Close Season
The playoffs were totally devalued by Anchorage not being there, but they were held anyway.
Last year Colorado beat Dallas in the Western Conference playoffs and went on to win the Stanley Cup. This year Dallas beat Colorado in the Western Conference playoffs and went on to win the Stanley Cup. Dallas sneaked past Colorado 4-3 in the Conference Finals, then swept Florida in a one-sided final. So that's 2 championships in 3 years for Dallas.
For the awards, Connor McDavid was injured for half the season so didn't win anything. His Edmonton teammate Leon Draisaitl won the MVP and Most Points award continuing Edmonton's long tradition of winning year end awards but doing nothing in the playoffs. They got knocked out in the first round by Colorado.
Rookie Draft
I think I'm going to have to go look through the discussion boards on Steam and see if anybody complains about a drop-off in talent in the league, because this is garbage. Looking back to the draft from the first year Chris Thibodeau was a third rounder, 2.0 current 3.0 potential. This year he would have gone about 12th in the first round.
Or maybe it's just that Anchorage have been going with a financially imposed bare bones strategy on scouting so the scouts don't have a clue.
Anyway Anchorage got a Canadian left winger called Jaxon Pirie. He's 18 and off to Princeton to play hockey and probably study a bit too, so he wont be NHL for years. One of the additions to EHM9 is that NCAA leagues are now playable. After the 1st round we went defenseman heavy, lots and lots of defensive lottery tickets who may or may not come good.
Free Agents
We've reached the point where the original Anchorage rookies are coming to the end of their rookie deals and due a raise, so keeping Jordan Gavin, Henry Mews and Chris Thibodeau around cost about $10mil extra. Luckily there's a lot of overpaid deadwood lying around the roster and it seems to be pretty easy to trade away any old junk, so it was time for an Anchorage yardsale. The 34 year old husk of Brady Skjei and his 13mil over the next two years went to Quebec for a 4th round pick, 34 year old Brandon Montour went to Hartford for a 4th, high priced FA flop Shane Pinto went to Florida for a 5th and a prospect, rarely used but still 6mil per year Erik Cernak went Philadelphia for a 4th, and former starting goalie Matt Murray went to St Louis for a 6th. No new free agents in so we're about 1.5mil under the salary floor and ready to dabble when teams get down to 23 players for the start of the season, we'll have cash for sweet sweet waiver pickups.
Unfortunately we'll have a wave of rookies getting real contracts next year too, and no deadwood to clear to pay for it.
| Name | pos | Age | Nationality | Current | Potential | Years | Salary |
|---|
| Goalies | | | | | | | |
| Mads Sogaard | G | 27 | DEN | 3.0 | 3.5 | 2 | 5,038 |
| Tristan Lennox | G | 24 | CAN | 2.0 | 3.0 | 1 | 950 |
| Ryan Grout | G | 20 | CAN | 1.5 | 2.5 | 2 | 750 |
| | | | | | | |
| Defensemen | | | | | | | |
| Rasmus Sandin | LD | 28 | SWE | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3 | 6,485 |
| Olen Zellweger | LD | 24 | CAN | 2.5 | 3.5 | 1 | 1,460 |
| Weston Knox | LD | 24 | USA | 2.5 | 3.0 | 3 | 950 |
| Eric Burger | LD | 22 | SWE | 2.0 | 2.5 | 1 | 750 |
| | | | | | | |
| Henry Mews | RD | 22 | CAN | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4 | 4,704 |
| Moritz Seider | RD | 27 | GER | 3.5 | 4.0 | 2 | 6,590 |
| Topi Niemela | RD | 26 | FIN | 3.0 | 3.0 | 1 | 2,570 |
| Tomas Lavoie | RD | 22 | CAN | 3.0 | 3.5 | 5 | 5,492 |
| | | | | | | |
| Forwards | | | | | | | |
| Jordan Gavin | C | 21 | CAN | 4.0 | 5.0 | 3 | 5,459 |
| Oskar Vuollet | C | 22 | SWE | 3.5 | 3.5 | 1 | 925 |
| Hunter McKenzie | C | 21 | CAN | 3.0 | 3.0 | 1 | 834 |
| Nikita Zozulia | C | 23 | UKR | 3.0 | 3.5 | 1 | 878 |
| Alex Weiermair | C | 23 | USA | 2.5 | 2.5 | 1 | 878 |
| | | | | | | |
| Lucas Karmiris | LW | 21 | CAN | 4.5 | 4.5 | 1 | 834 |
| Arthur Kaliyev | LW | 27 | USA | 3.0 | 3.0 | 1 | 2,600 |
| Urho Mattila | LW | 21 | FIN | 2.5 | 3.0 | 2 | 790 |
| Philipp Kurashev | LW | 28 | SWI | 2.5 | 2.5 | 1 | 1,965 |
| Liam Watkins | LW | 24 | CAN | 2.5 | 2.5 | 3 | 1,586 |
| | | | | | | |
| Vasili Podkolzin | RW | 27 | RUS | 3.5 | 3.5 | 2 | 4,881 |
| Emil Hemming | RW | 22 | FIN | 3.5 | 4.0 | 1 | 834 |
| Chris Thibodeau | RW | 22 | CAN | 2.5 | 3.0 | 3 | 2,621 |
| Magnus Hirsch | RW | 22 | DEN | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2 | 750 |
A lot of contract final years on there and I cant afford them all.
The pre-season positional ranking has Anchorage as 16th overall, 24th for forwards, 1st for defense, 31st for goaltenders. I think having no real backup is downgrading our goalies.