual player instructions.]

Team Instructions:
Forward Usage: Equal
Defense Usage: Normal
Powerplay Usage: Favor 1st

Defensive Coverage: Zonal
Backchecking: Hard
Pressing: Hard
Hitting: Hard
Boardplay: Power

Shooting: Barrage
Line Matching: No

Gerber starts despite having a very low morale because Kipper is only at 75%. [I hope goalie conditioning will be addressed in the next patch.]

Even-strength line tactics:
Mentality: Defensive
Off.System: Mixed
Off.Zone: Crash the Net
Forecheck: High Forecheck

Powerplay tactics:
Mentality: Attacking
Off.System: Mixed
PP System: Overload
Forecheck: High Forecheck

Penalty Kill tactics:
Mentality: Defensive
Off.System: Mixed
PK System: Tight Box
Def.Coverage: Zonal

The result is a 1-1 tie, 6-for-6 on the PK which is very nice. Gerber was first star of the

game with an '8' rating. [Regehr was only at 79% but I inserted him in the lineup. It seems Brian Sutter overruled my decision and inserted Commodore instead.] I'll take it and hopefully this is the start of a turnaround.

Game 35: vs. Chicago
Kipper gets the start. Gauthier is out, Regehr is in.

A 2-1 victory, again going 6-for-6 on the PK. Our defence-first system seems to be catching on. We really have no choice with Iginla and Lombardi out.

[Karim]

December 23rd, 2003
-------------------
Jeremy Roenick (Phi) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Steve Passmore (Chi) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

Game 36: @ St. Louis
Gerber starts. Gauthier's in for Montador.

A 5-3 road victory, including 2 PP goals. More bad news on the injury front. Regehr will be out for a month with a sprained ACL and Ruutu will be out for 10 days due to knee pain.

I recall F Lynn Loyns (22) from the farm.

James Dolan, head of Cablevision and the New York Rangers, has dismissed rumours that the Rangers are looking to unload Jagr.

The World Junior Championships are underway.

Game 37: @ Colorado
On the road against the top team in the Western Conference with four regulars out - a tough task. Kipper gets the start.

A 5-4 win, arguably our best of the season. We gave up and scored 2 PP goals. With 10 minutes left in the game we had a 5-1 lead - an indication of the explosiveness of the Avalanche.

Game 38: @ Minnesota
[I'm not sure what happened here. The game simmed without stopping to inform me of a game and so I didn't get a chance to adjust the lineup. Most likely human error.]

A 3-1 loss.

Patrik Stefan (Atl) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Ken Klee (Tor) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

Edmonton trades G Mike Morrison (21), the rights to F Colin McDonald (19), the rights to F Alexei Mikhnov (21) and a 6th Round Pick in 2004 to Detroit in exchange for F Jiri Hudler (19).

Vancouver trades F Jason King (22) and F Brad May (32) to Columbus in exchange for G Blake Ward (21) and a 3rd Round Pick in 2004.

The trade by Edmonton for Hudler makes me want to pry Joel Lundqvist out of Dallas. I make an offer.

Dany Heatley, Mario Lemieux, and Chris Pronger have all rejected new contracts. Meanwhile, it seems the entire Flames roster has contracts expiring in six months. I make the token qualifying offer to those who require it. I have to wait on the unrestricted free agents because I don't know exactly where I'll be come the trade deadline.

F Vincent Lecavalier (Tam) wins Offensive Player of the Month.
G Garth Snow (NYI) wins Defensive Player of the Month.
D Matt Spiller (Pho) wins Rookie of the Month.

The Board is pleased with my overall performance; finances are extremely secure.

ISS Rankings
1. Alexander Ovechkin
2. Yevgeni Malkin
3. Rostislav Olesz

Game 39: vs. Minnesota
Gerber starts. Iginla and Warrener are back.

A 3-1 win, outshooting the Wild 33-11. Both a PP goal scored and given up.

[sachmo71]

The stamina situation is addressed in the next patch. Word is, it's much improved.

[Karim]

Good to hear.

[Karim]

January 2nd, 2004
-----------------
Yes. Dallas has accepted my trade proposal. I'm really pleased about this one because other than Getzlaf from Anaheim, I feel Lundqvist is the best unsigned forward prospect in the NHL.

Calgary trades the rights to F Ryan Donally (18), the rights to F Tyler Johnson (18), the rights to F Jamie Tardif (18), the rights to F Kevin Harvey (19), the rights to G Levente Szuper (23), and F Dave Lowry (38) to Dallas in exchange for the rights to F Joel Lundqvist (21) and a 4th Round Pick in 2004. Each of the prospects I gave up had little to no bravery, determination or speed - prerequisites I feel are needed to play in the NHL.

Ilya Kovalchuk has rejected Atlanta's latest contract offer.

Ville Nieminen and Denis Gauthier have signed new deals. I'm surprised by Ville signing because he wanted $1 million, a substantial increase from his $600k salary and too much for a part-time player. I offered no bonus, a 1-year deal at only the level to qualify and he accepts. Gauthier wanted a long-term deal and I only offer 1 more year. Both players now have superb morale.

Game 40: @ Edmonton
Kiprusoff starts. No line up changes. I really want this one. We owe the Greasers.
*&%$! We lose 4-2 even though we had a 2-1 lead going into the third, where we subsequently give up 2 PP goals. No obvious signs of why this one got away from us other than the penalty killing.

Chris Simon, Jarkko Ruutu and Rhett Warrener have all signed new 3-year contracts. Warrener says his love for the team was why he signed.

Colorado is offering me Steve Moore for the rights to Dion Phaneuf. [Where's the option to laugh is Pierre Lacroix's face?] Meanwhile, Los Angeles is offering Steve Kelly for Phaneuf. Mindboggling.

Vancouver has traded F Tyler Bouck (23) to the New York Rangers in exchange for the rights to G Chris Holt (18) and a 2nd Round Pick in 2004 (originally from Edmonton).

Game 41: @ Columbus
Gerber starts. Leopold and Simon have to come out as they're only at 70%. I decide to use Iginla on the point on the 1st PP unit.

A bad 5-2 loss against the worst team in the NHL, giving up 3 goals in the 3rd. Warrener is hurt again. Playoffs are looking distant.

The standings half way through the season:

Eastern Conference
------------------
NYI 52
BUF 48
ATL 45
PHI 49
OTT 46
CAR 44
TAM 44
NJD 43
------
BOS 42
FLA 42
WSH 41
TOR 33
PIT 32
NYR 32
MON 26

Western Conference
------------------
COL 53
DAL 51
DET 44
LOS 45
MIN 45
PHO 45
STL 43
ANA 43
------
NSH 43
CGY 41
VAN 36
SAN 31
EDM 31
CHI 26
CBS 25

The leading scorer is Ilya Kovalchuk with 47 points in 42 games. The leading goal scorer is Marian Hossa with 26 goals in 40 games. Sergei Gonchar leads all defencemen with 26 points in 30 games. Nikolai Zherdev leads all rookies with 28 points in 38 games. Among goalies, Marty Turco leads with 21 wins, Garth Snow leads with a 1.94 GAA and Manny Fernandez leads with a .921 SV%. The highest AvR is 7.60 belonging to Keith Tkachuk.

[sachmo71]

Tyler Bouck for a prospect AND a second? Sheesh!

[Karim]

Yeah, well, it's the Rangers.

[Karim]

January 5th, 2004
-----------------
I have made an offer to Todd Graham of the Sudbury Wolves and Kelly Deschamps of the University of Calgary to become assistant coaches. Both prefer a defensive/conditioning type of game and that suits what I'm trying to do. They'll be replacing Rob Cookson and Rich Preston whose contracts will expire at the end of the year and won't be renewed.

Paul Kariya has rejected Colorado's latest contract offer.

Chris Clark, Steven Reinprecht, Toni Lydman, Jed Ortmeyer, Stephane Yelle, Mikka Kiprusoff, Markus Nilson and Steve Montador have all re-signed. Now that Nilson and Yelle have signed a contract, they are no longer unhappy. That leaves only Iginla who is now unhappy because he feels the team needs strengthening.

At the World Juniors, Canada and Russia finish first in their groups after the round robin portion of the tournament. The biggest shock is the Czech Republic failing to advance, eventually losing to Austria and Slovakia and being relegated. In the elinimation stage, USA beats Finland 6-1, and Sweden beats Switzerland 4-3 in a shootout.

The New York Rangers offer a prospect who I'm not interested in plus a 3rd Round Pick in 2005 for Lynn Loyns. I negotiate for a 2nd this year.

Game 42: vs. Nashville
Gerbert starts. Leopold and Lydman are in need of rest but I can't keep them out. Simon is out at 80%.

A 5-3 win. Our specialty team have killed us this year as we give up another PP and SH goal.

Regehr, Gerber, Ference and Commodore resign; I didn't figure it would be this easy.

Danius Zubrus (Wsh) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Sean Burke (Phi) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

The New York Rangers trade the rights to F Marcus Jonasen (21), the rights to D Ivan Baranka (18) and a 4th Round Pick in 2004 (originally from Edmonton) to Phoenix in exchange for F Fredrik Sjostrom (20).

In the World Juniors semi-finals, Canada beat Sweden 4-1 and USA beat Russia 1-0.

Todd Graham has agreed to join the Flames as an assistant coach. I let Rob Cookson go. [I didn't get a message that I owed him any money. I wonder if this is a bug.] I may fire Hislop and keep Preston if that's the case.

Game 43: vs. Los Angeles
Kipper starts. Ruutu is back.

We lose 5-3 giving up another SH and PP goal. For all intents and purposes, we played well except on specialty teams and in goal.

We are the 3rd best team in the Western Conference at home but we're dreadful on the road. That and specialty teams are killing us.

The Calgary Flames trade F Lynn Loyns (22), F Martin Sonnenberg (25), G Dany Sabourin (23) and the rights to F Igor Shastin (21) to the New York Rangers for a 2nd Round Pick in 2004 (originally from Montreal).

I have some nice draft picks for this upcoming year and have purged my unsigned prospects of players I'd never sign. In the process, I have some quality prospects on defence and up front. I'm lacking for a decent goalie prospect but if I do give up on the playoffs, I'm sure an UFA like Gelinas or McAmmond could rectify that. Otherwise, I'm looking at a German goalie by the name of Marco Buhrer in the draft. He's older at 24 so he's already quite developed. He plays for Bern in the Swiss league. All of my scouts are raving about him.

[Karim]

January 10th, 2004
------------------
I fire Jamie Hislop. [It looks like you can terminate coaches without any repurcussions to your budget.]

Sean Burke has told the media that Philly needs to trade for better players ASAP. They're currently 5th in the Eastern Conference.

Kelly Deschamps has joined the team as an assistant coach.

Canada beats the USA 2-0 at the World Junior Championships. The US went 0/11 on the PP.

Dion Phaneuf is looking more and more like the best defencemen from his draft year.

Game 44: vs. Chicago
I hand over tactics to Brian Sutter. Kipper starts and Lombardi's back. Our defense is tired so I reduce the amount I rely on Leopold and Ference.

A 2-1 win, outshooting Chicago 33-11, but we still give up a PP goal.

Game 45: vs. Dallas
Gerber in for Kipper, Nieminen in for Clark; strictly conditioning moves.

A 3-3 tie. We had a 1-0 lead heading into the third and Dallas scored 3 straight goals. We scored 2 goals in the last five minutes to eek out a point.

Sergei Fedorov (Ana) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Rick DiPietro (NYI) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

Toronto has placed Clark Wilm on waivers. I've picked him up because I don't like playing McAmmond at center but we don't really have any choice should one of our regular centers go down. Plus, I can then hopefully dump Worrell who makes $450k more than Wilm.

Game 46: vs. Philadelphia
Kipper starts, Warrener in for Montador and Clark in for Nieminen. Our defence is now by committee; whoever is the most rested becomes the #1 defencemen.

A 3-2 win. The 'Double Doors' (Mike Commodore and Steve Montador) are 1st and 2nd stars of the game. Nilson scores a goal and an assist. The 3rd line of Gelinas-Yelle-Nilson seem to complement each other nicely.

Toronto trade D Bryan McCabe (28) to Los Angeles in exchange for G Mathieu Chouinard (21) and a 2nd Round Pick in 2005.

Game 47: @ Columbus
Kipper starts. Nieminen in for Clark. Lydman sits because he's exhausted.

Payback in the form of a 5-1 win, including 4 PP goals.

We get Clark Wilm from waivers and demote Worrell.

Game 48: @ Chicago
Kipper starts despite only being at 79%. Wilm in for Nieminen.

A 4-3 loss. I've decided to demote Matthew Lombardi to carry 8 defencemen. With Wilm as a reliable 4th line center, I'd rather give Lombardi 1st line minutes in Lowell.

Game 49: vs. Nashville
A huge game as both of our teams are fighting for the last playoff spot. I start Kipper despite he's only at 78%.

A desperately needed 2-1. We're back in 8th place in the West.

[Karim]

January 21st, 2004
------------------

Peter Bondra (Ott) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
John Grahame (Tam) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

Montreal has taken Peter Worrell off my hands. I have made a trade offer for Sheldon Souray. I need a shot on the point and a quality defenceman so I can reduce the mintues all the way around.

Game 50: @ San Jose
Gerber starts. Commodore in for Gauthier.

We lose 3-0 and we lose Nilson for 10 days due to back spasms.

Game 51: @ Phoenix
Kipper starts, Nieminen in for Nilson.

A good 5-3 win on the road. Every win is crucial now. Wilm got his first goal since rejoining the Flames; Ruutu had a goal and an assist.

Game 52: @ Dallas
A likely loss against one of the best teams in the NHL.

We lose 4-1, simply outclassed.

Calgary Flames trade D Mike Commodore (24) and a 2nd Round Pick in 2004 to Montreal in exchange for D Sheldon Souray (27).

I think that gives us a solid defence corps once Regehr comes back. And I'm really hoping Souray's big shot on the point helps the PP.

Regehr - Souray
Lydman - Leopold
Warrener - Ference
Gauthier - Montador

Brendan Morrison (Van) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Ed Jovanovski (Van) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

Game 53: vs. Boston
Gerber starts. Forward lines seem to have settled into:

Simon - Richards - Iginla
McAmmond - Reinprecht - Ruutu
Gelinas - Yelle - Ortmeyer
Niminen - Wilm - Clark

We lose 3-1. Our top line is -2 and the fourth line produces the only goal.

Martin Gelinas has signed a one-year contract extension with a team-option, foregoing free agency. He says he'd like to finish his career in Calgary.

Jarome Iginla has been selected to the All-Star Game despite only having 31 points this season. It's pretty amazing that the team is in the playoff hunt considering his poor performance this year.

Eastern All-Stars
-----------------
G Martin Brodeur (NJ)
G John Grahame (Tam)
G Roberto Luongo (Fla)
D Jay Bouwmeester (Fla)
D Sergei Gonchar (Bos)
D Kenny Jonsson (NYI)
D Scott Niedermayer (NJ)
D Adrian Aucoin (NYI)
D Roman Hamrlik (Phi)
F Daniel Alfredsson (Ott)
F Patrick Elias (NJ)
F Ilya Kovalchuk (Atl)
F Vincent Lecavalier (Tam)
F Eric Lindros (NYR)
F John Madden (NJ)
F Jeremy Roenick (Phi)
F Joe Thornton (Bos)
F Alexei Yashin (NYI)
F Marian Hossa (Ott)
F Jaromir Jagr (NYR)
F Martin St. Louis (Tam)

Western All-Stars
-----------------
G Roman Cechmanek (LA)
G Dominik Hasek (Det)
G Marty Turco (Dal)
D Niklas Lidstrom (Det)
D Mattias Ohlund (Van)
D Chris Pronger (Stl)
D Zdeno Chara (Ana)
D Adam Foote (Col)
D Ed Jovanovski (Van)
F Adam Deadmarsh (LA)
F Paul Kariya (Col)
F Markus Naslund (Van)
F Keith Tkachuk (Stl)
F Pavol Demitra (Stl)
F Peter Forsberg (Col)
F Brendan Morrison (Van)
F Joe Sakic (Col)
F Todd Bertuzzi (Van)
F Shane Doane (Pho)
F Jarome Iginla (Cgy)
F Alexei Kovalev (LA)

[sachmo71]

Adam Foote? Sheesh.

[Karim]

January 30th, 2004
------------------

Game 54: @ Detroit
I've gone back to doing my own tactics. The only wrinkle is that I've given Regehr the job of checking Zetterberg.

We lose 4-3 in OT on a goal by Shanahan so at least we picked up a point. Iginla had a goal and 2 assists including a PP goal assisted by Souray. He was first star with a '10' rating, the first I've seen.

Daymond Langkow (Pho) wins Offensive Player of the Month.
J.S. Giguere (Ana) wins Defensive Player of the Month.
Andrew Raycroft (Bos) wins Rookie of the Month.

The media suggests Martin Brodeur's erratic form will force New Jersey to look for a goaltender of the future. He's only 31.

The Board is pleased with my performance and finances are extremely secure.

I make an offer to Joel Lundqvist to come over next year.

Game 55: vs. Columbus
No lineup changes. Tactically I move the 2nd line from normal to attacking and the 3rd line from defensive to normal.

We win 4-2. Iginla scores a PP goal and Simon scores on a penalty shot. Regehr is the only surprise with 5 giveaways, a -2 and a '6' rating. Probably his worse outing of the year.

Montreal trades D Andrei Markov (25) to Columbus for F Trevor Letowski (26). What the hell is Bob Gainey doing except trying to win the Ovechkin sweepstakes by improving Columbus who is currently in last place?

Game 56: @ NY Rangers
Lydman goes in for Leopold who is in need of a rest. Regehr stays in at 81% because I don't want to redo all the individual instructions. Gerber starts because Kipper is only at 81%.

We lose 3-1. Everyone sucked. Regehr was -2 again. Simon got a $150,000 bonus for getting 15 assists. Lydman plays one game and he's immediately in need of rest. I'm not sure what's up with that.

My bid to C Ville Hamalainen (22) is rejected. He's unwilling to move to North America, especially for a minor role.

Martin St. Louis (Tam) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Manny Fernandez (Min) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

After losing 6-0 to Buffalo, Montreal fans boo the team off the ice.

Jamie Hislop has been hired as an assistant coach in Nashville.

The West All-Stars beat the East All-Stars 7-6. Jeremy Roenick was MVP. There were 6 penalty minutes, including two by Iginla.

Joel Lindqvist is "delighted" to have come to terms with Calgary.

Vancouver trades F Martin Rucinsky (32) to St. Louis for D Aris Brimanis (31) and a 3rd Round Pick in 2004.

Game 57: vs. Dallas
Gerber starts. Gauthier and Nieminen out.

A good 5-3 win against a tough team. Souray had a goal and an assist and was +4.

Ottawa trades F Denis Hamel (26) to the New York Rangers for D Dale Purinton (27).

Vancouver trades F Matt Cooke (25) and D Nolan Baumgartner (27) to San Jose in exchange for the rights to F Alexander Hult (19), the rights to D Matthew Carle (19) and a 4th Round Pick in 2004.

Brad May (Cbs) has won Offensive Player of the Week.
Jason Smith (Edm) has won Defensive Player of the Week.

Game 58: vs. Minnesota
Regehr has to come out. Kipper starts.

A 3-3 tie but we had a 3-1 lead with 5 minutes left. This is not the first time this has happened. I wonder if it's conditioning.

Game 59: vs. Colorado
Leopold is out because he's only at 79%. I'm really starting to hate this.

We win 2-1! Huge. Montador was inserted into the lineup... my mistake probably.

Toronto trade D Carlo Colaiacovo (21) to the New York Rangers for D Martin Grenier (23) and a 2nd Round Pick in 2004. Strange move by the Laffs. Carlo had 6 points in 21 games this year and was only -1 on a woeful team.

Game 60: @ Pittsburgh
Gerber starts. Leopold is out. I set defence playing time to equal.

A good 3-1 win on the road. Finally a PP goal by Richards from Iginla and Souray.

Eric Lindros (NYR) is Offensive Player of the Week.
Reinhard Divis (Stl) is Defensive Player of the Week.

Calgary Flames trade F Dean McAmmond (31) and the rights to F Ville Hamalainen (22) in exchange for F Mark Bell (23). McAmmond was a UFA to be and was an up and down player. Hamalainen already indicated he doesn't want to play in North America.

San Jose has placed F Mark Smith (26) on waivers. This would be a good pickup for somebody and is kind of a surprising move by the Sharks.

Game 61: vs. Vancouver
It seems Lydman and Leopold can't handle big minutes. Ever since I've made Lydman my #5 defenceman and removed him from special teams, he hasn't been tired as much. Leopold is back in but he's in my top 4 and I can't "hide" him. Kipper gets the start. McAmmond is a healthy scratch.

A good 5-1 victory including a 3-point night from Wilm.

Mark Bell is in superb morale after leaving Wirtz's Wasteland.

[Karim]

February 21st, 2004
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Philadelphia trades D Bruno St. Jacques (23) to Edmonton for a 2nd Round Pick in 2005 (originally from Edmonton).

Nashville trades F Jordin Tootoo (21) to Edmonton for F Brad Isbister (26).

Barring a massive injury before the trade deadline, I’m done trading for this season. I think adding Brad Richards, Sheldon Souray and Mark Bell is an improvement of the squad.

As predicted, Mark Smith has been claimed off waivers by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Game 62: vs. Edmonton
Kipper starts. Nieminen, Gauthier and Montador are out.

A 5-0 win including 2 PP goals. Bell gets a goal and an assist. 40 minutes in penalties as expected. Kiprusoff gets $100,000 for reaching 20 wins.

Leopold hasn’t been practicing in ages because I’ve tried to rest him but now his attributes are decreasing. I really don’t know what’s the remedy but everyone goes back to practicing on a regular basis. No more shortcuts during the stretch run.

Daymond Langkow (Pho) wins Offensive Player of the Week.
Scott Niedermayer (NJ) wins Defensive Player of the Week.

Game 63: @ Chicago
Gerber has to start because next day we have to play Anaheim with whom we’re competing for a playoff spot and I need Kipper for that game. Otherwise, there are no changes in the lineup. I took a look at New Jersey’s tactics and they look similar to mine except the use an easy backcheck and umbrella on the PP. I decide to give umbrella a try.

Back-to-back shutouts with a 3-0 victory. All goals were scored even strength. For some reason, the Board is pleased with this particular victory.

Game 64: @ Anaheim
A big game. Kipper starts.

Yes! A 4-2 victory. Ortmeyer and Wilm each have a 3-point game from the 4th line. Richards unfortunately is hurt for about a week.

Out of curiosity, I do a player search based solely on those interested in joining the Flames. I then sort by reputation. There some pretty big names on that list but most of them are considered untouchable except - Ilya Kovalchuk. Hmmm.... He’s rejected two contract offers already from Atlanta and I wonder how he’d look playing with Iginla... Hmmm....