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Critch · 02-27-2023, 10:28 AM

Close Season Action

Anchorage Huskies have been having a trying time. The tl;dr version is that I've messed up the finances by not checking what options I had selected, which messed up the team morale, so it's retool/rebuild time. Now either skip to the end, or read all the boring details.

I mentioned at the end of the 2025/26 Preview that the team was making a loss every month but that I didn't know why or if it would be an issue. Turns out the why was because I caused it, and the if it would be an issue was a yes.

The problems all came from a mistake I made setting ticket prices on the annual budget screen. Before season 1 I had a small budget and no fans so I thought a ticket price reduction was affordable and would drag in fans so dropped the ticket price the maximum 30% allowed. Before season 2 I pretty much just clicked through the annual budget screen without checking all the options, I assumed the 30% ticket price reduction was a one off and the would reset itself, but it didn't so I accidentally reduced prices by 30% again. So that's where the monthly loss came from, over two years I'd reduced average ticket price from $80 to $38. Looking at the league ticket price list it ranges from $150 (Toronto) down to $75 (Hartford) and then Anchorage is down on it's own at $38.

With ticket revenue way down, the team was running with a monthly loss. That meant zero money for scouting support (which means a reduction on scouting effectiveness), zero on team morale (negative monthly adjustment to player happiness) and zero on game promotions (5% penalty on attendance). The first one isn't a disaster, the second and third have caused a lot of problems.

The 5% penalty on attendances seems to be monthly and cumulative, so a season's worth of no spending has seen the average home attendance drop from 6500 to 3300 which means even less ticket money which means even less spending. Vicious circle, innit.

The negative adjustment to player happiness meant that at the end of the season the "Currently Unhappy" list was every single player. Team-wide bad morale leads to cliques forming, cliques lead to even worse morale, another vicious circle. Seems like cliques need to be dealt with sharpish before the team morale falls off a cliff, and Anchorage had bad morale and 13 players in three separate cliques.

There are a few options for trying to deal with cliques, you can try intervening yourself if you have high enough Player Management (I don't), you can have your team captain intervene (my team captain is Niko Mikkola and he's in a clique so not going to help). The only other option is to reduce the clique to 2 players so it stops being a clique and becomes just two guys who hang out sometimes.

So it was time for a clear out. Seven players were traded away to kill the cliques and improve morale (LW Anthony Richard, RD Jacob Bryson, LD Ryan Lindgren, LD Niko Mikkola, RD Oscar Plandowski, C Dylan Holloway, G Sam Montembeault). Basically I just looked at each clique, kept the two most important players and traded the rest for anything I could get. Anything I could get was mainly low value prospects, had to avoid the salary dumps offered. After getting rid of all the malcontents the Team Harmony screen looked a lot better but the Conflicts section of the screen was still full. That turned out to be that there was one guy who everybody hated, and he hated everybody back. RW Warren Foegele got shipped out too and the Conflicts part of the Team Harmony screen was empty too.

Add in a few expired contracts and Jonathan Toews retiring and the team roster was very bare, but harmony was up to "Acceptable". A close season that was meant to be adding some strength to a developing team became a rebuild instead.

Rookie Draft
With the penalties on scouting, I'm not sure how good the draft was this year. Overall it looked weak and prospects dropped off after the first couple, not sure if it was a down year or a scouting issue. We went into the draft lottery with 7th pick but dropped to 8th when, just like real life, the draft lottery was fixed to make sure NY Rangers got a top pick. They jumped from 12th pick to 2nd in the lottery. With 8th pick we got 18 year old Swedish winger Anton Nilsson and we then carried on to pick Swedes in almost every round. Nobody who'll be jumping straight to the NHL though.

Free Agents
The roster was bare but luckily we had a lot of prospects ready, or nearly ready, to make the jump up to NHL. So LW Lucas Karmiris (Current 3.0, future 3.5), RW Emil Hemming (3.0/4.0), C Oskar Vuollet (2.5/4.0), C Alex Weiermair (2.5/2.5), C Hunter McKenzie (2.5/3.0) all made the jump to the NHL roster. From the summer of trades we also added RD Ian Mitchell from Vancouver and 34 year old RW Marcus Foligno from Vegas so the Forwards looked ok. The defense was weak though so a couple of overpriced splashes on defensemen (31yo LD Adam Pelech (2.5/2.5) and 32yo LD Brandon Montour (3.0/3.0) and we've got a full roster and got to the Salary floor.

Last year's rookies RD Henry Mews and C Jordan Gavin will still be around and a year older, and last year's respectable scorer Vasili Podkolzin (22 goals last year) signed a new contract to stick around, so maybe things wont be too bad.

02-27-2023, 10:28 AM	#17
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	Close Season Action Anchorage Huskies have been having a trying time. The tl;dr version is that I've messed up the finances by not checking what options I had selected, which messed up the team morale, so it's retool/rebuild time. Now either skip to the end, or read all the boring details. I mentioned at the end of the 2025/26 Preview that the team was making a loss every month but that I didn't know why or if it would be an issue. Turns out the why was because I caused it, and the if it would be an issue was a yes. The problems all came from a mistake I made setting ticket prices on the annual budget screen. Before season 1 I had a small budget and no fans so I thought a ticket price reduction was affordable and would drag in fans so dropped the ticket price the maximum 30% allowed. Before season 2 I pretty much just clicked through the annual budget screen without checking all the options, I assumed the 30% ticket price reduction was a one off and the would reset itself, but it didn't so I accidentally reduced prices by 30% again. So that's where the monthly loss came from, over two years I'd reduced average ticket price from $80 to $38. Looking at the league ticket price list it ranges from $150 (Toronto) down to $75 (Hartford) and then Anchorage is down on it's own at $38. With ticket revenue way down, the team was running with a monthly loss. That meant zero money for scouting support (which means a reduction on scouting effectiveness), zero on team morale (negative monthly adjustment to player happiness) and zero on game promotions (5% penalty on attendance). The first one isn't a disaster, the second and third have caused a lot of problems. The 5% penalty on attendances seems to be monthly and cumulative, so a season's worth of no spending has seen the average home attendance drop from 6500 to 3300 which means even less ticket money which means even less spending. Vicious circle, innit. The negative adjustment to player happiness meant that at the end of the season the "Currently Unhappy" list was every single player. Team-wide bad morale leads to cliques forming, cliques lead to even worse morale, another vicious circle. Seems like cliques need to be dealt with sharpish before the team morale falls off a cliff, and Anchorage had bad morale and 13 players in three separate cliques. There are a few options for trying to deal with cliques, you can try intervening yourself if you have high enough Player Management (I don't), you can have your team captain intervene (my team captain is Niko Mikkola and he's in a clique so not going to help). The only other option is to reduce the clique to 2 players so it stops being a clique and becomes just two guys who hang out sometimes. So it was time for a clear out. Seven players were traded away to kill the cliques and improve morale (LW Anthony Richard, RD Jacob Bryson, LD Ryan Lindgren, LD Niko Mikkola, RD Oscar Plandowski, C Dylan Holloway, G Sam Montembeault). Basically I just looked at each clique, kept the two most important players and traded the rest for anything I could get. Anything I could get was mainly low value prospects, had to avoid the salary dumps offered. After getting rid of all the malcontents the Team Harmony screen looked a lot better but the Conflicts section of the screen was still full. That turned out to be that there was one guy who everybody hated, and he hated everybody back. RW Warren Foegele got shipped out too and the Conflicts part of the Team Harmony screen was empty too. Add in a few expired contracts and Jonathan Toews retiring and the team roster was very bare, but harmony was up to "Acceptable". A close season that was meant to be adding some strength to a developing team became a rebuild instead. Rookie Draft With the penalties on scouting, I'm not sure how good the draft was this year. Overall it looked weak and prospects dropped off after the first couple, not sure if it was a down year or a scouting issue. We went into the draft lottery with 7th pick but dropped to 8th when, just like real life, the draft lottery was fixed to make sure NY Rangers got a top pick. They jumped from 12th pick to 2nd in the lottery. With 8th pick we got 18 year old Swedish winger Anton Nilsson and we then carried on to pick Swedes in almost every round. Nobody who'll be jumping straight to the NHL though. Free Agents The roster was bare but luckily we had a lot of prospects ready, or nearly ready, to make the jump up to NHL. So LW Lucas Karmiris (Current 3.0, future 3.5), RW Emil Hemming (3.0/4.0), C Oskar Vuollet (2.5/4.0), C Alex Weiermair (2.5/2.5), C Hunter McKenzie (2.5/3.0) all made the jump to the NHL roster. From the summer of trades we also added RD Ian Mitchell from Vancouver and 34 year old RW Marcus Foligno from Vegas so the Forwards looked ok. The defense was weak though so a couple of overpriced splashes on defensemen (31yo LD Adam Pelech (2.5/2.5) and 32yo LD Brandon Montour (3.0/3.0) and we've got a full roster and got to the Salary floor. Last year's rookies RD Henry Mews and C Jordan Gavin will still be around and a year older, and last year's respectable scorer Vasili Podkolzin (22 goals last year) signed a new contract to stick around, so maybe things wont be too bad.