NHL Empty Cupboard - Anchorage Huskies - FHM9 - Page 2

Critch · 03-23-2023, 11:57 AM

2032/2033 Regular Season
It's a bad year for injuries, at one point we have nine players on the long term Injury List, but this year we have rookies and young players to step in so it's not a disaster. Emil Hemming misses 50 games, although 13 of them are a couple of suspensions, the second suspension still isn't completely served. Suspensions seem longer in the game than in the real NHL, this season you'd have to stab somebody to get 8 games. After recurring bruised testicle injuries last year he's stepped it up this year and misses a couple of months with a torn groin. He needs a new hobby to get through the cold and lonely Anchorage nights. Urho Mattila has back problems, Tomas Lavoie is back from last season's long term injury for one game before he's out long term again, Brandon Svoboda misses all but 2 games with a torn muscle and seems like he's done. I'm not sure if the game tracks "games lost to injury", if it does it's hidden away, but this season Anchorage would have lots and lots missed. (Late edit - the game does track it, this season Anchorage have 683 days lost to injury, second worst behind Florida Panthers with 729)

Luckily rookies RW Jeff Martin (54 games, 24 points), winger David Prudek (62 games, 28 points), LW Taylor Walton (63 games, 24 points), RW Tyson Spafford (13 games, 6 points) and D Steve Peters (58 games, 19 points) all step up and carry the load with not too much of a drop off.

Anchorage start strong and stay strong, LA Kings still lead the division but Anchorage are fighting over 2nd and 3rd spots with San Jose in the early season. Same as last year at this point. By the end of 2032 the top three have pulled away from the pack, 12 points clear of fourth and safely heading for the playoffs unless there's a serious crash. At one point in mid January Anchorage manage to draw level on points with LA Kings but it's a scheduling thing, Kings have played 4 games less. Just like last year Anchorage cruise to second place when San Jose fall off at the end of the season. This year San Jose hold onto third though, they don't fall into the wild card fight like last year.

So season ends with LA Kings 1st again with 118 points, Anchorage second on 108 points (51-25-6), San Jose third with 91 points and Seattle 4th and in a wild card spot with 85. In the Central it's reigning champions St Louis with 120 points (President's Trophy winners too), Atlanta with 116, Colorado with 98 and Winnipeg with 91. In the Eastern conference the top seeds are Ottawa (113 points) and Columbus (107). This is the first year where the four expansion teams all reach the playoffs, Hartford and Quebec are the two wildcard teams in the East.

The stars for Anchorage are Jordan Gavin, our first ever point per game player (81 points in 81 games, he sat the last game of the season) and our first ever 40 goal scorer. 40 goals, 41 assists, 81 points. I changed his role from playmaker to speedy forward and it seems to have worked out. C Oskar Voullet (26 goals, 28 assists) and D Henry Mews (24 goals, 40 assists) both end the season with 64 points although Mews did it in 13 fewer games, Kaden Pitre (58 points) and Lucas Karmiris (56 points) are next, it's really the core of the team that are carrying them. Special mention too to Urho Mattila who got 21 goals and 26 assists in 55 games, lots of time lost to injury.

The original plan was a goalie tandem, but rookie goalie Lucas Wall missed the first 3 months of the season and by the time he came back Evan Maillet had made the position his own, we've gone from a 1a/1b due of netminders to a definite starter and backup. Maillet ends the season with a save % of .911, a small drop off from last season's Cossa although last season's Cossa wasnt as good as the season before's Cossa. Even with Cossa returning to good form, his new team Vegas Golden Knights finished last in the conference with Cossa starting 72 games for them and a .917 save percentage.

I checked on the FA we let walk away last year to see how they did, check how the game's issue with decent FAs not being picked up worked out for them, and it's a mixed bunch. Aidan Dudas is playing in a Midwestern Semi Pro league (a level too far down to have teams mentioned) and is scoring more than 2 points per game (27 goals , 40 assists in 29 games) while earning 30k per year. He's 32 and on the downward slide so maybe not too bad. Samu Partanen is in the Austrian/Central European league playing for Klagenfurt, again not too bad, he was borderline NHL. Jiri Mendl sat out most of the year before going to Russia to play for CSKA Moscow, since he's a former NHL 1st pick overall he's safely in bust territory. Jake Sanderson missed the 1st month of the season but then signed for Detroit Red Wings on a one year minimum salary deal and has been a regular starter, he's 29 and has played for Ottawa, Colorado, Anaheim, Vancouver, Anchorage, Detroit and a UFA next year so he's firmly a journeyman now. The only one who seems to have been hit with the games issue is D Tarin Smith, he's sat out the whole season and still says "I want a $3.5mil one year bridge contract, it's way less than my market value". We'll check back with him next free agency period to see if he's been hit by the fist of reality.

So next up it's San Jose in the playoffs again. Kind of wish I'd gone for an Eastern Conference dynasty, all the cool teams are in the East.

Critch · 03-23-2023, 03:21 PM

Oooh, a dynasty that's made it to page 2. I'm not sure I've ever done a dynasty that made it to page 2.

Before the playoffs start, here are a couple of things I've forgot to mention. When I checked the stats last year it turned out the Anchorage powerplay was scoring at 14.0%, dead last in the NHL. I made a few changes for this season, and I've made a point of making sure I update the PP lines for injuries and the powerplay is now at 20.0% and 11th in the league. Much more acceptable.

And the other thing I forgot is the season's lines, so here's what the plan is for the playoffs:

1st Line - Lucas Karmiris/Jordan Gavin/Emil Hemming - a change mid-season when Vasili Podkolzin dropped off the first line for Hemming. With Jordan Gavin role changing to Speedy Forward ("A forward whose main contribution to the team is getting up ice very quickly") the first line was too attacking. They were as likely to give up a goal as score a goal, they all had negative +/-. Hemming replaced Podkolzin as he's a more defensive forward and it's worked so far. Hemming will be missing the first game, he got a 8 game suspension with 7 regular season games remaining, he smooshed a Blackhawk player all over the boards. (Yes autospell, I meant smoosh, he didn't get a penalty for smooching a Blackhawk player)
2nd Line - Urho Mattila/Oskar Vuollet/Vasili Podkolzin - Podkolzin down to add some scoring to this line, hopefully. He's had an OK season but the scoring has dropped off, seven seasons of 20+ goals for Anchorage until this year, 17 this year. He'll be 32 by next season, he's started showing up on the monthly dev report with negative changes, and he's looking for $8.5 per year for 3 years to re-sign, so he'll be leaving after the playoffs. Unless we win the Stanley Cup, you've got to keep the gang together for another year if you win the Stanley Cup. Mattila has had a good but injury disrupted year, and Vuollet is the holding pivot that lets Mattila and Podkolzin concentrate on attack.
3rd Line - David Prudek/Kaden Pitre/Jorgen Palm - The PPP line from last year's playoffs is back, but it's now Prudek instead of Poltapov. Still big guys, still defensive, if anything Prudek is meaner than Poltapov despite being a youngster.
4th Line - Jeff Martin/Nicholas Moldenhauer/Prokhor Poltapov - Jeff Martin (no.1 prospect in the league apparently) has been getting his taste of NHL life on the 4th line, but next year he'll be top six. He's more of a power forward than a skill player. Moldenhauer got his place when Svoboda season, and probably NHL career, came to an end with injury. Poltapov is just getting a jersey til he leaves in the summer. He's had a good season, but he's a bottom 6 forward and he wants $6.5mil to re-sign, he'll be in the KHL this time next year.

1st Pair - Weston Knox/Henry Mews - Mews has been our star defender for years, and Knox has great chemistry with him so they're the standard top pair. Mews floats around passing and setting up attacks, Knox does all the hard work covering, or springing forward when needed.
2nd Pair - Easten Turko/Tomas Lavoie - another steady pairing, Turko has stepped up after signing his new contract, glad I didn't dump him last summer. I think his problem last year was a game problem, he was defensive forward so didn't score, didn't get assists so his Game Rating was always poor. The Game Ratings are unbalanced, goalies always get better ratings than Forwards, who always get better ratings than Defensemen. Now he's playing as a two-way defenseman he's looking better. Tomas Lavoie has been around for ever, but hes a free agent and wants a big raise to stay so might be coming to his end in Anchorage.
3rd Pair - Matthew Paranych/Jackson Gillespie - Matthew Paranych was a waiver pickup from Toronto at the start of the season and he's been fine on a league minimum wage. Jackson Gillespie? Why am I paying a mediocre third pair D $3.7 per year for the next three years? Is it just because he has a cool name? (Yes)

Goalies - Evan Maillet and Lucas Wall - This is the cost cutting section of the team, both are on $750k per year. Maillet is on his last NHL chance, Wall with his rookie contract. Lucas Wall has the better star rating (he's slowly increased to 4.0 over the season) but he's happy with his playing time after 7 games in half a season so even he doesnt think he's ready to be full time starter. If Maillet doesnt perform, it might be Wall's time.

2032/33 Playoffs Round 1 - San Jose Sharks
It was the San Jose Sharks who ended Anchorage's hopes last year when they put us out 4-1 in the second round, they are now listed on the Anchorage Huskies detail page as "potential rivals". All my homies hate the San Jose Sharks. It's a one-way thing though, their detail page says their rivals are Anaheim and LA Kings, it doesn't mention the Huskies at all.

Anchorage played them twice in the regular season and won both, 4-3 at San Jose, 5-2 at home. Anchorage will have home advantage.

Game 1 - San Jose Sharks 1 Anchorage Huskies 4
Anchorage come out the gates flying, outshoot San Jose 18-5 in the first and go in 2-0 up with goals from Jeff Martin after 3:04 and Oskar Vuollet (9:03). Second period is more balanced, but David Prudek adds to the lead early on and we're into the third period with a 3-0 lead. San Jose pull one back midway through the third, but an empty net goal from Urho Mattila ends it. Goalie Evan Maillet is super solid, saving 30 of 31 shots, rookie David Prudek is star of the game with a goal and an assist.

Game 2 - San Jose Sharks 3 Anchorage Huskies 0
Good news is Emil Hemming is back from his suspension and into the top line, bad news is Weston Knox is missing with a sore knee, listed day-to-day. Jackson Gillespie moves up to partner Mews on the top pair, time to earn his silly salary, rookie Steve Peters comes into the third pair. First period is even and scoreless, but San Jose score 3 in a burst in the middle of the second period and it's all over. Last year we won the first game against San Jose, then lost the next four. Hope this isnt history repeating itself. We're off to San Jose with the series tied.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 San Jose Sharks 4
Weston Knox still has a sore knee, but he can be risked so he comes in. Gillespie and Mews were terrible in the last game, so we have to risk it. Vuollet puts Anchorage up in the first, but San Jose score 3 in the second period again and it's all over. Maillet lets in 4 goals on 28 shots, .857 save percentage. Is it Lucas Wall's time to shine?

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 5 San Jose Sharks 2
Evan Maillet stays in, 2-1 down seems a bit early to panic and throw in an injury prone 21 year old backup with 13 NHL game experience. Anchorage come out like they mean it, outshoot San Jose 16-9, but fall behind in the last minute of the period to a power play goal. Confusingly the San Jose player who scores has a name very similar to mine so I think I've scored for them til I double check. He does it again in the second to put them 2-0 up, but that's when the game turns. Kaden Pitre gets us on the board and back into it, Henry Mews ties it up, Kaden Pitre scores again to give us the lead, then Vuollet makes it 4-2 before the midpoint of the second period. The only scoring in the third is a late empty net goal for Emil Hemming and we're back to Anchorage tied. I knew leaving Evan Maillet in was a smart move...

Game 5 - San Jose Sharks 2 Anchorage Huskies 0
Well this blows. We're outshot in all three periods, San Jose score twice in the second, and we're on the verge of being knocked out. Since boasting about the improvements in the power play, Anchorage are 0-10 in this series. Back to San Jose to try and save the series.

Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 San Jose Sharks 1
What's this? We're still alive? We didn't collapse under the stress? That's not like us. San Jose go into the lead 7:43 into the first, Calum Ritchie scores again for them, guy is getting on my nerves, but late on in the first the Anchorage power play comes alive, Jordan Gavin gets his first (and the power plays first) goal of the series. Urho Mattila puts Anchorage 2-1 up two minutes into the second period and that's the end of the scoring. It's a goalie duel, Maillet saves 29 of 30 shots, their guy Dylan Silverstein saves 33 of 35 and it's all got low scoring, tense and playoff-like all of a sudden. Since I briefly thought about dropping Maillet he's saved 73 of 78 shots and kept us in the series. Back to Anchorage for a decider.

Game 7 - San Jose Sharks 1 Anchorage Huskies 7
Third line center Kaden Pitre will be missing the game with a day-to-day injury, so it's a third line shake-up. Polpatov moves from right wing to center, Jorgen Palm comes back into right wing. He was dropped early in the series for playing like a 6'8'' giraffe on ice. Things get off to a good start, Henry Mews with a power play goal after 3:08, Oskar Vuollet makes it 2-0 after 6:53, then adds another after 14:15. Shots are level 10-10 after the first, but we're 3-0 up. Second period goes much the same way, we have 12 shots but score 3 more. Lucas Karmiris (2:16), Jordan Gavin with another powerplay goal after 11:27, Oskar Vuollet finishes his hattrick after 17:21. The hats raining down on the ice give San Jose time to pull their goalie, but it's all over. Vasili Podkolzin makes it 7-0 early in the third before that knob Calum Ritchie scores his 5th goal of the series, but it's just a late consolation. We're through to round 2.

Wonder if San Jose still think we're not their rivals?

Next up we're facing the division's #1 seed Los Angeles Kings.

I got a little popup Steam achievement for winning a 7 game series after being 3-2 down.

Critch · 03-24-2023, 09:05 AM

2032/33 Playoffs Round 2 - Los Angeles Kings
LA Kings have been the alpha dog of the Pacific Division for a good few years, they've won the division 4 of the last 5 years (Anchorage won the other, Kings finished second that year), they've made the playoffs each of the last 7 years, and 9 of the last 10. They won the division with 118 points this year, and cruised through the first round of the playoffs beating Winnipeg in 4 games. So they'll be tough.

Anchorage played them three times in the regular season, won 5-4 in Anchorage in September, but lost 5-3 in LA and 3-0 at home since then. So, as I said, they'll be tough.

Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 6 Los Angeles Kings 0
Kaden Pitre is still out, so the team is exactly the same as the one that hammered San Jose in game 7. And it's a similar result too, the second time in a row our oppenent has had to pull the starting goalie in the second period. Anchorage edge the first period and go ahead after 17:38 with a Matthew Paranych goal. Right before the end of the period Kirill Kaprizov (it's far enough in the future that a real player is getting to be a novelty, even if he's not at his real life team anymore) is penalized for slashing. The first ends with Anchorage 1-0 up, but Anchorage start the second period on the powerplay and go 2-0 with a goal from Vasili Podkolzin. It sets the tone for the second period, Anchorage dominate, 20 shots and 3 more goals. Easten Turko, Oskar Vuollet, Jordan Gavin and the game is in the bag, 5-0 after 2 periods. Easten Turko adds another at the start of the third and it's game over. Evan Maillet stops all 23 shots he faced, glad I didnt drop him.

Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Los Angeles Kings 1
The injuries are adding up. Kaden Pitre (facial injury) and Emil Hemming (hand soreness) can play but aren't 100%, David Prudek (chest injury) and Jackson Gillespie (broken toe) will both be missing though. I decide to risk Pitre but let Hemming rest, you can't really make a facial laceration worse by playing I guess, but a hand can get sore-er. That's the logic. Los Angeles go 1-0 up in the first, Kasper Simontaival scores, he's a player with a day-to-day injury that LA are risking too. Kaden Pitre makes it a good day for players with owies by tying it up in the second with a powerplay goal, Lucas Karmiris makes it 2-1 19:25 into the second period. Jordan Gavin makes it 3-1 early in the third and that's the end of it, back to Anchorage with a 2-0 lead and two games won on the road.

Game 3 - Los Angeles Kings 3 Anchorage Huskies 2 Overtime
Emil Hemming, David Prudek and Jackson Gillespie are all still out, but Kaden Pitre is now 100%. It's the 1st of the month so we get the monthly development report prior to the game, both Poltapov and Podkolzin have negative numbers on it so that's the nail in the coffin for their chances for new contracts. With Jackson Gillespie out, Steve Peters stays in the team, he has the distinction of being the first and only Anchorage Huskies player to actually be from Anchorage. The only player to be happy when Anchorage drafted him (4th round, 2028). Lucas Karmiris makes it 1-0 Anchorage in the 1st, Cross Hanas ties it up in the second, Jorgen Palms gives Anchorage a brief lead in the third, William Zellers ties it up during 4-on-4 play (one of LA's top players Quinton Byfield and Tomas Lavoie get coincidental minors), then it's off to overtime. Anchorage dominate overtime but lose anyway when Michael Burchill scores the winner after 15:25. So close to a 3-0 lead.

Game 4 - Los Angeles Kings 3 Anchorage Huskies 4 Overtime
The good news is Emil Hemming is back. Aleksandr Yeremey is also back, he's been out 3 months with a Grade II Concusion so he's short on game time and a free agent after the season, so he's probably not going to play for Anchorage again, but nice that he's back. LA Kings lead 1-0 after the first period, Brady Wassink scoring seconds after coming out the penalty box. Henry Mews scores an unassisted goal 28 seconds into the second, but Gavin Cornforth puts LA back ahead at the midpoint of the second. Jeff Martin ties it up again and we go into the third tied 2-2. At 13:16 of the third, Anchorage's own Steve Peters puts Anchorage ahead with all his friends and family probably in the stands, but Gavin Cornforth ties it up again and we're off to overtime again. This time it's a happier ending, LA's Rick Claycomb is called for tripping and Anchorage make them pay when Lucas Karmiris scores a powerplay goal 20 seconds later. We're heading back off to LA with a chance to finish them off.

Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Los Angeles Kings 2 Overtime
The injuries are clearing up, Jackson Gillespie is available but not quite 100%, so we'll keep Anchorage's own Steve Peters in the lineup instead. LA Kings come out strong, they edge the first period and take a 1-0 lead, Colton Alain after 4:49. Second period is much the same, LA Kings edge the period and score, it's 2-0 after 5:58 on a goal from Michael Risteau. The third period changes completely, Anchorage dominate LA, it's now or never, if you dont count the other two chances. After 4:56 Oskar Vuollet sets up Urho Mattila to score and we're right back in it. After 13:20 Colton Alain and Weston Knox go to the penalty box for coincidental roughing minors and it's 4-on-4. Less than a minute later Oskar Vuollet sets up Urho Mattila again and it's all tied up. No more scoring after we kill off a late LA powerplay and we're off to overtime for the third game in a row. It doesnt take long, 6:30 into the first overtime period and Jordan Gavin scores an unassisted goal and we're off to the Western Conference Final.

So onto the Western Conference Finals and it'll be Anchorage Huskies v Colorado Avalanche. Colorado beat Seattle 4-1 after Seattle upset the reigning champion St Louis Blues in the first round. In the East it'll be Ottawa v Columbus in the conference Final.

Racking up the achievements this year, just got a "Upset! Win a playoff series against a team that finished ahead of you in the regular season" popup.

Critch · 03-24-2023, 03:21 PM

2032/33 Playoffs Western Conference Finals - Colorado Avalanche
Colorado started this dynasty as the superpower of NHL, a fairly unrealistically good 145 points in the the first season then over 100 points every year and a championship in 2026/27, only 127 points that year though. They lost the conference final the year after, but it's been downhill since then, this is their first season into the playoffs after missing out the last three years.

They still have a couple of the stars, Miko Rantanen is still there rated 5.0 as a 36 year old and Cale Makar 34 years old and 4.0. I've just been reading somebody on reddit complaining about FHM having players go downhill when they hit 29, these two seem to dispute that. They've got a few good younger players too, 26 year old LW Jett Luchanko (4.5), 24yo C Ezedine Kamoga (4.0) and 26yo G Damen Baxter (4.0), so they're still a good team if not the dominant team they used to be.

We'll have the home advantage for this round. We finished with 108 points, they finished with 98. We played them three times in the regular season, lost one (2-1 at Colorado) then won two (5-4 and 4-3 in Anchorage).

Game 1 - Colorado Avalanche 0 Anchorage Huskies 1
Vasili Podkolzin is out, he'll be gone for a few weeks with a hand injury, hopefully not the end of his long Anchorage career, but David Prudek is back from the injury that made him miss the last few games of the LA Kings series. Anchorage go 1-0 up eight minutes into the first period, Urho Mattila with assists for Oskar Vuollet and David Prudek, and that's the end of the scoring. We're on top most of the game, out shoot Colorado 37-22, but no more scoring. Colorado get back to back power plays in the second period but they're both killed and we lead the series 1-0.

Game 2 - Colorado Avalanche 2 Anchorage Huskies 4
No new injuries so we roll in with the same lines as the last game, and it doesn't take long to get a lead. Henry Mews makes it 1-0 Anchorage after 38 seconds. It doesn't last long, Mew's line partner Weston Knox gets called for holding and Colorado tie the game up with a power play goal. Old man Cale Makar with the goal and it's 1-1 after the first period. Anchorage start the second period almost as quickly as the first, Jeff Martin scores after 46 seconds. Justin Robidas quickly ties it with a goal and it's 2-2 middle of the second. Henry Mews scores again after 13:20 to put Anchorage ahead 3-2 and Jordan Gavin makes it 4-2 90 second later and that's the end of the scoring, game's in the bag. Anchorage now 2-0 up and heading to Colorado. Over in the East, Ottawa have a 2-0 series lead too.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Colorado Avalanche 3
Well we had our chance to go 3-0 up in this one, but it slipped away. Anchorage totally dominated Colorado in the first two period (outshot them 17-5 and 16-5), had a 2-0 lead at the midpoint of the second (Emil Hemming scored in the first, Matthew Paranych in the second), and led 2-1 going into the third period (Charlie Michaud scored for Colorado). Cale Makar turned the game with two goals in the third period, a power play goal after 2:35 and then the winner after 17:17. Anchorage managed to lose despite doubling up Colorado 44-22 on shots, Damen Baxter saved 42 of the 44 shots he faced. In the last series I mentioned that the Anchorage power play didnt have a goal and they instantly started scoring, so I'm going to try it again. The Anchorage power play hasn't scored a goal this series (on an admittedly limited number of chances, I think we've had 2 through 3 games)

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 6 Colorado Avalanche 1
In the last game Anchorage dominated the shooting, this game they dominated the goals instead. Jordan Gavin started the scoring for Anchorage 5:56 into the first, but the first period ended tied when Colorado's Ethan Fines scored a power play goal with 3 seconds to go. Weston Knox put Anchorage ahead after 51 seconds of the second, Jakob Karlsson (the backup in to replace Vasili Podkolzin) made it 3-1 after 3:31, Jordan Gavin made it 4-1 after 7:34 and it's 4-1 at the end of the second. Into the third Kaden Pitre made it 5-1 with a power play goal after 2:15 (calling out the power play worked again), Tomas Lavoie made it 6-1 with three minutes to go and it was game over other than Henry Mews fighting Gabriel L'Etoile late on. I'm sure there's a button somewhere to tell players not to fight, Henry Mews is too precious to the team to have him hurting his knuckles. Back to Anchorage 3-1 up and only needing one win to clinch a Stanley Cup place.

Game 5 - Colorado Avalanche 2 Anchorage Huskies 3 Overtime
The good people of Anchorage are so excited by the prospect of a Stanley Cup team that they very nearly sell out the stadium. Not quite, but within a few hundred. Maybe a thousand. Colorado take an early lead with a power play goal from Gabriel L'Etoile (Nicholas Moldenhauer with a tripping penalty, he was signed to be a backup, the 5th center and he's playing like he should be our backup, 5th center). Emil Hemming brings Anchorage back even after 16:25 and Jakob Karlsson (still in for the injured Vasili Podkolzin) gives Anchorage the lead after 18:08 of the first. Midway through the second period Colorado get another power play goal, this one from Philippe Veilleux (he's from Quebec, the name gives it away). Colorado have been getting a lot of power plays, it's all that's keeping them in it, this one is for too many men on the ice. Probably that Moldenhauer jumping early. No scoring in the third and we're off to overtime and just a sudden death goal away from the Stanley Cup final. Anchorage take over in overtime, out shoot them 13-4 in almost 13 minutes play and Lucas Karmiris scores after 12:52, assists from Gavin and Hemming. Anchorage are off to the Stanley Cup Final.

It will be Anchorage against Columbus in the Stanley Cup Final, the Blue Jackets fought back from 0-2 down to take a 3-2 series lead over Ottawa, it went to 3-3 and Columbus won game 7 4-0 on the road to clinch the Eastern Conference championship. I'm not sure how home advantage is decided in the Stanley Cup Final, but we had more regular season points (108 to 107) so hopefully that's how it's decided.

Well I wasn't expecting this.

Travis · 03-24-2023, 10:52 PM

YOU CAN'T STOP THE UPDATES THERE!!!

Good luck in the finals!

Critch · 03-24-2023, 11:52 PM

Sorry for the delay, I got distracted. I bought Sapiens on Steam and that was my exciting Friday night taken care of. Plus I put my glasses down and couldn't find them.

2032/33 Stanley Cup Finals - Columbus Blue Jackets
I'm kind of surprised by this. I thought we'd settled into a "good enough to make the playoffs, not good enough to challenge when we get there" cycle that would carry on til 26/27 year old core (Gavin, Mews, Vuollet, Hemming, Karmiris) started going downhill in 3 or 4 years, then we'd fall back to a square one rebuild, so a Stanley Cup Final is a nice surprise.

Columbus have only missed the playoffs one year of the dynasty but this is their first Stanley Cup final. They have a lot of good young players (not sure how they've managed that on low draft picks every year) 26yo center Lev Medvedev (5.0 stars), 29yo center Logan Cooley (4.5), a top young netminder in 22 year old Shane Fleming. They've also got an old guard too, 35 year old LW Patrik Laine and 35 year old LD Zach Werenski. Werenski has played his whole career with Columbus, started as a 19 year old in 2016/17 and fast approaching 1300 games for them.

Anchorage played them twice this year, split the series, a 7-2 win in Columbus and a 4-3 loss at home.

Game 1 - Columbus Blue Jackets 6 Anchorage Huskies 3
Vasili Podzolkin is able to play, but he's not 100% and Jakob Karlsson has been doing well in his absence so we go with Karlsson again. Decision pays off in the first and Karlsson sets up Oskar Vuollet for the first goal, it's 1-0 after the first. The second period doesn't go well, it's balanced but Columbus take their chances while Anchorage miss. Medvedev, Fevry and Laine score and it's 3-1 to Columbus after the second. Lucas Karmiris scores to get it back to a 1 goal lead, Columbus score straight away. Urho Matilla scores to get it back to a 1 goal game, Columbus score straight away. Logan Cooley adds a late empty net goal to finish it off and we're 1-0 down in the series. Not a good evening for the Anchorage 2nd defense pairing, Easten Turko ends at -5 and Tomas Lavoie at -4.

Game 2 - Columbus Blue Jackets 1 Anchorage Huskies 4
It's time for Vasili Podzolkin to come in, he's had a good season and he's team captain, it's time for him to shine. He's in for 4.5 minutes before he's back out again, a 5 minute fighting major and a 10 minute misconduct. I've read that one of the main points of fighting in hockey is to fire up your teammates, the sight of their captain, who had zero fights and a total of 25 penalty minutes in 82 games, going in swinging at a 6'4'' 225lbs Columbus defenseman Paul Meyer certainly fired the team up because Anchorage were 1-0 up before the 5 minute penalty expired. Jordan Gavin giving us the lead with his 9th goal of the playoffs. The second period started with Anchorage on the power play, a tripping penalty, and it was 2-0. Henry Mews with the power play goal. At 8:46 it's 3-0, an Oskar Vuollet goal. At 13:05 it's 4-0, an Oskar Vuollet goal again. At the end of the second Columbus pull one back, the third slides by with no more scoring and the series is tied at 1-1. A great night for Anchorage goalie Evan Maillet, he saved 39 of the 40 shots he faced.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Columbus Blue Jackets 2
The series moves to Columbus and Anchorage outplays them. Despite being out shot 14-5, Columbus end the first period in the lead, 1-0 with a Cooper Pierson goal at 7:33. The second period is similar, Anchorage out shoot them 13-9, but this time they outscore them too. Mattila ties the game up at 5:32, Cooper Pierson gives Columbus the lead again, then Kaden Pitre ties it up again at 10.54. The Pitre goal has an assist from Jorgen Palm, only his second point in the 17 playoff games he's played. Might save his starting place for another game. Jordan Gavin gives the Huskies the lead at 16:26, Vasili Podkolzin with a secondary assist, a fight and an assist 66% of the way to a Gordie Howe hat-trick for the mild-mannered Russian. Jordan Gavin makes it 4-2 in the third, Kaden Pitre adds an empty net goal at the death and we're 2-1 up in the series.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Columbus Blue Jackets 4
And here come the injuries. Lucas Karmiris will be missing this game, a puck to the head and he'll be out for a few days with an ear injury. Longer term is rookie Jeff Martin, he has an elbow injury that'll keep him out til next season. A bit of shuffling around, Jakob Karlsson is back in the lineup along with rookie Tyler Walton on the 4th line. Columbus rush out to a lead, it's 2-0 after the first period, goals from Riley Steen and Chaz Lucius (he's a real player, there are some youngsters with great names in the NHL, Chaz Lucius, Red Savage, Rutger McGroarty, Cutter Gauthier, like a gang of baddies in a western). Anchorage storm back and dominate in the second period though, Jackson Gillespie gets his first goal of the playoffs, Jordan Gavin gets another, Emil Hemming another another and it's all tied up (Columbus went 3-1 between the Gillespie and Gavin goals). The third period is all about scoring defensemen, LD Weston Knox gives Anchorage the lead, Columbus LD Jake Boulanger ties it up at 4-4. At 13:35 Henry Mews takes a high sticking penalty and Columbus go on the power play. But it's time for a goal to change the direction of the game, probably the series and maybe even history itself. Tomas Lavoie (another defenseman) scores a short handed knife-to-the-heart-like goal and Anchorage are 5-4 up. We hang on despite another Columbus power play, and Anchorage are one game from the championship. Star man was Vasili Podkolzin, no goals but three assists. Maybe I should overpay him.

Game 5 - Columbus Blue Jackets 4 Anchorage Huskies 1
Still no Lucas Karmiris, so we go with the same cobbled together lines. Easten Turko gives Anchorage the lead 13:50 into the first, but Columbus aren't going down easy. Patrik Laine scores in the first to tie it up, Paul Mayer gives them the lead in the second, then Javon Moore and Chaz Lucius add two more in the third and it's all over. It's back to Columbus for game six, and hopefully a return for Karmiris.

Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Columbus Blue Jackets 4
Karmiris is back, he's not 100% still from his ear injury but we need him. Who needs ears anyway, other than people who wear glasses. Things start well, Anchorage lead after the first thanks to a Podkolzin goal but Columbus comeback with two in the second. Medvedev with his 13th goal of the playoffs, Logan Cooley with his 6th and we're losing. Riley Steen makes it 3-1 Columbus at the start of the third. David Prudek gets us back into it as 3-2 in the 13th minute but that's the end of it and Lev Medvedev adds another late on and it's all over. Piss and thunder, it's back Anchorage for a damned game seven. This isn't going to end well.

Game 7 - Columbus Blue Jackets 1 Anchorage Huskies 4
Every defeat needs a scapegoat, so Tyler Walton gets the blame and he's out the lineup, he's just a useless child. Jakob Karlsson is back in. Within the first minute, Columbus are on a power play. Weston Knox taking a penalty and Anchorage killing the penalty is a theme for the game. 9:56 it's time for another Weston Knox penalty and another successful penalty kill. Late in the first period it's even strength and Anchorage take the lead through Urho Mattila. The first period ends 1-0. Sixteen minutes into the second period and it's 2-0, Urho Mattila again. Three minutes later Columbus are back into it though, Javon Moore with a goal with an assist for former-Husky Yan Kuznetsov. I brought him into the NHL from the Russian league and this is the thanks I get. Into the third period with Anchorage 2-1 up, but 15 seconds in it's Weston Knox time again. This time it's a five minute major for boarding (and probably a suspension to follow). Killing the five minute major is the turning point, back to even strength with the 2-1 lead intact and Henry Mews makes if 3-1. There's still time for another penalty, Kaden Pitre cross-checking puts Columbus back on the power play. It doesn't last long though, Patrik Laine tripping 9 seconds into their power play and it's 4-on-4. 9 seconds later again Jordan Gavin scores to put Anchorage 4-1 up. They think it's all over, it is now. Anchorage win the Stanley Cup.

After the game we get the update that Weston Knox is indeed suspended for his boarding, he'll miss the first two games of next season, and Lucas Karmiriis is injured again, he'll be out for 3 months with tendon damage in his heel. I don't think this is from the risk of playing him at less than 100%, I'm not sure how an ear injury can become a heel tendon tear.

Well that's a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping we'd lose game 7 to give something to play for next year.

Travis · 03-25-2023, 12:04 AM

Congrats on the Cup! Now can you be one of the few to repeat?

Critch · 03-25-2023, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Travis

Congrats on the Cup! Now can you be one of the few to repeat?

Yeah, they'll be back to defend. Not loading up OOTP and seeing if the expansion Anchorage Moose can win the World Series quite yet.

Not holding out much hope of a repeat, I think this year was a bit of a fluke.

One small issue is that I had two crash-to-desktops in the playoffs, one of which meant I had to rerun Game 7 of the first round. Luckily Anchorage won it twice, the original was a lot more dramatic than the 7-1 rerun. Hopefully that's not a sign something has gone wrong with the file.

Critch · 03-25-2023, 10:43 AM

Pics or it didn't happen.

FHM didn't have a preset logo that looked like a husky so I went as close as they had as a placeholder til I found a husky one, but now I quite like it. It's a jackal.

The game says the three stars are Podkolzin who returned from injury to turn the series, Gavin who's goals made all the difference, and Wall who was the backup goalie and didnt play a minute in any playoff game. One of the three might be seen as a controversial choice.

Critch · 03-26-2023, 03:31 PM

2032/2033 Playoffs
Normally there's a playoffs section on these Close Season posts detailing what happened after Anchorage were out, but this year we won so no need. I'm sure there was an Anchorage Huskies open top bus tour that left the stadium at 12.00pm, slowly circled Anchorage city center, and got back to the stadium at about 12.15pm.

The awards were doled out, Connor McDavid seems to finally be too old to win everything, he's 35 now and is still churning along at way over a point per game pace (47 points in 37 games last season) but is missing a lot of games through injury (nearly 100 games missed over the last two seasons). Now it's Connor Bedard (Vancouver) or Shane Wright (Seattle) who win the Hart Trophy (MVP) and Art Ross Trophy (Most points). This year it's Shane Wright who wins both.

Anchorage Huskies win their first ever award, Henry Mews with the Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP), 7 goals and 12 assists and a Plus/Minus of +17 in 24 games. Jordan Gavin (13 goals, 10 assists and +14) would have been my choice, but fair enough. Nothing for me for Exec of the Year or Coach of the Year. Robbed.

I also forgot to mention the All-Star game for the last few years, it used to happen every year with no Anchorage players involved until 3 years ago. Sebastian Cossa was chosen in 2031 and 2032, our only invite. This year G Evan Maillet, D Henry Mews and C Jordan Gavin were all chosen. We've finally made it to all-star respectability.

Free Agency
The original plan was to let Vasili Podkolzin walk as a UFA. He wanted 9+mil per year for 3 years, but he's 32 years old and on the downward slide. We won the Stanley Cup though, and he's team captain so we couldnt let him walk, we've got all those photographs of him lifting the cup all over the stadium and press packs. Luckily his salary request got more reasonable so he's back. $6.5 mil per year for 3 years. He's overpaid, he'll be bottom 6 soon enough, but he's team captain. He had to come back. He used to be a sniper, buzzing about and scoring, but now he's slowed down so he's a power forward using his size and strength instead of speed and acceleration.

Out went Tomas Lavoie, he's been a quietly effective defenseman for 6 seasons, but the last two have been injury plagued (missed over 50 regular season games in each season) so he went to free agency and was quickly snapped up by Calgary Flames. Also out went Prokhor Poltapov (he was looking for 6mil per year, way too much), Aleksandr Yeremey (could only play RW and we have too many RW) and Brandon Svoboda (bad back injury has ended his days as an NHL level player), the three of them are still without a team.

Coming in are a few rookies, Anchorage draft picks from the last few years. RW Peter Hrovatin (2030 1st round, 7th overall) comes in from the Swedish leagues, he's outspoken but cant speak English, I'm not sure what an angry man shouting in Slovenian will do to team morale. RW August Pettersson (2031 2nd round, 68th overall), he's Swedish and 20 years old, he's been in the Canadian juniors for a while so he does speak English, 73 points in 53 games for Saskatoon last year, hopefully he can step up. LD Owen Conrad, he was picked in the 4th round 2027, so he's old for a rookie, 26 years old. Anchorage have tried to call him up before, but he's been in the KHL (Russian League) and too expensive to buy out his contract for a borderline player. A couple of years playing for the Chinese KHL team Kunlun Red Star then a few years for Amur Khabarovsk and now into the NHL. He'll probably be 3rd pair or 7th defenseman, he's fully developed but not very good.

Finally the replacement for Tomas Lavoie, Jiri Mendl returns. He was at Anchorage for one season before moving onto CSKA Moscow for a year. He's back now and will fit into the big gap Tomas Lavoie left. He's a fairly good lower pair defenseman, but looking back through the draft logs he was picked 1st overall the year that Jordan Gavin was picked 4th by us. A rare 1st pick who didnt become a top player.

Rookie Draft
No picks for us until last pick in the 1st round, the slight downside of being the champions. We get C Enzo Landrey, he'll be stating in the Canadian Juniors for a few years. It's a strong draft, the top two picks look like future all stars. First pick LD Nicholas Bracken goes to the Islanders, and second pick G King Coker goes to Minnesota. King Coker is a great name.

The only other action of the off-season is that the Anchorage arena is listed as Poor so in the Annual Budget I set aside $36 million to improve the arena, spend the Stanley Cup Windfall on improvements. When I advance to the next month the arena has improved to "Average" but it cost $112.5mil. I'm not sure if that's a bug or a fair simulation of how much builders go over budget. Anyway, the finances are hosed for a while.

Critch · 03-27-2023, 05:43 PM

2033/34 Regular Season

Lines
Forwards
1st Line - LW Lucas Karmiris (4.5), C Jordan Gavin (5.0), RW Emil Hemming (3.5) - It's the way we ended last season, Podkolzin dropping down to the second line for Emil Hemming
2nd Line - LW Urho Mattila (3.5), C Oskar Vuollet (3.5), RW Vasili Podkolzin (3.0) - Vuollet and Mattila are the quiet stars of the team, both underpaid really. Then there's Podkolzin who's past his best and overpaid.
3rd Line - LW Jeff Martin (3.0), C Kaden Pitre (3.0), RW Jorgen Palm (2.5) - Jeff Martin may be the rookie hope for the future (although worryingly the Anchorage scouts dont like him as much as the national concencus) but he's a hitty boy so he's on the third line. Podkolzin re-signing got in the way of his ascension to a top 6 forward. Pitre and Palm have been staples on the third line for a couple of years, but they're both on expiring contracts and looking to be paid in the summer.
4th Line - LW David Prudek (2.5), C Nicholas Mouldenhauer (2.5), RW Peter Hrovatin (3.0) or August Pettersson (3.0) - Prudek moves to his prefered left wing, Mouldenhauer could be replaced at any moment if I had anybody, and right wing is two rookies splitting time waiting to take Jorgen Palm's place when he realizes he's not getting a new contract in the summer.

Defense
1st Pair - LD Weston Knox (3.0) RD Henry Mews (4.0) - our set top line.
2nd Pair - LD Easten Turko (2.5), RD Jiri Mendl (3.0) - Turko gets a chance to step up to more minutes on the second line, Mendl returns from a year in Moscow and has never lived up to his reputation. If things go wrong, it'll be because of this pair.
3rd Pair - LD Matthew Paranych (2.5), RD Jackson Gillespie (2.5) - The leftovers. I'm not sure how, but Gillespie always churns out a solid +/- and a high assists/60 mins.

Netminders
Evan Maillet (3.0), Lucas Wall (4.0) - They're both seriously underpaid on 750k each, Maillet expires after this season and Wall after next. My cunning plan is to leave Maillet as starter this season, let him walk in the summer and then offer Wall an extension in the hope that he will sign for cheap because he's never been a regular starter. He may have better ratings but he's only 21 and Maillet always performs at least as well. Money is going to be tight next offseason (Gavin, Karmiris, Pitre, Matilla, Knox all expiring and looking for payrises), so we need Wall to sign on the cheap, Maillet is already looking for 6mil per year so he's priced himself out.

Preseason
Preseason ends with a 4-3 record and with a couple of moves. RW Jakob Karlsson goes to Boston for a low prospect, and C Dylan Nolan is picked up from Buffalo to challenge Nicholas Mouldenhauer for the 4th Center spot. Spoiler, he doesnt, he's even worse. Karlsson went because we're overloaded with RW, I'm not sure if it's realistic with real world hockey, but our RW seem to be less adaptable than other forwards. Most Left Wing can play Right Wing too, most Centers can play left and/or right wing, Right wing can play Right Wing and nothing else, so he's not a good adaptable backup that can fit in where needed, so he's surplus.

Regular Season
For the regular season itself, it's a weird one. Anchorage start slowly, a quarter of the way through the season they're in 8th place in the 9 team division and have a losing record. The only good thing is nobody is dominating, nobody is getting too far ahead of us. It's parity gone mad, everybody hanging close to each other except for the terrible Anaheim Ducks falling away in last place. It's not until the end of December that Anchorage finally break into the top half of the division and in the playoff hunt, but with nobody dominating 'in the playoff hunt' means 'not far off the top of the division'. A solid run messed up a little by injuries (a run on left wingers means we play a few games with a defenseman in left wing) and Anchorage are safely tucked into the playoff positions and challenging Calgary for the Division. Coming into the last two weeks, Anchorage are top of the division by 3 points and seem to have it all locked up, but they lose 5 games in a row to finish the season (not helped by Henry Mews being out injured) and drop into 2nd, Calgary clinch it. It was strange, it didnt feel as dominant as last season but still ended with over 100 points for the 4th season in a row, 49-30-3 for 101 points.

Jordan Gavin was, as usual, the star. 35 goals, 40 assists for 71 points, a little off last year's pace but still team leader. Kaden Pitre showed he wanted a new contract by scoring 30 from the third line, the first Anchorage player other than Gavin to make 30 in a season. It's the usual core from then on, Emil Hemming with 43 points, Lucas Karmiris with 50, Oskar Vuollet with 40, Henry Mews with 38 despite missing 22 games. New names carrying the team are Jeff Martin (bounced around all over the lineup to cover injuries but still managed 12 goals, 31 assists in 81 game, plus lead the team in hits) and David Prudek (40 points as a bottom 6 forward).

Vasili Podkolzin took his 6.5 mil salary and got down to the business of retiring on ice, he's dropped off massively and only managed 6 goals all season. The only season nearly as bad was Jorgen Palm, and that wasnt his fault. He missed almost all of it with a fractured skull, he'll be missing the playoffs too.

For the Pacific Division, Calgary won with 103 points, Anchorage 2nd with 101, Seattle 3rd with 100. Both the wildcard will come from the Pacific too, Edmonton and Vancouver both with 96 points. Bad news for San Jose, their 95 points was only good enough for 6th place and no playoffs. LA Kings fell off a cliff and went from champs to 8th.

Elsewhere Nashville got 114 points to win the Central division and the President's Trophy too. They'll be joined by Chicago Blackhawks (first playoffs of the dynasty) and Atlanta. In the East the division winners were Toronto and it's finally the return of the post-Ovi Washington Capitals. Yay!

First round of the playoffs, Anchorage will have home advantage against Seattle. The defense of the championship is still alive.

Critch · 03-27-2023, 08:07 PM

2033/34 Playoffs Round 1 - Seattle Kraken
A few years ago Seattle swept us in the first round of the playoffs, so anything other than being swept is an improvement. One thing with the divisional playoffs is that we see the same teams a lot in the first two rounds

Game 1 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 4
Well it's better than last time already. The game is tied at 0-0 after 15 minutes of the first period, it's 2-0 Anchorage a minute later. Kaden Pitre with the first, Henry Mews with the second both with primary assists from Vasili Podkolzin, rumors of his demise were premature. It's 3-0 in the second with a goal from Oskar Vuollet, this time with no Podkolzin involvement. Two goals in a minute from Seattle late in the second period, one of them from their star player Shane Wright, and the game is back in the balance. Anchorage hang on though, Kaden Pitre adds a late empty net goal and we're 1-0 up in the series. Seattle outshot Anchorage 31-21, but Evan Maillet saved 29 of the 31 he faced to get the win.

Game 2 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 3 Overtime
Two periods go by scoreless, Anchorage outshot them 16-4 in the first and 14-7 in the second so well in control despite the lack of a breakthrough. The breakthrough finally comes at 4:16 of the third, Henry Mews with an unassisted goal. That lead doesn't last though, Seattle tie it up within a minute (Kyril Baranok at 4:59) and then take the lead (Luka Misa 9:47). Seattle are heading for an undeserved win but Jordan Gavin ties it up with a late goal and we're off to overtime. Overtime doesn't last long, Lucas Karmiris scores after 71 seconds to send the fans home happy. Off to Seattle with a 2-0 series lead.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Seattle Kraken 0
Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Urho Matilla makes it 1-0 in the first, Peter Hrovatin and Weston Knox make it 3-0 after the second, and the win is in the back. Goalie Evan Maillet saves all 20 shots he faced for a shutout and we're 3-0 up in the series.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Seattle Kraken 1
Same again and it's a first ever Anchorage sweep, Seattle swept Anchorage in the 2030/31 playoffs so time to return the favor. Rick Claycomb puts Anchorage up in the first, he's the 4th line center who replaced the guy who replaced Moldenhauer. He's a UFA after this season so a half season rental. Jordan Gavin makes it 2-0 at the end of the first and it's one foot in the second round. There's only one goal in the second, Matty Beniers pulls Seattle back into the game, but that's as close as they get and Urho Mattila adds a late empty net goal and round one safely navigated. I need to find some way of fitting a new contract for Urho Mattila into the budget.

So off to the second round, it'll be Calgary next up, they got past Edmonton in seven games. It's Nashville v Chicago for the Central. In the East it's Quebec against Montreal and Washington against NY Rangers. Washington got past Pittsburgh in the first round.

Critch · 03-27-2023, 09:43 PM

2033/34 Playoffs Round 2 - Calgary Flames
Time to get reacquainted with former long time (in Huskies sense) Huskies defenseman Tomas Lavoie, he's had a good season since signing as a UFA with Calgary. They've also got an Alexandre Lavoie, don't know if he's a relation of Tomas plus the star man, 26 year old LW Jakub Moravec. He's on the last year of a 3.8mil per year contract but he's signed an extension for 11.4 per year. A sign of how quickly his star has risen. They also have RW Nathan Lecompte, 79 points in 76 games this season.

Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Calgary Flames 6
Not a good start, Calgary jump out to a 3-0 lead after the first period. It's 5-0 in the middle of the second before Weston Knox pulls one back for "the good guys". Calgary add a 6th in the third period and it's an easy win. Despite the lopsided scoreline the shots were close, Calgary outshot Anchorage 31-29, not a good day for Evan Maillet in goal for Anchorage.

Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Calgary Flames 3 Overtime
Calgary take the lead in the first from Louis-Francois Belanger, he scored a few goals for Calgary in the playoffs when we played them in 2031/23, I thought I recognized the name. Kaden Pitre (with an extension to stay with Anchorage for the next 3 years freshly signed) tied it up and we're all square at the end of the first. Alexandre Lavoie made it 2-1 Calgary with an assist from the traitor Tomas Lavoie, then Calgary star men Moravec and Lecompte combine to make it 3-1, Moravec with the assist Lecompte with the goal. Emil Hemming gets his first of the playoffs at the end of the second period and we go into the third trailing by one. Urho Mattila ties the game up in the third, I still need to find some way to pay him but he's really looking for a big payday. Off to overtime we go. The last time Paul Mayer was mentioned in this dynasty was last year when he was the 6'4'' Columbus Blue Jackets defender that Podkolzin fought to kickstart the Huskies. Now he's a Huskies player and he scores the OT goal to snatch game 2, the big German has redeemed himself.

Game 3 - Calgary Flames 0 Anchorage Huskies 8
Well this time we score early and we score often. First period sees goals from Kaden Pitre (4:37), Jordan Gavin (8:22), Rick Claycomb (18:10), Emil Hemming (18:59) and August Pettersson (19:57) and we're 5-0 up on 8 shots. We go even further ahead in the second, Kaden Pitre again (4:19) and Henry Mews (8:55) and it's 7-0 after two periods. Lucas Karmiris adds one in the third and it's all over. While Anchorage goalie Evan Malliet saved all 20 shots he faced, Calgary pair Leland Griffith and Kim Saarinen combined to concede 8 goals on 19 shots. It's a good day to be a Husky forward.

Game 4 - Calgary Flames 1 Anchorage Huskies 3
Anchorage take command in the series, now only one win away from a return to the Western Conference final. First highlight for the Anchorage fans is when former Husky Tomas Lavoie takes a minor penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct in the first, it doesnt lead to anything though. Jordan Gavin puts the Huskies ahead 13:02 into the first. The second passes uneventfully and we're into the third. Calgary equalize early in the third, Kenneth Hammill at 2:31, but 90 seconds later Anchorage are back into the lead with a goal from Rick Claycomb. Jordan Gavin adds a third as the clock ticks to zero and Anchorage are into a 3-1 lead.

Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Calgary Flames 4
Early bad news for Anchorage as Jordan Gavin tweaks his back in training and he'll be missing the game. That needs a bit of line shuffling to replace our star center but it works out ok early, Dylan Nolan scores 16:48 into the first period. He'd have been the healthy scratch if Gavin was available. In the second period Kenneth Hamill ties it up for Calgary before Rick Claycomb puts Anchorage back in front. Like Dylan Nolan, Rick Claycomb was brought in to challenge Nicholas Moldenhauer for his place as 4th line center, but now all three are playing. Nicholas Moldenhauer gets a 5 minute penalty for fighting along with Calgary star man Jakub Moravec. We go into the third period 2-1 up, but Colton Roberts equalizes for Calgary and it's all square with 2.5 minutes to go. Anchorage's Paul Mayer, hero of game 2 overtime, gets called for a slashing penalty, Kenneth Hamill puts Calgary 3-2 up after 18:04, then Kenneth Hamill finishes off his hattrick with an empty net goal and we're back to Anchorage still needing another game to end the series.

Game 6 - Calgary Flames 1 Anchorage Huskies 6
Oh-oh, Gavin is still out and now Henry Mews is out too. Mews has a Latissimus Dorsi strain and he'll be gone a week or two, done for this series anyway. It's a big muscle in your back/side, I had to google it. For the second time this series, Anchorage jump all over Calgary early and it's 5-0 after the first. Oskar Vuollet, Lucas Karmiris, Jeff Martin, Rick Claycomb and Lucas Karmiris again and it's game over when it's only just begun. Louis-Francois Belanger pulls one back in the second but Lucas Karmiris completes his hattrick and it's 6-1 going into the third. The third passes without incident and Anchorage are off to back-to-back Conference finals.

In the other series Chicago Blackhawks came back from 3-2 down in the series to beat Nashville, so they're next up. Anchorage will have home advantage. Over in the Eastern Conference it'll be New York Rangers against Quebec Nordiques.

Critch · 03-27-2023, 11:51 PM

2033/34 Playoffs Western Conference Finals - Chicago Blackhawks
This is Chicago's first playoff appearance since 2019/20, well before the start of the sim. Thanks to years of picking up high picks they've got a strong roster of young players. No real stars, nobody rated 4.5 or 5.0 for current, but loaded with 4.0 star 26 year olds. Unfortunately for them we're getting them at a good time, four of their top players are out for the year, they've done well getting this far with their weakened lineup.

We'll have the home advantage for this round, I'm not really sure why. We both finished 2nd in our division with 101 points.

Game 1 - Chicago Blackhawks 1 Anchorage Huskies 4
Jordan Gavin is back, not quite 100% but worth risking. Still no Henry Mews though. Anchorage get off to a good start, 1-0 up in the first from Urho Mattila. 2:45 into the second period the game slants strongly to Anchorage, Chicago RW Ron Collins gets called for a 5 minute interferance major. Anchorage take advantage of the 5 minutes of 5 on 4 and score two power play goals, Lukas Karmiris after 2:57 then Urho Mattila with his second after 5:54. Later in the second Anchorage have another power play, score another power play goal from Oskar Vuollet and it's 4-0 heading into the third. 19:32 into the third Chicago pull 1 back, too late to make any difference other than to ruin Evan Malliet's shutout.

Game 2 - Chicago Blackhawks 2 Anchorage Huskies 8
Chicago were already short of players with all their injuries, now Ron Collins major that cost them two goals in game one comes back to bite again. He gets a three game suspension and they're down another top player. Anchorage make the advantage pay, they're 4-1 up after the first, Peter Hrovatin, Paul Mayer and two from Emil Hemming and they're half way to a win. Three more goals added in the second, Hrovatin again, Rick Claycomb and Jiri Mendly, and it's 7-1 after two. Weston Knox adds another late on and Sam Rinzel gets another late meaningless consolation goal for Chicago. We're off to Chicago with a 2-0 lead.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Chicago Blackhawks 2
Still no Henry Mews back, and another problem for Anchorage's defense with Jiri Mendl missing day-to-day with an ankle injury. Chicago take a 1-0 lead in the second from Jamie Bazar, go 2-0 in the third from a Trae Wilke power play goal. Jackson Gillespie scores a power play goal with 6 minutes to go but Anchorage cant get another goal and it's all over. It's a win for the Chicago goaltender, Dylan Silverstein with 26 saves from 27 shots. Chicago back into the series.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Chicago Blackhawks 4
Still no Henry Mews back, still no Jiri Mendl so Anchorage born-and-bred Steve Peters is into the lineup. He's been in the AHL almost all season, only had 4 regular season starts for Anchorage. I'd been using another guy as backup defenseman, John Fireman, but he'd not been very good and Steve Peters didn't let us down in the playoffs last year so he gets the call. Things don't start well, Oliver Moore puts the Blackhawks ahead in the first minute, Rick Claycomb brings Anchorage back level, but Chicago then score 3 goals in 90 seconds (Jacob Kvasnicka (14:16), Ty Wasyluk (14.55), Sam Rinzel (15:46) and we're 4-1 down at the end of the first. Anchorage storm back in the second, Paul Mayer and Jordan Gavin score and it's 3-4 going into the third. Anchorage dominate the shots in the third, Emil Hemming ties the game up at 10:35, Urho Mattila puts Anchorage ahead at 12:35 and that's the end of the scoring, we're 3-1 up in the series. I really need to find a way of paying for Urho Mattila's contract extension.

Game 5 - Chicago Blackhawks 4 Anchorage Huskies 5 Overtime
Still no Mews, still no Mendl, so much for day-to-day. Chicago go 2-0 up in the first, a power play goal from Lukas Fischer then an even strength from Ron Collins freshly back from his 3 game suspension. Ty Wasyluk adds to their lead 6 minutes into the second, another power play goal. The fightback starts though, Jackson Gillespie after 7:54 then Vasili Podkolzin reminds everybody he exists with his first goal of the playoffs. Into the third, Oskar Vuollet ties the game up at 1:22, Chicago go back in front at 5:24 (Colin Fibiger), then Jordan Gavin ties it up again at 9:39. Anchorage have to kill a late power play, but that's an end of the scoring for regulation time, so off we go to overtime. Overtime doesn't last 3 minutes, Kaden Pitre scores after 2:54, Vasili Podkolzin with the assist. He may only have 1 goal, but he's got 8 assists. Great value for his 6.5mil.

So a 4-1 series win and we're off to the Stanley Cup again, back to back appearances. It'll be New York Rangers we're up against, a chance to clinch back-to-back championships. I think we're riding out luck more than dominating.

Hopefully the few day gap before the Stanley Cup starts will give Mews and Mendl a chance to get back to full fitness, we're riding our luck with the backups.

And I need to get Urho Matilla resigned.

Critch · 03-28-2023, 09:11 AM

2033/34 Stanley Cup Finals - New York Rangers
New York Rangers are similar to the Chicago team we played in the last round, not much playoff action, plenty of years of draft picks to build a roster. They're a couple of years further down the cycle though, they made the playoffs last year and some of their players have developed to be superstars: LW Tyler Van Caeyzeele (5.0 stars, 41 goals this season), C Chase Harrington (4.5 stars, 43 assists in 70 games). They still have D Adam Fox too, their 36 year old captain still rated 4.0. They also have former Husky C Nikita Zozulia, looks like he's just coming back from a long term injury though, he'll be on their 4th line.

Before the start of game 1 there's some bad news for Anchorage when Urho Matilla decides he's not interested in returning to Anchorage when his contract expires. I'd gone with the idea of "just sign him then work out how to get the salaryl to fit next year", but no interest.

Game 1 - New York Rangers 7 Anchorage Huskies 4
No Henry Mews, but Jiri Mendl is close enough he can be risked. And he will be risked, Steve Peters has been a pretty awful replacement. He may have not let us down last year, but he's been out of his depth this. In the first period the NY Rangers stars I mentioned combine for a goal to get them on their way, Tyler Van Caeyzeele scores with an assist from Chase Harrington. 16:16 it's 2-0, New York score on a 5-on-3 power play. Second period gets worse, two NY Rangers goals in the first minute, one of them by former Husky Nikita Zozulia. Kaden Pitre pulls one back but yet another power play for the NY Rangers and it's 5-1 after two. It's not over though, not quite yet, and Anchorage rush back into it with three goals in the first 6 minutes of the third, Oskar Vuollet followed by Peter Hrovatin then Jeff Martin. Game on. Then game off again in 13:50 Jonathan Blais makes it 6-4 then Maxim Masse add an empty net goal.

Game 2 - New York Rangers 2 Anchorage Huskies 1 Overtime
Mews still out, Mendl playing but not 100%, now Lucas Karmiris is playing injured too. No affects early though and Lucas Karmiris (who has signed an extension and will be back next year) puts Anchorage 1-0 up in the first. NY Rangers level in the second period, Reese Hamilton after 6:38 and that's the end of the scoring for regulation time and we go to overtime. Connor Bewick (it seems like in the future all US/Canadian players are called Connor or Dylan. Or Tyler.) scores for the Rags and they're 2-1 up in the series. A good day for the goaltenders, NY Rangers Wilhelm Eriksson saves 33 of 34 shots, Evan Maillet 38 of 40. Goaltender is one place Anchorage should have an advantage, Eriksson isnt very good and their other choice is an Anchorage reject, Ryan Grout. Grout was their main starter in the regular season but no starts in the playoff for the former Juneau Grolar.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 New York Rangers 7
From now on we'll just assume Mews is out til he comes back, probably next season. This one goes badly quickly, NY Rangers score twice in the first period, a power play goal to get them underway. Kaden Pitre brings Anchorage back into it briefly in the second period but we're 4-1 down by the end of the second. More injuries to the defense, Weston Knox has a serious knee injury and NY Rangers score three more in the third and they're one game away from a sweep.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 2 New York Rangers 1
Weston Knox's injury will take a couple of months to recover from, he's got strained knee ligaments, but we get the option to pump him full of pain killers, strap up his knee and shove him on ice anyway so he plays. He's a UFA after this series so the risk of him worsening his injury is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I do drop him to third pairing to minimize his time on ice though, his regular partner is Mews so he's not playing with his regular partner anyway, no chemistry to lose by shaking things up. We're going to take it one game at a time, the lads will give 110% effort and see how it goes. First Period is tense and scoreless although Anchorage outshoot them 12-6. 8:20 into the second period Justin Solovey makes it 1-0 to New York, but 16:39 Jeff Martin ties it up with an unassisted goal. Into the third period and NY Rangers are pushing to wrap up the series, they get a chance with a 5 minute boarding major. Anchorage's Nicholas Mouldenhauer takes the penalty, he'll probably be getting a suspension for it too, but Anchorage kill the five minutes shorthanded and we're still tied at 1-1. Anchorage now have a couple of power plays, but still no scoring. Anchorage finally take the lead with 2 minutes remaining, Jiri Mendl with the goal, and we're heading back to Anchorage still kind of alive. Although Knox made it through the game ok, he's not very good. Apparently knees are important for skating, who knew.

Game 5 - New York Rangers 0 Anchorage Huskies 6
As predicted Nicholas Mouldenhauer gets a suspension for his boarding major in the last game, he'll miss two games so he'll be ok for game seven, if it happens. In more happy Anchorage news, Henry Mews is back. He's a bit banged up but he's ready to play. Mews is back in, but we decide to sit Weston Knox, he's too injured to risk so Matthew Paranych is in to replace him. He's another UFA when this series finishes. There's quite a lot of them in the Anchorage line up. Kaden Pitre start the scoring for Anchorage at 10:46, then Henry Mews shows what we've been missing with two goals in a minute, 18:43 and 19:30. We're 3-0 up after the first period. Urho Matilla scores then Henry Mews finishes off his hattrick on his return make it 5-0 at the end of the second, David Prudek adds another in the third and we're back in the series, 3-2 down and heading to New York. My claim that NY Rangers have weak goaltending finally comes true, Wilhelm Eriksson concedes six goals on 25 shots.

Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 New York Rangers 4
And the comeback is over. Anchorage fly into the game, outshoot New York 15-3 in the first but the previously disparaged NY goaltender Eriksson stops all 15 and New York score on one of their three shots, their super star pairing of Chase Harrington and Tyler Van Caeyzeele teaming up, Harrington with the goal, Van Caeyzeele with the assist. Things swing back to Anchorage in the second, Jiri Mendl makes it 1-1 then Jordan Gavin puts Anchorage ahead at 7:34. It only lasts a minute until Van Caeyzeele and Harrington pair up again, this time it's Van Caeyzeele with the goal. Aging captain Adam Fox gets a secondary assist on this one. It's 2-2 going into the third, but New York's second line strikes, Zach Benson puts them 3-2 up at 9:00. Gavin Brindley scores an empty net goal as time expires and it's 4-2 to the Rangers, the Stanley Cup is heading to New York. The fans cheerfully stream out into the streets to destroy things, as is the tradition.

So the comeback was not to be, back-to-back Stanley Cup finals isnt too bad though even if we lost one.

Anchorage head into the offseason with a rebuild to come. Urho Matilla wont negotiate so he's gone, Weston Knox wants 7mil so he's gone, Paul Mayer wants 9mil so he's gone, Evan Maillet wants 6 mil so he's gone, Matthew Paranych wants 3.5mil so he's gone, Rick Claybomb wants 4mil so he's gone. It's a veritable clear out. A bit of success and everybody wants to be paid like they're a superstar.

At least Jordan Gavin, Kaden Pitre and Lucas Karmiris all re-sign, once I'd got that three their new contracts there wasnt much salary space for the rest. They're the heart of the team, along with Mews and Hemming, we'll be churning them out every year til they crumble.

Critch · 03-28-2023, 02:22 PM

2033/34 Free Agency
The problem with doing well in the playoffs is that everybody thinks they're integral and deserve to be paid big, so this is a summer for not affording to pay everybody. Jordan Gavin gets his increase, Lucas Karmiris gets his increase, Kaden Pitre gets his increase and there's not a whole lot left to pay the rest. It's time to say goodbye to Paul Mayer, Matthew Paranych, Weston Knox, Urho Mattila, Rick Claycomb and Evan Maillet (plus a few other nobodies), and try to fill the gaps with rookies and retreads. I'm starting to think giving 6.5mil per year to the crumbling husk of team captain Vasili Podkolzin wasnt a great plan.

First issue is our goaltending, last year's starter Evan Maillet is gone so we're down to only one goalie, 22-year old Lucas Wall. Wall has played 28 games in 3 seasons for Anchorage, it's now his time to be full time starter but he still thinks of himself as a backup. It's time to sign him up to a long contract while he still thinks he's a backup. His 750k entry level contract ends at the end of this season, but he re-ups for 1.5mil per year for the next three years. So we're cheap and secure in goal for 4 years, so long as his "vulnerable" injury rating chest and arms doesn't kick in. We get a cheap backup (former Arizona Coyotes backup, current Arizona Coyotes cast off Thomas Kiesewetter) and a cheaper emergency option (former Anchorage prospect Viljar Tveit) and we're good in net.

In defense we lost a few starters (Knox, Mayer and Paranych) so we have spaces, they're all filled with prospects from within. We still have Mews, Gillespie, Turko and Mendl so it's really a bottom pairing we're looking for. Welcome to 4 2.5 star rated youngsters, 20 year old Matt Leader, 23 year old John Fireman, 21 year old Johan Dahlberg and the positively ancient 26 year old Alfred Hansson. They've all been in the Anchorage system for a few years (other than Leader, he came in from Boston on a trade last year), and a few of them will be getting big team jobs this year.

For the forwards we're in a good place. Only Mattila, Claycomb and a couple of backups went, incoming is 2032 no2 overall pick RW Borje Svensson from the Swedish League and RW Jorgen Palm returning from injury. So we're set.

The problem is next summer looks to be the same routine, players needing paid or shipped out.

It's time to do something drastic. One of the players looking for a big increase to re-sign next summer is Emil Hemming, he's got one more year of 7.5mil and he wants 10mil per year to return. He's played 520 games for Anchorage, 102 goals, 202 assists, he's the defensive right winger on our top line. We brought in one top RW prospect this year (Svensson), two last year (Pettersson and Hrovatin) and Palm is returning from injury, do we really need a good but expensive top line right wing? The decision is made when I see Urho Mattila is sitting on free agency and he's now returning calls and saying he'd love to play for his favorite team again for a reasonable 3.6mil per year for 3 years. So Hemming is out, he goes to the Flyers for next to nothing (it seems no matter what you're trying to shift the AI offers a 4th and a terrible prospect or a 6th and a not quite as terrible but still longshot prospect), and Urho Mattila is signed. Unfortunately he's spent the summer getting fat on whatever Finnish people eat (seals and vodka?) and he shows up too unfit to play, but at least he's back where he's supposed to be.

2033/34 Rookie Draft
We have all our own picks, 35th in each round, so anybody half decent will be long gone by the time even our first pick comes around.

For the first time since the dynasty started there's a prospect who would come straight into the NHL as a top player. C Jerry Megna is 18 years old, 4.0 current 5.0 potential rated, and scored 106 points in 60 games for Spokane Chiefs in the Western Hockey League, somebody is getting an instant top 6 center, he's better than Beddard was in the first draft. I dont think I've seen anybody with a better than 2.5 current rating in the draft before. First pick is St Louis and they don't pick him, they go for a 1.0 current 5.0 potential 18 year old Russian defenseman Dmitry Partasov, drafting for needs I guess. Megna goes number 2 to Arizona, he's already listed as their best center so we'll see how he does.

For Anchorage's picks, we go unintentionally multinational. I didn't notice til I looked over them now but we picked 8 players from 8 different countries. First round is a Polish goalie Chwalislaw Janiszewski, then a Canadian Center Spencer Ecclestone in round 2, followed by a Lithuanian, a Dane, a Swiss, a Finn, an American, and a Kazakh.

Nobody who'll be mentioned again for a year or two.

And with that we're back to pre-season games. Doesn't the time fly by? It seems like the Stanley Cup was just yesterday.

Critch · 03-30-2023, 12:28 AM

2034/35 Lines
Forwards
1st Line - LW Lucas Karmiris (4.0), C Jordan Gavin (5.0), RW Peter Hrovatin (3.0) - Going by the ratings Hrovatin isnt as good as Hemming, but he's the future. Worryingly Karmiris is 28 but has gone from 4.5 to 4.0 and his injury tendencies list him as vulnerable to leg injury. My little gang of rookies is getting old.
2nd Line - LW Urho Mattila (4.0), C Oskar Vuollet (4.0), RW Jeff Martin (3.5) - Mattila is back but unfit, this will be where he fits in when he gets back in shape, right alongside Vuollet where he belongs. Jeff Martin gets RW on the second line, although he's going to bounce around to cover Left Wing injuries because we don't really have a backup on that side and he's the only versatile right winger we have .
3rd Line - LW David Prudek (3.0), C Kaden Pitre (3.5), RW Jorgen Palm (2.5) - Pridek and Pitre have signed new contracts so will be around three more years, Palm has returned from injury, so the Three P's line is back together, even if one of the P's has changed.
4th Line - LW Vasili Podkolzin (2.5), C Enzo Landrey or Nicholas Mouldenhauer (2.5), RW August Pettersson (3.0) or Borje Svensson (3.0) - Players playing for their place, and proving they deserve to be higher, and the desiccated husk of what used to be Vasili Podkolzin earning 6.5mil for 2 more years.

Defense
1st Pair - LD Jiri Mendl (3.5) RD Henry Mews (4.0) - Weston Knox is gone, he's signed for Nashville on a low salary 1 year deal, so Mendl steps in to take his place. He's top line now, not so much as a 1st pick bust.
2nd Pair - LD Easten Turko (3.5), RD Jackson Gillespie (2.5) - Turko is starting to become a top defenseman, which is a pity because we'll be struggling to pay what he wants next year. Gillespie doesn't have great ratings but he always churns out the stats. Both are FA in the summer (Turko a RFA I think).
3rd Pair - LD Matt Leader (2.5), RD Mark Dollack (2.5) - A pair of 20 year olds, they'll get a chance but with other youngsters ready to take their place. Johan Dahlberg and John Fireman. Alfred Hansson was supposed to be in the mix but he whines about being on a new team and lonely all the time so he gets sent home to Sweden for a year.

Netminders
Lucas Wall (4.5), Thomas Kiesewetter (2.5) - After messing around with a goalie tandem for a while we're back to a starter and a backup. Wall is here for 4 more years on a team friendly contract, so hopefully he stays healthy.

2034/35 Preseason
Preseason ends with a 4-3 record again. I did a lot more messing around with the lines ups than usual, trying out young defensemen and switching the 4th line. Small sample size. Other than that the season will be quicker. I normally have "interrupt when interesting players are waived" but we're right at the salary limit so no point, I cant afford to pick them up anyway. So no constant checking waived players. Zoom zoom.

2034/35 Regular Season
It was a good, but in the end a slightly disappointing season. Anchorage raced out at record breaking pace, they were 10-1-0, then 16-3-0, then 19-5-0 and running away with the division. By the midway point it was 30-10-1, on pace for 120+ points. They were 14 points clear in the division and 5 points clear in the President's Trophy, even injuries didn't slow us down. The midpoint was where it switched, we lost the next 7 in a row. Not sure what happened, nothing obvious, no injuries, no harmony problems, just couldn't buy a win. Over the few weeks after midpoint we'd go from 30-10-1 to 33-20-1, gone from 14 points clear in the division to tied with Calgary (who must've been on a run themselves to catch up) and dropped out of President's trophy contention. We also went from 20+ points ahead of 9th place to 12 points clear. Yeah, missing the playoffs never really got too close.

During the bad run I decided it was down to having too many young defensemen, with injuries we were regularly starting with 3 rookie defensemen, so I came up with a masterplan. Rookie C Enzo Landrey had made 4th center his own, so Nicholas Mouldenhauer became expendable. If I traded him away I could then watch the waivers and pick up a cheap experienced defenseman with the salary saved and fit him in with the rookies. That plan didn't work out though, the moment I traded Mouldenhauer away (to the Flyers), top Center Jordan Gavin got injured and we'd just traded away our backup center. So my waiver watching became for a center instead, we had to roll with the young guys in defense. In came C Ralph McKeamish on waivers from Detroit, he could play all three forward positions so the perfect adaptable backup. He lasted 1 game before getting injured too. For most of the run in we were short of centers, we ended the season with Defenseman Henry Mews playing center since we had more backup rookie defensemen than you could shake a stick at.

We ended on 107 points (53-28-1), just short of our 109 record. 61 points in the first half of the season, 46 in the second. Outside the 3-10 period, even the second half was good. We won the Pacific Division, 3 points ahead of Calgary on 104 points, Anaheim on 98, Seattle on 91 and Vancouver on 88 (which was enough for the second wildcard spot). Central Division was Atlanta on 115 (President's Trophy winners), Chicago on 103 and St Louis on 101.

Atlanta are top seeds, we're second so we get the first Wild Card team, so it's Seattle again.

We were division winners and in the playoffs, but we should have been record breakers.

Stand out player stats were Urho Mattila who got the most points (71 in 79 games) despite being unfit for the first month after returning from his sabbatical. Oskar Vuollet led the team in goals, 31 in 81 games, the highest total in Anchorage's history by a player not named Jordan Gavin. Jordan Gavin had 25 goals and 35 assists, but he missed 15 games with injury. Lucas Wall had a sv% of.917 and a GAA of 2.61. Goals Saved Above Average of nearly 18 is good though. And the final record breaking stat is Jeff Martin had 113 penalty minutes, destroying Brenden Dillon's Anchorage record of 85. He also had a record breaking 13 fights. Two last year to 13 this year, boy's gone crazy.

Critch · 03-30-2023, 11:30 AM

A brief interlude before the playoffs.

FHM's Free Agents
One of the complaints about FHM all the way back to FHM1 has been that if you check the free agent market late in the year there'll be some top players who have sat out the year because nobody would pay them what they think they're worth. I'm not sure what the logic is, if two players think they're worth 7mil per year one will sit out the whole season saying "I want 7 mil per year" and the other will sign for a one year low value contract and be ready to reenter free agency the following year. I thought it might be driven by the "demands to be paid what he's worth" in the scout report, but not seeing that.

Early in the dynasty it was a problem that would mainly show up with goaltenders, you'd see a single top goalie sitting demanding 9mil per year late in the season. Sometimes he'd get a deal 2/3 of the way through the season, other times he'd sit out the season. Now it seems to be spreading, if I look at the free agents available now at the end of the regular season there are four 4.0 star players and two 3.5 star players just sitting there. The 4.0 star players are all wanting 8 or 9 million to sign somewhere.

I had read that the issue can be helped by adding a million or two to the salary cap every two years, and I'll be adding 6mil to the salary cap this year (if I remember) to make up for the years I've missed, but I dont think it's the main problem. Montreal are in the playoffs, they have an outlook of "Win it now", but they have $28mil cap space. NY Rangers are current champs, set to "win urgently" but have 18mil cap space. There are a few teams with "win now" and salary cap space available who aren't signing the UFAs.

So it's not a case that players sit in free agency because nobody can afford them. It's more a case that they sit in free agency because they ask for more than they're worth and they never reduce their asking price.

Looking at the list of free agents sitting unsigned rated 3.0 (NHL regular starter) and up, they're almost all North American. There's one Russian but everybody else is Canadian or American. I'm guessing that Euro UFAs are more likely to go off home to their home league, or to the KHL, if they don't get the NHL contract they think they're worth.

Anyway here's what the Anchorage free agents of the last few years have done after leaving:

2032/33
Aleksandr Yeremey - Went back to the KHL, plays for Dinamo Minsk
Ivan Korzhakov - Went to the Russian minor leagues for one year, but now plays in the KHL for Salavat Yulaev
Prokhor Poltapov - Signed for Philadelphia, played there for two seasons and now back in the KHL for Sibir Novosibirsk
Tomas Lavoie - Signed a 3 year contract with Calgary and still there as a regular player
Chris Collishaw - Never made it with Anchorage, third round pick who didnt make it as far as Juneau. Now plays for Savannah in the ECHL, a minor US league. (Sidenote ECHL doesnt stand for anything. It used to be the East Coast Hockey League, but now the league is just called ECHL. I just googled ECHL to see what it was obviously.)
Brandon Svoboda - Injury ended his NHL career, he's in semi-pro hockey now rated a 1.5 star player. A level he's too good for, 89 points in 36 games last season.

2033/34
Dylan Nolan - sitting at home saying "give me 2.5 mil!". Has never been paid more than 800k, hasnt played since leaving Anchorage.
Evan Maillet - He was the starting goalie on a Stanley Cup team last year, sat out for a few months before signing a one season minimum salary deal with Vancouver, he's their starter now and going to the playoffs.
Weston Knox - Same as Maillet, sat out the first half of the season then signed 1 year 750k with Nashville. He'll be back in UFA this summer, Nashville have already announced they wont be offering him a new contract.
Paul Mayer - Same again, sat out then took a 1 year deal to play in the KHL for Kunlun Red Star in Beijing.
Matthew Paranych - Still sitting at home saying he wants 6mil per year for 3 years. Has never earned more than 800k
Rick Claycomb - Still sitting at home saying he wants 5.5mil per year for 3 years. Has never earned more than 1.4mil.

Special Mention - Tarin Smith - he has now sat out three seasons, now wants 3mil per year for 3 years despite his last contract being 1.4mil per year.

So, in conclusion, Free Agency and player demands are a bit crap in the game.

Critch · 03-30-2023, 12:58 PM

2034/35 Playoffs Round 1 - Seattle Kraken
This is the third time we've played Seattle in the first round of the playoffs, the divisional seedings mean you play a team from your division in the first two rounds almost all the time. They swept us once, we swept them last year.

Seattle's star player is still Shane Wright, 73 points in 78 games now. They have one of the top defensemen in the league too, they picked him second in the draft in 2029, Flynn Brown. Their other top guy LW Filip Arvidsson will be missing the series with concussion. They're another playoff team with a mediocre goalie, Sebastian Gothberg is 2.0 rated and a SV% of .895, and a negative GSAA. According to GSAA/60, he's half a goal worse than average per game. He'll probably shut us out now I've said that. They finished 4th in the Pacific Division.

We go into the playoffs almost injury free, Jeff Martin is out day-to-day but everybody else is 100% and ready to go.

Game 1 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 5
We get into an early lead, Jorgen Palm after 5:35 and Jordan Gavin after 17:47 and it's 2-0 after the first period. Seattle get back into it 28 seconds into the second with a Milo Eager goal, but our rookie Borje Svensson puts us back into a two goal lead after 16:51. He's had a tough first season in the NHL, we had two right wing places for our trio of young Euros (Pettersson, Hrovatin, Svensson) and Borje was the one who normally missed out, he's only in today because Jeff Martin is injured. Into the third Jiri Mendl makes it 4-1, Shane Wright pulls one back for Seattle but it's all over. Jordan Gavin adds a late empty net goal. If it's a battle of the goalies, we're going to win. Seattle's Sebastian Gothberg saves 22 of 26 shots (.846), Anchorage's Lucas Wall saves 32 of 34 (.941) in his playoff debut.

Game 2 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 1
Jeff Martin is available but not 100% so he's missing again. Maybe I should have shut up about their goalie, he saves 26 of 27 shots to win this one. Seattle go up early with a Fletcher Spurle goal (great name, and an Alaskan. Get him on the watch list). Borje Svensson ties it up in the second, he's liking his brief spell on the second line. Shane Wright wins it for Seattle with a goal 16:27 into the third period. Series all tied up, and it's not going to be a sweep for either team this year.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Seattle Kraken 2 Overtime
Easten Turko is going to miss the rest of the series with a foot injury, if we dont win the series he may be done in Anchorage. He's a FA this summer and we have no cap room. It's their goalie again, this time 30 saves on 31 shots. Matty Beniers (an increasingly rare real player on his real team) makes it 1-0 to Seattle 5:59 into the second, Jordan Gavin ties it up at 6:31 and that's all the regular time scoring. Seattle should have won in regular time but Anchorage liven up in OT, outshoot Seattle 8-1 but Seattle score with the 1. Dallas Vieau gives Seattle the series lead with the sudden death goal.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Seattle Kraken 1
Good injury news before the game. It's not that Turko is unexpectedly back, it's that Seattle star man Shane Wright is out. Oskar Vuollet puts Anchorage 1-0 4:45 into the first period, Kaden Pitre makes it 2 at 2:51 of the second, but Kyril Baranok scores a power play goal to pull Seattle back into it. It's from Jeff Martin carrying on his regular season penalty minute run. Kaden Pitre scores late in the third (19:28) and we're back level in the series.

Game 5 - Seattle Kraken 5 Anchorage Huskies 2
Shane Wright is still out, but they don't need him. Anchorage are actually 2-0 up at the midpoint, Jordan Gavin in the first and Oskar Vuollet in the second, but Seattle rally and it's 2-2 by the end of the second, Luke Misa and Dominic Petr. Fletcher Spurle puts them ahead in the third and Dallas Vieua adds two more, one a late empty net, and we're one game from exit. We have a few young defensemen in with Turko being out, but it's not them that let us down. It's star man Henry Mews with a -4 performance.

Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Seattle Kraken 2
They've still got no Shane Wright, but they still don't need him. Seattle are one up after 5:36, but Jordan Gavin ties it up with a power play goal after 8:25 in the first period. The second period is scoreless, but Alaskan Fletcher Spurle scores 3:16 into the third and that's the scoring, and Anchorage's season, finished. Their mediocre goalie Sebastian Gothberg over-performs again, 30 saves on 31 shots faced. His Goals Saved Above Average is 0.00 so he wasnt stopping shots he shouldn't have, just being steady and making the saves he should make. And that was enough. Seattle win the series 4 games to 2 and go on to face Anaheim in round 2. Anaheim upset Calgary in the first round.

So we follow up two Stanley Cup finals in a row with a first round exit to a wild card team. It's a funny old game. As some old commentator said about a different sport.

Critch · 03-30-2023, 04:23 PM

2034/35 Playoffs
It's the return of the annual "here's what happened in the playoffs when Anchorage were out" post. It hasn't been needed for a couple of years, but here it is roaring back.

In the Eastern Conference the top seeds were Toronto Maple Leafs in the Atlantic half and reigning Stanley Cup champion New York Rangers in the Metropolitan half. Both got by the first round, NY Rangers past Boston 4-2, Toronto beat Florida in 7 games. Round two New York Rangers got past Pittsburgh 4-2, but things were not so smooth for Toronto. Toronto crashed out to Montreal Canadiens 4-1, I bet that hurt their simulated fandom, high hopes then out to a rival. So it was New York Rangers trying to get back to the Stanley Cup against Montreal and they managed it 4-3.

In the Western Conference, Seattle dumped out Anchorage 4-2, then Anaheim 4-2. The Western Conference final would be the two Wild Card teams matching up, Seattle v Vancouver. It was Seattle who kept the roll going, 4-1 over Vancouver. New York Rangers v Seattle Kraken in the Stanley Cup final.

When you're on form, you're on form so Seattle started on fire, they went to New York and won the first two games on the road to take a 2-0 lead. And then they lost the next four, so it's New York Rangers with back-to-back championships.

2034/35 Awards
Every year of the dynasty whoever won the Art Ross trophy (Most Points) also won the Hart Trophy (MVP). Not this year though. Gavin Hayes (St Louis Blues) won Most Points with 106 points, Connor Bedard won MVP with a lowly 105 points. New York Rangers goalie Wilhelm Eriksson, who I said wasnt very good in last year's playoffs post, won the Vezina for best goalie. Best Rookie was Jerry Megna, 72 points in 82 games, not bad for a 19 year old.

No awards for Anchorage this year. No change there. I forgot to mention at the time but the All Star game was back to only one Anchorage player. This year it was goalie Lucas Wall.

Critch · 03-30-2023, 05:06 PM

2034/35 Offseason
The commissioner sat staring at the printed list of unsigned free agents in front of him on his desk. He flicked to the second page and asked, "So all of these free agents sat out the whole season and didn't sign with anyone?"

There was a moment of silence until the assistant commissioner cleared his throat and replied, "Yes sir, that's the problem. It makes the league look bad that big-name players just stayed home for a year. It makes it seem like the league's financials are messed up."

The commissioner furrowed his brow and thought, "What to do? What to do?"

Suddenly, he had a eureka moment. He sat back in his chair, smiling, and announced to the staff milling about his office, "What we have here is a supply and demand problem. We've got too much supply and not enough demand. What we need to do is ensure there's more demand."

He sat back smugly, waiting while his staff looked at each other trying to work out what he meant.

"What we need, ladies and gentlemen, is a good old-fashioned expansion."

And so it was decided: the current 36-team NHL with four divisions of nine teams would become a new 40-team NHL with four divisions of ten teams. The four new teams would need to sign free agents, they'd be on the unsigned free agents like dogs on turnips. Hey presto, issue solved. For a few years anyway.

Critch · 04-02-2023, 11:18 PM

I held off for a little bit, as there was another patch coming along, but it's out now and there's no mention of unrestricted free agents sitting about unemployed rather than signing for less than they think they're worth, so I'm going with expansion. We'll see if this helps with the issue, but I have my doubts. It'll make a change anyway; nine-team divisions always looked a little strange.

Expansion Teams
Just like the original Anchorage/Quebec/Hartford/Atlanta expansion 11 seasons ago (haven't the years flown by?), this expansion will feature a couple of returning defunct teams. I read an article on The Athletic about how Canada could support a dozen more NHL teams, as Canadians are 11 times more likely to be hockey fans, so it's almost all Canadian teams this time. "Almost all" equals 3 out of 4.

I used up all the recent defunct teams last time, so this time I went further into history.

Pacific Division - California Seals. First, the non-Canadian team. The originals went out of the league in 1976, so they'll mark the 60th anniversary by returning to the league. They're based in Oakland, CA, and have the most garish green jerseys possible.

Central Division - Saskatoon Saskatchewanians. Well, I like the name. Purple and White.

Metropolitan Division - Hamilton Tigers - They went out of the league in the 1920s so even longer for a return. The article I read about Canada needing more NHL teams mentioned Quebec City (already taken care of) and the greater Toronto/Golden Horseshoe area, so here's Hamilton. Black and Yellow.

Atlantic Division - Nova Scotia Admirals - Another Canadian team, an East Coast version of Anchorage. Far away from everybody else, small market. Yellow and Blue.

Cleveland, Kansas City, Portland, Mexico City, Honolulu, and Baltimore all miss out this time. Maybe in ten years' time. Or if I relocate somebody on a whim.

Expansion Draft
The protection lists are set: 10 forwards, 5 defensemen, and 1 goalie protected. So we go into the expansion draft with backup goalie Thomas Kiesewetter, defensemen John Fireman and Steve Peters, and forwards Vasili Podkolzin and Ralph McKeamish unprotected. Somebody taking Vasili Podkolzin and his $6.5 million salary would be ideal; it would allow me to sign some defensemen, but no luck. The only player we lose is the Anchorage-born Steve Peters, who goes to California Seals.

Other ex-Anchorage favorites on the move in the expansion draft are G Sebastian Cossa and D Paul Mayer, who go to California Seals, D Carter Murphy, who goes to Saskatoon, and D Conor Walton, who goes to Nova Scotia. Hamilton thinks they're too good for Anchorage cast-offs, so they splash out on the most expensive free agents they can find, a few 5.0 stars surrounded by nothing much.

Rookie Draft
Let me czech my notes. Yes, we drafted lots of Czechs. 1st round LW Alexander Broda, 2nd round LW Vaclav Pastor, 3rd round LD Ales Sustek. Not intentional, I left the Anchorage head scout to do the draft on his own and he went Czech-crazy.

Free agency and stuff:
There were a lot of contract extensions for current players, so Anchorage was jammed up against the owner's maximum salary before the free agent season even started. There was no money to offer to the other expiring contracts, so D Easten Turko (3.5) and D Jackson Gillespie (2.5) went to free agency, Turko in particular will be missed, he'd become a good defenseman. Since there were still some holes in the roster, especially on defense, we need to clear some salary to free up cash. Jorgen Palm took his 2.7mil to California for LD Carsen Adair on a minimum salary, C Ralph McKeamish went to Saskatoon for a low pick, and we had enough space to sign a bunch of mediocre rookies for backups stored in the AHL, and a backup winger LW/RW Jonas Lambert from Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey.

And we were all set for the new season.

Did expansion help with unsigned free agents?
No.

Jackson Gillespie and Easten Turko left Anchorage, and old Husky Emil Hemming left the Flyers. All good players, they're all sitting unemployed in free agency on regular season opening day. Old Huskies D Tarin Smith has just entered his 4th year of not playing while he holds out for 2.5mil. At one point, Emil Hemming was asking for 2.6mil for 3 years, so I cleared salary to go for him. But when I went back the next day, he had changed to 4.9mil for 3 years.

I've been enjoying the game, but the AI is terrible for free agents and ruins any sense of realism. I've got a feeling that it would be easy to take advantage of the AI and build a super-team if you were playing all-out min-maxing and no house rules. Which I can't be bothered doing.

(p.s. I put this through ChatGPT and asked it to edit spelling and grammar. So that's one AI that pulls it's weight, maybe they could teach it to play FHM.)

Critch · 04-03-2023, 01:02 PM

2035/36 Regular Season

Well we might have not much depth in defense left, not enough for three good lines anyway, but the in-game pre-season preview says Vegas are favorites for the Stanley Cup with Atlanta and Anchorage the main challengers. It's the first time we've been mentioned as a challenger, last year was our first mention in the preview as among the darkhorses, the first time we'd been mentioned at all. Even when we won the Stanley Cup, the preview didnt mention us as a possible challenger the next year.

The regular season started badly, the first month's schedule was brutal, 15 games in 26 days and 5 sets of back-to-backs. Slow start followed by a rally and Anchorge were top of the table at 8-5-1, nobody else had come out of the gates flying either. A run of 2-8-0 and we were back at the bottom of the table, 9th by the end of November. Trying to get by with two good defensemen (Mews and Mendl), a cheap journeyman (Adair) and a rotation of youngsters (Leader, Dollack, Dahlberg, Fireman) wasnt really working out especially when injuries kicked in. We were near the top for goals for, but near the bottom for goals allowed. The two goalies (Wall and Kiesewetter) were having terrible seasons too, both sub .900 save percentage. I'm not sure how much of that comes from having a poor defense in front of them.

A strong December, January and February and we were clear at the top despite the poor defense, lots of highscoring games. 5-4 or 6-5, come see the Huskies for the thrills. There was a game where I accidentally put two attacking defensemen on the top line and conceded nine too. A 9-6 scoreline, but otherwise things had calmed down and we were heading for the playoffs.

Just before the trade deadline, things went wrong. Jiri Mendl was one of our two good defensemen but he was also "Outspoken". Not sure what he did, but suddenly half the team hated him and the team harmony went from "harmonious" to "open conflict" in a couple of weeks. Results suffered too and suddenly we were back in a pack at the top instead of clear at the top. Mendl's contract was up at the end of the season, he wasn't going to re-sign, so I decided to trade him away at the trade deadline, a playoff chaser would like to have a 4.0 defenseman and would hopefully overpay for him. Washington Capitals sent their first and they had a new defenseman to help them in their ultimately unsuccessful playoff push.

We hobbled along with a weakened defense, thanks to the free agency issues former Husky defenseman Matthew Paranych was available so we spent all our money on bringing him back. He'd been sitting by the phone for a year and a half from when we let him go to UFA. He asked for what he wanted, I said I couldn't afford it and made our best offer, he came back with a demand that was less than the offer he was turning down, I said ok and he'd successfully negotiated down his salary. As I said AI and free agency is screwy at best. Turned out he wasn't much good anyway, 18 months on a sofa hadn't helped his game. But at least he was popular.

The season end came down to a nail-biter, with 1 game to go we were in 1st with 101 points, then LA Kings, Calgary Flames and Seattle Kraken all had 100 points. Fourth place in our division wasn't guaranteed a wildcard place, the Central division had two wildcard teams on 100+ points too. So the last game if we won we'd win the division, if we lost it was mathematically possible that we'd miss the playoffs depending on what the other teams did.

We won 4-2 against Atlanta and won the division. A happy ending. In the end both the wild card teams came from the Central Division, so for a change it wont be Seattle this year. This year it'll be Winnipeg Jets.

edit - I also spent the season cursing the game for being unresponsive to my mouse clicks, I'd have to click every button two or three times to get it to work. I now realize that my mouse is broken and the game is blameless for this particular issue.

Critch · 04-03-2023, 03:25 PM

2035/36 Playoffs
I haven't mentioned the actual lines for a while so here goes.

Lines
Forwards
1st Line - LW Lucas Karmiris (3.5), C Jordan Gavin (5.0), RW Jeff Martin (3.5) - My core of rookies that have been here from the start have peaked and a few of them are starting to slip down the other side of the hill. Lucas Karmiris being the prime example, used to be 4.5 now 3.5. Jordan Gavin is still going strong, led the league in scoring this year with 48 goals, and Jeff Martin is the muscle of the line. Each player is rated for injury tendency on each part of their body, might be durable in one part but vulnerable in others. Jeff Martin is vulnerable from head to toe so he gets more than his fair share of injuries.
2nd Line - LW Urho Mattila (4.0), C Oskar Vuollet (4.0), RW Borje Svensson (3.5) - Some of the original bunch are on the downward slide, Oskar Vuollet is getting better with age. I would have said an all-Scandanavian line, but apparently Finns dont consider themselves Scandanavian I learned that on a quiz show earlier. So an all Nordic line. Borje Svensson is the next generation of Huskies star player.
3rd Line - LW David Prudek (3.5), C Kaden Pitre (3.5), RW August Pettersson (3.5) - Good depth on the forwards, third line is a strength.
4th Line - LW Jonas Lambert (3.0), C Enzo Landry (3.0), RW Peter Hrovatin (3.0) - In one of the very early posts I said the trick was to concentrate on defense, now I have a 4th line that's all 3.0 star rated. Landry was a first round pick (36th), Hrovatin was a first round pick (7th) and Lambert is from Quebec and was playing in the Ligue Nord-Americaine til earlier this season. I guess his name is pronounced Yona Lamberrrr.

Defense
1st Pair - LD Matt Leader (3.0) RD Henry Mews (3.5) - Like Karmiris, Mews has started showing up on the development report with negative changes. My boys are getting old. Leader is 21, so he's the new hope.
2nd Pair - LD Johan Dahlberg (3.0), RD Carsen Adair (2.5) - Dahlberg is 23, 6'6'' and 244lbs and came from the "pick lots of big defensemen in the draft and hope they develop" plan. Adair came in the trade that send Jorgen Palm to California Seals.
3rd Pair - LD Matt Paranych (2.5), RD Mark Dollack (2.5) - Paranych came in late from FA when we had to dump Mendl off for being loathsome, Dollack was another from the "draft big defensemen" plan.

Netminders
Lucas Wall (5.0) Thomas Kiesewetter (2.5) - firmly on the starter and cheap backup plan now. Barring injury, it's Wall all the way in the playoffs.

End of the Regular Season Free Agent Watch
Maybe I'm getting too tied up with Free Agents not signing for anybody, but here goes:
Emil Hemming - Sat out the first couple of months of the season, but got paid. 4.9mil for 2 years with Vancouver.
Jackson Gillespie - Sat out the first four months of the season, but got paid. 5.9mil for 1 year with Buffalo on January 15th. Less than 2 months later they released him. Contracts are guaranteed, he played 22 games before being dumped. Then signed for LA Kings for 1 year 750k in April so he's going to the playoffs with them.
Easten Turko - Spent the whole year as a free agent. Me asking him how much he was looking for once per month seems to have annoyed him, he wont talk to Anchorage anymore.
Tarin Smith - nearly 4 years after his contract expired at Anchorage he's finally signed for a new team. He's getting 25k to play in the Ukrainian second division for one year.
Evan Maillet - Contract expired for Anchorage in June 2034. Signed with Vancouver for 1 year 750k in December 2034. March 2035 Vancouver realize they've got a good goalie so tie him up 3 years/7.1mil per year. All makes enough sense so far. November 2035 Vancouver release him. Later the same day they sign him again for 1 year 750k.
Rick Claycomb - left Anchorage, spent a year without a team, signed for St Louis 3 years at 2.7mil. Currently hasn't been released yet.

I liked this game better when I didn't look at what the AI was doing.

Critch · 04-03-2023, 04:23 PM

2035/36 Playoffs Round 1 - Winnipeg Jets
A first meeting in the playoffs with Winnipeg Jets. The playoffs are split by division so most years we'll get a team from the Pacific Division, but this year both wild card teams are from the Central so we get the Central Division Winnipeg in the first round. This is their first appearance in the playoffs for a couple of years, althought they've had a good season, they're not loaded with talent.

Game 1 - Winnipeg Jets 1 Anchorage Huskies 7
Only one injury for Anchorage going into the playoffs, 4th line center Enzo Landrey is day-to-day with a going injury, so Miloslav Martin takes his place. He was a waiver pickup from New York Rangers. Anchorage get an early lead, Borje Svensson after 1:10. Rutger McGroarty scores for Winnipeg but Jordan Gavin makes it 2-1 after 16:43 with an unassisted goal. Three more goals in the second period and Anchorage are well in control. Kaden Pitre (0:50), an Urho Mattila powerplay goal (8:15) and Johan Dahlberg (15:50) and Anchorage are in control. Oskar Vuollet starts the third period with a short handed goal, Winnipeg pull their goalie (I'm not commenting on the abilities of opposing goalies anymore) and Borje Svensson scores his second and Anchorage's seventh. An easy win and we're 1-0 up.

Game 2 - Winnipeg Jets 2 Anchorage Huskies 4
Enzo Landrey is back to 100% so back into the lineup. No scoring in the first, Oskar Vuollet gives Anchorage the lead 4:44 into the second. Corban Almen ties it for Winnipeg and it's 1-1 after the second. Jeff Martin puts Anchorage up 28 seconds into the third, but Winnipeg tie it up again after 9:44. 30 seconds later Peter Hrovatin puts Anchorage ahead, Jeff Martin scores with 2 seconds to go and Anchorage win 4-2 and are 2-0 up in the series. Both teams have 32 shots, but Anchorage have the better goalie so win. Tempting fate there.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Winnipeg Jets 0
Winnipeg are starting to see the injuries mount, three starters missing for this series now. Anchorage have no such issues. Lukas Karmiris puts Anchorage into the lead in the first, Carsen Adair 2-0 in the second, then Enzo Landrey, Oskar Vuollet and Lucas Karmiris finish it in the third. Anchorage were well on top, outshot them 50-18, and one win away from round 2.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Winnipeg Jets 1
It's not quite as one-sided as game three, but Anchorage still on top. No scoring in the first before Winnipeg take the lead 15:21 into the second. It doesnt last long though, Jordan Gavin and Borje Svensson score at 16:25 and 19:54 and after two periods Anchorage are 2-1 up. Oskar Vuollet makes it 3-1 after 3:27 of the third and Anchorage have one foot in the next round. Urho Mattila adds an empty net goal and the sweep is complete, we're off to the second round.

It's Calgary Flames in the next round, they got past Los Angeles Kings in seven games. In the other half of the Western Conference it's #1 v #2, Chicago v Atlanta.

And over in the Eastern Conference there'll be no three-peat for the New York Rangers, they got put out by Pittsburgh Penguins. Columbus v Pittsburgh and Hartford v Ottawa in round two.

Critch · 04-04-2023, 12:01 AM

2035/36 Playoffs Round 2 - Calgary Flames
We played Calgary in the playoffs a couple of years ago and beat them four games to two at this stage on the way to a Stanley Cup Final. Back then, their star was Jakub Moravec. He's still there, but this time he's out injured and won't appear in the playoffs. He's still a couple of months away from recovering from a torn muscle. They do have a top goalie though, Leland Griffith, so I won't be tempted into making any backfiring slanderous comments about their goalie.

Game 1 - Calgary Flames 4 Anchorage Huskies 1
There are no injuries for Anchorage, but it doesn't help. They are outshot 13-5 in the first period, 14-5 in the second, and the game is over before the Huskies wake up. Calgary goes one up in the first with a goal from Patrick McSharry, and Matthew Paranych ties it at one with a shorthanded goal (Anchorage takes a couple of penalties early in the first), making it 1-1 after the first period, despite being heavily outshot. Calgary adds two goals in the second, one with an assist from former Huskies' favorite Tomas Lavoie, and it's 3-1 after two periods. Another Calgary goal in the third period, and the Huskies are off to a bad start. However, there are plenty of games left to play.

Game 2 - Calgary Flames 1 Anchorage Huskies 6
Back to form in game 2. Henry Mews puts Anchorage 1-0 up at 2:55, but Calgary hits back with a power play goal after 5:42. Anchorage is taking a lot of penalties so far this series. Oskar Vuollet puts Anchorage back ahead before the end of the first period. Two more goals in the second period (16:26 - Jordan Gavin, 17:34 - Borje Svensson), and then two more early in the third period (3:27 - Enzo Landrey short-handed goal, 6:15 Kaden Pitre), and it's all over. Leland Griffith is pulled after the 6th goal, but there is no more scoring. The series is now tied, and the Huskies are off to Calgary.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Calgary Flames 6
Well, that didn't go well. Kaden Pitre puts Anchorage ahead in the first period, and it's 1-0 to Anchorage at the intermission. Calgary then rolls off six unanswered goals, four in the second period and two in the third period, and it's all over before Jonas Lambert gets a late consolation goal. Lucas Wall stays in for the whole game despite conceding six goals, so maybe it's time to mess with the "pull goalie" setting.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Calgary Flames 1
This is the only series that's not 3-0 at this point. Hartford, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta all seem to be well on their way to the conference finals. I'm not sure how important it is for a team to have their captain on the ice, but Vasili Podkolzin has had a terrible regular season with just one goal and eight assists in 45 games. Therefore, he's been on the bench all playoffs. It's his time to shine hopefully, and he's in the fourth line. I'm not sure if he made any difference (on ice for 7 minutes, no points, no shots, one hit) but the team plays better. Owen Martin gives Calgary the lead in the first, but Anchorage take over in the second. They outshoot Calgary 16-4, Johan Dahlberg ties the game up, Kaden Pitre scores the go-ahead goal and Anchorage are in the lead after two. Third Period Kaden Pitre adds his second after 9:15, and then completes his hattrick with a power play goal after 15:38. The hats are cleared off the ice (if any Anchorage fans actually made the journey and got tickets) before Enzo Landrey adds another and we're back to Anchorage with the series tied.

Game 5 - Calgary Flames 1, Anchorage Huskies 2
The only series still going, the other three ended in sweeps. The bad news is Henry Mews is out with a day-to-day shoulder injury. We're going with a top defensive pairing of 21-year-old Matt Leader and 22-year-old Mark Dollack. What could go wrong there? Actually, not a whole lot goes wrong. We're defensively sound all night, limiting them to a total of 17 shots despite their having three power plays. Lucas Karmiris (dropped to the third line) puts Anchorage ahead in the first. Nathan Lacompte ties it up for Calgary in the second. Carsen Adair scores the winner after 15:43 of the third, and we're one win away from meeting Atlanta in the Western Conference finals.

Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 1, Calgary Flames 2
Henry Mews is back, so there's another rearrangement of the defense. So the offense doesn't feel neglected, they get a bit of rearrangement too. Karmiris is back in the top 6. His ratings say "not top six anymore," but his performances say "yes, he is." It starts badly, with Calgary 2-0 up at the end of the first, Benjamin Kindel (with a Tomas Lavoie assist) and Patrick Smith. The second period sees no scoring despite both teams getting power plays. In the third period, Kaden Pitre pulls Anchorage back into it, but there's no more scoring. It was a close game, but their goalie, Leland Griffith, won it for them. And it's back to Anchorage for a game seven.

Game 7 - Calgary Flames 0, Anchorage Huskies 3
Henry Mews might have been rushed back a bit too soon. He's available, but not up to first-pair minutes, so we're back to the Leader/Dollack youth pairing while Mews fits into the third pair. The first period goes by scoreless despite multiple power plays. The games have been getting chippy, chippier than regular playoff series anyway. In the second period, Enzo Landrey puts Anchorage 1-0 up after 4:19. Anchorage gets another power play, and Jordan Gavin scores a PP goal after 8:03. Mark Dollack gets in his first NHL fight with Ridly Greig after 11:06 (it's rated as a tie, well done to our youngster for holding his own against the smaller, much older man), and Urho Mattila puts Anchorage 3-0 up with an unassisted goal with 2 seconds left in the period. It's not the last action of the second period: Jordan Gavin and Owen Martin get matching slashing penalties for hacking away at each other as time. The third period starts 4-on-4, but Anchorage shuts it down. There are only 9 shots total in the third (5 to Calgary, 4 to Anchorage), no scoring, and it's Anchorage off to the conference final.

So it's Anchorage vs. Atlanta in the Western Conference final, Anchorage with home advantage, and Hartford vs. Pittsburgh in the Eastern final. I really need to go get a new battery for my mouse, this missing clicks thing is boiling my piss.

Critch · 04-04-2023, 09:37 AM

2035/36 Western Conference Final - Atlanta Thrashers
It's Anchorage v Atlanta in the West and Hartford in the East, 3 of the 4 2024 expansion teams. For this year's expansion teams, three of the four finished last in their division (as expansion teams should) while Nova Scotia finished third in the Atlantic division and made the playoffs. They lost in round 1 to Ottawa.

For Atlanta, they've reached the playoffs in six straight seasons now, they've won a couple of Central divisions too, and talent wise are probably the best in the league. Four 5.0 star players LD Louis-Joseph Boutin, C Brandon Gorzynski, RW Rasmus Rinne (second to Gavin in the Rocket Richard Trophy for top goalscorer this year) and RW Braiden Scuderi. They've got a pair of young goalies, a 22 year old and a 23 year old, neither of them particularly good so that's one place Anchorage have the advantage.

Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Atlanta Thrashers 4
I said in the last post that Anchorage would have home advantage, apparently not. We're #1 in the Pacific and a division winner, they're #2 in the Central but they got more points than Anchorage. So home advantage to Atlanta. Henry Mews is back to 100% for Anchorage, but 2nd line defenseman Johan Dahlberg will be out probably for the whole series. He's got a sports hernia. John Fireman will step into his place. Fireman isnt very good, but neither is Dahlberg. Anchorage dont play well, outshot 35-18, and fall behind 1-0 in the series. Borje Svensson puts Anchorage 1-0 up in the first but Louis-Joseph Boutin ties it up with a power play goal and it's 1-1 at the end of the first. In the second period Atlanta are completely in control, outshoot Anchorage 19-4 and score three times. Beglaryan, Uusitalo and Scuderi. Period three gets Anchorage back into it, a goal from Hrovatin at 7:47 then Urho Mattila at 19:30, we end the game with an empty net and a little bit of 6-on-4 when Atlanta take a late penalty, but no coming back. Atlanta 1-0 up.

Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Atlanta Thrashers 1
A little bit of shuffling of the lines, 4th line center Enzo Landrey hasnt been playing well so he drops out and RW August Pettersson comes back in with a little line shuffling to make sure everybody is playing a position they can play. It works out, D Carsen Adair scores for Anchorage in the first, Henry Mews in the second and it's 2-0 going into the third. Atlanta get back into it at 4:45, but Jordan Gavin adds a late power play goal and the series is tied at one. But it seems like there are a few injuries too.

Game 3 - Atlanta Thrashers 2 Anchorage Huskies 4
The bad news is top line defenseman Matt Leader is out, short term but not worth risking him in this game. The good news (for Anchorage) is that Atlanta's top defenseman Louis-Joseph Boutin is also out, he's gone for the series. It's a blast from the past in the first, the reanimated corpse of 34 year old Vasili Podkolzin scores after 1:57. He's on the last few weeks of his 6.5mil waste-of-money contract. Atlanta tie it up in the second, Cooper Simpson again, but Jeff Martin (10:38) and Jordan Gavin (13:32) put Anchorage two up. Atlanta cut it to a one goal lead in the third at 7:26, but a late empty net goal froom Jeff Martin and we're 2-1 up ith a home game to come.

Game 4 - Atlanta Thrashers 0 Anchorage Huskies 2
I didnt mention Calder Hamilton in the last game, he was the defense replacement for Matt Leader, he did ok in the third pairing so we'll not be risking Matt Leader again. Anchorage are well on top for most of the game, outshoot Atlanta 13-8 in the first, 15-4 in the second and 13-6 in the third. Atlanta have fallen away since their captain Louis-Joseph Boutin got injured. Jeff Martin puts Anchorage 1-0 up in the first, Urho Mattila makes it 2-0 in the second (a first assist for Vasili Podkolzin) and we're on our way to a 3-1 lead in the series. Back to Atlanta needing one win for a third Stanley Cup final in 4 years.

Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Atlanta Thrashers 5
It's not over yet. Anchorage lead twice, 1-0 in the first with a Peter Hrovatin goal and 2-1 in the second with a Borje Svensson power play goal (out power play has been a strength this year, 24%, 2nd in the NHL) but Atlanta deserve their win. It's 3-2 Atlanta after two, they add a couple more in the third and it's back to Anchorage for a game six. In the Eastern Conference Pittsburgh are 3-2 up over Hartford.

Game 6 - Atlanta Thrashers 3 Anchorage Huskies 2 overtime
Matt Leader is still not 100% but it's time to risk him, he's into the third pairing with Dollack to try to keep down his icetime a little since he has a knee issue. He shows he's back by putting Anchorage up in the first. Braiden Scuderi brings Atlanta level in the second, I think he's scored in every game so far. Except the one where Atlanta didnt score. So not every game. Rasmus Rinne puts Atlanta ahead 3:58 into the third period but Mark Dollack scores after 12:34 and we're onto over time. 4:04 into overtime Johannes Parviainen scores for Atlanta and it's back to Atlanta for a game seven. I'm not sure I've seen a second overtime period in any game.

Game 7 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Atlanta Thrashers 1
Matt Leader is back to 100% so we go into the game with only D Jonas Dahlberg out. In the first period Borje Svensson scores his seventh of the playoffs, it was late season he moved up to the second line and he's been great since. He also takes a penalty in the first for tripping but the penalty is killed so no harm. Second period at 16:07 John Fireman makes it 2-0 with his first ever play off goal and it's 2-0 after two periods. Third period there are a couple of penalty kills for each team, until Rasmus Rinne scores for Atlanta after 8:42. Atlanta push for their equalizer, they outshoot Anchorage in the third, but Borje Svensson makes it safer at 3-1 after 16:06, Jordan Gavin kills them off with a late empty net goal and Anchorage are going to their third Stanley Cup in 4 seasons. We're a dynasty!

It'll be Pittsburgh Penguins in the Final. We're 13 years in the future so Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang have all finally retired.

Critch · 04-04-2023, 01:33 PM

2035/36 Stanley Cup Finals - Pittsburgh Penguins
Three Stanley Cup Finals in four, the fans in Anchorage have been spoiled because they still don't sell out the arena.

Pittsburgh had a number of years rebuilding but are back now, this is the third year in a row they've made the playoffs. They got themselves the best goaltender in the league last summer, 25 year old Belarusian Anatol Lyantsevich, from San Jose in a blockbuster trade for a bundle of young players (a 4.5 center, a 3.0 defenseman, a 3.0 left wing and a 2nd round pick). He's so good he's broken through the "out of 20" rating system, he's 21 for positioning. That move turned them into a real contender. They also have LW Jett Luchanko who played for Colorado when they were good, and 4 centers rated 3.5 (Michael Jackson (not that one), Sean Doherty, Quinn Kennedy and Lee Shurgot) so they're good through the middle. They have a couple of top defensemen too, on first glance they didn't seem as good as Atlanta but when you look at the goalie too they're going to be tough. They also have ex-Husky Dylan Nolan playing left wing on their 4th line. He left Anchorage, spent a year on vacation then signed for the Penguins last summer.

We played Pittsburgh twice in the regular season, a 5-3 win in Pittsburgh and a 6-1 win in Anchorage. Their good goalie didn't play in either game, we saw their backup G Kyle Dawe both times.

Game 1 - Pittsburgh Penguins 2 Anchorage Huskies 0
Matt Leader is injury free but still struggling for fitness. I may have rushed him back too soon. He'll still be playing though. It's a defensive battle, we outshoot them 24-18 but their previously mentioned top goalie makes the difference, he saves all 24 shots. Pittsburgh top line center Lee Shurgot scores twice late in the first period (17:24 and 19:31) and that's an end to the scoring. Anchorage had a couple of power play chances in the second, but shut out. We've lost the first game of the last two series too, so hopefully that's some kind of omen.

Game 2 - Pittsburgh Penguins 5 Anchorage Huskies 2
Enzo Landrey comes back in as 4th center, it was a waste of Urho Mattila giving him limited minutes as 4th line center so Landrey is back so we can put Mattila back into a top 6 winger place. Doesn't help. Things go badly quickly, Jett Luchanko after 15 seconds and Pittsburgh in the lead. Urho Mattila back as 2nd line left wing scores at 2:27 and it's tied after one. Second period Anchorage take the lead at 3:17 with an August Pettersson goal (the returning Enzo Landrey with the assist), but the game turns at the end of the period. Pittsburgh equalize at 17:33 (Alexander Haggblom) and take the lead with a buzzerbeater right at the end of the period (Lee Shurgot at 20:00). Pittsburgh control the third period, Koehn Ziemmer makes it 4-2 at 12:21 then they add an empty net goal. We're off to Pittsburgh 2-0 down.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Pittsburgh Penguins 2
Lots of messing about with the lines. Desperate times require desperate measures. A slow start, but it all worked out ok in the end. Just like the last game Jett Luchanko gave Pittsburgh the lead in the first, this time Peter Hrovatin equalized for Anchorage with a power play goal after 10:32 (it was a good night for the Anchorage power play). Jean-Philippe Cloutier makes it 2-1 Pittsburgh after 15 minutes. Into the second and we're tied again, another power play goal for Anchorage. This time it's Jordan Gavin. It's all tied up into the third and just when it looks like overtime, Anchorage strikes for a winner. David Prudek makes it 3-2 at 19:57 in the third. Game over and we're not getting swept, we're back in the series. Anchorage outshot Pittsburgh 37-24, mostly due to a dominating second period. It was their goalie that kept them in it.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Pittsburgh Penguins 1
The first period is a mass of penalties, a few coincidental. At 6:00 Urho Mattila gets a slashing penalty, some Penguin cheat gets an embellishment too. At 10:32 Enzo Landrey and Garin Ludwig get coincidental crosschecking penalties. Garin Ludwig is out the box 8 seconds before he gets a high sticking penalty, Pittsburgh get another. It's all got a bit testy. In amongst all the 5-on-4 and 4-on-4 play, Carsen Adair puts Anchorage 1-0 up and Jordan Gavin makes it 2-0. Period two calms down, Kaden McGregor scores for Pittsburgh to make it close again. Period three Oskar Vuollet makes it 3-1, no more scoring but some more penalties late on, coincidental slashing penalties aplenty. Series tied and back to Anchorage. We've taken some injuries though.

Game 5 - Pittsburgh Penguins 4 Anchorage Huskies 1
It's time for some oh no! type injuries. Top defenseman Henry Mew has a knee injury and is out for the rest of the series, Urho Mattila has a collarbone injury and is out for the rest of the series. "It could have been worse" said Urho Mattila. No it couldnt Urho. David Prudek makes it 1-0 Anchorage in the first, Jett Luchanko ties it up in the second. It's his 15th goal of the playoffs, he'll be playoff MVP if/when the Penguins win. Second period has another round of slashing/high sticking coincidental minors, lots of 4-on-4. The teams are getting sick of each other. Third period is all Penguins, Wes Filmer puts them ahead, Jett Luchanko scores yet another goal from yet another power play, and Lee Shurgot scores an empty net goal. More injuries, the team is beaten up and off to Pittsburgh for a must-win game.

Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Pittsburgh Penguins 3
Dahlberg and Mews are still out, now Leader is injured too. He's day-to-day, less than 100% but can play with a sore ankle. Three of the top four defensemen are out or playing through injury. Getting my excuses in early. We're too beaten up, Pittsburgh take control. Lucas Fenrich makes it 1-0 to Pittsburgh in the first, Lee Shurgot 2-0 in the second. Vasili Podkolzin rises from the grave to get Anchorage back into it in probably his last game at 5:15 in the third, but Jett Luchanko scores his 17th of the playoffs and it's all over.

And that's it, another Stanley Cup defeat for Anchorage, and Pittsburgh get their first Stanley Cup of the post-Crosby/Malkin/Letang era. If we'd some how got to game seven we'd have been even more beaten up, August Pettersson is out with concussion.

Onto the close season, at least this year the only free agent leaving is Vasili Podkolzin and there are no big price extensions due, so that'll be 6.5 million left over to spend on defensemen. And we'll have a lottery pick in the draft too from sending Jiri Mendl to Washington, not much chance of winning in the lottery, they were 12th worst, but it's a lottery pick. Better than a poke in the eye.

Critch · 04-05-2023, 12:37 PM

Close Season Wrapup
I think the Anchorage window with the first batch of rookies is coming to an end. For the average player in the game the peak is 26 to 29 then there's a chance of regression. Some hanging on longer than others, mid to late 30s, others crash sooner. The core of the team (Gavin, Vuollet, Mews, Karmiris, Mattila, Pitre) are all hitting that 29/30 zone now and some of them are starting to show up on the monthly development report with negative development, some have already lost a little from their overall star rating (Mews and Karmiris mainly). Out of the group of them, only Gavin and Vuollet have contracts beyond this season and neither of them are regressing yet.

I've tried shopping the other four, they're all asking for big pay raises and/or long contracts to re-sign, but the return on all of them isn't great (the regular 4th round pick + mediocre player offer) so I'll be holding on til the Trade deadline and trying again.

Along with the old guys wanting to get paid, the young guys (Leader, Dollack, Landrey and Svensson) are coming to the end of their entry level contracts so maybe it's time to shed the old core and go more youthful. Maybe keeping Gavin and Vuollet as the top centers and getting younger around them. I think that would still be playoff worthy. Or maybe we keep the band together for one more run at the playoffs. I don't really know yet.

First news of the close season was former Anchorage favorite and more recently salary stealing has-been Vasili Podkolzin came to the end of his 3x6.5mil contract and promptly retired. 1006 NHL games (809 with Anchorage), 226 goals, 343 assists, 1 Stanley Cup. I'm choosing to believe he's now an in-studio analyst for our local TV coverage.

2036/37 Free Agency
We had Podkolzin's salary freed up, and then traded away a couple of others (Matthew Paranych went to NY Rangers for a throwaway player to clear 2.5mil, C Miloslav Martin went to Montreal for a pick) and we had money to burn. First signing was 29 year old Russian defenseman Alexander Filippov. He had 4 years in the NHL at Edmonton but he's been in the Swedish league for the last 3 years so he's a depth addition to a barren defensive roster.

And that was the end of the free agents. We should have had money to spend, but we don't and I don't know why. According to the team finances screen we're over 5mil below the budgeted payroll, well below the league salary cap, but it says Available Money for Free Agents = -2.9mil. So no idea, as it stands we need another defenseman and a backup goalie (we really need a backup goalie, we only have 2 and one of them is a .5 star rated Polish teenager).

I'm not completely sure that claiming players from waivers doesnt bypass the "offer exceeds your budget" check, so I'll be trying that out to fill the gaps if I cant get round the problem.

2036/37 Rookie Draft
Looking through the Anchorage prospect list, it's a wasteland. The last passable prospect (C Spencer Ecclestone 2034 second round pick, 2.5 current 2.5 potential) is in Anchorage now and will be a backup next year and there's nothing left without him, most of them have a potential to one day not really be good enough for AHL. I'd dump most of them but maybe there's a diamond in the rough? Or maybe even a 2.5 star player? I think part of it is I've neglected the scouts. I didn't realize the AI wasn't doing that, the scouting was terrible. So a whole bunch of scouts signed for US, Canada, Western Europe and Eastern Europe and hopefully things get better. I didnt bother with the rest of the world, we might miss out on a 2.0 star Japanese or Algerian outlier but that's a risk I'm prepared to take.

This year's draft was underwhelming, a Finnish winger called Anssi Ridanpaa (2.0/3.0) at 1.12 and a whole bunch of 2.0 potential defensemen. We get mentioned in the draft review email for the first time ever, apparently we had the consensus "worst draft of the year". The increase in scouting is not rewarding us with immediate benefits, it seems.

2036/37 Preseason
We go 6-1 in preseason, I think that's a record. Even the .5 rated Polish goalie Chwalislaw Janiszewski gets a win in his debut, 3-2 against Pittsburgh. Other than that we move on a couple of bit parts to free up salary space and get a cheap backup goalkeeper so the 19 year old Polish goalie can carry on developing in the AHL. The new goalie is Neil Pintaric, he's been at Hartford's AHL team for years. To add to our lack of defensive depth new FA signing Filippov turns up full of borscht and vodka and is too unfit to play.

For free-agent watch, Easten Turko has sat out a whole year but still won't talk to Anchorage. He's gone from being one of the best young defenders in the league to somebody who won't sign anywhere. Tarin Smith signed for the Ukrainian second division last year (he was approaching 4 years without a team), confusingly turned up at Anchorage as a rookie tryout in the close season, and has now signed for a Ukrainian Super League team. At least he's playing for somebody now.

Critch · 04-06-2023, 12:22 AM

2036/37 Regular Season
An uppy-downy, sometimes win lots in a row, sometimes lose lots in a row kind of season. Lots of injuries, some of them major, lots of players having to play out of position (Lucas Karmiris went from left wing to playing center half the season) but in the end Anchorage ended up with a record number of points (for Anchorage). 82 games played, 54 wins, 24 defeats, 3 loser points for a total of 111 points, previous best was 109. It wasn't enough to win the division though, Seattle Kraken got 118 points, but safely into the playoffs in 2nd place.

The most major of the major injuries was Oskar Vuollet, he broke his kneecap after 12 games and missed almost all the season. He was out 5 months and only just back. Plenty of other injuries too, Jordan Gavin, Henry Mews (who seems to get a lot of niggling short injuries in his old age), Enzo Landrey, a few others. Luckily not G Lucas Wall though because the new backup we signed is really really crap. He got a bit better after a disastrous start but he still ended up with a save percentage of .862 and his goals saved/60 mins meant he was worth almost 1.5 goals to the opponents every game. His name is Neil Pintaric, don't bother remembering it he'll be gone soon.

A lot of young players stepped up and got better, a lot of old players started getting worse (or injured), so this is one last run with the old guys. We're going youth movement next season. A final hurrah for Henry Mews, Lukas Karmiris, Urho Mattila and Kaden Pitre, they're not getting their big pay raise this summer, we made the retirement payday mistake with Podkolzin, not happening with this bunch.

I haven't posted the excel of the Anchorage roster for a while so here it is to pad out an otherwise short Regular Season post:

Name	pos	Age	Nationality	Current	Potential	Years	Salary
Goalies
Lucas Wall	G	25	CAN	5.0	5.0	2	1,560
Neil Pintaric	G	28	CAN	2.5	2.5	2	1,148
Chwalislaw Janiszewski	G	20	POL	1.5	2.5	3	750

Defensemen
Robin Hansson	LD	27	SWE	3.0	3.0	1	750
Johan Dahlberg	LD	24	SWE	3.0	3.0	3	1,580
Matt Leader	LD	22	USA	3.0	3.0	1	750
John Fireman	LD	25	CAN	2.5	2.5	1	955
Karl Schunemann	LD	23	GER	2.0	2.0	1	750

Henry Mews	RD	31	CAN	3.5	3.5	1	8,510
Alexander Filippov	RD	30	RUS	2.5	2.5	3	2,610
Mark Dollack	RD	23	CAN	2.5	2.5	1	821
Joni-Jukka Timonen	RD	22	FIN	2.0	2.5	2	750

Forwards
Jordan Gavin	C	30	CAN	5.0	5.0	2	12,410
Oskar Vuollet	C	31	SWE	3.5	3.5	3	7,970
Enzo Landrey	C	21	CAN	3.5	4.0	1	834
Kaden Pitre	C	31	CAN	3.0	3.0	1	6,330
Spencer Ecclestone	C	21	CAN	2.5	2.5	3	834

David Prudek	LW	25	CZE	3.5	3.5	5	3,673
Urho Mattila	LW	29	FIN	3.5	3.5	1	3,671
Jeff Martin	LW	25	CAN	3.5	4.0	4	5,223
Jonas Lambert	LW	27	CAN	3.0	3.0	1	1,470
Magnus Larsen	LW	21	DEN	3.0	3.0	2	834
Lucas Karmiris	LW	30	CAN	3.0	3.0	1	7,350

Borje Svensson	RW	22	SWE	4.0	4.0	1	834
August Pettersson	RW	24	SWE	3.5	4.0	5	4,773
Emil Kjelberg	RW	27	SWE	3.0	3.0	2	1,140
Peter Hrovatin	RW	25	SLV	3.0	3.0	3	1,609
Anssi Ridanpaa	RW	18	FIN	2.5	3.0	3	750
Juraj Hajdin	RW	23	SLV	2.0	2.5	2	750

Edit - note that Peter Hrovatin is Slovenian and Juraj Hajdin is Slovakian but I've controversially gone for SLV as the three letter code for both countries.

Critch · 04-06-2023, 01:13 PM

2036/37 Playoffs Round 1 - Vancouver Canucks
Post Season time again, this is the seventh time in a row. This time it's Vancouver Canucks, first time we've played them in the playoffs, mainly because they only make it about half the time despite having had one the best players in the league (Connar Beddard) for a dozen years. I'd been thinking of changing the playoff settings away from divisional seedings to conference seedings so we could have the glamour of Nashville or Minnesota in the playoffs instead of Seattle and Calgary over and over, so Vancouver are a nice change.

Vancouver finished 3rd in the Pacific, 10 points behind Anchorage. Main difference being we finished with four straight wins and they finished with three straight loses, so it's closer than 10 points. Connor Bedard is still their best player, he wins League MVP most years and probably will this year since he got 114 points in 82 games. No sign of a post-age of 30 downturn for him yet.

Game 1 - Vancouver Canucks 4 Anchorage Huskies 2
No injuries for Anchorage going into the playoffs. Going by prior years Henry Mews should bite the dust at some point though, he loves a week or two out of office during the playoffs. No scoring in the first, Vancouver take the lead with a power play goal 48 seconds into the second period from Mason Kadatz. David Prudek scores for Anchorage (he's on the top line now, it's been a season of change for Anchorage), but Mason Kadatz scores another. Anchorage equalize again, Kaden Price at 17:21, and we're level going into period 3. Vancouver take the lead at 14:28 (Robin Pettersson) and add a power play goal late on (Zachary McKenzie 18:03) and we're 1-0 down. A very balanced game except Vancouver took advantage of their power plays and Anchorage didn't.

Game 2 - Vancouver Canucks 3 Anchorage Huskies 6
No changes from game one, same players dressed, same lines set. 5:18 it's 1-0 Anchorage from Enzo Landrey, he's also top 6 now and been great. 29 regular season goals for our 21 year old Center. Kaden Pitre makes it 2-0 at 8:11. Vancouver race back and tie it up though before Jordan Gavin scores at 19:04 to give Anchorage a 3-2 lead after one period. It's 4-2 at 5:20 (Enzo Landrey again), 4-3 at 16:20 (Cole Jodzio for Vancouver), 5-3 at 18:54 (Urho Mattila with his first of the series). Enzo Landrey finishes off his hattrick at 6:08 and the series is tied at one.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Vancouver Canucks 2
Despite the scoreline looking close, Anchorage steamrolled them here. Out shot them 38-16, high danger chances 8-2. Jeff Martin put Anchorage ahead in the first, Denis Mirchink tied it up in the second. Jeff Martin with his second at 6:01 puts Anchorage ahead, Matt Pankratz with another power play goal for Vancouver to tie it up at 11:40. Twenty Six seconds later Borje Svensson gets the game winning goal and Anchorage are in the series lead.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Vancouver Canucks 1
After dominating game three, game 4 is very even but Huskies goalie Lucas Wall makes the difference. 27 saves on 28 shots. Brendan Rudolph puts Vancouver ahead unassisted 18:44 into the first period. Second period Jordan Gavin scores a power play goal at 8:48, the Anchorage power play goes 1 for 1 for the game. Oskar Vuollet adds a second at 14:26 and that's all that's needed. Vancouver have a couple of power plays in the third but no goals and we're back to Anchorage 3-1 up in the series. Still no sign of a goal or assist from Connor Bedard, hope he doesn't wake up.

Game 5 - Vancouver Canucks 2 Anchorage Huskies 5
Fifth game in a row with no injuries and no changes for Anchorage, I think that's a record. Connor Bedard wakes up and gives Vancouver the lead at 9:04 in the first, David Prudek ties it up 12 seconds later. 44 seconds later Mikhail Gulyayev puts Vancouver back into the lead and it's 2-1 at the end of the first. Enzo Landrey shows he belongs as a top six center, he scores and the game is 2-2 at 17:26 in the second. Third period Anchorage kill them off. Borje Svensson at 0:19, a Jordan Gavin power play goal at 18:47 (half his goals seem to be power play goals. I should check that, the game seems to track every stat), and Henry Mews adds a late empty net goal and Anchorage are off to round two.

I'm not sure if it's new in the latest patch or if I just never noticed before but there's now a tab on the boxscore screen that shows the ice position of all the shots. I like that.

I mentioned earlier that we seem to play Seattle in the playoffs every year, next round will be Seattle Kraken yet again. The other side of the Western Conference is Atlanta v Nashville. Over in the east it's Toronto v Nova Scotia (I'm not sure what they're doing right, but the other expansion teams are finishing last while Nova Scotia have made the playoffs each year) and Hartford v Columbus. Reigning Stanley Cup champions Pittsburgh Penguins missed the playoffs, they finished 9th in their division.

Critch · 04-06-2023, 03:34 PM

2036/37 Playoffs Round 2 - Seattle Kraken
It's feels like we play Seattle every year in the playoffs but it's actually only the 4th time, they've missed the playoffs completely 7 out of the last 12 seasons. They're won twice, we swept them once. This season they've been great in the regular season, 118 points beat their old record by 18 points (their old 100 record was set last year). They're on the up.

In the last round I said that Connar Bedard was the best player in the league, Shane Wright of Seattle is 1b on that list. An upturn this year, 111 points as a 33 year old, only the second time he's broken 100 points in a season. Other than Shane Wright they have recently signed Tyler Van Caeyzeele, the star player of the recent back-to-back champ New York Rangers, all star defenseman Milo Eager, and Alaskan Fletcher Spurle. He's not a top player but he always seems to score against Anchorage.

Seattle will have home advantage as they won our division this year.

Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 0 Seattle Kraken 4
After no injuries in the last series, we have a few problems going into this one. RW Emil Kjellberg is out day-to-day with back problems, David Prudek is doubtful with stomach muscle problems, Enzo Landrey is day-to-day with hip problems too. Prudek and Landrey could be risked, but all three sit to avoid aggravating the injuries. Safety first didnt work, Anchorage are called for 3 minor penalties and one major so Seattle spend half the first period on a power play and score twice. Marc-Antoine Marchant and Milo Eager. Oskar Vuollet took the five minute penalty for boarding, he'll probably be suspended too. There's no more penalties for the rest of the game, but Seattle add two more in the second, one of them as predicted from Fletcher Spurle, and we're 1-0 down in the series.

Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 6 Seattle Kraken 3
As predicted, Oskar Vuollet has been suspended for his boarding, he's out for three games. Hopefully we're still alive when he returns. At least it wont drag into next season I guess. Kjellberg, Prudek and Landrey are all still out, Vuollet is suspended and Karmiris is also out with a knee problem, we're getting a bit bare bones. So bare bones that Landrey actually isnt out, we'll risk him. It's the top line that carries us though, Martin/Gavin/Svensson all +4. Martin Erben puts Seattle 1-0 in the first, Fletcher Spurle makes it 2-0 40 seconds into the second, and then Anchorage come zooming back. Jeff Martin (1:15), Peter Hrovatin (6:15), Johan Dahlberg (12:13), Jeff Martin again (17:57) and Robin Hansson (18:48) and we're 5-2 up at the end of the second. Seattle pull one back in the third, but a late empty net goal from Borje Svensson and we're back level in the series.

Game 3 - Seattle Kraken 1 Anchorage Huskies 3
David Prudek is back, but Landrey is out again. His injury hasn't been aggravated, but he's too far away from 100% to risk. Jonas Lambert scores at 3:04 in the first, no scoring in the second, Spencer Ecclestone (our rookie center who's only playing because Landrey is out) makes it 2-0 at 2:34 in the third, Urho Mattila (who is playing 2nd line center because Landrey is out) makes it 3-0 at 3:50. Seattle get a late consolation, but we're 2-1 up in the series.

Game 4 - Seattle Kraken 1 Anchorage Huskies 5
Landrey back into the second line, and it's domination from the Huskies. 50 shots in a playoff game, not bad. 2-0 after one (Borje Svensson and Henry Mews), 3-0 after two (Jeff Martin). Peter Hrovatin makes it 4-0 in the third before Seattle pull one back. David Prudek makes it 5-1 and we're back to Seattle with a chance to end it.

Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Seattle Kraken 4
Enzo Landrey is being rested again, he's back from his injury but not able to play every game and with Oskar Vuollet's suspension ending it's an easy swap to let him recuperate. Before the game I've noticed Seattle's injury list, they have seven players out including Shane Wright. No wonder they're struggling. Spencer Ecclestone makes it 1-0 Anchorage, still in while Enzo Landrey gets back to 100%, Seattle tie is up at 13:27. Jordan Gavin, Robin Hansson and Borje Svensson all score in the first and Anchorage are 4-1 up and cruising against the seriously depleted Kraken. Seattle aren't giving up so easily though, Tyler Van Caeyzeele, Marc-Antoine Marchant and Josh Fluker score in the second and it's back tied going into the third period. It's an unlikely hero for Anchorage in the third, Jonas Lambert scores at 14:53 and Anchorage move onto the conference finals.

So the 4th Western Conference final in 5 years, and it's Atlanta Thrashers in the final just like last year. Atlanta got past Nashville in seven games, they were 2-0 down in the series but came back to win. A bonus for Anchorage is that we've had a week waiting after getting past Seattle so all the injuries and knocks have cleared up.

In the Eastern Conference it's Toronto Maple Leafs v Hartford Whalers.

Critch · 04-09-2023, 04:13 PM

Missed my second Caps game of the season last night. First game I missed because I went to see America in concert instead, last night I went to see Mickey Dolenz in concert instead. He was good, but I preferred America.

And on to the update:

2036/37 Playoffs Western Conference Finals - Atlanta Thrashers
For the second year in a row it's Atlanta Thrashers in the Conference final. Last year it was Anchorage winning in seven and going on to lose the Stanley Cup Final, I'm betting this year will be Atlanta's time for revenge. Incidentally I'm writing this before simming, I do know the result and just predicting that to look prescient.

Just like last year, Atlanta have more top end talent than anybody else in the league. Four 5 star players (LD Louis-Joseph Boutin, C Brandon Gorzynski, RW Rasmus Rinne, RW Braiden Scuderi), a selection of 4 star players. And they've got home advantage for the series. It's going to be tough.

Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 0 Atlanta Thrashers 4
No injuries for Anchorage, everybody is at 100%. The week rest since the last series has been well timed. Scoreline looks bad but it was closer than the 4-0 looks. Atlanta went 1-0 up in the second period from Louis-Joseph Boutin, added a second late in the third from Brandon Gorzynski, then two empty net goals in the last 36 seconds, both from Braiden Scuderi. So quite close really, right?

Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Atlanta Thrashers 5
This one wasnt as close as the last one, Atlanta outshot Anchorage almost 2 to 1 (40-21), well on top. Add to that that I said Henry Mews always takes some time off injured during the playoffs for an injury. Looks like this year it'll be a suspension, a 5 minute boarding major in the first period, they normally end up with a suspension. No scoring in the first despite the 5 minute major and a 2 minute minor for David Prudek too, Rasmus Rinne puts Atlanta ahead at 5:18 in the second but Jordan Gavin makes it 1-1 at 15:06. Third period Braiden Scuderi put Atlanta 2-1 up, they really are getting their money's worth from their stars, Henry Mews ties it at 9:34. Atlanta score two quickly and add a late empty net goal and we're 2-0 down.

Game 3 - Atlanta Thrashers 3 Anchorage Huskies 4
Good news before the game, Henry Mews boarding was reviewed and judged to not deserve a suspension. Atlanta go 1-0 up in the first, Louis-Joseph Boutin at 16:26. Second period Anchorage drew level with a Henry Mews power play goal, Johan Dahlberg made it 2-1 Anchorage at 11:38, Brandon Gorzynski made it 2-2 with another power play goal and Enzo Landrey put Anchorage ahead again, 3-2 at 14:28 in a penalty strewn period. Into the third and Robin Hansson put Ancorage 4-2 up with a shot from the blue line (the screen with the shot positions is good), Carl Hewity brings Atlanta back within 1 at 13:48. A late penalty against Anchorage meant the game ended with Atlanta trying to equalize with a 6-on-4 minute but we held on. Anchorage rode their luck a bit, outshot and gave up 5 power plays but got the win and back into the series.

Game 4 - Atlanta Thrashers 3 Anchorage Huskies 1
Anchorage outshot Atlanta 37-29, but Atlanta had the better chances (Atlanta won "high danger chances 17-9) so a deserved win. No scoring in the first again, but Atlanta win it with three goals in the second period. Luke Gherasim (4:16), Braiden Scuderi (11:35) and Justin Poirier (12:40) and Atlanta have the game won. Urho Mattila gets one back in the third but that's the end of the scoring. Anchorage go back to Atlanta needing to win 3 games in a row to stay alive.

Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Atlanta Thrashers 2
And that's it, over and done. Rasmus Rinne puts Atlanta ahead right at the end of the second (19:43), Jonas Lambert brings Anchorage level at 10:46 of the third, but Atlanta win it was a goal from Juha Uusotalo at 14:15. A well deserved win, and a well deserved series win, Atlanta off to their first ever Stanley Cup final. No playoff goals from Lucas Karmiris, one for Oscar Vuollet, two for Kaden Pitre and 3 for Urho Mattila, the old guard have had their day. It'll be all change at Anchorage for next season. Unless the old guys drop their salary demands anyway.

So no Anchorage in the Stanley Cup final this year, it'll be Atlanta Thrashers against Toronto Maple Leafs. Will Toronto end the million years of suffering for their many legions of fans, or will Atlanta make the dozens of hockey fans in Atlanta happy?

On the plus side I'm apparently prescient.

Travis · 04-10-2023, 10:42 PM

While no more Cup wins is sad, the consistently great results are really impressive. Especially given the change in roster types with guys peaking/declining/overhauls/etc. Hope another title is coming soon for you.

Critch · 04-12-2023, 11:39 AM

I think the time for another Anchorage title is running out. The game seems to be pretty good at being NHL-like with teams having period where they challenge and periods where they rebuild. If you've got a top player or two, support them with a halfway decent supporting cast and some role players and you'll be a playoff challenger as long as you can hold it all together. And, like the NHL, eventually the core players will get too old, the supporting cast will be too expensive to re-sign, and the draft picks will be too far down to fill the gaps so it's time for a rebuild.

So Anchorage are rolling along as contenders but getting to the end of the Jordan Gavin era, he's 31, still rated 5.0 and hasnt started showing up on the monthly dev report with negatives yet but it cant be too long. I've seen some top players hit their mid-30s still 5.0 star rated, but it seems most regress earlier than that then hang around as over-paid average players for years. For the original Anchorage core Gavin and Vuollet have hit early-30s still at their peak, Mews has started his slide but still a top defenseman, Hemming and Karmiris have hit the overpaid average player stage. I've seen some complaints online that the regression kicks in too early, but it seems varied enough to me and the devs claim to have done a lot of research and are happy with their model, peak round about 29 but some players can drag out their peak. So that's all ok to me.

I do think that if you played all out and were not squeamish about taking advantage of the AI you could roll the challenging window on and on, trade for top draft picks, trade for top prospects, so 1. no negotiating trades (take it or leave it) and 2. no offering trades are my house rules. I can shop a player and then pick which offer to take but no haggling and no targeting other team's star players.

The game's problem is that if you look too close you start to notice all the strange things the AI does. There will be top players who have gone a year or two without signing for anybody, top players who have been signed on high value multi-year contracts then been cut a month later (apparently when the AI GM wants to free up cap space they'll cut somebody high paid even if they're a new signing), non-top players with gaps in their career too (I noticed one player on waivers who had been drafted then stayed at a team for 6 years never playing a game at NHL or AHL level, just being passed back and forward 3 or 4 times a season but never playing at either level). I think Restricted Free Agents is a problem too, no qualifying offers is another new houserule, it just doesn't seem to work in the game. There's no offer sheets, no arbitration, and RFA doesn't seem to lapse. I think Tarin Smith sat out for 4 years because he was officially still my RFA so that put everybody off him.

I've seen complaints online that FHM is stuck with issues that roll forward year after year, top players who sit out years has always been an issue and never been fixed. When you're churning out an annual update it's easier to market with new features than to try to sell the game on fixing the bits that don't work, I guess.

So there's a lot to like about the game, it's deep, it's customizable and it's a fairly good sim of real NHL, but it could really do with some patching rather than new features.

2036/37 Stanley Cup Final - Toronto Maple Leafs v Atlanta Thrashers
It took 70 years in the end, but Toronto Maple Leafs have finally ended their Stanley Cup drought. It was a great season for them, they won the Atlantic division with 118 points (tied with Seattle for the President's Trophy, they had exactly the same record, same wins, same regulation wins, so no idea what the tiebreaker after that would be, we'll call it a tie). They beat Philadelphia Flyers, Nova Scotia Admirals and Hartford Whalers to reach the Stanley Cup final, then beat Atlanta Thrashers 4-1 in game seven of the series to clinch the championship.

Their star players are a couple of Russians, 29 year old Left Wing Nikita Ovcharov (52 goals, 47 assists, 99 points) and 26 year old goaltender Aleksey Medem (.921 save%, 2.15GAA). There are no original players left on their championship roster, Auston Matthews retired as a 38 year old one year too early.

Critch · 04-16-2023, 08:19 PM

2037/38 Rookie Draft
There's normally not much left by the Anchorage first pick at the bottom of the first round, but this year is particularly bad. First Round, pick 38, LW Marc-Etienne Cyr. He's an 18 year old Canadian and he's not very good, but he's 6'4''. He'll be in the juniors for years. From then on it's whoever the scouts select as their best "high risk" pick, probably nobody who'll ever see the bright lights of Anchorage.

The Anchorage prospect list is still pretty much bare, low picks every year have caught up, there's really nobody on their way to Anchorage. In the system prospect ranking list Anchorage are listed 32 out of the 40 teams, it's surprising that there are 8 teams worse off.

2037/38 Free Agency
A year of change for Anchorage, a lot of old guys pricing themselves out of a new contract. That was the plan anyway, it didnt work out that way though because Free Agency in the game doesnt really work so all that happened was they left and nobody signed them. Five Anchorage players went to free agency (Henry Mews, Lukas Karmiris, Urho Mattila, Kaden Pitre and Robin Hansson), it's now the day before pre-season and only two of them have been signed. So good news for Henry Mews and Lukas Karmiris, they're back at Anchorage while the other three sit at home. Henry Mews left saying he wanted 14mil for a single year extension, six days of nobody calling him and he was back at Anchorage, 2 years at 6.2mil per year. Lucas Karmiris had a sudden realization of his lack of irreplaceability and cut his demands too. A few weeks later I'm already regretting giving Karmiris a 3 year contract, that's 3.5mil per year we're not getting value for after year one.

With the money saved from letting Mattila, Pitre and Hansson walk, we added some depth. A handful of rookies on two way deals, pick of the bunch C Aleksandr Unichenko. He was Anchorage's third round pick last year and since then he's had a year of over a point per game in the KHL as a 19 year old so he must be good. As well as all the rookie children we signed one grown up player, defenseman Axel Sandin Pellikka. He was a Seattle player for years but has been over in Russia for a few seasons. It's been a week since I played the game and I cant remember why I signed him, last week Critch really messed that one up. He's old, not very good, costs 3mil per year and he's not even over 6 foot tall.

So going into the season the lines look like this:

Forwards
First Line - Jeff Martin (3.5)/Jordan Gavin (5.0)/Borje Svensson (4.0) - As long as Jordan Gavin is at his peak, we'll be a contender. Jeff Martin will be first line, but he'll spend half the season injured or suspended, he's vulnerable to injury everywhere and a bit violent, so TBD.
Second Line - David Prudek (3.5)/Enzo Landrey (3.5)/August Pettersson (3.5) - Enzo Landrey is more offensive than Vuollet so he's into the top 6, Prudek will probably end up on the top line when Martin gets injured/suspended, Pettersson will probably end up on the 4th line when he under-performs again.
Third Line - Magnus Larsen (3.5)/Oskar Vuollet (3.5)/Peter Hrovatin (3.0) - Larsen was a 4th round pick and not much of a prospect but seems to improve every time I check on him. He has the dreaded "if he's on your roster controversy will follow" so he's risky. Every year you get bonus points for your stats, I've been pumping all those points into "man management" and "discipline" so I dont think we're as susceptible to harmony and discipline problems now, Magnus will test that theory.
Fourth Line - Jonas Lambert (3.0)/Emil Kjellberg (3.0)/Lucas Karmiris (3.0) - Even the 4th line are all 3.0 star rated, think this is the deepest set of forwards we've had.
Depth forwards - C Spencer Ecclestone (2.5), C Aleksandr Unichenko (2.5) RW Anssi Ridanpaa (2.5) - this is what remains of the Anchorage prospect list, they'll all get a chance this year to see if they can show a Magnus Larsen like improvement.

Defensemen
First Pair - Matt Leader (3.0)/Henry Mews (3.5) - standard top pairing for a couple of years, Mews back for 2 more years.
Second Pair - Johan Dahlberg (3.0)/Mark Dollack (3.0) - Dahlberg and Dollack are 2 of the 3 successes from our "draft lots of really big defensemen" drive from a couple of years ago (Matt Leader is the other). They're not fancy skill players, just big lads. Dahberg is 6'6'' and 250lbs even without skates.
Third Pair - Axel Sandin Pellikka (2.5)/Alexander Filippov (2.5) - A pair of NHL retreads who had been reclaimed from the KHL. Both old, both fairly expensive, Pellikka isnt even tall.
Depth defensemen - John Fireman (2.5) Joni-Jukka Timonen (2.5) - more big young lads. One of them is Finnish, can you guess which one?

Goaltenders
Lucas Wall (5.0) and Neil Pintaric (2.5) - Lucas Wall is the star, but he's a free agent after this season and he wants a $10mil per year salary increase to extend after this season. Eeek!

It's been four years since the Anchorage Stanley Cup win and only six players remain (Gavin, Vuollet, Mews, Karmiris, Prudek, Martin). That's more turnover than I expected.

2037-38 Pre-season
Each year the game generates a season preview email, this year it makes Vegas favorites, Toronto and Hartford challengers and Anchorage a dark horse. Dark horse sounds fair, pretty sure we'll make the playoffs but not top level talent. No mention of Atlanta on the list of favorites, they've hit the point where they had too many talented players looking for $12+ million per year and have started losing free agents, star defender Louis-Joseph Boutin has moved onto Vancouver for $14mil per year. Not sure why but the big money signings always seem to go to Vancouver.

We also get our first mention on the "league's best" email, Lucas Wall rated as the league's best goaltender. He's on the last year of a $1.5mil per year contract and he wants to be seriously paid to stay, his negotiations start at 3 years at $13.6mil so this will probably be his last year as a Husky as Jordan Gavin is on a contract year too.

We go 3-3 in pre-season. Strengthening Lucas Wall's contract negotiations is we go 3-0 in his three games and 0-3 in games we gave a backup a start.

Critch · 04-16-2023, 10:58 PM

2037-38 Regular Season
Just the regular old regular season this year, nothing out of the ordinary.

There were injuries, injuries as far as the eye could see, the game really likes you to have lots of depth. The worst injury happened early too, the third game of the season LD Johan Dahlberg took a shot to the noggin and has been out with a fractured skull since then, he wont be back til next season. At one point four of the top six defensemen were injured or suspended (great timing from John Fireman there), so we were deep into the AHL backups. Nineteen year old rookie Aaron Moody and his 1.0 current 1.5 potential ratings played 14 games. That didn't really work, he was well out of his depth. A couple of forwards tried their hand at defense too, that was even less successful. But we limped through the year, picked up a new defenseman from waivers for depth (welcome former Arizona, Calgary, Anaheim defenseman Reece Gault), and strolled to a playoff place again.

Despite all the injuries and shuffling, playoffs were pretty much locked in early. Vancouver Canucks ran away with the division, but it was Anchorage and Calgary fighting for second. By New Year we were already 12 points clear of the no-playoff teams. Never really in doubt.

So season end Vancouver won the Pacific with 122 points, Calgary second with 113, Anchorage in third with 109 (52 wins, 25 loses, 5 OT loses), Seattle 4th with 106 and Vegas in 5th with 102 points. Fifth in the Pacific got a mention because they won the second wild card, five teams into the playoffs from the Pacific Division. In fact 5th place Vegas got more points than everybody in the Central division, Nashville won the Central with 93, Minnesota on 93, St Louis on 92 and Chicago miss out on a wild card spot with 92 too.

Presidents Trophy winner was reigning Stanley Cup Champion Totonto Maple Leafs (that sounds weird) with 130 points, it's Toronto, Nova Scotia, Tampa Bay, Ottawa, NY Rangers, Columbus, Washington and Hartford in the playoffs in the East.

I've been messing about with the games CSV export options, so here are some badly formatted stats from your Anchorage Huskies:

Pos	Name	GP	G	A	Pts	+/-	PIM	Hits
D	Henry Mews	78	12	41	53	30	38	126
D	Mark Dollack	62	3	34	37	19	16	77
D	Reece Gault	15	2	4	6	0	8	15
D	Alexander Filippov	77	8	25	33	34	47	112
D	John Fireman	71	5	24	29	23	36	99
D	Matt Leader	66	6	21	27	21	21	81
D	Axel Sandin Pellikka	53	4	20	24	14	24	53
D	Joni-Jukka Timonen	52	5	15	20	15	16	50
D	Aaron Moody	14	3	2	5	-1	2	11
D	Johan Dahlberg	3	0	1	1	1	0	2
F	Jordan Gavin	71	37	26	63	6	10	78
F	Enzo Landrey	76	26	30	56	37	25	58
F	Börje Svensson	79	17	37	54	-5	25	144
F	August Pettersson	80	21	32	53	29	19	118
F	Jonas Lambert	76	15	30	45	26	12	94
F	David Prudek	74	17	26	43	17	58	191
F	Magnus Larsen	82	12	29	41	25	22	183
F	Peter Hrovatin	79	16	21	37	11	24	89
F	Jeff Martin	50	13	23	36	10	18	149
F	Oskar Vuollet	73	13	14	27	-3	28	43
F	Emil Kjellberg	49	11	12	23	12	16	38
F	Spencer Ecclestone	49	7	14	21	20	4	34
F	Anssi Ridanpää	41	9	7	16	7	15	51
F	Alexander Broda	44	6	6	12	3	6	62
F	Lucas Karmiris	43	5	7	12	-3	13	74

Main takeaway is Lucas Karmiris became an overpaid dud ahead of schedule, he'd lost his place by the end of the season, and hopeful prospect C Aleksandr Unichenko spent about a month in Anchorage complaining about being in a new team in a new country with no friends so he was loaned back to his Russian team Lokomotiv Yaroslav for the year and doesnt show up on the list.

For the Free Agent follow up on the guys who left Anchorage last year, none of them had a team by opening day. Urho Mattila sat out the first two months of the season then signed for LA Kings on big money, Kaden Pitre sat out 4 months then signed for the Bruins on a one year minimum salary deal, played 4 games and got demoted to the AHL, and Robin Hansson sat out two months, signed for Columbus on a one year deal but is now out long term injured. So at least nobody sat out the year.

Onto the playoffs, Calgary Flames again. I think there's an option where you can turn off Divisional seeding in the playoffs, I'll be checking that out for a bit of variety.

Critch · 04-17-2023, 09:48 AM

2037/38 Playoffs Round 1 - Calgary Flames
Calgary Flames are one of the regular playoff opponents, the divisional seeding means you see the same divisional rivals in the first couple of playoff rounds almost every year. 2031/32 we beat them in seven, 2033/34 we beat them in six, 2035/36 we beat them in seven. We've been locked into a playoff series with Calgary this year for a while, we were both clear of fourth but well behind first so short odds to finish second and third for a while, in the end Calgary got second and have home advantage.

We only played them once in the regular season this year, a 6-3 Anchorage win in November. Only playing a divisional rival once in the regular season seems a bit off.

Their star player is LW Jakub Moravec, he missed our last playoff series with injury but he's fit this year, and goaltender Leland Griffith. Griffith won the Vezina trophy the year before last, was the West's goalie in the All Star game last year, and won a gold at this year's Olympics as the US's goaltender. Lucas Wall apparently won a bronze as Canada's goaltender.

Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Calgary Flames 4
We've had a few injuries in the last few weeks of the season but most of them are cleared up or almost cleared up now. Johan Dahlberg is gone for the year, Oskar Vuollet and Matt Leader both miss game one but should be back soon. It's Leader's replacement, John Fireman (just back from injury himself), who gets called for a roughing penalty that leads to Calgary's first goal, a power play goal from William McIsaac at 7:18. Calgary go 2 up at 9:14 with a goal from Trae Wilke, but Peter Hrovatin pulls one back for Anchorage at 11:42 and it's 2-1 after the first. It's 3-1 after the second, Owen Martin scoring for Calgary, and it's 4-1 at the end.

Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Calgary Flames 3
Same lines as last game, Vuollet and Leader could both play if needed but they're not 100% and not worth the risk. I decide against dropping Lucas Karmiris too, he's playing because of Vuollet's injury, and that works out because he puts Anchorage 1-0 ahead 11:06 into the first period. Into the second and it's 2-0 from Borje Svensson at 0:58, Jordan Gavin makes it 3-0 at the four minute mark and we should be cruising. We're not though, Calgary score twice in a minute (Jeff Smith and Jessy Charon, no sign of their star Jakub Moravec yet) and they're back within a goal. Jordan Gavin makes it 4-2 at 19:34 in the second. Calgary get back within one at 3:54 in the third but Anchorage close down the game and take the win. Our power play goes 0-3, it's been a problem all year. We finished the season ranked 35th for power play, which was a late improvement because we spent most of the year 40th.

Game 3 - Calgary Flames 0 Anchorage Huskies 3
Matt Leader is back from injury so the defense should be strengthened and it is but mainly because of the goalie. Lucas Wall faces 27 shots, saves them all, and wins us the game. Jeff Martin puts Anchorage 1-0 up in the first, Peter Hrovatin adds a power play goal in the second, August Pettersson adds an empty net goal right at the end and we're 2-1 up on the series. Lucas Karmiris does pretty well as a defensive center on the fourth line, there's life in him yet just not 3.5 mil per year for the next two years worth.

Game 4 - Calgary Flames 0 Anchorage Huskies 3
Oskar Vuollet is back as third line center and we're almost at full strenght, only long term casualty Johan Dahlberg missing. The game has the same scoreline as the last game, but it's a different game. Game 3 our goalie half-way stole, Game 4 is as dominant a 3-0 as you can get. Jonas Lambert and Magnus Larsen put us 2-0 up in the first, Magnus has been on his best behaviour all season despite being a problem child. Enzo Landrey adds a late goal in the third and we stroll home 3-0, outshooting Calgary 32-19. We're off to Calgary with a chance to put them out yet again.

Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Calgary Flames 1
John Fireman picked up a knock in the last game, he'll be missing for the rest of the series with a back muscle pull. It was a tossup whether he played or Axel Sandin Pellikka so no real drop off with him being out, just the decision made for me. Enzo Landrey gives Anchorage an against-the-run-of-play lead at 7:02 in the first period. The second period passes without incident other than Anchorage have woken up after Calgary's fast but unrewarded start. In the third Declan Brinkman ties it up for Calgary at 7:06 and then Calgary have their chance, they go on the power play at 11:39 after Jeff Martin gets called for high sticking. The power play is the decider in the game, but it's Anchorage defenseman Mark Dollack scoring a back-breaking short handed goal. Calgary star Jakub Moravec finally turns up on the box score at 15:05 in the third, he takes a slashing penalty. He's not had the best of series.

So we win the series 4-1, the fourth time we've faced Calgary and the fourth time we've knocked them out. The bad news is Henry Mews will be having his annual playoff time injury vacation and will miss most of the next series with a neck injury. He's not a integral as he used to be, but he'll still be missed especially with John Fireman looking like he'll still be out too.

Next up it'll be the Vegas Golden Knights, they upset Vancouver in the first round. In the other half of the West it'll be Nashville v Minnesota, and it's Toronto v Nova Scotia and NY Rangers v Washington Capitals in the East. Since the last expansion three of the four expansion teams have struggled at the bottom of their divisions but Nova Scotia Admirals have made the playoffs all three years, not sure what they're doing but they're doing something right.

Critch · 04-17-2023, 12:34 PM

2037/38 Playoffs Round 2 - Vegas Golden Knights
A new opponent in the playoffs. We haven't played Vegas in the playoffs yet, mainly due to them having a playoff drought for 12 seasons up til last year. The game's pre-season preview listed them as this season's favorites and, despite only getting into the playoffs as a wild card team after finishing 4th in the division, they do have a lot of very good players.

The bad news for Anchorage is they have some very good talent, defenseman Martin Hardman, Center Yaroslav Mukhachyov and RW Aleksandr Kalashnikov all in their prime and rated 5.0 current ability. More bad news is that they have a lot of depth LW An Byeong-Hun, LW Matvei Michkov, C Filip Nilsson, LD Soren Brault all rated 4.0+. The good news (for Anchorage) and maybe the reason that a team with all this talent finished 4th in the division, their goaltenders are poor. They conceded 263 goals this season, the most of any team that made the playoffs and almost 60 more than Anchorage did.

Another bit of good news (for Anchorage) is that two of their stars, Mukhachyov and Kalashnikov, are banged up and less than 100%. Mukhachyov has a sprained knee that wont fully recover til over the summer and Kalashnikov is playing with a recently dislocated finger. Kalashnikov is dissapointingly not number 47.

Game 1 - Vegas Golden Knights 2 Anchorage Huskies 5
Finishing off the last series in 5 games gave us a few extra days to get ready so Fireman and Mews are close to returning but they'll both be missing at least game one. So we'll be relying on backup Joni-Jukka Timonen against the third highest scoring team in the league. We get off to a good start, two defensemen slapshots from the blue line and it's goals for Matt Leader and Reece Gault and 2-0 after the first. The second period is quiet, other than a couple of power plays for each team, until late on when Radim Valecek pulls one back for Vegas, then Vegas get a power play almost straight away, David Prudek called for roughing. There's two goals in the power play, first Oskar Vuollet puts Anchorage 3-1 up short handed before Sam Oremba gets a power play goal for Vegas. 3-2 Anchorage going into the third. David Prudek makes it safer, 4-2 Anchorage after 16:07 and Borje Svensson adds another late on. Vegas goalie Taylor Reynard is rated 1.5 stars and it shows in this game, .857 save percentage.

Game 2 - Vegas Golden Knights 3 Anchorage Huskies 2
Still no Mews or Fireman so Joni-Jukka Timonen stays in and he puts Anchorage 1-0 up at 6:00 with another long range slap shot. Aleksandr Kalashnikov ties it up at the end of the first, his first goal of this year's playoffs. They did well getting by Vancouver with their stars crocked. At the end of the second they score twice, Filip Nilsson followed by Sam Oremba. RW Oremba seems to be the support player who has stepped up to cover their injuries. 19 goals in 79 regular season games followed by 5 in 8 in the playoffs. Jordan Gavin scores a power play goal at 9:18 of the third but Vegas hold on and the series is tied.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Vegas Golden Knights 3
Mews and Fireman both still out. Vegas take a 2-0 lead in the first, An Byeong-Hun (a South Korean hockey star) and Filip Nilsson. At the start of the second Jordan Gavin pulls Anchorage back into it with a goal at 0:50, we kill a power play when Timonen is called for tripping (he's really struggling despite his goal in the last game) then Matt Leader ties it up at 5:53. Shots from the blue line getting past their mediocre goalie is a theme for the series. Alexandr Kalashnikov shoots them into the lead at 19:27, so we go to the third 3-2 down. We only need 11 seconds of an early Anchorage power play and it's tied up, Jordan Gavin putting away a rebound, and at 17:47 Anchorage finally take the lead with a Peter Hrovatin goal. We're 2-1 up in the series, but the defense is crumbling, Leader is injured now too.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Vegas Golden Knights 2
Mews is still out and Matt Leader has joined him on the bench, a stomach muscle pull. I should probably be announcing these like real NHL injuries for realism, Upper Body Injury or Lower Body Injury and no details. John Fireman is still not 100% but we'll have to risk him as otherwise we'd have to play rookie Aaron Moody and he's rotten. More bad news, it's the beginning of May so time for the dev report and Justin Gavin shows up on it with a negative number for the first time ever. Still 5.0 rated but the rot has begun. Vegas lead after the first, Yaroslav Mukhachyov with his second goal of the playoffs. Mukhachyov is still injured and slowed, but Kalashnikov has vanished off their day-to-day list, he's fully recovered. Anchorage storm back in the second, outshoot them 17-8 and score twice. Jeff Martin at 6:26, David Prudek at 11:59. According to the shot map Prudek's goal was unassisted and right in front of the net a couple of feet out. So somebody has fumbled him the puck and gifted a goal, I'm going to believe it's their mediocre goalie. Into the third and Jonas Lambert puts Anchorage 3-1 up at 11:11. Vegas pull one back late, but we hold on and lead the series 3-1 despite the missing defensemen.

Game 5 - Vegas Golden Knights 6 Anchorage Huskies 5 overtime
Mews could play if he had to, but we're 3-1 up in the series so we'll not risk him yet. We probably should have risked him, the defense is terrible, Wall is terrible, everything is terrible. The game rates shots from 0 (it's not really a shot, more of a dump in that the keeper holds) 1 (it's a shot but the keeper should save it), 2 (a decent enough shot, but should be a save), 3 (a good chance) and 4 (like 3 but a rebound too so the keeper is out of position). Lucas Wall lets in two 1 rated shots. Their keeper lets in one too, it's like the opposite of a goalie duel. It's 1-1 after the first, Axel Sandin Pellikka with our goal. Oskar Voullet and Jonas Lambert put Anchorage 3-1 up but Vegas score 3 times in the last 4 minutes, the first of them the first of Wall's flubs, and we're 4-3 down. Anchorage bounce back in the third, Alexander Filippov at 5:55 and David Prudek at 9:17 and we're heading for the Conference final. Until 12 seconds to go, Kalashnikov scores on another poor shot that Wall messed up. It goes to OT, not for long, and we lose. Vegas back in it at 3-2 down in the series. Incidentally Lucas Wall now thinks he's worth 14mil a year for five years.

Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Vegas Golden Knights 10
Mews is back and fully fit, Matt Leader can play too, so we're as close to full strength as we can expect to be. WTF happened here? Lucas Wall stunk again, 5 goals on 17 shots so he was pulled and backup Neil Pintaric came in and stunk even more, 5 goals on 11 shots. We let in 10 goals on 28 shots, outshot them 40-28 and still got destroyed. 1-0 down after the first, 8-2 (!?) down after the second, 10-2 at the end. Alexander Filippov and Borje Svensson scored for Anchorage and lots of people scored for Vegas but none of them three times. I checked the box score and you couldnt blame the defensive pairings, all three of them were equal, all -2 or -3. It was the goalies. Back to Anchorage for game seven. One has to believe than morale may be low. Incidentally Lucas Wall still thinks he's worth 14mil a year for five years.

Game 7 - Vegas Golden Knights 3 Anchorage Huskies 4
I'd been nursing Matt Leader back from his injury, 3rd pairing and limited minutes, but he's back on the top pairing with Henry Mews even with the risk, we need to do something different. The required bounceback is late showing up, 8 minutes into the first period Vegas are 3-0 up, Wall let in 3 of the first 7 shots. At least this time none of them are of the "well he'll want that one back" variety. Since 12 seconds to go in Game 5 we've let in 15 goals in 70-ish minutes. There's signs of a recovery when Enzo Landrey scores at 19:53 and we're 3-1 down after the first. The second period zips past with no more scoring and we're into the third still 2 goals down. The game livens up in the third, Anchorage get a power play after 0:58, three seconds into the power play David Prudek fights a Vegas player for a pair of matching major penalties, it's their star defenseman Martin Hardman. Years ago Vasili Podkozlin started a fight in a playoff game we were losing and it sparked a comeback, the same thing happens here with Prudek dropping the gloves. We don't score on the resulting power play, but at 9:39 Jeff Martin (normally the Huskies player you'd bet on starting a fight) pulls us back within one, and then he scores again to tie the game up at 12:38. Into the last minute and heading for game seven overtime when David Prudek turns up again, this time to score the series winning goal at 19:31, assists for Henry Mews and Mark Dollack.

Well that was a strange series. We had it sewn up, and then we really didnt, and then we did for sure. I'll put Game 6 down as "just one of those games". At least Vegas's Yaroslav Mukhachyov can go home and let that gimpy knee heal up.

Onto the Western Conference Final, we'll be playing Nashville and will have home advantage. Over in the East it'll be Toronto Maple Leafs against New York Rangers, Toronto have just been brushing teams aside this year, a good bet for back-to-back championships.

Young Drachma · 04-17-2023, 01:37 PM

What a run!

Critch · 04-17-2023, 11:12 PM

Yeah, it's been a good run but it starting to feel like it's coming to an end. Star players Jordan Gavin and Lucas Wall are both free agents in the summer, and they're both asking for way too much to give them the contract extensions they want (Gavin wants 16mil x 3 years, Wall wants 14mil x 5 years). They'll both go to free agency and I'll check up on them and hope nobody snaps them up and they drop their demands a little. Add in that Gavin turns 32 before next season and is starting to show up on the dev report with negatives and it might be rebuild time.

Anyway:

2037/38 Playoffs Western Conference Final - Nashville Predators
Another new opponent in the playoffs. We haven't played Nashville in the playoffs yet, due to divisional seeding most seasons we can't meet until the conference final.

Like Vegas in the last round, Nashville have a lot of talent. C Ben McGregor (5.0), C Marcus Graham (4.5), LW Juha Kahkonen (4.5), C Brayden Bailer (4.0), LW Christopher Brown (4.0), RD Jozef Pardavy (4.0) are the top guys. Unlike Vegas, Nashville also have a top goalie, Mateo Beites (5.0). 15 years in the future there aren't too many real players left.

Good news for Anchorage is that the one Nashville 1+ point per game guy Juha Kahkonen (34 goals, 48 assists, 82 points in 81 games) will miss the series. He's out with a dislocated coccyx. I'm no doctor but that sounds like it would hurt.

Game 1 - Nashville Predators 2 Anchorage Huskies 6
Matt Leader was rushed back from injury at the end of the last series in desperation, he's well short of 100% so best if he sits this game to let him get back closer to full fitness. The only other change is backup goalie Neil Pintaric was terrible when he was called on, 5 goals on 11 shots, so he's out as backup. Chwalislaw Janiszewski is the new backup, he's only ever played in preseason games but he's been ok in the AHL this year. Hopefully we wont need him. After whining about the team aging and coming to an end, it's the young guys who carry us through this game. 23 year old Borje Svensson gives Anchorage the lead, 19 year old Anssi Ridanpaa makes it 2-1 late in the first, Jordan Gavin makes it 3-1 with a power play goal in the second, 24 year old August Petterson makes it 4-1 then 5-1 with two goals in 45 seconds and we're 5-1 up at the end of the second. Nashville get one back early in the third but 19 year old Anssi Ridanpaa ends the comeback by making it 6-2. Game one in the bag. We have a lot of young Scandinavian wings.

Game 2 - Nashville Predators 3 Anchorage Huskies 2 Overtime
Matt Leader is back, Henry Mews is out. He's listed as ill day-to-day. Anchorage go 1-0 up in the first with a Alexander Filippov goal at 15:09, a 4-on-4 goal. Enzo Landrey makes it 2-0 with an unassisted goal at 4:41, but then it slips away. Ben Saville scores for Nashville before the end of the second, Bogdan Gorbachyov ties it up in the third, and Brennan Brown wins it for Nashville early in overtime. Overtime never seems to last long, don't think we've ever had a 2OT playoff game in the playoffs. In the end Anchorage outshot Nashville 32-21 but Nashville have a great goalie and Anchorage only have a goalie who thinks he deserves to be paid like he's a great goalie. Not bitter about his 14mil demands.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Nashville Predators 4
Another defenseman down, Alexander Filippov is out with a hamstring problem, so Henry Mews is dragged out of his sickbed. He's listed as "dehydrated", have a big glass of water and get your skates on, you're playing. Nashville go two up in the first, Bogdan Gorbachyov with a power play goal at 3:59 then Lou Boyle even strength at 5:57. In the second period Anchorage get back into it with a Henry Mews power play goal at 17:25, but in the third period Bogdan Gorbachyov adds his second and then his third and it's game over. Shots are pretty level, high danger chances are level, but they have a good goalie and we've got Wall

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 0 Nashville Predators 1 Overtime
Anchorage dominate the shots, outshoot them 11-6 in the first, 11-2 in the second and 33-19 for the game but cant take their chances. The power play goes 0 for 3 too, just one would have done. Regulation time ends 0-0, Nashville score with their first shot in overtime and we're 3-1 in the series.

Game 5 - Nashville Predators 2 Anchorage Huskies 0
Alexander Filippov is back, we're as full strength as we can be. Doesn't make a difference, we get goalied again. Anchorage have 40 shots but Nashville goalie Mateo Beites shuts them down, saves all 40. Lucas Walls keeps Anchorage in it too until late in the game. At 5:30 in the third Borje Svensson is called for a holding penalty. At 6:19 Mark Dollack is called for a slashing penalty and we have to kill over a minute of 5-on-3. Forty four seconds later Marcus Graham takes advantage and gives Nashville the lead, Derek Maskrey adds a late empty net goal and it's all over. We're out, and depending on free agency it might be the end of the Jordan Gavin era.

So it's Nashville Predators representing the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup final. After listing all Nashville's star players I dont think any of them scored a goal, it was their goalie Mateo Beites who won the series. Lucas Wall thinks he's worth 4mil per year more than the Nashville goalie.

In the East NY Rangers lead the series 1-0, Toronto win, NY Rangers lead the series 2-1, Toronto win, NY Rangers lead the series 3-2, Toronto win. So it's game seven and Toronto win. Back-to-back Stanley Cup finals for Toronto.

Critch · 04-19-2023, 03:38 PM

2037/28 Stanley Cup Finals - Nashville Predators v Toronto Maple Leafs
Nashville goalie Mateo Beites was the difference against Anchorage, two shutouts in a row to close out the series and generally difficult to beat all series, but he'd lost his magic touch in the finals. Toronto scored 7, 5, 5 and 3 goals in the four games against him and swept the series, so after 70 years of nothing Toronto now have back-to-back championships.

2038/29 Preview
The new season's preview email lists Vegas as favorites, Nashville and Anchorage as challengers, and Toronto are the dark horses. Got to watch those dark horse teams that unexpectedly sneak up when they are going for three championships in a row.

Anchorage's G Lucas Wall was listed as the league's best goalie in last year's preview, not this year though. This year it's Minnesota's Coker King. He's 23 years old and earns 14mil per year. Not bad work if you can get it.

2038/39 Rookie Draft
There was a post on reddit a few days ago complaining that when you get a few years into the game the draft seems too random, outside the top half of the first round there's not a whole lot to choose between the players. A lot of 1.0 current, 2.0 potential. I quite like it this way, you dont want it too predictable, a few busts, a few unexpected good players from lower rounds, everybody developing in their own way. More realistic to me. Anyway, not unrelated, a prospect I'd never noticed, our 4th round pick in 2035, has had a breakout year. Nineteen year old Russian LW Yaroslav Kochnev has improved each of his three years in the Western Hockey League (11 points in 63 games as a 17 year old, 24 in 64 at 18, and now 58 points in 53 games as a 19 year old) and is now a real prospect. He's in the AHL for a year, but a nice surprise and should turn up for Anchorage in a season or two. Not a world beater, but a good prospect.

In the draft itself we also get a hidden gem. I'm not sure how he fell to us at 38th pick but the Anchorage scouts rate him highly. Eighteen year old Canadian RW Devan Vandenberg, 3.0 current 3.0 future, he's been tearing through the Western Hockey League for Kelowna Rockets for a few years, 92 points in 65 games last year. No injury issues, no personality issues, first pick we've had in a while where the player looks good right away.

The rest of our picks are the regular lottery tickets, a smattering of 6'5'' defensemen and unheralded Scandinavian wingers, the usual fare.

So in summary, I like the way the draft works out in the game despite some guy's post on reddit.

2038/39 Free Agency
As planned we let the two stars go to free agency, C Jordan Gavin and G Lucas Wall were asking for way too much to extend so we let them walk with the plan of checking up on their demands over the summer. D Reece Gault also went to FA, he's a strange case. His "overall" rating is an unimpressive 2.5 stars, but his role rating says he's an 18/20 Two-way defenseman, I guess he's not great overall (low stamina for a start) but what he has really fits that role (reads the game well on offense and defense and he's fast). Is a 2.5 star 18/20 two-way defenseman better at that role than a 4.0 star 15/20 two-way defenseman? Who knows. But Gault has never let us down so long as he gets rested regularly.

Gavin and Wall leave as free agents on July 1st 2038. I hold out until July 5th before giving Jordan Gavin what he wants, I couldn't risk him signing elsewhere. Three years and over 12mil per year is around the level of his contract that's just expired so he's back, all it took was a no trade agreement too. The day after we also give D Henry Mews an extension, this is the last year of his 6.3mil contract, he reups for three more years on 2.8mil per year. This is the first time I've seen a player ask for less than his current deal, a team friendly deal hopefully. Anyway, Gavin and Mews are now tied up til they're both 36, we're riding the Gavin/Mews train til it crashes and burns.

We're left with no starting goalie and about 1mil salary space. I trawled around the other teams' trade blocks for a goalie even though it was breaking my "no making offers for other teams' players" house rule but it's desperate times. There are a few possibles but opposing teams seem to think I should give up a couple of stars and a 1st round pick for their third goalie so trading doesnt work. The new plan is clear some salary and see what I can get from free agency, so Axel Sandin Pellikka and his 2.3mil salary is sent to Boston for a low pick and we have around 4mil to find a goalie, nowhere near enough for a decent free agent. Even a borderline FA goalie is asking for 6.5mil right now. New plan is we'll wait around and see who gets waived.

(sidetrack, I'm now in November and Axel Sandin Pellikka has gone trade crazy since then. We traded him to Boston in July, they traded him to Florida in September, they traded him to Ottawa in October, they traded him to Dallas in November. Still a few months to go before the trade deadline, who knows where's next).

A few years ago we played (and lost to) the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup finals, their feature was that they had 4 good-to-great centers, every line had a star in the middle. One of them, Michael Jackson (not that one) has just become a free agent, he's 27 and is looking for a reasonable salary, 2.5mil per year. He would fit in nicely. The same week there's a news story that G Lucas Wall has been linked with Pittsburgh and St Louis and will sign soon. So it's time for action.

Oskar Vuollet is 32, he's on the last year of an 8mil contract and wants 11mil to re-sign. We currently have 4mil salary space, if we traded away Vuollet we'd have 12mil available, enough to sign Lucas Wall back, and pick up a younger center to replace Vuollet too, and still have some salary space left over.

So, long story short, Oskar Vuollet went to Philadelphia for a 6th round pick and an AHL journeyman and we used the freed up salary space to sign G Lucas Wall (3 years x 7mil), C Michael Jackson (3 years x 2.7mil) and D Reece Gault (2 years x 2.5mil). I think Anchorage just got younger and better, even if it cost us Oskar Vuollet (Anchorage career = 12 seasons, 862 regular season games, 248 goals, 310 assists).

Critch · 04-19-2023, 11:16 PM

2038-39 Regular Season
Lines for the season are much the same as last year's since Jordan Gavin and Lucas Wall returned.

Forwards
David Prudek(3.5)/Jordan Gavin(5.0)/Borje Svensson(4.5)
Jeff Martin(4.0)/Enzo Landrey(3.5)/August Pettersson(3.5)
Magnus Larsen(3.5)/Michael Jackson(4.0)/Peter Hrovatin(3.0)
Jonas Lambert(3.0)/Aleksandr Unichenko(3.0)/Anssi Ridanpaa(3.5)
depth - C Spencer Eccleston(3.0), LW Alexander Broda(3.0), RW Juraj Hajdin(2.0)

Defense
Matt Leader(3.0)/Henry Mews(3.0)
Johan Dahlberg(3.0)/Reece Gault(2.5)
Mark Dollack(3.0)/Alexander Filippov(3.0)
depth - John Fireman(2.0), Joni-Jukka Timonen(2.0), Martin Pospisil(2.5)

Goaltenders
Lucas Wall(5.0) and Chwalislaw Janiszewski(2.0)

Looking back at last season's post there's been a few changes I guess. Martin and Prudek swapped lines mainly because Martin is injury prone and I wanted to keep the top line stable. Prudek and Martin are much the same player, big power forwards who crash the net so interchangeable. Michael Jackson is third line center replacing Vuollet, part of the "get younger" drive. Aleksandr Unichenko is back from Russia, he's more settled now and he's replaced Emil Kjellberg as 4th line center, Kjelberg left as a FA and is now back in Sweden. Anssi Ridanpaa is in to replace Lucas Karmiris, Karmiris is pretty much done and spent most of the year in the AHL.

It's all variable dependent on injuries obviously, depth is required in this game, players will get injured. Only one major injury this year, 7th defenseman John Fireman ruptured a knee ligament and has missed 50 games and wont be back til next year. Michael Jackson missed 3 months too with a groin injury, and Jeff Martin has been out for a couple of months with a hamstring problem.

We spend all season in a two horse race with Seattle for both the division and the President's trophy. We get off to a great start, 12-2-0 and leading the division but not by much, the Pacific division has a lot of good teams. 22-6-2 and we're clear at the top with Seattle, we're 1 and 2 in the division and 1 and 2 for best record in the NHL. It carries on that way, 32-9-4 then 37-10-5 and we're running away from everybody except for Seattle who hang right on our tail. We burst through 100 points with 16 games to go and heading for an Anchorage record number of points (previous record 111 points two years ago), and still leading the President's Trophy and the division but Seattle still right there in pursuit.

It was a two horse race all year and we finished third in it. Third place in both the President's Trophy and the division, the three highest points totals are in our division. We slowed down to .500 pace in the last month, so did Seattle, and Vancouver kicked into overdrive and overtook us both. At the end of the season Vancouver Canucks end with 118 points, Seattle have 117 points, Anchorage have 117 points too but lose a tiebreak, and Vegas in 4th with 111 points. In the Central division it's Colorado (106), Nashville (103), Arizona (102) and Atlanta (95) who make the playoffs.

We ended the season with the lowest Goals Allowed (186, only team under 200), 4th most goals scored (295) and the second highest differential (109, Seattle were best with 113, Saskatoon had -131 for worst)

Stand out performances for the season:

Forwards
Borje Svensson - 81 games, 21 goals, 54 assists, 75 points (54 assists is an Anchorage record)
Enzo Landrey - 78 games, 25 goals, 38 assists, 63 points
Jordan Gavin - 75 games, 30 goals, 31 assists, 61 points (6 of the last 7 seasons with 30+ goals, the one he missed was 25 goals but 15 games missed)
David Prudek - 67 games, 20 goals, 35 assists, 55 points
Magnus Larsson - 80 games, 22 goals, 22 assists, 44 points
Jeff Martin - 56 games, 14 goals, 23 assists, 37 points, 73 PIM (team leading)
Michael Jackson -50 games, 21 goals, 16 assists, 37 points (the 6th 20+ goal player for the season, despite missing 32 games, not a bad first season)

Defensemen
Mark Dollack - 82 games, 16 goals, 29 assists, 45 points, +42 (only defenseman to play every game, and also the team's best +/-)
Henry Mews - 74 games, 13 goals, 36 assists, 49 points, 21:44 average time on ice (team leading)
Johan Dahlberg - 76 games, 9 goals, 30 assists, 39 points, +41

Goaltenders
Lucas Wall - 74 games, 49-18-7 record, 2.14 GAA (Anchorage record), .915 sv%
Chwalislaw Janiszewski - 9 games, 6-2-1 record, 2.08 GAA, .919 sv%

The game lets goalies play pretty much every game, you can get to Brodeur levels of starting almost every game without problems. I tried to make sure the backup started every second game of a back-to-back for a bit of realism although nobody in the real NHL got anywhere near Wall's 74 starts this season. The backup keeper actually had better stats than Wall but didn't play enough games to qualify for records.

So next up in the playoffs is Seattle. I forgot to turn off divisional seeding.

Critch · 04-20-2023, 09:12 AM

2038/39 Playoffs Round 1 - Seattle Kraken
It's Seattle Kraken in the playoffs for the 5th time. They've won twice (2030/31 - 4-0, 2034/35 - 4-2) and we've won twice (2033/34 - 4-0, 2036/37 - 4-1).

They're another team with top players, former Ranger LW Tyler Van Caeyzeele, RD Flynn Brown, LD Milo Eager, aging superstar Shane Wright, but with poor goalies. They've got pretty mediocre rookie Tristan Busteed starting backed up by Huskies reject Neil Pintaric. Hopefully that'll give us an advantage.

Unfortunately we'll be missing a few players, Henry Mews got himself an 8 game suspension in the last game of the regular season so he wont be back til the 2nd round at the earliest. Jeff Martin is out too, a hamstring injury has kept him out for a couple of months and he's still listed as 2 or 3 weeks away so maybe 2nd round at the earliest, Jonas Lambert is day to day with a back problem, and John Fireman is out til next year. So a few knocks to cope with.

Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 0 Seattle Kraken 3
Well it's a bad night all round. Seattle's mediocre goalie Tristan Busteed stoped all 30 shots he faced and shut us out and C Jordan Gavin is on ice 2:40 before he's injured and out for the night. The first period is scoreless, Seattle score twice in the second (4:14 Ivan Posokhov, 15:41 Konstantin Yenchev), they add a late empty net goal from Tyler Merkley and it's all over, we're one game down and awaiting word on how bad Jordan Gavin's injury is.

Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Seattle Kraken 2
And it's bad news on the Jordan Gavin injury. He's torn a flexor tendon and will be out 4 months. We need to shuffle about, Michael Jackson is now the top line center. Seattle are 1-0 up in the first, Konstantin Yenchev again, it's 2-0 Seattle in the second, Aaron McBurney with a power play goal. Enzo Landrey pulls one back in the second but no more scoring. Tristan Busteed faces 41 shots and stops 40. Looking at the high risk chances, we threw this one away by not taking chances. We need the captains to step up, unfortunately the captains are Jordan Gavin, Henry Mews and Jeff Martin and they're all out. Back to Anchorage 2-0 down.

Game 3 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 4
Without Jordan Gavin there's a lack of scoring on the top line. Our best remaining offensive center is Aleksandr Unichenko, he's now first line center and Borje Svensson is set to be a sniper to try and add scoring to replace Gavin. First period Anchorage go 1-0 up, Mark Dollack with a slapshot. Second period is scoreless so into the third leading 1-0. David Prudek makes it 2-0, an assist from Unichenko, I'm taking credit for this with my top line shuffling. Yenchev brings Seattle back into it at 2-1. There's no more scoring until the last two minutes of the game, Alexander Broda, our 21 year old Czech rookie who's in with Jeff Martin being out makes it 3-1 at 18:03, Flynn Brown scores for Seattle to make it 3-2 at 18:31. David Prudek makes it 4-2 with a late empty net goal, an assist from Lucas Karmiris who's back from Juneau to add a bit of experience to the team. We're back in the series.

Game 4 - Seattle Kraken 3 Anchorage Huskies 4 Overtime
More fiddling with the lines. Unichenko isnt good enough to be the top line center, the roles are set back to what we've gone with all season. Normally the top line is Prudek crashing the net, Gavin using his speed to attack defenders, Svensson playing more conservatively to cover. We're back to that setup but with Enzo Landrey playing the Jordan Gavin "Speedy Forward" role. We were not going to go far with Unichenko leading the line. Anchorage are 1-0 up with an Enzo Landrey power play goal at 6:21, Seattle get a power play soon after but Michael Jackson makes it 2-0 with a short handed goal. Hampus Magnusson scores for Seattle at the end of the first period. 2-1 going into the second. Kyle Ruiz scores for Seattle at 0:48 of the second period to bring them level, but we're back to in the lead later in the second, a slapshot from the blueline from Johan Dahlberg. We spend a chunk of the third period on the penalty kill, Seattle finally score on their third power play of the period and it's 3-3, Cash Koch with the goal. What a strange name. Overtime doesnt last long (it never does) before Michael Jackson wins it for Anchorage. Back to 2-2 in the series.

Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Seattle Kraken 4
Enzo Landrey gives Anchorage the lead 36 seconds into the game, Seattle tie it up in the second take a lead with a Cash Koch goal in the third, then add not one but two late empty net goals to make it look more comfortable for them than it actually was. Jeff Martin is back in training but not much likelihood of him being back for this series, not even if there's a game seven.

Game 6 - Seattle Kraken 3 Anchorage Huskies 4 Overtime
Only one change, Lucas Karmiris has been bad so he's out. He's really done, one year to go at 3.5mil too and he wont play again unless it's an emergency. Spencer Ecclestone returns to replace him. Michael Jackson puts Anchorage 1-0 up, Hampus Magnusson ties it up. Aleksandr Unichenko puts us 2-1 up, a Flynn Brown power play ties it up and it's 2-2 at the end of the first. There's one goal in the second, Roman Stainov puts Seattle 3-2 up. It stays like that til 18:40 in the third, Michael Jackson scores a late equalizer and we're going to overtime. 8:12 into overtime Magnus Larsen scores the winner for Anchorage (assist from Michael Jackson, he had a good night) and we're off to a game 7. Every game so far has gone to the home team, hope we can break that trend in Seattle.

Game 7 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Seattle Kraken 0
Some good news before game 7, if it's ok and sporting to call opponents being injured good news. They'll be missing two of their stars, LW Tyler Van Caeyzeele has been carrying a shoulder injury but he's now officially out, LD Milo Eager will also be out with a muscle injury. The series doesn't end with every game going to the home team. We're outshot 33-27, out high danger chanced 11-7, but Lucas Wall stops all 33 shots he faces and we're back from 3-2 down in the series to win. Three goals from defensemen, Alexander Filippov from the blue line at 8:00 in the second, Johan Dahlberg at 2:09 in the third and a late empty net goal from Alexander Fillipov again and we're home and dry. Seattle have their chances, the high danger shots and three power plays, but don't score. On to the second round.

In the second round we'll be up against Vancouver, they were flying in the second half of the season, best record in the NHL, and they beat the 2nd Wild Card Atlanta Thrashers 4-1 in the first round. It'll be Colorado v Nashville in the other semi, and NY Islanders v Washington Capitals and Florida v Quebec in the East. No three-peat for Toronto, they fell to Quebec in a seven game series.

Critch · 04-20-2023, 10:46 AM

2038/39 Playoffs Round 2 - Vancouver Canucks
Vancouver are getting into the last few years of their Connor Bedard run, he's 33 years old, 1141 games for Vancouver, 1230 points (480 goals, 750 assists), League MVP 6 times, most points 5 times, top scorer twice, seven all-star games, an Olympic gold and an Olympic silver for Canada, he's won almost everything but he's never won a Stanley Cup Final, never even played in one. He's running out of time.

Over the Bedard era Vancouver have been pretty consistantly in the playoffs, 5 of the last 6 seasons, they've been to a couple of Conference finals but they've not been to a Stanley Cup final.

The other big name they have is Louis-Joseph Boutin, former main man in the talent loaded Atlanta Thrashers team, he came to Vancouver as a free agent a couple of years ago for 13.6mil per year. They also have a good goalie tandem, Sune Hellstrom and Nick Milley. Actually looking at the stats they've gone with Milley as the starter in the playoffs. They also have a good amount of depth, regular all-star LD Sam Dickinson, C Cole Jodzio, Russian LW Maksim Nazyuta (53 points in 49 games this year).

Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Vancouver Canucks 2 Overtime
Henry Mews still has one more game of his suspension to go, Jeff Martin is back with the team but not able to play tonight, reinforcements are just around the corner. There's no scoring in the first, August Pettersson puts Anchorage ahead at 5:02 of the second. Maksim Nazyuta ties it up at 14:13 in the third and we're heading to overtime. Right at the end of regular time David Prudek gets called for holding and the Vancouver power play carries over into overtime, that's all they need Dennis Mirchink scores for them and they're 1-0 up in the series.

Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Vancouver Canucks 6
Henry Mews is back, he plays ok but things dont go well. Louis-Joseph Boutin (power play) and Joel MacNevin put Vancouver 2-0 up in the first, it's 4-0 midway through the second.Johan Dahlberg and Henry Mews score a little over a minute apart late in the second period and it's 4-2 and we're vaguely in the game going into the third. It doesnt last, Luke Moroz and Joel MacNevin score again for Vancouver and it's 6-2 midway through the third. Goalie Lucas Wall is pulled, Chwalislaw Janiszewski comes in to make his playoff debut and saves all 4 shots he faces, but we're done. 2-0 down again, same as last series.

Game 3 - Vancouver Canucks 3 Anchorage Huskies 6
Still no Jeff Martin return but we're getting messages now that he's close. Anchorage race into a lead, Borje Svensson at 2:31 and David Prudek at 3:37 and we're 2-0 up at the end of the first. Vancouver are back into it in the second Joel MacNevin at 6:09 and Matt Pankratz at 10:59 and it's all square. The game turns at 15:15 of the second, Vancouver winger Pierre-Dominique Bouffard gets called for a boarding major and we have a 5 minute power play. We take advantage of it and score three times, Enzo Landrey at 16:29, Borje Svensson at 19:24 and Henry Mews at 19:59 and we're safely 5-2 up going into the third. Matt Pankratz brings Vancouver a little closer but a late empty net goal from Aleksandr Unichenko and we're home and dry. Matt Leader manages to get in amongst the Vancouver players as the game ends and gets a penalty for interference.

Game 4 - Vancouver Canucks 2 Anchorage Huskies 3 Overtime
Still no Jeff Martin return. Vancouver winger Pierre-Dominique Bouffard who got called for the 5 minute boarding penalty is suspended, he'll miss the next three games. Serves him right! He'll be back for game seven, if needed. Vancouver go 1-0 up at 3:29 from all-star Sam Dickinson, but Magnus Larsen(7:16) and Michael Jackson(19:18) score for Anchorage and it's 2-1 after the first. Both goalies play well, there's no more scoring until the dying seconds of the third. Anchorage are 19 seconds away from tying the series when Cole Jodzio ties it up for Vancouver. Into overtime and it's the 4th line that win it for Anchorage, Spencer Ecclestone with the goal, his first of the playoffs, Alexander Broda and Alexander Filippov with the assists. Back to 2-2 in the series.

Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Vancouver Canucks 7
Well that's a thumping. Like last year G Lucas Hall throws out a terrible performance at a bad time, six goals on 27 shots. Chwalislaw Janiszewski makes his second appearance of the playoffs (which happily means I can cut and paste from last time and not have to look up how to spell his name again) and lets in 1 on 4 shots too. Vancouver are 1-0 up after the first. Michael Jackson (our star performer so far, he's not bad) brings us briefly level at 1-1 before Vancouver score six unanswered, four in the second and two in the third. I've checked and Lucas Wall doesnt have "crumbles under pressure" or "hides in big games" in his profile, so just one of those games I guess. Back to Anchorage 3-2 down.

Game 6 - Vancouver Canucks 1 Anchorage Huskies 6
Jeff Martin is back. He's not 100%, he's not played for 3 months, but at least he can play. He's into the 4th line to keep his minutes down. Anchorage are 1-0 up after the first period, Matt Leader with the goal. It's all over quickly in the second, 3 goals in four minutes (Johan Dahlberg (PP) 00:35, Reece Gault 3:12, Johan Dahlberg 3:57) and we're 4-0 up quickly. Spencer Ecclestone makes it 5-0 and Michael Jackson makes sure the game isnt going to be a thriller by making it 6-0 in the second before Vancouver pull one back right at the end of the second period. The third period drifts by with both teams knowing the game is over and saving themselves for game 7, only 6 shots total in the third (3 each) and no penalties.

Game 7 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Vancouver Canucks 4
No Game seven on the road heroics in this series. We outshoot Vancouver 42-28, have the better chances, but it slips away. Cole Jodzio puts them 1-0 up early in the first, Aleksandr Unichenko ties it up inside a minute and it's 1-1 after the first. Connor Bedard finally scores in the series, a power play goal after David Prudek gets called for holding, David Prudek gives up a lot of penalties. It's 3-1 Vancouver by the end of the second, Joel MacNevin again. August Petterson scores for Anchorage to bring it back to 3-2 14 seconds into the third period, but Connor Bedard is awake now and scores again. We've got 17 minutes to claw back 2 goals. Enzo Landrey manages one at 11:31 but that's the scoring over and we're out. Connor Bedard is first star of the game, seems fair.

So it's Vancouver v Nashville in the Western Conference Final, Washington Capitals v Quebec Nordiques in the East. .

Critch · 04-23-2023, 05:58 PM

2038/39 Stanley Cup Final - Vancouver Canucks v Washington Capitals
Vancouver got hot in the second half of the season, caught Anchorage and Seattle and overtook them to win the Pacific Division, won the President's Trophy for the best record in the regular season, they were a #1 seed in the playoffs, got past Atlanta Thrashers, Anchorage Huskies and Nashville Predators to win the Western Conference.

In the Eastern Conference Washington Capitals finished third in the Metropolitan division, finished with 94 points, 2 points less and they wouldnt have made the playoffs. They needed seven games to get past New York Rangers, six to get by the Islanders, seven to get by Quebec. Their star player is former first pick bust, former Huskies reject D Jiri Mendl, they have no 5.0 rated players, only 5 players rated higher than 3.0, and two of the five are injured and will miss the Stanley Cup. Not sure how they made it to be honest.

So on paper there's only one winner, the Capitals are a poor second best, surely there's no way they can upset the odds and beat the overwhelming favorite Vancouver team?

Nah, of course they can't, they lost 4-2, 6-1, 3-0 and 5-4 and got swept.

So Connor Bedard finally wins his first Stanley Cup, fills the one empty spot in his trophy cabinet, 18 points in 22 games too.

2039/40 Rookie Draft
Anchorage picking a bit earlier than usual, 33rd pick in the first round. A benefit of not getting to the conference final, I guess. We go risky with the pick, RW Zbynek Mucha, an 18 years old Czech, 6'2'' 204lb back-checking forward, he'd have been much higher in the draft but fell down to us because he's been out for 4 months with a ruptured ligament in his elbow and he's still listed as being out for 3 to 4 more months. The Anchorage scouts list him as the best "risky pick", worth the risk. From then on it's the normal formula of getting the scouts list of "risky picks" then choosing whoever is need the top of the list and big. Second round pick C Oleg Zagebalin and third round RD Denis Molotov have a chance of making it.

In last year's Rookie section I mentioned LW Yaroslav Kochnev who had come from nowhere to be a suddenly surprising roster. He's not been good in the AHL so he's back to being a nobody. Forget I mentioned him.

2039/40 Free Agency
A fairly quite year, not many free agents left so not many in to replace them. It was a strict one-in/one-out free agency this year.

For Right Wing former first round, 7th overall prospect Peter Hrovatin came to the end of his contract, 49 points in 82 games as 3rd/4th line RW, he wanted too much to re-sign so he went UFA. Stayed UFA for a couple of months into the new season then signed for Montreal. His replacement is 19 year old rookie Devan Vandenberg, last year's Anchorage first round pick.

For Center 4th line/depth backup C Spencer Ecclestone went. Despite not making crazy requests for an extension, he was replaceable. So he's gone, nobody picked him up so he's in the Slovenian leagues now, not even the top division. The replacement was former Calgary regular starter Jeff Smith, he was picked up from free agency, a 30 year old defensive center, ideal for the third line.

For Defensemen 33 year old Alexander Filippov left, too old for the money and years he wanted, he's now back in the KHL playing for Metallurg Magnitogorsk. The (short-term) replacement was picked up from waivers, 32 year old Hunter Aura on a 1 year minimum wage. He's really in more as experienced backup more than a regular.

I vaguely thought about bringing back some names from the past. Oskar Vuollet had signed a 3 year extension with Philadelphia so he was out, Kaden Pitre is 33 and going downhill so he's out, Emil Hemming is 33, going downhill and playing in the Czech league so he's out too. So no old faces. Seemed like a good idea, add depth that would come in with chemistry with linemates, and maybe get a little "I'm playing for my favorite team" harmony boost too.

Young Drachma · 04-23-2023, 06:29 PM

Bummer about the playoff run.

Critch · 04-24-2023, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Bummer about the playoff run.

As long as the team keeps on getting it's annual ticket to the playoff lottery, that's ok with me. We've just not had the luck, plus there have been a few times recently where I looked at the other team's roster and thought "yeah, they're better than Anchorage".

I'm starting to think we may survive the retirement of Mews and Gavin too. I guess I'll carry on for about a month or two until the Tour de France starts and I have my annual attempt of ProCycling Manager, so got a few seasons to go.

2039/40 Regular Season
Not a lot of changes to the lineup this year. The original plan to replace UFA Peter Hrovatin with Devan Vandenberg didn't work out, he started the season on the Anchorage 4th line but didn't look ready, 1 goal and 0 assists in 12 games. He was a 19 year old rookie so he was sent back to the Juniors for a year, he did ok there, 35 goals, 47 assists in 39 games. Maybe currently too good for juniors but not ready for NHL.

Other than that, the defensemen are starting to look old, Henry Mews is down to 2.5. And Jordan Gavin's overall rating is down to 4.5 from 5.0 too. The years are catching up.

Incidentally the overall ratings don't seem to be scaled the same for Forwards and Defensemen, a serviceable forward seems to have to have a higher rating than a serviceable defensemen.

Forwards
Jeff Martin(4.0)/Jordan Gavin(4.5)/Borje Svensson(4.5)
David Prudek(3.5)/Enzo Landrey(3.5)/August Pettersson(4.0)
Magnus Larsen(3.5)/Michael Jackson(4.0)/Anssi Ridanpaa(4.0)
Alexander Broda(3.5)/Jeff Smith(3.0)/Jonas Lambert(3.0)
depth - LW Marek Novak(2.5), RW Juraj Hajdon (2.0) (really only there because he's violent. An agitator, good to rile up opponents), C Aleksandr Unichenko (3.0)

Defense
Matt Leader(3.0)/Henry Mews(2.5)
Johan Dahlberg(3.0)/Reece Gault(2.0)
Mark Dollack(3.0)/Joni-Jukka Timonen(2.0)
depth - John Fireman(2.5), Martin Pospisil(2.5), Hunter Aura(2.0)

Goaltenders
Lucas Wall(5.0) and Chwalislaw Janiszewski(2.5)

This season Anchorage raced away with the division, for a long time they had a commanding lead for the President's Trophy too.. We reached the midway point with a record of 33-6-2 and a 13 point lead in the division. It all slowed down a little in the second half though, top 6 forward David Prudek missed the second half of the season, we had our first real goalie injury when Wall went down for a few weeks ill (although Janiszewski stepped in and played well), Jordan Gavin missed 12 games with a suspension for an illegal hit to the head (his scouting report used to say he was considered a sporting player, now it says he's a "fairly clean player"), Mews missed the last month, and is still out. So injuries and not being as good as the first half made them seem caught up.

The division lead got whittled away, at one point we were 13 points ahead of San Jose and Edmonton but by the end of the season we needed to finish with a winning run to hold on and win the division by 2 points.

Anchorage ended the year with a record of 58-21-3 for 119 points, a new Anchorage record breaking last year's 117 record. We had by far the best defense in the league, 178 goals conceded (also an Anchorage record) and scored 298. The defense isn't anything special, so I'm assuming a chunk of the low goals allowed is down to goalies Lucas Wall and Chwalislaw Janiszewski having great years. Plus they do play with a lot of defensive forwards, we're not playing exciting attacking hockey.

Top scorer was Borje Svensson with 32 goals, he got off to a fast start, half his 32 goals scored in the first 20 games before slowing down to his average pace.

Old favorite Henry Mews has really fallen away, he was rated 4.0 a few years back, now he's 2.5 and falling. At one point he was rated 18/20 for his role (Quarterback defenseman), now he's 10/20. He still gets better than average game ratings, and he's our guy so he'll be playing til he drops or retires anyway.

For the Pacific Division, Anchorage won with 119 points, 2nd were Edmonton with 117, 3rd San Jose with 106 (their first playoffs for a few years), 4th Vancouver with 104 and 5th Calgary with 95. In the Central division it's Nashville (108 points), St Louis(101 points) and Dallas (98 points, their first playoffs after 8 seasons out). Calgary had a better record than 4th in the Central (Minnesota), so it's two wild card teams from the Pacific in the playoffs again this year.

Which means another meeting with Calgary in the playoffs for Anchorage.

Critch · 04-25-2023, 08:53 AM

2039/40 Playoffs Round 1 - Calgary Flames
It's the sixth time we've met Calgary Flames in the playoffs, Anchorage leading 3-2 in the first five series. I still haven't messed with the playoff settings to turn off divisional seeding, I must remember to do that.

Their star player is still LW Jakub Moravec but he's getting to those difficult early 30s years, he's had a down year this year, only 19 goals. RW Mason Kline is their real threat now, 34 goals this year and 47 last. They also have one of the top goalies in the year. G Anatol Lyantsevich was the Pittsburgh goalie the year they beat Anchorage in the Stanley Cup final, since then he's moved onto Calgary as a highly paid free agent, 11.4mil per year but he will be a free agent this summer.

Game 1 - Calgary Flames 3 Anchorage Huskies 6
David Prudek was out for 50 games with a groin injury but he's back now, played the last couple of regular season games and ready to go. So the only Anchorage injury is defenseman Henry Mews. He seems to miss games every post season, this year is no different, his second separated shoulder of the season and he'll miss all this series. He's not as big a loss as he was once upon a time, aging is a terrible thing. The series starts with a wild first period, Jeff Martin has Anchorage 1-0 up at 1:21, Calgary equalize quickly, then Aleksandr Unichenko and the 4th line chip in to make it 2-1 Anchorage at 5:30. Calgary star Mason Kline makes it 2-2 at 7:45, and then Calgary get their first lead of the series with a power play goal at 10:56. Michael Jackson tied it up for Anchorage at 15:11 and it's a 3-3 first period. Anssi Ridanpaa (who has been around for years but it only 21) makes it 4-3 to Anchorage in the second, Reeve Gault makes it 5-3 in the third, August Pettersson 6-3 and Anchorage have won game one.

Game 2 - Calgary Flames 2 Anchorage Huskies 5
No changes to the lineups for Anchorage. It's 1-0 to Anchorage at 15:02 in the first, depth defenseman Hunter Aura giving us the lead. It lasts just over a minute before Jessy Charron scores for Calgary and it's 1-1 after the first. Our young Scandinavian wingers (we have lots of young Scandinavian wingers) make it 2-1 at 11:09 in the second, Magnus Larsen with the goal, Anssi Ridanpaa with the assist. Actually Finns aren't Scandinavian and Ridanpaa is a Finn. It's out young Nordic wingers. At 13:40 it's the same Nordic wingers combining again, Magnus Larsen makes it 3-1. Calgary pull one back near the end of the second. Into the third and the same Nordic's combine again, this time it's Ridanpaa who scores, and it's 4-2. At 16:37 it's 5-2, Jonas Lambert. He's not Nordic or Scandinavian, he's Canadian. We have two home games in the bag and off to Calgary 2-0 up in the series.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 7 Calgary Flames 4
Our rookie defenseman Martin Pospisil has been suffering with hamstring problems, so he's out for the night. He's fairly mediocre and we have a lot of fairly mediocre backups so it wont cause a problem. It ends up being a high scoring game, but the first period isn't. Kory Zorzi (another great AI name) gives Calgary the lead but Borje Svensson ties it up and it's 1-1 after the first. At the start of the second Anchorage score twice in 20 seconds (Hunter Aura at 2:19, David Prudek at 2:39) and we're 3-1 up. Calgary fight back though and score twice in 29 seconds soon after, Aron Kiviharju at 4:16 and Dillon Hebert at 4:45. The Anchorage third line (Larsen, Jackson and Ridanpaa) have been the difference makers in the series so far and they have their say in the third. Anssi Ridanpaa makes it 4-3 at 12:32, Magnus Larsen makes it 5-3 at 13:06. Dillon Hebert (a 20 year old rookie) brings Calgary back into it but Jordan Gavin and David Prudek add late goals and Anchorage at 3-0 up in the series.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Calgary Flames 3
Well we're not going to sweep them. Jessy Charron and Mazden Leslie make it 2-0 Calgary in the first period. Mazden Leslie is one of the few remaining real players, in real life he's a 17 year old prospect, in this version of the future he's a 35 year old earning 8mil a year and with almost 1300 NHL games on the clock. Early in the second Alexandr Unichenko gets one back for Anchorage, but Calgary get their two goal lead back with a goal from Torrey Kiefer. He's a 19 year old rookie, Calgary have a lot of good young players. Enzo Landrey scores a power play goal to keep it close, but no sweep.

Game 5 - Calgary Flames 3 Anchorage Huskies 2
Calgary pay a fortune for a top class goalie, and he's kept them in the series. It starts off well, Anssi Ridanpaa scores a power play goal at 2:42 (slashing penalty against former Anchorage prospect Easten Turko), Hunter Aura adds a second and we're 2-0 up after the first. There's no scoring in the second period, it's still 2-0 until Owen Martin gets Calgary back into it at 13:46 of the third, then Jessy Charron scores another to tie the game up. Anchorage have a late power play, but the chance isn't taken and Calgary win in over time. We outshot them 35-22, but Calgary goalie Anatol Lyantsevich stole it.

Game 6 - Calgary Flames 3 Anchorage Huskies 6
After being 3-0 up in the series, it had all got a bit tense, and that ramped up a bit in this game. Michael Jackson put Anchorage 1-0 up at 9:30 in the first, 1-0 after the first period. Calgary then score three without reply in the second, Mason Kline(3:44), Jakub Moravec(5:49), Steven McLaughlin(8:10, power play goal). It looks like we're heading to a game seven, but Anchorage answer back with three in a row in the second period too. Borje Svensson at 10:20, Jordan Gavin at 11:50 and it's 3-3, then Reece Gault at 14:27 and Anchorage are in the lead. Into the third and a bit of 4-on-4 time, Hunter Aura and Jessy Charron both get minor penalties for slashing each other, and Jordan Gavin takes advantage to put Anchorage 5-3 up. Michael Jackson makes it 6-3. There's a late penalty kill to get past Joni-Jukka Timonen for Unsportsmanlike Conduct, but it ends 6-3 and Anchorage are into the next round.

Onto round two and it's San Jose. Last time we met San Jose in the playoffs we went on to win the Stanley Cup. It's fated.

Critch · 04-25-2023, 09:01 AM

2039/40 Playoffs Round 2 - San Jose Sharks
It's only the third time we've met San Jose Sharks in the playoffs, mainly because they don't make it very often, this is only their second appearance in the last 7 years. They beat Anchorage 4-1 in 2032, and Anchorage won 4-3 in 2033 on their way to the Stanley Cup final. According to the Anchorage team page, San Jose are our main rivals, but they dont list us as a rival at all. We're not important enough for even San Jose to care about. It's a one-way rivalry, like Carolina and whoever they tag onto in real life NHL.

Last year we came up against Connor Bedard running out of time to win a Stanley Cup, we have something similar this year. Macklin Celebrini was a first round pick in 2024, fourth overall, he's been an all-star 9 times, he's won Olympic medals and awards, but he's 34 years old and never won a Stanley Cup. He's a budget Bedard. Hopefully we'll do better stopping Celebrini than we did stopping Bedard.

San Jose roster isn't the strongest, Celebrini and Jeremy Skolrood are 4.0, a handful of 3.5 star players. Nothing special. Former Husky reject Rick Claycomb is one of their stars. They're also a bit beaten up, they have a couple of players playing through injuries that should really have ended their season, including Skolrood and his torn elbow ligament.

We're going to win.

Game 1 - San Jose Sharks 0 Anchorage Huskies 7
Henry Mews is back from his shoulder injury and straight into the top pairing. It's a bit one-sided, San Jose only manage 10 shots in the whole game (3 in the first, 5 in the second, 2 in the third). Jeff Martin makes it 1-0 Anchorage in the first, David Prudek twice (0:34 and 15:09) and Mark Dollack (18:16) in the second, then Magnus Larssen (1:50), Anssi Ridanpaa (3:36 power play) and August Pettersson (13:24 shorthanded) in the third and it's a 7-0 walkover.

Game 2 - San Jose Sharks 1 Anchorage Huskies 4
It's not as easy as game one, but still one-sided, Anchorage outshoot them 38-23. Magnus Larsen makes in 1-0 Anchorage at 10:28 with an assist from Anssi Ridanpaa, but San Jose get back into this game, BJ Zentner with an unassisted goal to make it 1-1 at the end of the first period. In the second Reece Gault puts Anchorage 2-1 up, Larsen and Ridanpaa with the assists, they've been the stars of the playoffs for us. Into the third and it's not til late on that Anchorage make it safe. August Pettersson at 18:10 and a late empty net goal for Enzo Landrey and we've won both home games and go to San Jose with a 2-0 series lead.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 3 San Jose Sharks 1
A pair of power play goals in the first period and we're well on our way, Aleksandr Unichenko at 8:36 and David Prudek at 14:25 and it's 2-0 Anchorage at the end of the first. Former Huskies player Rick Claycomb (2033/34, 51 games, 10 goals) pulls one back for San Jose at 8:18 in the second period but that's the end of the scoring til Matt Leader gets a last second empty net goal and Anchorage are 3-0 up for the second series in a row.

Edit - Ooops! Timeline reboot! Originally Anchorage won this series in 6 games (which I originally posted), won the conference final and were in the Stanley Cup Final but the game crashed during saving and messed up the file. First time that's happened. The most recent backup was last day of April, so we're back here, 3-0 up against San Jose Sharks.

Wavey lines clear, we're back in the dim and distant past of April 30th 2040, with a sense of deja vu we're back playing game four against San Jose, having to knock them out the playoffs twice in the same season.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 4 San Jose Sharks 1
Sweep complete. Jordan Gavin sets Anchorage on their way, a goal at 1:09. San Jose get back into it and it's 1-1, but two late first period goals, Johan Dahlberg at 17:59 and Jordan Gavin at 19:56 and Anchorage are 3-1 up and the writing is on the wall. There's no more scoring until 17:38 of the third period, Jordan Gavin completes his hattrick and we're onto the Western Conference final for the 6th time in 8 seasons. It's been a while since we won one though.

It's Vancouver Canucks in the Conference Final, so that's a change, it was St Louis Blues in the original playthrough. Over in the East it'll be Hartford Whalers v Boston Bruins.

03-24-2023, 10:52 PM	#55
Travis Pro Rookie Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Canada eh	YOU CAN'T STOP THE UPDATES THERE!!! Good luck in the finals! __________________ "I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it." - Rogers Hornsby

03-24-2023, 11:52 PM	#56
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	Sorry for the delay, I got distracted. I bought Sapiens on Steam and that was my exciting Friday night taken care of. Plus I put my glasses down and couldn't find them. 2032/33 Stanley Cup Finals - Columbus Blue Jackets I'm kind of surprised by this. I thought we'd settled into a "good enough to make the playoffs, not good enough to challenge when we get there" cycle that would carry on til 26/27 year old core (Gavin, Mews, Vuollet, Hemming, Karmiris) started going downhill in 3 or 4 years, then we'd fall back to a square one rebuild, so a Stanley Cup Final is a nice surprise. Columbus have only missed the playoffs one year of the dynasty but this is their first Stanley Cup final. They have a lot of good young players (not sure how they've managed that on low draft picks every year) 26yo center Lev Medvedev (5.0 stars), 29yo center Logan Cooley (4.5), a top young netminder in 22 year old Shane Fleming. They've also got an old guard too, 35 year old LW Patrik Laine and 35 year old LD Zach Werenski. Werenski has played his whole career with Columbus, started as a 19 year old in 2016/17 and fast approaching 1300 games for them. Anchorage played them twice this year, split the series, a 7-2 win in Columbus and a 4-3 loss at home. Game 1 - Columbus Blue Jackets 6 Anchorage Huskies 3 Vasili Podzolkin is able to play, but he's not 100% and Jakob Karlsson has been doing well in his absence so we go with Karlsson again. Decision pays off in the first and Karlsson sets up Oskar Vuollet for the first goal, it's 1-0 after the first. The second period doesn't go well, it's balanced but Columbus take their chances while Anchorage miss. Medvedev, Fevry and Laine score and it's 3-1 to Columbus after the second. Lucas Karmiris scores to get it back to a 1 goal lead, Columbus score straight away. Urho Matilla scores to get it back to a 1 goal game, Columbus score straight away. Logan Cooley adds a late empty net goal to finish it off and we're 1-0 down in the series. Not a good evening for the Anchorage 2nd defense pairing, Easten Turko ends at -5 and Tomas Lavoie at -4. Game 2 - Columbus Blue Jackets 1 Anchorage Huskies 4 It's time for Vasili Podzolkin to come in, he's had a good season and he's team captain, it's time for him to shine. He's in for 4.5 minutes before he's back out again, a 5 minute fighting major and a 10 minute misconduct. I've read that one of the main points of fighting in hockey is to fire up your teammates, the sight of their captain, who had zero fights and a total of 25 penalty minutes in 82 games, going in swinging at a 6'4'' 225lbs Columbus defenseman Paul Meyer certainly fired the team up because Anchorage were 1-0 up before the 5 minute penalty expired. Jordan Gavin giving us the lead with his 9th goal of the playoffs. The second period started with Anchorage on the power play, a tripping penalty, and it was 2-0. Henry Mews with the power play goal. At 8:46 it's 3-0, an Oskar Vuollet goal. At 13:05 it's 4-0, an Oskar Vuollet goal again. At the end of the second Columbus pull one back, the third slides by with no more scoring and the series is tied at 1-1. A great night for Anchorage goalie Evan Maillet, he saved 39 of the 40 shots he faced. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Columbus Blue Jackets 2 The series moves to Columbus and Anchorage outplays them. Despite being out shot 14-5, Columbus end the first period in the lead, 1-0 with a Cooper Pierson goal at 7:33. The second period is similar, Anchorage out shoot them 13-9, but this time they outscore them too. Mattila ties the game up at 5:32, Cooper Pierson gives Columbus the lead again, then Kaden Pitre ties it up again at 10.54. The Pitre goal has an assist from Jorgen Palm, only his second point in the 17 playoff games he's played. Might save his starting place for another game. Jordan Gavin gives the Huskies the lead at 16:26, Vasili Podkolzin with a secondary assist, a fight and an assist 66% of the way to a Gordie Howe hat-trick for the mild-mannered Russian. Jordan Gavin makes it 4-2 in the third, Kaden Pitre adds an empty net goal at the death and we're 2-1 up in the series. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Columbus Blue Jackets 4 And here come the injuries. Lucas Karmiris will be missing this game, a puck to the head and he'll be out for a few days with an ear injury. Longer term is rookie Jeff Martin, he has an elbow injury that'll keep him out til next season. A bit of shuffling around, Jakob Karlsson is back in the lineup along with rookie Tyler Walton on the 4th line. Columbus rush out to a lead, it's 2-0 after the first period, goals from Riley Steen and Chaz Lucius (he's a real player, there are some youngsters with great names in the NHL, Chaz Lucius, Red Savage, Rutger McGroarty, Cutter Gauthier, like a gang of baddies in a western). Anchorage storm back and dominate in the second period though, Jackson Gillespie gets his first goal of the playoffs, Jordan Gavin gets another, Emil Hemming another another and it's all tied up (Columbus went 3-1 between the Gillespie and Gavin goals). The third period is all about scoring defensemen, LD Weston Knox gives Anchorage the lead, Columbus LD Jake Boulanger ties it up at 4-4. At 13:35 Henry Mews takes a high sticking penalty and Columbus go on the power play. But it's time for a goal to change the direction of the game, probably the series and maybe even history itself. Tomas Lavoie (another defenseman) scores a short handed knife-to-the-heart-like goal and Anchorage are 5-4 up. We hang on despite another Columbus power play, and Anchorage are one game from the championship. Star man was Vasili Podkolzin, no goals but three assists. Maybe I should overpay him. Game 5 - Columbus Blue Jackets 4 Anchorage Huskies 1 Still no Lucas Karmiris, so we go with the same cobbled together lines. Easten Turko gives Anchorage the lead 13:50 into the first, but Columbus aren't going down easy. Patrik Laine scores in the first to tie it up, Paul Mayer gives them the lead in the second, then Javon Moore and Chaz Lucius add two more in the third and it's all over. It's back to Columbus for game six, and hopefully a return for Karmiris. Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Columbus Blue Jackets 4 Karmiris is back, he's not 100% still from his ear injury but we need him. Who needs ears anyway, other than people who wear glasses. Things start well, Anchorage lead after the first thanks to a Podkolzin goal but Columbus comeback with two in the second. Medvedev with his 13th goal of the playoffs, Logan Cooley with his 6th and we're losing. Riley Steen makes it 3-1 Columbus at the start of the third. David Prudek gets us back into it as 3-2 in the 13th minute but that's the end of it and Lev Medvedev adds another late on and it's all over. Piss and thunder, it's back Anchorage for a damned game seven. This isn't going to end well. Game 7 - Columbus Blue Jackets 1 Anchorage Huskies 4 Every defeat needs a scapegoat, so Tyler Walton gets the blame and he's out the lineup, he's just a useless child. Jakob Karlsson is back in. Within the first minute, Columbus are on a power play. Weston Knox taking a penalty and Anchorage killing the penalty is a theme for the game. 9:56 it's time for another Weston Knox penalty and another successful penalty kill. Late in the first period it's even strength and Anchorage take the lead through Urho Mattila. The first period ends 1-0. Sixteen minutes into the second period and it's 2-0, Urho Mattila again. Three minutes later Columbus are back into it though, Javon Moore with a goal with an assist for former-Husky Yan Kuznetsov. I brought him into the NHL from the Russian league and this is the thanks I get. Into the third period with Anchorage 2-1 up, but 15 seconds in it's Weston Knox time again. This time it's a five minute major for boarding (and probably a suspension to follow). Killing the five minute major is the turning point, back to even strength with the 2-1 lead intact and Henry Mews makes if 3-1. There's still time for another penalty, Kaden Pitre cross-checking puts Columbus back on the power play. It doesn't last long though, Patrik Laine tripping 9 seconds into their power play and it's 4-on-4. 9 seconds later again Jordan Gavin scores to put Anchorage 4-1 up. They think it's all over, it is now. Anchorage win the Stanley Cup. After the game we get the update that Weston Knox is indeed suspended for his boarding, he'll miss the first two games of next season, and Lucas Karmiriis is injured again, he'll be out for 3 months with tendon damage in his heel. I don't think this is from the risk of playing him at less than 100%, I'm not sure how an ear injury can become a heel tendon tear. Well that's a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping we'd lose game 7 to give something to play for next year. Last edited by Critch : 03-25-2023 at 12:46 AM.

03-25-2023, 12:04 AM	#57
Travis Pro Rookie Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Canada eh	Congrats on the Cup! Now can you be one of the few to repeat? __________________ "I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it." - Rogers Hornsby

03-26-2023, 03:31 PM	#60
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2032/2033 Playoffs Normally there's a playoffs section on these Close Season posts detailing what happened after Anchorage were out, but this year we won so no need. I'm sure there was an Anchorage Huskies open top bus tour that left the stadium at 12.00pm, slowly circled Anchorage city center, and got back to the stadium at about 12.15pm. The awards were doled out, Connor McDavid seems to finally be too old to win everything, he's 35 now and is still churning along at way over a point per game pace (47 points in 37 games last season) but is missing a lot of games through injury (nearly 100 games missed over the last two seasons). Now it's Connor Bedard (Vancouver) or Shane Wright (Seattle) who win the Hart Trophy (MVP) and Art Ross Trophy (Most points). This year it's Shane Wright who wins both. Anchorage Huskies win their first ever award, Henry Mews with the Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP), 7 goals and 12 assists and a Plus/Minus of +17 in 24 games. Jordan Gavin (13 goals, 10 assists and +14) would have been my choice, but fair enough. Nothing for me for Exec of the Year or Coach of the Year. Robbed. I also forgot to mention the All-Star game for the last few years, it used to happen every year with no Anchorage players involved until 3 years ago. Sebastian Cossa was chosen in 2031 and 2032, our only invite. This year G Evan Maillet, D Henry Mews and C Jordan Gavin were all chosen. We've finally made it to all-star respectability. Free Agency The original plan was to let Vasili Podkolzin walk as a UFA. He wanted 9+mil per year for 3 years, but he's 32 years old and on the downward slide. We won the Stanley Cup though, and he's team captain so we couldnt let him walk, we've got all those photographs of him lifting the cup all over the stadium and press packs. Luckily his salary request got more reasonable so he's back. $6.5 mil per year for 3 years. He's overpaid, he'll be bottom 6 soon enough, but he's team captain. He had to come back. He used to be a sniper, buzzing about and scoring, but now he's slowed down so he's a power forward using his size and strength instead of speed and acceleration. Out went Tomas Lavoie, he's been a quietly effective defenseman for 6 seasons, but the last two have been injury plagued (missed over 50 regular season games in each season) so he went to free agency and was quickly snapped up by Calgary Flames. Also out went Prokhor Poltapov (he was looking for 6mil per year, way too much), Aleksandr Yeremey (could only play RW and we have too many RW) and Brandon Svoboda (bad back injury has ended his days as an NHL level player), the three of them are still without a team. Coming in are a few rookies, Anchorage draft picks from the last few years. RW Peter Hrovatin (2030 1st round, 7th overall) comes in from the Swedish leagues, he's outspoken but cant speak English, I'm not sure what an angry man shouting in Slovenian will do to team morale. RW August Pettersson (2031 2nd round, 68th overall), he's Swedish and 20 years old, he's been in the Canadian juniors for a while so he does speak English, 73 points in 53 games for Saskatoon last year, hopefully he can step up. LD Owen Conrad, he was picked in the 4th round 2027, so he's old for a rookie, 26 years old. Anchorage have tried to call him up before, but he's been in the KHL (Russian League) and too expensive to buy out his contract for a borderline player. A couple of years playing for the Chinese KHL team Kunlun Red Star then a few years for Amur Khabarovsk and now into the NHL. He'll probably be 3rd pair or 7th defenseman, he's fully developed but not very good. Finally the replacement for Tomas Lavoie, Jiri Mendl returns. He was at Anchorage for one season before moving onto CSKA Moscow for a year. He's back now and will fit into the big gap Tomas Lavoie left. He's a fairly good lower pair defenseman, but looking back through the draft logs he was picked 1st overall the year that Jordan Gavin was picked 4th by us. A rare 1st pick who didnt become a top player. Rookie Draft No picks for us until last pick in the 1st round, the slight downside of being the champions. We get C Enzo Landrey, he'll be stating in the Canadian Juniors for a few years. It's a strong draft, the top two picks look like future all stars. First pick LD Nicholas Bracken goes to the Islanders, and second pick G King Coker goes to Minnesota. King Coker is a great name. The only other action of the off-season is that the Anchorage arena is listed as Poor so in the Annual Budget I set aside $36 million to improve the arena, spend the Stanley Cup Windfall on improvements. When I advance to the next month the arena has improved to "Average" but it cost $112.5mil. I'm not sure if that's a bug or a fair simulation of how much builders go over budget. Anyway, the finances are hosed for a while. Last edited by Critch : 03-26-2023 at 03:34 PM.

03-28-2023, 02:22 PM	#66
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2033/34 Free Agency The problem with doing well in the playoffs is that everybody thinks they're integral and deserve to be paid big, so this is a summer for not affording to pay everybody. Jordan Gavin gets his increase, Lucas Karmiris gets his increase, Kaden Pitre gets his increase and there's not a whole lot left to pay the rest. It's time to say goodbye to Paul Mayer, Matthew Paranych, Weston Knox, Urho Mattila, Rick Claycomb and Evan Maillet (plus a few other nobodies), and try to fill the gaps with rookies and retreads. I'm starting to think giving 6.5mil per year to the crumbling husk of team captain Vasili Podkolzin wasnt a great plan. First issue is our goaltending, last year's starter Evan Maillet is gone so we're down to only one goalie, 22-year old Lucas Wall. Wall has played 28 games in 3 seasons for Anchorage, it's now his time to be full time starter but he still thinks of himself as a backup. It's time to sign him up to a long contract while he still thinks he's a backup. His 750k entry level contract ends at the end of this season, but he re-ups for 1.5mil per year for the next three years. So we're cheap and secure in goal for 4 years, so long as his "vulnerable" injury rating chest and arms doesn't kick in. We get a cheap backup (former Arizona Coyotes backup, current Arizona Coyotes cast off Thomas Kiesewetter) and a cheaper emergency option (former Anchorage prospect Viljar Tveit) and we're good in net. In defense we lost a few starters (Knox, Mayer and Paranych) so we have spaces, they're all filled with prospects from within. We still have Mews, Gillespie, Turko and Mendl so it's really a bottom pairing we're looking for. Welcome to 4 2.5 star rated youngsters, 20 year old Matt Leader, 23 year old John Fireman, 21 year old Johan Dahlberg and the positively ancient 26 year old Alfred Hansson. They've all been in the Anchorage system for a few years (other than Leader, he came in from Boston on a trade last year), and a few of them will be getting big team jobs this year. For the forwards we're in a good place. Only Mattila, Claycomb and a couple of backups went, incoming is 2032 no2 overall pick RW Borje Svensson from the Swedish League and RW Jorgen Palm returning from injury. So we're set. The problem is next summer looks to be the same routine, players needing paid or shipped out. It's time to do something drastic. One of the players looking for a big increase to re-sign next summer is Emil Hemming, he's got one more year of 7.5mil and he wants 10mil per year to return. He's played 520 games for Anchorage, 102 goals, 202 assists, he's the defensive right winger on our top line. We brought in one top RW prospect this year (Svensson), two last year (Pettersson and Hrovatin) and Palm is returning from injury, do we really need a good but expensive top line right wing? The decision is made when I see Urho Mattila is sitting on free agency and he's now returning calls and saying he'd love to play for his favorite team again for a reasonable 3.6mil per year for 3 years. So Hemming is out, he goes to the Flyers for next to nothing (it seems no matter what you're trying to shift the AI offers a 4th and a terrible prospect or a 6th and a not quite as terrible but still longshot prospect), and Urho Mattila is signed. Unfortunately he's spent the summer getting fat on whatever Finnish people eat (seals and vodka?) and he shows up too unfit to play, but at least he's back where he's supposed to be. 2033/34 Rookie Draft We have all our own picks, 35th in each round, so anybody half decent will be long gone by the time even our first pick comes around. For the first time since the dynasty started there's a prospect who would come straight into the NHL as a top player. C Jerry Megna is 18 years old, 4.0 current 5.0 potential rated, and scored 106 points in 60 games for Spokane Chiefs in the Western Hockey League, somebody is getting an instant top 6 center, he's better than Beddard was in the first draft. I dont think I've seen anybody with a better than 2.5 current rating in the draft before. First pick is St Louis and they don't pick him, they go for a 1.0 current 5.0 potential 18 year old Russian defenseman Dmitry Partasov, drafting for needs I guess. Megna goes number 2 to Arizona, he's already listed as their best center so we'll see how he does. For Anchorage's picks, we go unintentionally multinational. I didn't notice til I looked over them now but we picked 8 players from 8 different countries. First round is a Polish goalie Chwalislaw Janiszewski, then a Canadian Center Spencer Ecclestone in round 2, followed by a Lithuanian, a Dane, a Swiss, a Finn, an American, and a Kazakh. Nobody who'll be mentioned again for a year or two. And with that we're back to pre-season games. Doesn't the time fly by? It seems like the Stanley Cup was just yesterday. Last edited by Critch : 03-28-2023 at 02:28 PM.

03-23-2023, 03:21 PM	#52
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	Oooh, a dynasty that's made it to page 2. I'm not sure I've ever done a dynasty that made it to page 2. Before the playoffs start, here are a couple of things I've forgot to mention. When I checked the stats last year it turned out the Anchorage powerplay was scoring at 14.0%, dead last in the NHL. I made a few changes for this season, and I've made a point of making sure I update the PP lines for injuries and the powerplay is now at 20.0% and 11th in the league. Much more acceptable. And the other thing I forgot is the season's lines, so here's what the plan is for the playoffs: 1st Line - Lucas Karmiris/Jordan Gavin/Emil Hemming - a change mid-season when Vasili Podkolzin dropped off the first line for Hemming. With Jordan Gavin role changing to Speedy Forward ("A forward whose main contribution to the team is getting up ice very quickly") the first line was too attacking. They were as likely to give up a goal as score a goal, they all had negative +/-. Hemming replaced Podkolzin as he's a more defensive forward and it's worked so far. Hemming will be missing the first game, he got a 8 game suspension with 7 regular season games remaining, he smooshed a Blackhawk player all over the boards. (Yes autospell, I meant smoosh, he didn't get a penalty for smooching a Blackhawk player) 2nd Line - Urho Mattila/Oskar Vuollet/Vasili Podkolzin - Podkolzin down to add some scoring to this line, hopefully. He's had an OK season but the scoring has dropped off, seven seasons of 20+ goals for Anchorage until this year, 17 this year. He'll be 32 by next season, he's started showing up on the monthly dev report with negative changes, and he's looking for $8.5 per year for 3 years to re-sign, so he'll be leaving after the playoffs. Unless we win the Stanley Cup, you've got to keep the gang together for another year if you win the Stanley Cup. Mattila has had a good but injury disrupted year, and Vuollet is the holding pivot that lets Mattila and Podkolzin concentrate on attack. 3rd Line - David Prudek/Kaden Pitre/Jorgen Palm - The PPP line from last year's playoffs is back, but it's now Prudek instead of Poltapov. Still big guys, still defensive, if anything Prudek is meaner than Poltapov despite being a youngster. 4th Line - Jeff Martin/Nicholas Moldenhauer/Prokhor Poltapov - Jeff Martin (no.1 prospect in the league apparently) has been getting his taste of NHL life on the 4th line, but next year he'll be top six. He's more of a power forward than a skill player. Moldenhauer got his place when Svoboda season, and probably NHL career, came to an end with injury. Poltapov is just getting a jersey til he leaves in the summer. He's had a good season, but he's a bottom 6 forward and he wants $6.5mil to re-sign, he'll be in the KHL this time next year. 1st Pair - Weston Knox/Henry Mews - Mews has been our star defender for years, and Knox has great chemistry with him so they're the standard top pair. Mews floats around passing and setting up attacks, Knox does all the hard work covering, or springing forward when needed. 2nd Pair - Easten Turko/Tomas Lavoie - another steady pairing, Turko has stepped up after signing his new contract, glad I didn't dump him last summer. I think his problem last year was a game problem, he was defensive forward so didn't score, didn't get assists so his Game Rating was always poor. The Game Ratings are unbalanced, goalies always get better ratings than Forwards, who always get better ratings than Defensemen. Now he's playing as a two-way defenseman he's looking better. Tomas Lavoie has been around for ever, but hes a free agent and wants a big raise to stay so might be coming to his end in Anchorage. 3rd Pair - Matthew Paranych/Jackson Gillespie - Matthew Paranych was a waiver pickup from Toronto at the start of the season and he's been fine on a league minimum wage. Jackson Gillespie? Why am I paying a mediocre third pair D $3.7 per year for the next three years? Is it just because he has a cool name? (Yes) Goalies - Evan Maillet and Lucas Wall - This is the cost cutting section of the team, both are on $750k per year. Maillet is on his last NHL chance, Wall with his rookie contract. Lucas Wall has the better star rating (he's slowly increased to 4.0 over the season) but he's happy with his playing time after 7 games in half a season so even he doesnt think he's ready to be full time starter. If Maillet doesnt perform, it might be Wall's time. 2032/33 Playoffs Round 1 - San Jose Sharks It was the San Jose Sharks who ended Anchorage's hopes last year when they put us out 4-1 in the second round, they are now listed on the Anchorage Huskies detail page as "potential rivals". All my homies hate the San Jose Sharks. It's a one-way thing though, their detail page says their rivals are Anaheim and LA Kings, it doesn't mention the Huskies at all. Anchorage played them twice in the regular season and won both, 4-3 at San Jose, 5-2 at home. Anchorage will have home advantage. Game 1 - San Jose Sharks 1 Anchorage Huskies 4 Anchorage come out the gates flying, outshoot San Jose 18-5 in the first and go in 2-0 up with goals from Jeff Martin after 3:04 and Oskar Vuollet (9:03). Second period is more balanced, but David Prudek adds to the lead early on and we're into the third period with a 3-0 lead. San Jose pull one back midway through the third, but an empty net goal from Urho Mattila ends it. Goalie Evan Maillet is super solid, saving 30 of 31 shots, rookie David Prudek is star of the game with a goal and an assist. Game 2 - San Jose Sharks 3 Anchorage Huskies 0 Good news is Emil Hemming is back from his suspension and into the top line, bad news is Weston Knox is missing with a sore knee, listed day-to-day. Jackson Gillespie moves up to partner Mews on the top pair, time to earn his silly salary, rookie Steve Peters comes into the third pair. First period is even and scoreless, but San Jose score 3 in a burst in the middle of the second period and it's all over. Last year we won the first game against San Jose, then lost the next four. Hope this isnt history repeating itself. We're off to San Jose with the series tied. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 San Jose Sharks 4 Weston Knox still has a sore knee, but he can be risked so he comes in. Gillespie and Mews were terrible in the last game, so we have to risk it. Vuollet puts Anchorage up in the first, but San Jose score 3 in the second period again and it's all over. Maillet lets in 4 goals on 28 shots, .857 save percentage. Is it Lucas Wall's time to shine? Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 5 San Jose Sharks 2 Evan Maillet stays in, 2-1 down seems a bit early to panic and throw in an injury prone 21 year old backup with 13 NHL game experience. Anchorage come out like they mean it, outshoot San Jose 16-9, but fall behind in the last minute of the period to a power play goal. Confusingly the San Jose player who scores has a name very similar to mine so I think I've scored for them til I double check. He does it again in the second to put them 2-0 up, but that's when the game turns. Kaden Pitre gets us on the board and back into it, Henry Mews ties it up, Kaden Pitre scores again to give us the lead, then Vuollet makes it 4-2 before the midpoint of the second period. The only scoring in the third is a late empty net goal for Emil Hemming and we're back to Anchorage tied. I knew leaving Evan Maillet in was a smart move... Game 5 - San Jose Sharks 2 Anchorage Huskies 0 Well this blows. We're outshot in all three periods, San Jose score twice in the second, and we're on the verge of being knocked out. Since boasting about the improvements in the power play, Anchorage are 0-10 in this series. Back to San Jose to try and save the series. Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 San Jose Sharks 1 What's this? We're still alive? We didn't collapse under the stress? That's not like us. San Jose go into the lead 7:43 into the first, Calum Ritchie scores again for them, guy is getting on my nerves, but late on in the first the Anchorage power play comes alive, Jordan Gavin gets his first (and the power plays first) goal of the series. Urho Mattila puts Anchorage 2-1 up two minutes into the second period and that's the end of the scoring. It's a goalie duel, Maillet saves 29 of 30 shots, their guy Dylan Silverstein saves 33 of 35 and it's all got low scoring, tense and playoff-like all of a sudden. Since I briefly thought about dropping Maillet he's saved 73 of 78 shots and kept us in the series. Back to Anchorage for a decider. Game 7 - San Jose Sharks 1 Anchorage Huskies 7 Third line center Kaden Pitre will be missing the game with a day-to-day injury, so it's a third line shake-up. Polpatov moves from right wing to center, Jorgen Palm comes back into right wing. He was dropped early in the series for playing like a 6'8'' giraffe on ice. Things get off to a good start, Henry Mews with a power play goal after 3:08, Oskar Vuollet makes it 2-0 after 6:53, then adds another after 14:15. Shots are level 10-10 after the first, but we're 3-0 up. Second period goes much the same way, we have 12 shots but score 3 more. Lucas Karmiris (2:16), Jordan Gavin with another powerplay goal after 11:27, Oskar Vuollet finishes his hattrick after 17:21. The hats raining down on the ice give San Jose time to pull their goalie, but it's all over. Vasili Podkolzin makes it 7-0 early in the third before that knob Calum Ritchie scores his 5th goal of the series, but it's just a late consolation. We're through to round 2. Wonder if San Jose still think we're not their rivals? Next up we're facing the division's #1 seed Los Angeles Kings. I got a little popup Steam achievement for winning a 7 game series after being 3-2 down.

03-24-2023, 09:05 AM	#53
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2032/33 Playoffs Round 2 - Los Angeles Kings LA Kings have been the alpha dog of the Pacific Division for a good few years, they've won the division 4 of the last 5 years (Anchorage won the other, Kings finished second that year), they've made the playoffs each of the last 7 years, and 9 of the last 10. They won the division with 118 points this year, and cruised through the first round of the playoffs beating Winnipeg in 4 games. So they'll be tough. Anchorage played them three times in the regular season, won 5-4 in Anchorage in September, but lost 5-3 in LA and 3-0 at home since then. So, as I said, they'll be tough. Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 6 Los Angeles Kings 0 Kaden Pitre is still out, so the team is exactly the same as the one that hammered San Jose in game 7. And it's a similar result too, the second time in a row our oppenent has had to pull the starting goalie in the second period. Anchorage edge the first period and go ahead after 17:38 with a Matthew Paranych goal. Right before the end of the period Kirill Kaprizov (it's far enough in the future that a real player is getting to be a novelty, even if he's not at his real life team anymore) is penalized for slashing. The first ends with Anchorage 1-0 up, but Anchorage start the second period on the powerplay and go 2-0 with a goal from Vasili Podkolzin. It sets the tone for the second period, Anchorage dominate, 20 shots and 3 more goals. Easten Turko, Oskar Vuollet, Jordan Gavin and the game is in the bag, 5-0 after 2 periods. Easten Turko adds another at the start of the third and it's game over. Evan Maillet stops all 23 shots he faced, glad I didnt drop him. Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Los Angeles Kings 1 The injuries are adding up. Kaden Pitre (facial injury) and Emil Hemming (hand soreness) can play but aren't 100%, David Prudek (chest injury) and Jackson Gillespie (broken toe) will both be missing though. I decide to risk Pitre but let Hemming rest, you can't really make a facial laceration worse by playing I guess, but a hand can get sore-er. That's the logic. Los Angeles go 1-0 up in the first, Kasper Simontaival scores, he's a player with a day-to-day injury that LA are risking too. Kaden Pitre makes it a good day for players with owies by tying it up in the second with a powerplay goal, Lucas Karmiris makes it 2-1 19:25 into the second period. Jordan Gavin makes it 3-1 early in the third and that's the end of it, back to Anchorage with a 2-0 lead and two games won on the road. Game 3 - Los Angeles Kings 3 Anchorage Huskies 2 Overtime Emil Hemming, David Prudek and Jackson Gillespie are all still out, but Kaden Pitre is now 100%. It's the 1st of the month so we get the monthly development report prior to the game, both Poltapov and Podkolzin have negative numbers on it so that's the nail in the coffin for their chances for new contracts. With Jackson Gillespie out, Steve Peters stays in the team, he has the distinction of being the first and only Anchorage Huskies player to actually be from Anchorage. The only player to be happy when Anchorage drafted him (4th round, 2028). Lucas Karmiris makes it 1-0 Anchorage in the 1st, Cross Hanas ties it up in the second, Jorgen Palms gives Anchorage a brief lead in the third, William Zellers ties it up during 4-on-4 play (one of LA's top players Quinton Byfield and Tomas Lavoie get coincidental minors), then it's off to overtime. Anchorage dominate overtime but lose anyway when Michael Burchill scores the winner after 15:25. So close to a 3-0 lead. Game 4 - Los Angeles Kings 3 Anchorage Huskies 4 Overtime The good news is Emil Hemming is back. Aleksandr Yeremey is also back, he's been out 3 months with a Grade II Concusion so he's short on game time and a free agent after the season, so he's probably not going to play for Anchorage again, but nice that he's back. LA Kings lead 1-0 after the first period, Brady Wassink scoring seconds after coming out the penalty box. Henry Mews scores an unassisted goal 28 seconds into the second, but Gavin Cornforth puts LA back ahead at the midpoint of the second. Jeff Martin ties it up again and we go into the third tied 2-2. At 13:16 of the third, Anchorage's own Steve Peters puts Anchorage ahead with all his friends and family probably in the stands, but Gavin Cornforth ties it up again and we're off to overtime again. This time it's a happier ending, LA's Rick Claycomb is called for tripping and Anchorage make them pay when Lucas Karmiris scores a powerplay goal 20 seconds later. We're heading back off to LA with a chance to finish them off. Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Los Angeles Kings 2 Overtime The injuries are clearing up, Jackson Gillespie is available but not quite 100%, so we'll keep Anchorage's own Steve Peters in the lineup instead. LA Kings come out strong, they edge the first period and take a 1-0 lead, Colton Alain after 4:49. Second period is much the same, LA Kings edge the period and score, it's 2-0 after 5:58 on a goal from Michael Risteau. The third period changes completely, Anchorage dominate LA, it's now or never, if you dont count the other two chances. After 4:56 Oskar Vuollet sets up Urho Mattila to score and we're right back in it. After 13:20 Colton Alain and Weston Knox go to the penalty box for coincidental roughing minors and it's 4-on-4. Less than a minute later Oskar Vuollet sets up Urho Mattila again and it's all tied up. No more scoring after we kill off a late LA powerplay and we're off to overtime for the third game in a row. It doesnt take long, 6:30 into the first overtime period and Jordan Gavin scores an unassisted goal and we're off to the Western Conference Final. So onto the Western Conference Finals and it'll be Anchorage Huskies v Colorado Avalanche. Colorado beat Seattle 4-1 after Seattle upset the reigning champion St Louis Blues in the first round. In the East it'll be Ottawa v Columbus in the conference Final. Racking up the achievements this year, just got a "Upset! Win a playoff series against a team that finished ahead of you in the regular season" popup.

03-24-2023, 03:21 PM	#54
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2032/33 Playoffs Western Conference Finals - Colorado Avalanche Colorado started this dynasty as the superpower of NHL, a fairly unrealistically good 145 points in the the first season then over 100 points every year and a championship in 2026/27, only 127 points that year though. They lost the conference final the year after, but it's been downhill since then, this is their first season into the playoffs after missing out the last three years. They still have a couple of the stars, Miko Rantanen is still there rated 5.0 as a 36 year old and Cale Makar 34 years old and 4.0. I've just been reading somebody on reddit complaining about FHM having players go downhill when they hit 29, these two seem to dispute that. They've got a few good younger players too, 26 year old LW Jett Luchanko (4.5), 24yo C Ezedine Kamoga (4.0) and 26yo G Damen Baxter (4.0), so they're still a good team if not the dominant team they used to be. We'll have the home advantage for this round. We finished with 108 points, they finished with 98. We played them three times in the regular season, lost one (2-1 at Colorado) then won two (5-4 and 4-3 in Anchorage). Game 1 - Colorado Avalanche 0 Anchorage Huskies 1 Vasili Podkolzin is out, he'll be gone for a few weeks with a hand injury, hopefully not the end of his long Anchorage career, but David Prudek is back from the injury that made him miss the last few games of the LA Kings series. Anchorage go 1-0 up eight minutes into the first period, Urho Mattila with assists for Oskar Vuollet and David Prudek, and that's the end of the scoring. We're on top most of the game, out shoot Colorado 37-22, but no more scoring. Colorado get back to back power plays in the second period but they're both killed and we lead the series 1-0. Game 2 - Colorado Avalanche 2 Anchorage Huskies 4 No new injuries so we roll in with the same lines as the last game, and it doesn't take long to get a lead. Henry Mews makes it 1-0 Anchorage after 38 seconds. It doesn't last long, Mew's line partner Weston Knox gets called for holding and Colorado tie the game up with a power play goal. Old man Cale Makar with the goal and it's 1-1 after the first period. Anchorage start the second period almost as quickly as the first, Jeff Martin scores after 46 seconds. Justin Robidas quickly ties it with a goal and it's 2-2 middle of the second. Henry Mews scores again after 13:20 to put Anchorage ahead 3-2 and Jordan Gavin makes it 4-2 90 second later and that's the end of the scoring, game's in the bag. Anchorage now 2-0 up and heading to Colorado. Over in the East, Ottawa have a 2-0 series lead too. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Colorado Avalanche 3 Well we had our chance to go 3-0 up in this one, but it slipped away. Anchorage totally dominated Colorado in the first two period (outshot them 17-5 and 16-5), had a 2-0 lead at the midpoint of the second (Emil Hemming scored in the first, Matthew Paranych in the second), and led 2-1 going into the third period (Charlie Michaud scored for Colorado). Cale Makar turned the game with two goals in the third period, a power play goal after 2:35 and then the winner after 17:17. Anchorage managed to lose despite doubling up Colorado 44-22 on shots, Damen Baxter saved 42 of the 44 shots he faced. In the last series I mentioned that the Anchorage power play didnt have a goal and they instantly started scoring, so I'm going to try it again. The Anchorage power play hasn't scored a goal this series (on an admittedly limited number of chances, I think we've had 2 through 3 games) Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 6 Colorado Avalanche 1 In the last game Anchorage dominated the shooting, this game they dominated the goals instead. Jordan Gavin started the scoring for Anchorage 5:56 into the first, but the first period ended tied when Colorado's Ethan Fines scored a power play goal with 3 seconds to go. Weston Knox put Anchorage ahead after 51 seconds of the second, Jakob Karlsson (the backup in to replace Vasili Podkolzin) made it 3-1 after 3:31, Jordan Gavin made it 4-1 after 7:34 and it's 4-1 at the end of the second. Into the third Kaden Pitre made it 5-1 with a power play goal after 2:15 (calling out the power play worked again), Tomas Lavoie made it 6-1 with three minutes to go and it was game over other than Henry Mews fighting Gabriel L'Etoile late on. I'm sure there's a button somewhere to tell players not to fight, Henry Mews is too precious to the team to have him hurting his knuckles. Back to Anchorage 3-1 up and only needing one win to clinch a Stanley Cup place. Game 5 - Colorado Avalanche 2 Anchorage Huskies 3 Overtime The good people of Anchorage are so excited by the prospect of a Stanley Cup team that they very nearly sell out the stadium. Not quite, but within a few hundred. Maybe a thousand. Colorado take an early lead with a power play goal from Gabriel L'Etoile (Nicholas Moldenhauer with a tripping penalty, he was signed to be a backup, the 5th center and he's playing like he should be our backup, 5th center). Emil Hemming brings Anchorage back even after 16:25 and Jakob Karlsson (still in for the injured Vasili Podkolzin) gives Anchorage the lead after 18:08 of the first. Midway through the second period Colorado get another power play goal, this one from Philippe Veilleux (he's from Quebec, the name gives it away). Colorado have been getting a lot of power plays, it's all that's keeping them in it, this one is for too many men on the ice. Probably that Moldenhauer jumping early. No scoring in the third and we're off to overtime and just a sudden death goal away from the Stanley Cup final. Anchorage take over in overtime, out shoot them 13-4 in almost 13 minutes play and Lucas Karmiris scores after 12:52, assists from Gavin and Hemming. Anchorage are off to the Stanley Cup Final. It will be Anchorage against Columbus in the Stanley Cup Final, the Blue Jackets fought back from 0-2 down to take a 3-2 series lead over Ottawa, it went to 3-3 and Columbus won game 7 4-0 on the road to clinch the Eastern Conference championship. I'm not sure how home advantage is decided in the Stanley Cup Final, but we had more regular season points (108 to 107) so hopefully that's how it's decided. Well I wasn't expecting this.

03-25-2023, 10:43 AM	#59
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	Pics or it didn't happen. FHM didn't have a preset logo that looked like a husky so I went as close as they had as a placeholder til I found a husky one, but now I quite like it. It's a jackal. The game says the three stars are Podkolzin who returned from injury to turn the series, Gavin who's goals made all the difference, and Wall who was the backup goalie and didnt play a minute in any playoff game. One of the three might be seen as a controversial choice.

03-27-2023, 05:43 PM	#61
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2033/34 Regular Season Lines Forwards 1st Line - LW Lucas Karmiris (4.5), C Jordan Gavin (5.0), RW Emil Hemming (3.5) - It's the way we ended last season, Podkolzin dropping down to the second line for Emil Hemming 2nd Line - LW Urho Mattila (3.5), C Oskar Vuollet (3.5), RW Vasili Podkolzin (3.0) - Vuollet and Mattila are the quiet stars of the team, both underpaid really. Then there's Podkolzin who's past his best and overpaid. 3rd Line - LW Jeff Martin (3.0), C Kaden Pitre (3.0), RW Jorgen Palm (2.5) - Jeff Martin may be the rookie hope for the future (although worryingly the Anchorage scouts dont like him as much as the national concencus) but he's a hitty boy so he's on the third line. Podkolzin re-signing got in the way of his ascension to a top 6 forward. Pitre and Palm have been staples on the third line for a couple of years, but they're both on expiring contracts and looking to be paid in the summer. 4th Line - LW David Prudek (2.5), C Nicholas Mouldenhauer (2.5), RW Peter Hrovatin (3.0) or August Pettersson (3.0) - Prudek moves to his prefered left wing, Mouldenhauer could be replaced at any moment if I had anybody, and right wing is two rookies splitting time waiting to take Jorgen Palm's place when he realizes he's not getting a new contract in the summer. Defense 1st Pair - LD Weston Knox (3.0) RD Henry Mews (4.0) - our set top line. 2nd Pair - LD Easten Turko (2.5), RD Jiri Mendl (3.0) - Turko gets a chance to step up to more minutes on the second line, Mendl returns from a year in Moscow and has never lived up to his reputation. If things go wrong, it'll be because of this pair. 3rd Pair - LD Matthew Paranych (2.5), RD Jackson Gillespie (2.5) - The leftovers. I'm not sure how, but Gillespie always churns out a solid +/- and a high assists/60 mins. Netminders Evan Maillet (3.0), Lucas Wall (4.0) - They're both seriously underpaid on 750k each, Maillet expires after this season and Wall after next. My cunning plan is to leave Maillet as starter this season, let him walk in the summer and then offer Wall an extension in the hope that he will sign for cheap because he's never been a regular starter. He may have better ratings but he's only 21 and Maillet always performs at least as well. Money is going to be tight next offseason (Gavin, Karmiris, Pitre, Matilla, Knox all expiring and looking for payrises), so we need Wall to sign on the cheap, Maillet is already looking for 6mil per year so he's priced himself out. Preseason Preseason ends with a 4-3 record and with a couple of moves. RW Jakob Karlsson goes to Boston for a low prospect, and C Dylan Nolan is picked up from Buffalo to challenge Nicholas Mouldenhauer for the 4th Center spot. Spoiler, he doesnt, he's even worse. Karlsson went because we're overloaded with RW, I'm not sure if it's realistic with real world hockey, but our RW seem to be less adaptable than other forwards. Most Left Wing can play Right Wing too, most Centers can play left and/or right wing, Right wing can play Right Wing and nothing else, so he's not a good adaptable backup that can fit in where needed, so he's surplus. Regular Season For the regular season itself, it's a weird one. Anchorage start slowly, a quarter of the way through the season they're in 8th place in the 9 team division and have a losing record. The only good thing is nobody is dominating, nobody is getting too far ahead of us. It's parity gone mad, everybody hanging close to each other except for the terrible Anaheim Ducks falling away in last place. It's not until the end of December that Anchorage finally break into the top half of the division and in the playoff hunt, but with nobody dominating 'in the playoff hunt' means 'not far off the top of the division'. A solid run messed up a little by injuries (a run on left wingers means we play a few games with a defenseman in left wing) and Anchorage are safely tucked into the playoff positions and challenging Calgary for the Division. Coming into the last two weeks, Anchorage are top of the division by 3 points and seem to have it all locked up, but they lose 5 games in a row to finish the season (not helped by Henry Mews being out injured) and drop into 2nd, Calgary clinch it. It was strange, it didnt feel as dominant as last season but still ended with over 100 points for the 4th season in a row, 49-30-3 for 101 points. Jordan Gavin was, as usual, the star. 35 goals, 40 assists for 71 points, a little off last year's pace but still team leader. Kaden Pitre showed he wanted a new contract by scoring 30 from the third line, the first Anchorage player other than Gavin to make 30 in a season. It's the usual core from then on, Emil Hemming with 43 points, Lucas Karmiris with 50, Oskar Vuollet with 40, Henry Mews with 38 despite missing 22 games. New names carrying the team are Jeff Martin (bounced around all over the lineup to cover injuries but still managed 12 goals, 31 assists in 81 game, plus lead the team in hits) and David Prudek (40 points as a bottom 6 forward). Vasili Podkolzin took his 6.5 mil salary and got down to the business of retiring on ice, he's dropped off massively and only managed 6 goals all season. The only season nearly as bad was Jorgen Palm, and that wasnt his fault. He missed almost all of it with a fractured skull, he'll be missing the playoffs too. For the Pacific Division, Calgary won with 103 points, Anchorage 2nd with 101, Seattle 3rd with 100. Both the wildcard will come from the Pacific too, Edmonton and Vancouver both with 96 points. Bad news for San Jose, their 95 points was only good enough for 6th place and no playoffs. LA Kings fell off a cliff and went from champs to 8th. Elsewhere Nashville got 114 points to win the Central division and the President's Trophy too. They'll be joined by Chicago Blackhawks (first playoffs of the dynasty) and Atlanta. In the East the division winners were Toronto and it's finally the return of the post-Ovi Washington Capitals. Yay! First round of the playoffs, Anchorage will have home advantage against Seattle. The defense of the championship is still alive.

03-27-2023, 08:07 PM	#62
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2033/34 Playoffs Round 1 - Seattle Kraken A few years ago Seattle swept us in the first round of the playoffs, so anything other than being swept is an improvement. One thing with the divisional playoffs is that we see the same teams a lot in the first two rounds Game 1 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 4 Well it's better than last time already. The game is tied at 0-0 after 15 minutes of the first period, it's 2-0 Anchorage a minute later. Kaden Pitre with the first, Henry Mews with the second both with primary assists from Vasili Podkolzin, rumors of his demise were premature. It's 3-0 in the second with a goal from Oskar Vuollet, this time with no Podkolzin involvement. Two goals in a minute from Seattle late in the second period, one of them from their star player Shane Wright, and the game is back in the balance. Anchorage hang on though, Kaden Pitre adds a late empty net goal and we're 1-0 up in the series. Seattle outshot Anchorage 31-21, but Evan Maillet saved 29 of the 31 he faced to get the win. Game 2 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 3 Overtime Two periods go by scoreless, Anchorage outshot them 16-4 in the first and 14-7 in the second so well in control despite the lack of a breakthrough. The breakthrough finally comes at 4:16 of the third, Henry Mews with an unassisted goal. That lead doesn't last though, Seattle tie it up within a minute (Kyril Baranok at 4:59) and then take the lead (Luka Misa 9:47). Seattle are heading for an undeserved win but Jordan Gavin ties it up with a late goal and we're off to overtime. Overtime doesn't last long, Lucas Karmiris scores after 71 seconds to send the fans home happy. Off to Seattle with a 2-0 series lead. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Seattle Kraken 0 Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Urho Matilla makes it 1-0 in the first, Peter Hrovatin and Weston Knox make it 3-0 after the second, and the win is in the back. Goalie Evan Maillet saves all 20 shots he faced for a shutout and we're 3-0 up in the series. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Seattle Kraken 1 Same again and it's a first ever Anchorage sweep, Seattle swept Anchorage in the 2030/31 playoffs so time to return the favor. Rick Claycomb puts Anchorage up in the first, he's the 4th line center who replaced the guy who replaced Moldenhauer. He's a UFA after this season so a half season rental. Jordan Gavin makes it 2-0 at the end of the first and it's one foot in the second round. There's only one goal in the second, Matty Beniers pulls Seattle back into the game, but that's as close as they get and Urho Mattila adds a late empty net goal and round one safely navigated. I need to find some way of fitting a new contract for Urho Mattila into the budget. So off to the second round, it'll be Calgary next up, they got past Edmonton in seven games. It's Nashville v Chicago for the Central. In the East it's Quebec against Montreal and Washington against NY Rangers. Washington got past Pittsburgh in the first round.

03-27-2023, 09:43 PM	#63
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2033/34 Playoffs Round 2 - Calgary Flames Time to get reacquainted with former long time (in Huskies sense) Huskies defenseman Tomas Lavoie, he's had a good season since signing as a UFA with Calgary. They've also got an Alexandre Lavoie, don't know if he's a relation of Tomas plus the star man, 26 year old LW Jakub Moravec. He's on the last year of a 3.8mil per year contract but he's signed an extension for 11.4 per year. A sign of how quickly his star has risen. They also have RW Nathan Lecompte, 79 points in 76 games this season. Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Calgary Flames 6 Not a good start, Calgary jump out to a 3-0 lead after the first period. It's 5-0 in the middle of the second before Weston Knox pulls one back for "the good guys". Calgary add a 6th in the third period and it's an easy win. Despite the lopsided scoreline the shots were close, Calgary outshot Anchorage 31-29, not a good day for Evan Maillet in goal for Anchorage. Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Calgary Flames 3 Overtime Calgary take the lead in the first from Louis-Francois Belanger, he scored a few goals for Calgary in the playoffs when we played them in 2031/23, I thought I recognized the name. Kaden Pitre (with an extension to stay with Anchorage for the next 3 years freshly signed) tied it up and we're all square at the end of the first. Alexandre Lavoie made it 2-1 Calgary with an assist from the traitor Tomas Lavoie, then Calgary star men Moravec and Lecompte combine to make it 3-1, Moravec with the assist Lecompte with the goal. Emil Hemming gets his first of the playoffs at the end of the second period and we go into the third trailing by one. Urho Mattila ties the game up in the third, I still need to find some way to pay him but he's really looking for a big payday. Off to overtime we go. The last time Paul Mayer was mentioned in this dynasty was last year when he was the 6'4'' Columbus Blue Jackets defender that Podkolzin fought to kickstart the Huskies. Now he's a Huskies player and he scores the OT goal to snatch game 2, the big German has redeemed himself. Game 3 - Calgary Flames 0 Anchorage Huskies 8 Well this time we score early and we score often. First period sees goals from Kaden Pitre (4:37), Jordan Gavin (8:22), Rick Claycomb (18:10), Emil Hemming (18:59) and August Pettersson (19:57) and we're 5-0 up on 8 shots. We go even further ahead in the second, Kaden Pitre again (4:19) and Henry Mews (8:55) and it's 7-0 after two periods. Lucas Karmiris adds one in the third and it's all over. While Anchorage goalie Evan Malliet saved all 20 shots he faced, Calgary pair Leland Griffith and Kim Saarinen combined to concede 8 goals on 19 shots. It's a good day to be a Husky forward. Game 4 - Calgary Flames 1 Anchorage Huskies 3 Anchorage take command in the series, now only one win away from a return to the Western Conference final. First highlight for the Anchorage fans is when former Husky Tomas Lavoie takes a minor penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct in the first, it doesnt lead to anything though. Jordan Gavin puts the Huskies ahead 13:02 into the first. The second passes uneventfully and we're into the third. Calgary equalize early in the third, Kenneth Hammill at 2:31, but 90 seconds later Anchorage are back into the lead with a goal from Rick Claycomb. Jordan Gavin adds a third as the clock ticks to zero and Anchorage are into a 3-1 lead. Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Calgary Flames 4 Early bad news for Anchorage as Jordan Gavin tweaks his back in training and he'll be missing the game. That needs a bit of line shuffling to replace our star center but it works out ok early, Dylan Nolan scores 16:48 into the first period. He'd have been the healthy scratch if Gavin was available. In the second period Kenneth Hamill ties it up for Calgary before Rick Claycomb puts Anchorage back in front. Like Dylan Nolan, Rick Claycomb was brought in to challenge Nicholas Moldenhauer for his place as 4th line center, but now all three are playing. Nicholas Moldenhauer gets a 5 minute penalty for fighting along with Calgary star man Jakub Moravec. We go into the third period 2-1 up, but Colton Roberts equalizes for Calgary and it's all square with 2.5 minutes to go. Anchorage's Paul Mayer, hero of game 2 overtime, gets called for a slashing penalty, Kenneth Hamill puts Calgary 3-2 up after 18:04, then Kenneth Hamill finishes off his hattrick with an empty net goal and we're back to Anchorage still needing another game to end the series. Game 6 - Calgary Flames 1 Anchorage Huskies 6 Oh-oh, Gavin is still out and now Henry Mews is out too. Mews has a Latissimus Dorsi strain and he'll be gone a week or two, done for this series anyway. It's a big muscle in your back/side, I had to google it. For the second time this series, Anchorage jump all over Calgary early and it's 5-0 after the first. Oskar Vuollet, Lucas Karmiris, Jeff Martin, Rick Claycomb and Lucas Karmiris again and it's game over when it's only just begun. Louis-Francois Belanger pulls one back in the second but Lucas Karmiris completes his hattrick and it's 6-1 going into the third. The third passes without incident and Anchorage are off to back-to-back Conference finals. In the other series Chicago Blackhawks came back from 3-2 down in the series to beat Nashville, so they're next up. Anchorage will have home advantage. Over in the Eastern Conference it'll be New York Rangers against Quebec Nordiques.

03-27-2023, 11:51 PM	#64
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2033/34 Playoffs Western Conference Finals - Chicago Blackhawks This is Chicago's first playoff appearance since 2019/20, well before the start of the sim. Thanks to years of picking up high picks they've got a strong roster of young players. No real stars, nobody rated 4.5 or 5.0 for current, but loaded with 4.0 star 26 year olds. Unfortunately for them we're getting them at a good time, four of their top players are out for the year, they've done well getting this far with their weakened lineup. We'll have the home advantage for this round, I'm not really sure why. We both finished 2nd in our division with 101 points. Game 1 - Chicago Blackhawks 1 Anchorage Huskies 4 Jordan Gavin is back, not quite 100% but worth risking. Still no Henry Mews though. Anchorage get off to a good start, 1-0 up in the first from Urho Mattila. 2:45 into the second period the game slants strongly to Anchorage, Chicago RW Ron Collins gets called for a 5 minute interferance major. Anchorage take advantage of the 5 minutes of 5 on 4 and score two power play goals, Lukas Karmiris after 2:57 then Urho Mattila with his second after 5:54. Later in the second Anchorage have another power play, score another power play goal from Oskar Vuollet and it's 4-0 heading into the third. 19:32 into the third Chicago pull 1 back, too late to make any difference other than to ruin Evan Malliet's shutout. Game 2 - Chicago Blackhawks 2 Anchorage Huskies 8 Chicago were already short of players with all their injuries, now Ron Collins major that cost them two goals in game one comes back to bite again. He gets a three game suspension and they're down another top player. Anchorage make the advantage pay, they're 4-1 up after the first, Peter Hrovatin, Paul Mayer and two from Emil Hemming and they're half way to a win. Three more goals added in the second, Hrovatin again, Rick Claycomb and Jiri Mendly, and it's 7-1 after two. Weston Knox adds another late on and Sam Rinzel gets another late meaningless consolation goal for Chicago. We're off to Chicago with a 2-0 lead. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Chicago Blackhawks 2 Still no Henry Mews back, and another problem for Anchorage's defense with Jiri Mendl missing day-to-day with an ankle injury. Chicago take a 1-0 lead in the second from Jamie Bazar, go 2-0 in the third from a Trae Wilke power play goal. Jackson Gillespie scores a power play goal with 6 minutes to go but Anchorage cant get another goal and it's all over. It's a win for the Chicago goaltender, Dylan Silverstein with 26 saves from 27 shots. Chicago back into the series. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Chicago Blackhawks 4 Still no Henry Mews back, still no Jiri Mendl so Anchorage born-and-bred Steve Peters is into the lineup. He's been in the AHL almost all season, only had 4 regular season starts for Anchorage. I'd been using another guy as backup defenseman, John Fireman, but he'd not been very good and Steve Peters didn't let us down in the playoffs last year so he gets the call. Things don't start well, Oliver Moore puts the Blackhawks ahead in the first minute, Rick Claycomb brings Anchorage back level, but Chicago then score 3 goals in 90 seconds (Jacob Kvasnicka (14:16), Ty Wasyluk (14.55), Sam Rinzel (15:46) and we're 4-1 down at the end of the first. Anchorage storm back in the second, Paul Mayer and Jordan Gavin score and it's 3-4 going into the third. Anchorage dominate the shots in the third, Emil Hemming ties the game up at 10:35, Urho Mattila puts Anchorage ahead at 12:35 and that's the end of the scoring, we're 3-1 up in the series. I really need to find a way of paying for Urho Mattila's contract extension. Game 5 - Chicago Blackhawks 4 Anchorage Huskies 5 Overtime Still no Mews, still no Mendl, so much for day-to-day. Chicago go 2-0 up in the first, a power play goal from Lukas Fischer then an even strength from Ron Collins freshly back from his 3 game suspension. Ty Wasyluk adds to their lead 6 minutes into the second, another power play goal. The fightback starts though, Jackson Gillespie after 7:54 then Vasili Podkolzin reminds everybody he exists with his first goal of the playoffs. Into the third, Oskar Vuollet ties the game up at 1:22, Chicago go back in front at 5:24 (Colin Fibiger), then Jordan Gavin ties it up again at 9:39. Anchorage have to kill a late power play, but that's an end of the scoring for regulation time, so off we go to overtime. Overtime doesn't last 3 minutes, Kaden Pitre scores after 2:54, Vasili Podkolzin with the assist. He may only have 1 goal, but he's got 8 assists. Great value for his 6.5mil. So a 4-1 series win and we're off to the Stanley Cup again, back to back appearances. It'll be New York Rangers we're up against, a chance to clinch back-to-back championships. I think we're riding out luck more than dominating. Hopefully the few day gap before the Stanley Cup starts will give Mews and Mendl a chance to get back to full fitness, we're riding our luck with the backups. And I need to get Urho Matilla resigned.

03-28-2023, 09:11 AM	#65
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2033/34 Stanley Cup Finals - New York Rangers New York Rangers are similar to the Chicago team we played in the last round, not much playoff action, plenty of years of draft picks to build a roster. They're a couple of years further down the cycle though, they made the playoffs last year and some of their players have developed to be superstars: LW Tyler Van Caeyzeele (5.0 stars, 41 goals this season), C Chase Harrington (4.5 stars, 43 assists in 70 games). They still have D Adam Fox too, their 36 year old captain still rated 4.0. They also have former Husky C Nikita Zozulia, looks like he's just coming back from a long term injury though, he'll be on their 4th line. Before the start of game 1 there's some bad news for Anchorage when Urho Matilla decides he's not interested in returning to Anchorage when his contract expires. I'd gone with the idea of "just sign him then work out how to get the salaryl to fit next year", but no interest. Game 1 - New York Rangers 7 Anchorage Huskies 4 No Henry Mews, but Jiri Mendl is close enough he can be risked. And he will be risked, Steve Peters has been a pretty awful replacement. He may have not let us down last year, but he's been out of his depth this. In the first period the NY Rangers stars I mentioned combine for a goal to get them on their way, Tyler Van Caeyzeele scores with an assist from Chase Harrington. 16:16 it's 2-0, New York score on a 5-on-3 power play. Second period gets worse, two NY Rangers goals in the first minute, one of them by former Husky Nikita Zozulia. Kaden Pitre pulls one back but yet another power play for the NY Rangers and it's 5-1 after two. It's not over though, not quite yet, and Anchorage rush back into it with three goals in the first 6 minutes of the third, Oskar Vuollet followed by Peter Hrovatin then Jeff Martin. Game on. Then game off again in 13:50 Jonathan Blais makes it 6-4 then Maxim Masse add an empty net goal. Game 2 - New York Rangers 2 Anchorage Huskies 1 Overtime Mews still out, Mendl playing but not 100%, now Lucas Karmiris is playing injured too. No affects early though and Lucas Karmiris (who has signed an extension and will be back next year) puts Anchorage 1-0 up in the first. NY Rangers level in the second period, Reese Hamilton after 6:38 and that's the end of the scoring for regulation time and we go to overtime. Connor Bewick (it seems like in the future all US/Canadian players are called Connor or Dylan. Or Tyler.) scores for the Rags and they're 2-1 up in the series. A good day for the goaltenders, NY Rangers Wilhelm Eriksson saves 33 of 34 shots, Evan Maillet 38 of 40. Goaltender is one place Anchorage should have an advantage, Eriksson isnt very good and their other choice is an Anchorage reject, Ryan Grout. Grout was their main starter in the regular season but no starts in the playoff for the former Juneau Grolar. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 New York Rangers 7 From now on we'll just assume Mews is out til he comes back, probably next season. This one goes badly quickly, NY Rangers score twice in the first period, a power play goal to get them underway. Kaden Pitre brings Anchorage back into it briefly in the second period but we're 4-1 down by the end of the second. More injuries to the defense, Weston Knox has a serious knee injury and NY Rangers score three more in the third and they're one game away from a sweep. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 2 New York Rangers 1 Weston Knox's injury will take a couple of months to recover from, he's got strained knee ligaments, but we get the option to pump him full of pain killers, strap up his knee and shove him on ice anyway so he plays. He's a UFA after this series so the risk of him worsening his injury is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I do drop him to third pairing to minimize his time on ice though, his regular partner is Mews so he's not playing with his regular partner anyway, no chemistry to lose by shaking things up. We're going to take it one game at a time, the lads will give 110% effort and see how it goes. First Period is tense and scoreless although Anchorage outshoot them 12-6. 8:20 into the second period Justin Solovey makes it 1-0 to New York, but 16:39 Jeff Martin ties it up with an unassisted goal. Into the third period and NY Rangers are pushing to wrap up the series, they get a chance with a 5 minute boarding major. Anchorage's Nicholas Mouldenhauer takes the penalty, he'll probably be getting a suspension for it too, but Anchorage kill the five minutes shorthanded and we're still tied at 1-1. Anchorage now have a couple of power plays, but still no scoring. Anchorage finally take the lead with 2 minutes remaining, Jiri Mendl with the goal, and we're heading back to Anchorage still kind of alive. Although Knox made it through the game ok, he's not very good. Apparently knees are important for skating, who knew. Game 5 - New York Rangers 0 Anchorage Huskies 6 As predicted Nicholas Mouldenhauer gets a suspension for his boarding major in the last game, he'll miss two games so he'll be ok for game seven, if it happens. In more happy Anchorage news, Henry Mews is back. He's a bit banged up but he's ready to play. Mews is back in, but we decide to sit Weston Knox, he's too injured to risk so Matthew Paranych is in to replace him. He's another UFA when this series finishes. There's quite a lot of them in the Anchorage line up. Kaden Pitre start the scoring for Anchorage at 10:46, then Henry Mews shows what we've been missing with two goals in a minute, 18:43 and 19:30. We're 3-0 up after the first period. Urho Matilla scores then Henry Mews finishes off his hattrick on his return make it 5-0 at the end of the second, David Prudek adds another in the third and we're back in the series, 3-2 down and heading to New York. My claim that NY Rangers have weak goaltending finally comes true, Wilhelm Eriksson concedes six goals on 25 shots. Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 New York Rangers 4 And the comeback is over. Anchorage fly into the game, outshoot New York 15-3 in the first but the previously disparaged NY goaltender Eriksson stops all 15 and New York score on one of their three shots, their super star pairing of Chase Harrington and Tyler Van Caeyzeele teaming up, Harrington with the goal, Van Caeyzeele with the assist. Things swing back to Anchorage in the second, Jiri Mendl makes it 1-1 then Jordan Gavin puts Anchorage ahead at 7:34. It only lasts a minute until Van Caeyzeele and Harrington pair up again, this time it's Van Caeyzeele with the goal. Aging captain Adam Fox gets a secondary assist on this one. It's 2-2 going into the third, but New York's second line strikes, Zach Benson puts them 3-2 up at 9:00. Gavin Brindley scores an empty net goal as time expires and it's 4-2 to the Rangers, the Stanley Cup is heading to New York. The fans cheerfully stream out into the streets to destroy things, as is the tradition. So the comeback was not to be, back-to-back Stanley Cup finals isnt too bad though even if we lost one. Anchorage head into the offseason with a rebuild to come. Urho Matilla wont negotiate so he's gone, Weston Knox wants 7mil so he's gone, Paul Mayer wants 9mil so he's gone, Evan Maillet wants 6 mil so he's gone, Matthew Paranych wants 3.5mil so he's gone, Rick Claybomb wants 4mil so he's gone. It's a veritable clear out. A bit of success and everybody wants to be paid like they're a superstar. At least Jordan Gavin, Kaden Pitre and Lucas Karmiris all re-sign, once I'd got that three their new contracts there wasnt much salary space for the rest. They're the heart of the team, along with Mews and Hemming, we'll be churning them out every year til they crumble.

03-30-2023, 12:28 AM	#67
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2034/35 Lines Forwards 1st Line - LW Lucas Karmiris (4.0), C Jordan Gavin (5.0), RW Peter Hrovatin (3.0) - Going by the ratings Hrovatin isnt as good as Hemming, but he's the future. Worryingly Karmiris is 28 but has gone from 4.5 to 4.0 and his injury tendencies list him as vulnerable to leg injury. My little gang of rookies is getting old. 2nd Line - LW Urho Mattila (4.0), C Oskar Vuollet (4.0), RW Jeff Martin (3.5) - Mattila is back but unfit, this will be where he fits in when he gets back in shape, right alongside Vuollet where he belongs. Jeff Martin gets RW on the second line, although he's going to bounce around to cover Left Wing injuries because we don't really have a backup on that side and he's the only versatile right winger we have . 3rd Line - LW David Prudek (3.0), C Kaden Pitre (3.5), RW Jorgen Palm (2.5) - Pridek and Pitre have signed new contracts so will be around three more years, Palm has returned from injury, so the Three P's line is back together, even if one of the P's has changed. 4th Line - LW Vasili Podkolzin (2.5), C Enzo Landrey or Nicholas Mouldenhauer (2.5), RW August Pettersson (3.0) or Borje Svensson (3.0) - Players playing for their place, and proving they deserve to be higher, and the desiccated husk of what used to be Vasili Podkolzin earning 6.5mil for 2 more years. Defense 1st Pair - LD Jiri Mendl (3.5) RD Henry Mews (4.0) - Weston Knox is gone, he's signed for Nashville on a low salary 1 year deal, so Mendl steps in to take his place. He's top line now, not so much as a 1st pick bust. 2nd Pair - LD Easten Turko (3.5), RD Jackson Gillespie (2.5) - Turko is starting to become a top defenseman, which is a pity because we'll be struggling to pay what he wants next year. Gillespie doesn't have great ratings but he always churns out the stats. Both are FA in the summer (Turko a RFA I think). 3rd Pair - LD Matt Leader (2.5), RD Mark Dollack (2.5) - A pair of 20 year olds, they'll get a chance but with other youngsters ready to take their place. Johan Dahlberg and John Fireman. Alfred Hansson was supposed to be in the mix but he whines about being on a new team and lonely all the time so he gets sent home to Sweden for a year. Netminders Lucas Wall (4.5), Thomas Kiesewetter (2.5) - After messing around with a goalie tandem for a while we're back to a starter and a backup. Wall is here for 4 more years on a team friendly contract, so hopefully he stays healthy. 2034/35 Preseason Preseason ends with a 4-3 record again. I did a lot more messing around with the lines ups than usual, trying out young defensemen and switching the 4th line. Small sample size. Other than that the season will be quicker. I normally have "interrupt when interesting players are waived" but we're right at the salary limit so no point, I cant afford to pick them up anyway. So no constant checking waived players. Zoom zoom. 2034/35 Regular Season It was a good, but in the end a slightly disappointing season. Anchorage raced out at record breaking pace, they were 10-1-0, then 16-3-0, then 19-5-0 and running away with the division. By the midway point it was 30-10-1, on pace for 120+ points. They were 14 points clear in the division and 5 points clear in the President's Trophy, even injuries didn't slow us down. The midpoint was where it switched, we lost the next 7 in a row. Not sure what happened, nothing obvious, no injuries, no harmony problems, just couldn't buy a win. Over the few weeks after midpoint we'd go from 30-10-1 to 33-20-1, gone from 14 points clear in the division to tied with Calgary (who must've been on a run themselves to catch up) and dropped out of President's trophy contention. We also went from 20+ points ahead of 9th place to 12 points clear. Yeah, missing the playoffs never really got too close. During the bad run I decided it was down to having too many young defensemen, with injuries we were regularly starting with 3 rookie defensemen, so I came up with a masterplan. Rookie C Enzo Landrey had made 4th center his own, so Nicholas Mouldenhauer became expendable. If I traded him away I could then watch the waivers and pick up a cheap experienced defenseman with the salary saved and fit him in with the rookies. That plan didn't work out though, the moment I traded Mouldenhauer away (to the Flyers), top Center Jordan Gavin got injured and we'd just traded away our backup center. So my waiver watching became for a center instead, we had to roll with the young guys in defense. In came C Ralph McKeamish on waivers from Detroit, he could play all three forward positions so the perfect adaptable backup. He lasted 1 game before getting injured too. For most of the run in we were short of centers, we ended the season with Defenseman Henry Mews playing center since we had more backup rookie defensemen than you could shake a stick at. We ended on 107 points (53-28-1), just short of our 109 record. 61 points in the first half of the season, 46 in the second. Outside the 3-10 period, even the second half was good. We won the Pacific Division, 3 points ahead of Calgary on 104 points, Anaheim on 98, Seattle on 91 and Vancouver on 88 (which was enough for the second wildcard spot). Central Division was Atlanta on 115 (President's Trophy winners), Chicago on 103 and St Louis on 101. Atlanta are top seeds, we're second so we get the first Wild Card team, so it's Seattle again. We were division winners and in the playoffs, but we should have been record breakers. Stand out player stats were Urho Mattila who got the most points (71 in 79 games) despite being unfit for the first month after returning from his sabbatical. Oskar Vuollet led the team in goals, 31 in 81 games, the highest total in Anchorage's history by a player not named Jordan Gavin. Jordan Gavin had 25 goals and 35 assists, but he missed 15 games with injury. Lucas Wall had a sv% of.917 and a GAA of 2.61. Goals Saved Above Average of nearly 18 is good though. And the final record breaking stat is Jeff Martin had 113 penalty minutes, destroying Brenden Dillon's Anchorage record of 85. He also had a record breaking 13 fights. Two last year to 13 this year, boy's gone crazy. Last edited by Critch : 03-30-2023 at 09:18 AM.

03-30-2023, 11:30 AM	#68
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	A brief interlude before the playoffs. FHM's Free Agents One of the complaints about FHM all the way back to FHM1 has been that if you check the free agent market late in the year there'll be some top players who have sat out the year because nobody would pay them what they think they're worth. I'm not sure what the logic is, if two players think they're worth 7mil per year one will sit out the whole season saying "I want 7 mil per year" and the other will sign for a one year low value contract and be ready to reenter free agency the following year. I thought it might be driven by the "demands to be paid what he's worth" in the scout report, but not seeing that. Early in the dynasty it was a problem that would mainly show up with goaltenders, you'd see a single top goalie sitting demanding 9mil per year late in the season. Sometimes he'd get a deal 2/3 of the way through the season, other times he'd sit out the season. Now it seems to be spreading, if I look at the free agents available now at the end of the regular season there are four 4.0 star players and two 3.5 star players just sitting there. The 4.0 star players are all wanting 8 or 9 million to sign somewhere. I had read that the issue can be helped by adding a million or two to the salary cap every two years, and I'll be adding 6mil to the salary cap this year (if I remember) to make up for the years I've missed, but I dont think it's the main problem. Montreal are in the playoffs, they have an outlook of "Win it now", but they have $28mil cap space. NY Rangers are current champs, set to "win urgently" but have 18mil cap space. There are a few teams with "win now" and salary cap space available who aren't signing the UFAs. So it's not a case that players sit in free agency because nobody can afford them. It's more a case that they sit in free agency because they ask for more than they're worth and they never reduce their asking price. Looking at the list of free agents sitting unsigned rated 3.0 (NHL regular starter) and up, they're almost all North American. There's one Russian but everybody else is Canadian or American. I'm guessing that Euro UFAs are more likely to go off home to their home league, or to the KHL, if they don't get the NHL contract they think they're worth. Anyway here's what the Anchorage free agents of the last few years have done after leaving: 2032/33 Aleksandr Yeremey - Went back to the KHL, plays for Dinamo Minsk Ivan Korzhakov - Went to the Russian minor leagues for one year, but now plays in the KHL for Salavat Yulaev Prokhor Poltapov - Signed for Philadelphia, played there for two seasons and now back in the KHL for Sibir Novosibirsk Tomas Lavoie - Signed a 3 year contract with Calgary and still there as a regular player Chris Collishaw - Never made it with Anchorage, third round pick who didnt make it as far as Juneau. Now plays for Savannah in the ECHL, a minor US league. (Sidenote ECHL doesnt stand for anything. It used to be the East Coast Hockey League, but now the league is just called ECHL. I just googled ECHL to see what it was obviously.) Brandon Svoboda - Injury ended his NHL career, he's in semi-pro hockey now rated a 1.5 star player. A level he's too good for, 89 points in 36 games last season. 2033/34 Dylan Nolan - sitting at home saying "give me 2.5 mil!". Has never been paid more than 800k, hasnt played since leaving Anchorage. Evan Maillet - He was the starting goalie on a Stanley Cup team last year, sat out for a few months before signing a one season minimum salary deal with Vancouver, he's their starter now and going to the playoffs. Weston Knox - Same as Maillet, sat out the first half of the season then signed 1 year 750k with Nashville. He'll be back in UFA this summer, Nashville have already announced they wont be offering him a new contract. Paul Mayer - Same again, sat out then took a 1 year deal to play in the KHL for Kunlun Red Star in Beijing. Matthew Paranych - Still sitting at home saying he wants 6mil per year for 3 years. Has never earned more than 800k Rick Claycomb - Still sitting at home saying he wants 5.5mil per year for 3 years. Has never earned more than 1.4mil. Special Mention - Tarin Smith - he has now sat out three seasons, now wants 3mil per year for 3 years despite his last contract being 1.4mil per year. So, in conclusion, Free Agency and player demands are a bit crap in the game. Last edited by Critch : 03-30-2023 at 11:40 AM.

03-30-2023, 12:58 PM	#69
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2034/35 Playoffs Round 1 - Seattle Kraken This is the third time we've played Seattle in the first round of the playoffs, the divisional seedings mean you play a team from your division in the first two rounds almost all the time. They swept us once, we swept them last year. Seattle's star player is still Shane Wright, 73 points in 78 games now. They have one of the top defensemen in the league too, they picked him second in the draft in 2029, Flynn Brown. Their other top guy LW Filip Arvidsson will be missing the series with concussion. They're another playoff team with a mediocre goalie, Sebastian Gothberg is 2.0 rated and a SV% of .895, and a negative GSAA. According to GSAA/60, he's half a goal worse than average per game. He'll probably shut us out now I've said that. They finished 4th in the Pacific Division. We go into the playoffs almost injury free, Jeff Martin is out day-to-day but everybody else is 100% and ready to go. Game 1 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 5 We get into an early lead, Jorgen Palm after 5:35 and Jordan Gavin after 17:47 and it's 2-0 after the first period. Seattle get back into it 28 seconds into the second with a Milo Eager goal, but our rookie Borje Svensson puts us back into a two goal lead after 16:51. He's had a tough first season in the NHL, we had two right wing places for our trio of young Euros (Pettersson, Hrovatin, Svensson) and Borje was the one who normally missed out, he's only in today because Jeff Martin is injured. Into the third Jiri Mendl makes it 4-1, Shane Wright pulls one back for Seattle but it's all over. Jordan Gavin adds a late empty net goal. If it's a battle of the goalies, we're going to win. Seattle's Sebastian Gothberg saves 22 of 26 shots (.846), Anchorage's Lucas Wall saves 32 of 34 (.941) in his playoff debut. Game 2 - Seattle Kraken 2 Anchorage Huskies 1 Jeff Martin is available but not 100% so he's missing again. Maybe I should have shut up about their goalie, he saves 26 of 27 shots to win this one. Seattle go up early with a Fletcher Spurle goal (great name, and an Alaskan. Get him on the watch list). Borje Svensson ties it up in the second, he's liking his brief spell on the second line. Shane Wright wins it for Seattle with a goal 16:27 into the third period. Series all tied up, and it's not going to be a sweep for either team this year. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Seattle Kraken 2 Overtime Easten Turko is going to miss the rest of the series with a foot injury, if we dont win the series he may be done in Anchorage. He's a FA this summer and we have no cap room. It's their goalie again, this time 30 saves on 31 shots. Matty Beniers (an increasingly rare real player on his real team) makes it 1-0 to Seattle 5:59 into the second, Jordan Gavin ties it up at 6:31 and that's all the regular time scoring. Seattle should have won in regular time but Anchorage liven up in OT, outshoot Seattle 8-1 but Seattle score with the 1. Dallas Vieau gives Seattle the series lead with the sudden death goal. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Seattle Kraken 1 Good injury news before the game. It's not that Turko is unexpectedly back, it's that Seattle star man Shane Wright is out. Oskar Vuollet puts Anchorage 1-0 4:45 into the first period, Kaden Pitre makes it 2 at 2:51 of the second, but Kyril Baranok scores a power play goal to pull Seattle back into it. It's from Jeff Martin carrying on his regular season penalty minute run. Kaden Pitre scores late in the third (19:28) and we're back level in the series. Game 5 - Seattle Kraken 5 Anchorage Huskies 2 Shane Wright is still out, but they don't need him. Anchorage are actually 2-0 up at the midpoint, Jordan Gavin in the first and Oskar Vuollet in the second, but Seattle rally and it's 2-2 by the end of the second, Luke Misa and Dominic Petr. Fletcher Spurle puts them ahead in the third and Dallas Vieua adds two more, one a late empty net, and we're one game from exit. We have a few young defensemen in with Turko being out, but it's not them that let us down. It's star man Henry Mews with a -4 performance. Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Seattle Kraken 2 They've still got no Shane Wright, but they still don't need him. Seattle are one up after 5:36, but Jordan Gavin ties it up with a power play goal after 8:25 in the first period. The second period is scoreless, but Alaskan Fletcher Spurle scores 3:16 into the third and that's the scoring, and Anchorage's season, finished. Their mediocre goalie Sebastian Gothberg over-performs again, 30 saves on 31 shots faced. His Goals Saved Above Average is 0.00 so he wasnt stopping shots he shouldn't have, just being steady and making the saves he should make. And that was enough. Seattle win the series 4 games to 2 and go on to face Anaheim in round 2. Anaheim upset Calgary in the first round. So we follow up two Stanley Cup finals in a row with a first round exit to a wild card team. It's a funny old game. As some old commentator said about a different sport. Last edited by Critch : 03-30-2023 at 02:57 PM.

03-30-2023, 04:23 PM	#70
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2034/35 Playoffs It's the return of the annual "here's what happened in the playoffs when Anchorage were out" post. It hasn't been needed for a couple of years, but here it is roaring back. In the Eastern Conference the top seeds were Toronto Maple Leafs in the Atlantic half and reigning Stanley Cup champion New York Rangers in the Metropolitan half. Both got by the first round, NY Rangers past Boston 4-2, Toronto beat Florida in 7 games. Round two New York Rangers got past Pittsburgh 4-2, but things were not so smooth for Toronto. Toronto crashed out to Montreal Canadiens 4-1, I bet that hurt their simulated fandom, high hopes then out to a rival. So it was New York Rangers trying to get back to the Stanley Cup against Montreal and they managed it 4-3. In the Western Conference, Seattle dumped out Anchorage 4-2, then Anaheim 4-2. The Western Conference final would be the two Wild Card teams matching up, Seattle v Vancouver. It was Seattle who kept the roll going, 4-1 over Vancouver. New York Rangers v Seattle Kraken in the Stanley Cup final. When you're on form, you're on form so Seattle started on fire, they went to New York and won the first two games on the road to take a 2-0 lead. And then they lost the next four, so it's New York Rangers with back-to-back championships. 2034/35 Awards Every year of the dynasty whoever won the Art Ross trophy (Most Points) also won the Hart Trophy (MVP). Not this year though. Gavin Hayes (St Louis Blues) won Most Points with 106 points, Connor Bedard won MVP with a lowly 105 points. New York Rangers goalie Wilhelm Eriksson, who I said wasnt very good in last year's playoffs post, won the Vezina for best goalie. Best Rookie was Jerry Megna, 72 points in 82 games, not bad for a 19 year old. No awards for Anchorage this year. No change there. I forgot to mention at the time but the All Star game was back to only one Anchorage player. This year it was goalie Lucas Wall.

03-30-2023, 05:06 PM	#71
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2034/35 Offseason The commissioner sat staring at the printed list of unsigned free agents in front of him on his desk. He flicked to the second page and asked, "So all of these free agents sat out the whole season and didn't sign with anyone?" There was a moment of silence until the assistant commissioner cleared his throat and replied, "Yes sir, that's the problem. It makes the league look bad that big-name players just stayed home for a year. It makes it seem like the league's financials are messed up." The commissioner furrowed his brow and thought, "What to do? What to do?" Suddenly, he had a eureka moment. He sat back in his chair, smiling, and announced to the staff milling about his office, "What we have here is a supply and demand problem. We've got too much supply and not enough demand. What we need to do is ensure there's more demand." He sat back smugly, waiting while his staff looked at each other trying to work out what he meant. "What we need, ladies and gentlemen, is a good old-fashioned expansion." And so it was decided: the current 36-team NHL with four divisions of nine teams would become a new 40-team NHL with four divisions of ten teams. The four new teams would need to sign free agents, they'd be on the unsigned free agents like dogs on turnips. Hey presto, issue solved. For a few years anyway.

04-02-2023, 11:18 PM	#72
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	I held off for a little bit, as there was another patch coming along, but it's out now and there's no mention of unrestricted free agents sitting about unemployed rather than signing for less than they think they're worth, so I'm going with expansion. We'll see if this helps with the issue, but I have my doubts. It'll make a change anyway; nine-team divisions always looked a little strange. Expansion Teams Just like the original Anchorage/Quebec/Hartford/Atlanta expansion 11 seasons ago (haven't the years flown by?), this expansion will feature a couple of returning defunct teams. I read an article on The Athletic about how Canada could support a dozen more NHL teams, as Canadians are 11 times more likely to be hockey fans, so it's almost all Canadian teams this time. "Almost all" equals 3 out of 4. I used up all the recent defunct teams last time, so this time I went further into history. Pacific Division - California Seals. First, the non-Canadian team. The originals went out of the league in 1976, so they'll mark the 60th anniversary by returning to the league. They're based in Oakland, CA, and have the most garish green jerseys possible. Central Division - Saskatoon Saskatchewanians. Well, I like the name. Purple and White. Metropolitan Division - Hamilton Tigers - They went out of the league in the 1920s so even longer for a return. The article I read about Canada needing more NHL teams mentioned Quebec City (already taken care of) and the greater Toronto/Golden Horseshoe area, so here's Hamilton. Black and Yellow. Atlantic Division - Nova Scotia Admirals - Another Canadian team, an East Coast version of Anchorage. Far away from everybody else, small market. Yellow and Blue. Cleveland, Kansas City, Portland, Mexico City, Honolulu, and Baltimore all miss out this time. Maybe in ten years' time. Or if I relocate somebody on a whim. Expansion Draft The protection lists are set: 10 forwards, 5 defensemen, and 1 goalie protected. So we go into the expansion draft with backup goalie Thomas Kiesewetter, defensemen John Fireman and Steve Peters, and forwards Vasili Podkolzin and Ralph McKeamish unprotected. Somebody taking Vasili Podkolzin and his $6.5 million salary would be ideal; it would allow me to sign some defensemen, but no luck. The only player we lose is the Anchorage-born Steve Peters, who goes to California Seals. Other ex-Anchorage favorites on the move in the expansion draft are G Sebastian Cossa and D Paul Mayer, who go to California Seals, D Carter Murphy, who goes to Saskatoon, and D Conor Walton, who goes to Nova Scotia. Hamilton thinks they're too good for Anchorage cast-offs, so they splash out on the most expensive free agents they can find, a few 5.0 stars surrounded by nothing much. Rookie Draft Let me czech my notes. Yes, we drafted lots of Czechs. 1st round LW Alexander Broda, 2nd round LW Vaclav Pastor, 3rd round LD Ales Sustek. Not intentional, I left the Anchorage head scout to do the draft on his own and he went Czech-crazy. Free agency and stuff: There were a lot of contract extensions for current players, so Anchorage was jammed up against the owner's maximum salary before the free agent season even started. There was no money to offer to the other expiring contracts, so D Easten Turko (3.5) and D Jackson Gillespie (2.5) went to free agency, Turko in particular will be missed, he'd become a good defenseman. Since there were still some holes in the roster, especially on defense, we need to clear some salary to free up cash. Jorgen Palm took his 2.7mil to California for LD Carsen Adair on a minimum salary, C Ralph McKeamish went to Saskatoon for a low pick, and we had enough space to sign a bunch of mediocre rookies for backups stored in the AHL, and a backup winger LW/RW Jonas Lambert from Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey. And we were all set for the new season. Did expansion help with unsigned free agents? No. Jackson Gillespie and Easten Turko left Anchorage, and old Husky Emil Hemming left the Flyers. All good players, they're all sitting unemployed in free agency on regular season opening day. Old Huskies D Tarin Smith has just entered his 4th year of not playing while he holds out for 2.5mil. At one point, Emil Hemming was asking for 2.6mil for 3 years, so I cleared salary to go for him. But when I went back the next day, he had changed to 4.9mil for 3 years. I've been enjoying the game, but the AI is terrible for free agents and ruins any sense of realism. I've got a feeling that it would be easy to take advantage of the AI and build a super-team if you were playing all-out min-maxing and no house rules. Which I can't be bothered doing. (p.s. I put this through ChatGPT and asked it to edit spelling and grammar. So that's one AI that pulls it's weight, maybe they could teach it to play FHM.)

04-03-2023, 01:02 PM	#73
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2035/36 Regular Season Well we might have not much depth in defense left, not enough for three good lines anyway, but the in-game pre-season preview says Vegas are favorites for the Stanley Cup with Atlanta and Anchorage the main challengers. It's the first time we've been mentioned as a challenger, last year was our first mention in the preview as among the darkhorses, the first time we'd been mentioned at all. Even when we won the Stanley Cup, the preview didnt mention us as a possible challenger the next year. The regular season started badly, the first month's schedule was brutal, 15 games in 26 days and 5 sets of back-to-backs. Slow start followed by a rally and Anchorge were top of the table at 8-5-1, nobody else had come out of the gates flying either. A run of 2-8-0 and we were back at the bottom of the table, 9th by the end of November. Trying to get by with two good defensemen (Mews and Mendl), a cheap journeyman (Adair) and a rotation of youngsters (Leader, Dollack, Dahlberg, Fireman) wasnt really working out especially when injuries kicked in. We were near the top for goals for, but near the bottom for goals allowed. The two goalies (Wall and Kiesewetter) were having terrible seasons too, both sub .900 save percentage. I'm not sure how much of that comes from having a poor defense in front of them. A strong December, January and February and we were clear at the top despite the poor defense, lots of highscoring games. 5-4 or 6-5, come see the Huskies for the thrills. There was a game where I accidentally put two attacking defensemen on the top line and conceded nine too. A 9-6 scoreline, but otherwise things had calmed down and we were heading for the playoffs. Just before the trade deadline, things went wrong. Jiri Mendl was one of our two good defensemen but he was also "Outspoken". Not sure what he did, but suddenly half the team hated him and the team harmony went from "harmonious" to "open conflict" in a couple of weeks. Results suffered too and suddenly we were back in a pack at the top instead of clear at the top. Mendl's contract was up at the end of the season, he wasn't going to re-sign, so I decided to trade him away at the trade deadline, a playoff chaser would like to have a 4.0 defenseman and would hopefully overpay for him. Washington Capitals sent their first and they had a new defenseman to help them in their ultimately unsuccessful playoff push. We hobbled along with a weakened defense, thanks to the free agency issues former Husky defenseman Matthew Paranych was available so we spent all our money on bringing him back. He'd been sitting by the phone for a year and a half from when we let him go to UFA. He asked for what he wanted, I said I couldn't afford it and made our best offer, he came back with a demand that was less than the offer he was turning down, I said ok and he'd successfully negotiated down his salary. As I said AI and free agency is screwy at best. Turned out he wasn't much good anyway, 18 months on a sofa hadn't helped his game. But at least he was popular. The season end came down to a nail-biter, with 1 game to go we were in 1st with 101 points, then LA Kings, Calgary Flames and Seattle Kraken all had 100 points. Fourth place in our division wasn't guaranteed a wildcard place, the Central division had two wildcard teams on 100+ points too. So the last game if we won we'd win the division, if we lost it was mathematically possible that we'd miss the playoffs depending on what the other teams did. We won 4-2 against Atlanta and won the division. A happy ending. In the end both the wild card teams came from the Central Division, so for a change it wont be Seattle this year. This year it'll be Winnipeg Jets. edit - I also spent the season cursing the game for being unresponsive to my mouse clicks, I'd have to click every button two or three times to get it to work. I now realize that my mouse is broken and the game is blameless for this particular issue. Last edited by Critch : 04-03-2023 at 01:11 PM.

04-03-2023, 03:25 PM	#74
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2035/36 Playoffs I haven't mentioned the actual lines for a while so here goes. Lines Forwards 1st Line - LW Lucas Karmiris (3.5), C Jordan Gavin (5.0), RW Jeff Martin (3.5) - My core of rookies that have been here from the start have peaked and a few of them are starting to slip down the other side of the hill. Lucas Karmiris being the prime example, used to be 4.5 now 3.5. Jordan Gavin is still going strong, led the league in scoring this year with 48 goals, and Jeff Martin is the muscle of the line. Each player is rated for injury tendency on each part of their body, might be durable in one part but vulnerable in others. Jeff Martin is vulnerable from head to toe so he gets more than his fair share of injuries. 2nd Line - LW Urho Mattila (4.0), C Oskar Vuollet (4.0), RW Borje Svensson (3.5) - Some of the original bunch are on the downward slide, Oskar Vuollet is getting better with age. I would have said an all-Scandanavian line, but apparently Finns dont consider themselves Scandanavian I learned that on a quiz show earlier. So an all Nordic line. Borje Svensson is the next generation of Huskies star player. 3rd Line - LW David Prudek (3.5), C Kaden Pitre (3.5), RW August Pettersson (3.5) - Good depth on the forwards, third line is a strength. 4th Line - LW Jonas Lambert (3.0), C Enzo Landry (3.0), RW Peter Hrovatin (3.0) - In one of the very early posts I said the trick was to concentrate on defense, now I have a 4th line that's all 3.0 star rated. Landry was a first round pick (36th), Hrovatin was a first round pick (7th) and Lambert is from Quebec and was playing in the Ligue Nord-Americaine til earlier this season. I guess his name is pronounced Yona Lamberrrr. Defense 1st Pair - LD Matt Leader (3.0) RD Henry Mews (3.5) - Like Karmiris, Mews has started showing up on the development report with negative changes. My boys are getting old. Leader is 21, so he's the new hope. 2nd Pair - LD Johan Dahlberg (3.0), RD Carsen Adair (2.5) - Dahlberg is 23, 6'6'' and 244lbs and came from the "pick lots of big defensemen in the draft and hope they develop" plan. Adair came in the trade that send Jorgen Palm to California Seals. 3rd Pair - LD Matt Paranych (2.5), RD Mark Dollack (2.5) - Paranych came in late from FA when we had to dump Mendl off for being loathsome, Dollack was another from the "draft big defensemen" plan. Netminders Lucas Wall (5.0) Thomas Kiesewetter (2.5) - firmly on the starter and cheap backup plan now. Barring injury, it's Wall all the way in the playoffs. End of the Regular Season Free Agent Watch Maybe I'm getting too tied up with Free Agents not signing for anybody, but here goes: Emil Hemming - Sat out the first couple of months of the season, but got paid. 4.9mil for 2 years with Vancouver. Jackson Gillespie - Sat out the first four months of the season, but got paid. 5.9mil for 1 year with Buffalo on January 15th. Less than 2 months later they released him. Contracts are guaranteed, he played 22 games before being dumped. Then signed for LA Kings for 1 year 750k in April so he's going to the playoffs with them. Easten Turko - Spent the whole year as a free agent. Me asking him how much he was looking for once per month seems to have annoyed him, he wont talk to Anchorage anymore. Tarin Smith - nearly 4 years after his contract expired at Anchorage he's finally signed for a new team. He's getting 25k to play in the Ukrainian second division for one year. Evan Maillet - Contract expired for Anchorage in June 2034. Signed with Vancouver for 1 year 750k in December 2034. March 2035 Vancouver realize they've got a good goalie so tie him up 3 years/7.1mil per year. All makes enough sense so far. November 2035 Vancouver release him. Later the same day they sign him again for 1 year 750k. Rick Claycomb - left Anchorage, spent a year without a team, signed for St Louis 3 years at 2.7mil. Currently hasn't been released yet. I liked this game better when I didn't look at what the AI was doing.

04-03-2023, 04:23 PM	#75
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2035/36 Playoffs Round 1 - Winnipeg Jets A first meeting in the playoffs with Winnipeg Jets. The playoffs are split by division so most years we'll get a team from the Pacific Division, but this year both wild card teams are from the Central so we get the Central Division Winnipeg in the first round. This is their first appearance in the playoffs for a couple of years, althought they've had a good season, they're not loaded with talent. Game 1 - Winnipeg Jets 1 Anchorage Huskies 7 Only one injury for Anchorage going into the playoffs, 4th line center Enzo Landrey is day-to-day with a going injury, so Miloslav Martin takes his place. He was a waiver pickup from New York Rangers. Anchorage get an early lead, Borje Svensson after 1:10. Rutger McGroarty scores for Winnipeg but Jordan Gavin makes it 2-1 after 16:43 with an unassisted goal. Three more goals in the second period and Anchorage are well in control. Kaden Pitre (0:50), an Urho Mattila powerplay goal (8:15) and Johan Dahlberg (15:50) and Anchorage are in control. Oskar Vuollet starts the third period with a short handed goal, Winnipeg pull their goalie (I'm not commenting on the abilities of opposing goalies anymore) and Borje Svensson scores his second and Anchorage's seventh. An easy win and we're 1-0 up. Game 2 - Winnipeg Jets 2 Anchorage Huskies 4 Enzo Landrey is back to 100% so back into the lineup. No scoring in the first, Oskar Vuollet gives Anchorage the lead 4:44 into the second. Corban Almen ties it for Winnipeg and it's 1-1 after the second. Jeff Martin puts Anchorage up 28 seconds into the third, but Winnipeg tie it up again after 9:44. 30 seconds later Peter Hrovatin puts Anchorage ahead, Jeff Martin scores with 2 seconds to go and Anchorage win 4-2 and are 2-0 up in the series. Both teams have 32 shots, but Anchorage have the better goalie so win. Tempting fate there. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Winnipeg Jets 0 Winnipeg are starting to see the injuries mount, three starters missing for this series now. Anchorage have no such issues. Lukas Karmiris puts Anchorage into the lead in the first, Carsen Adair 2-0 in the second, then Enzo Landrey, Oskar Vuollet and Lucas Karmiris finish it in the third. Anchorage were well on top, outshot them 50-18, and one win away from round 2. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Winnipeg Jets 1 It's not quite as one-sided as game three, but Anchorage still on top. No scoring in the first before Winnipeg take the lead 15:21 into the second. It doesnt last long though, Jordan Gavin and Borje Svensson score at 16:25 and 19:54 and after two periods Anchorage are 2-1 up. Oskar Vuollet makes it 3-1 after 3:27 of the third and Anchorage have one foot in the next round. Urho Mattila adds an empty net goal and the sweep is complete, we're off to the second round. It's Calgary Flames in the next round, they got past Los Angeles Kings in seven games. In the other half of the Western Conference it's #1 v #2, Chicago v Atlanta. And over in the Eastern Conference there'll be no three-peat for the New York Rangers, they got put out by Pittsburgh Penguins. Columbus v Pittsburgh and Hartford v Ottawa in round two. Last edited by Critch : 04-03-2023 at 04:30 PM.

04-04-2023, 12:01 AM	#76
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2035/36 Playoffs Round 2 - Calgary Flames We played Calgary in the playoffs a couple of years ago and beat them four games to two at this stage on the way to a Stanley Cup Final. Back then, their star was Jakub Moravec. He's still there, but this time he's out injured and won't appear in the playoffs. He's still a couple of months away from recovering from a torn muscle. They do have a top goalie though, Leland Griffith, so I won't be tempted into making any backfiring slanderous comments about their goalie. Game 1 - Calgary Flames 4 Anchorage Huskies 1 There are no injuries for Anchorage, but it doesn't help. They are outshot 13-5 in the first period, 14-5 in the second, and the game is over before the Huskies wake up. Calgary goes one up in the first with a goal from Patrick McSharry, and Matthew Paranych ties it at one with a shorthanded goal (Anchorage takes a couple of penalties early in the first), making it 1-1 after the first period, despite being heavily outshot. Calgary adds two goals in the second, one with an assist from former Huskies' favorite Tomas Lavoie, and it's 3-1 after two periods. Another Calgary goal in the third period, and the Huskies are off to a bad start. However, there are plenty of games left to play. Game 2 - Calgary Flames 1 Anchorage Huskies 6 Back to form in game 2. Henry Mews puts Anchorage 1-0 up at 2:55, but Calgary hits back with a power play goal after 5:42. Anchorage is taking a lot of penalties so far this series. Oskar Vuollet puts Anchorage back ahead before the end of the first period. Two more goals in the second period (16:26 - Jordan Gavin, 17:34 - Borje Svensson), and then two more early in the third period (3:27 - Enzo Landrey short-handed goal, 6:15 Kaden Pitre), and it's all over. Leland Griffith is pulled after the 6th goal, but there is no more scoring. The series is now tied, and the Huskies are off to Calgary. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Calgary Flames 6 Well, that didn't go well. Kaden Pitre puts Anchorage ahead in the first period, and it's 1-0 to Anchorage at the intermission. Calgary then rolls off six unanswered goals, four in the second period and two in the third period, and it's all over before Jonas Lambert gets a late consolation goal. Lucas Wall stays in for the whole game despite conceding six goals, so maybe it's time to mess with the "pull goalie" setting. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Calgary Flames 1 This is the only series that's not 3-0 at this point. Hartford, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta all seem to be well on their way to the conference finals. I'm not sure how important it is for a team to have their captain on the ice, but Vasili Podkolzin has had a terrible regular season with just one goal and eight assists in 45 games. Therefore, he's been on the bench all playoffs. It's his time to shine hopefully, and he's in the fourth line. I'm not sure if he made any difference (on ice for 7 minutes, no points, no shots, one hit) but the team plays better. Owen Martin gives Calgary the lead in the first, but Anchorage take over in the second. They outshoot Calgary 16-4, Johan Dahlberg ties the game up, Kaden Pitre scores the go-ahead goal and Anchorage are in the lead after two. Third Period Kaden Pitre adds his second after 9:15, and then completes his hattrick with a power play goal after 15:38. The hats are cleared off the ice (if any Anchorage fans actually made the journey and got tickets) before Enzo Landrey adds another and we're back to Anchorage with the series tied. Game 5 - Calgary Flames 1, Anchorage Huskies 2 The only series still going, the other three ended in sweeps. The bad news is Henry Mews is out with a day-to-day shoulder injury. We're going with a top defensive pairing of 21-year-old Matt Leader and 22-year-old Mark Dollack. What could go wrong there? Actually, not a whole lot goes wrong. We're defensively sound all night, limiting them to a total of 17 shots despite their having three power plays. Lucas Karmiris (dropped to the third line) puts Anchorage ahead in the first. Nathan Lacompte ties it up for Calgary in the second. Carsen Adair scores the winner after 15:43 of the third, and we're one win away from meeting Atlanta in the Western Conference finals. Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 1, Calgary Flames 2 Henry Mews is back, so there's another rearrangement of the defense. So the offense doesn't feel neglected, they get a bit of rearrangement too. Karmiris is back in the top 6. His ratings say "not top six anymore," but his performances say "yes, he is." It starts badly, with Calgary 2-0 up at the end of the first, Benjamin Kindel (with a Tomas Lavoie assist) and Patrick Smith. The second period sees no scoring despite both teams getting power plays. In the third period, Kaden Pitre pulls Anchorage back into it, but there's no more scoring. It was a close game, but their goalie, Leland Griffith, won it for them. And it's back to Anchorage for a game seven. Game 7 - Calgary Flames 0, Anchorage Huskies 3 Henry Mews might have been rushed back a bit too soon. He's available, but not up to first-pair minutes, so we're back to the Leader/Dollack youth pairing while Mews fits into the third pair. The first period goes by scoreless despite multiple power plays. The games have been getting chippy, chippier than regular playoff series anyway. In the second period, Enzo Landrey puts Anchorage 1-0 up after 4:19. Anchorage gets another power play, and Jordan Gavin scores a PP goal after 8:03. Mark Dollack gets in his first NHL fight with Ridly Greig after 11:06 (it's rated as a tie, well done to our youngster for holding his own against the smaller, much older man), and Urho Mattila puts Anchorage 3-0 up with an unassisted goal with 2 seconds left in the period. It's not the last action of the second period: Jordan Gavin and Owen Martin get matching slashing penalties for hacking away at each other as time. The third period starts 4-on-4, but Anchorage shuts it down. There are only 9 shots total in the third (5 to Calgary, 4 to Anchorage), no scoring, and it's Anchorage off to the conference final. So it's Anchorage vs. Atlanta in the Western Conference final, Anchorage with home advantage, and Hartford vs. Pittsburgh in the Eastern final. I really need to go get a new battery for my mouse, this missing clicks thing is boiling my piss.

04-04-2023, 09:37 AM	#77
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2035/36 Western Conference Final - Atlanta Thrashers It's Anchorage v Atlanta in the West and Hartford in the East, 3 of the 4 2024 expansion teams. For this year's expansion teams, three of the four finished last in their division (as expansion teams should) while Nova Scotia finished third in the Atlantic division and made the playoffs. They lost in round 1 to Ottawa. For Atlanta, they've reached the playoffs in six straight seasons now, they've won a couple of Central divisions too, and talent wise are probably the best in the league. Four 5.0 star players LD Louis-Joseph Boutin, C Brandon Gorzynski, RW Rasmus Rinne (second to Gavin in the Rocket Richard Trophy for top goalscorer this year) and RW Braiden Scuderi. They've got a pair of young goalies, a 22 year old and a 23 year old, neither of them particularly good so that's one place Anchorage have the advantage. Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Atlanta Thrashers 4 I said in the last post that Anchorage would have home advantage, apparently not. We're #1 in the Pacific and a division winner, they're #2 in the Central but they got more points than Anchorage. So home advantage to Atlanta. Henry Mews is back to 100% for Anchorage, but 2nd line defenseman Johan Dahlberg will be out probably for the whole series. He's got a sports hernia. John Fireman will step into his place. Fireman isnt very good, but neither is Dahlberg. Anchorage dont play well, outshot 35-18, and fall behind 1-0 in the series. Borje Svensson puts Anchorage 1-0 up in the first but Louis-Joseph Boutin ties it up with a power play goal and it's 1-1 at the end of the first. In the second period Atlanta are completely in control, outshoot Anchorage 19-4 and score three times. Beglaryan, Uusitalo and Scuderi. Period three gets Anchorage back into it, a goal from Hrovatin at 7:47 then Urho Mattila at 19:30, we end the game with an empty net and a little bit of 6-on-4 when Atlanta take a late penalty, but no coming back. Atlanta 1-0 up. Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Atlanta Thrashers 1 A little bit of shuffling of the lines, 4th line center Enzo Landrey hasnt been playing well so he drops out and RW August Pettersson comes back in with a little line shuffling to make sure everybody is playing a position they can play. It works out, D Carsen Adair scores for Anchorage in the first, Henry Mews in the second and it's 2-0 going into the third. Atlanta get back into it at 4:45, but Jordan Gavin adds a late power play goal and the series is tied at one. But it seems like there are a few injuries too. Game 3 - Atlanta Thrashers 2 Anchorage Huskies 4 The bad news is top line defenseman Matt Leader is out, short term but not worth risking him in this game. The good news (for Anchorage) is that Atlanta's top defenseman Louis-Joseph Boutin is also out, he's gone for the series. It's a blast from the past in the first, the reanimated corpse of 34 year old Vasili Podkolzin scores after 1:57. He's on the last few weeks of his 6.5mil waste-of-money contract. Atlanta tie it up in the second, Cooper Simpson again, but Jeff Martin (10:38) and Jordan Gavin (13:32) put Anchorage two up. Atlanta cut it to a one goal lead in the third at 7:26, but a late empty net goal froom Jeff Martin and we're 2-1 up ith a home game to come. Game 4 - Atlanta Thrashers 0 Anchorage Huskies 2 I didnt mention Calder Hamilton in the last game, he was the defense replacement for Matt Leader, he did ok in the third pairing so we'll not be risking Matt Leader again. Anchorage are well on top for most of the game, outshoot Atlanta 13-8 in the first, 15-4 in the second and 13-6 in the third. Atlanta have fallen away since their captain Louis-Joseph Boutin got injured. Jeff Martin puts Anchorage 1-0 up in the first, Urho Mattila makes it 2-0 in the second (a first assist for Vasili Podkolzin) and we're on our way to a 3-1 lead in the series. Back to Atlanta needing one win for a third Stanley Cup final in 4 years. Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Atlanta Thrashers 5 It's not over yet. Anchorage lead twice, 1-0 in the first with a Peter Hrovatin goal and 2-1 in the second with a Borje Svensson power play goal (out power play has been a strength this year, 24%, 2nd in the NHL) but Atlanta deserve their win. It's 3-2 Atlanta after two, they add a couple more in the third and it's back to Anchorage for a game six. In the Eastern Conference Pittsburgh are 3-2 up over Hartford. Game 6 - Atlanta Thrashers 3 Anchorage Huskies 2 overtime Matt Leader is still not 100% but it's time to risk him, he's into the third pairing with Dollack to try to keep down his icetime a little since he has a knee issue. He shows he's back by putting Anchorage up in the first. Braiden Scuderi brings Atlanta level in the second, I think he's scored in every game so far. Except the one where Atlanta didnt score. So not every game. Rasmus Rinne puts Atlanta ahead 3:58 into the third period but Mark Dollack scores after 12:34 and we're onto over time. 4:04 into overtime Johannes Parviainen scores for Atlanta and it's back to Atlanta for a game seven. I'm not sure I've seen a second overtime period in any game. Game 7 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Atlanta Thrashers 1 Matt Leader is back to 100% so we go into the game with only D Jonas Dahlberg out. In the first period Borje Svensson scores his seventh of the playoffs, it was late season he moved up to the second line and he's been great since. He also takes a penalty in the first for tripping but the penalty is killed so no harm. Second period at 16:07 John Fireman makes it 2-0 with his first ever play off goal and it's 2-0 after two periods. Third period there are a couple of penalty kills for each team, until Rasmus Rinne scores for Atlanta after 8:42. Atlanta push for their equalizer, they outshoot Anchorage in the third, but Borje Svensson makes it safer at 3-1 after 16:06, Jordan Gavin kills them off with a late empty net goal and Anchorage are going to their third Stanley Cup in 4 seasons. We're a dynasty! It'll be Pittsburgh Penguins in the Final. We're 13 years in the future so Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang have all finally retired.

04-04-2023, 01:33 PM	#78
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2035/36 Stanley Cup Finals - Pittsburgh Penguins Three Stanley Cup Finals in four, the fans in Anchorage have been spoiled because they still don't sell out the arena. Pittsburgh had a number of years rebuilding but are back now, this is the third year in a row they've made the playoffs. They got themselves the best goaltender in the league last summer, 25 year old Belarusian Anatol Lyantsevich, from San Jose in a blockbuster trade for a bundle of young players (a 4.5 center, a 3.0 defenseman, a 3.0 left wing and a 2nd round pick). He's so good he's broken through the "out of 20" rating system, he's 21 for positioning. That move turned them into a real contender. They also have LW Jett Luchanko who played for Colorado when they were good, and 4 centers rated 3.5 (Michael Jackson (not that one), Sean Doherty, Quinn Kennedy and Lee Shurgot) so they're good through the middle. They have a couple of top defensemen too, on first glance they didn't seem as good as Atlanta but when you look at the goalie too they're going to be tough. They also have ex-Husky Dylan Nolan playing left wing on their 4th line. He left Anchorage, spent a year on vacation then signed for the Penguins last summer. We played Pittsburgh twice in the regular season, a 5-3 win in Pittsburgh and a 6-1 win in Anchorage. Their good goalie didn't play in either game, we saw their backup G Kyle Dawe both times. Game 1 - Pittsburgh Penguins 2 Anchorage Huskies 0 Matt Leader is injury free but still struggling for fitness. I may have rushed him back too soon. He'll still be playing though. It's a defensive battle, we outshoot them 24-18 but their previously mentioned top goalie makes the difference, he saves all 24 shots. Pittsburgh top line center Lee Shurgot scores twice late in the first period (17:24 and 19:31) and that's an end to the scoring. Anchorage had a couple of power play chances in the second, but shut out. We've lost the first game of the last two series too, so hopefully that's some kind of omen. Game 2 - Pittsburgh Penguins 5 Anchorage Huskies 2 Enzo Landrey comes back in as 4th center, it was a waste of Urho Mattila giving him limited minutes as 4th line center so Landrey is back so we can put Mattila back into a top 6 winger place. Doesn't help. Things go badly quickly, Jett Luchanko after 15 seconds and Pittsburgh in the lead. Urho Mattila back as 2nd line left wing scores at 2:27 and it's tied after one. Second period Anchorage take the lead at 3:17 with an August Pettersson goal (the returning Enzo Landrey with the assist), but the game turns at the end of the period. Pittsburgh equalize at 17:33 (Alexander Haggblom) and take the lead with a buzzerbeater right at the end of the period (Lee Shurgot at 20:00). Pittsburgh control the third period, Koehn Ziemmer makes it 4-2 at 12:21 then they add an empty net goal. We're off to Pittsburgh 2-0 down. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Pittsburgh Penguins 2 Lots of messing about with the lines. Desperate times require desperate measures. A slow start, but it all worked out ok in the end. Just like the last game Jett Luchanko gave Pittsburgh the lead in the first, this time Peter Hrovatin equalized for Anchorage with a power play goal after 10:32 (it was a good night for the Anchorage power play). Jean-Philippe Cloutier makes it 2-1 Pittsburgh after 15 minutes. Into the second and we're tied again, another power play goal for Anchorage. This time it's Jordan Gavin. It's all tied up into the third and just when it looks like overtime, Anchorage strikes for a winner. David Prudek makes it 3-2 at 19:57 in the third. Game over and we're not getting swept, we're back in the series. Anchorage outshot Pittsburgh 37-24, mostly due to a dominating second period. It was their goalie that kept them in it. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Pittsburgh Penguins 1 The first period is a mass of penalties, a few coincidental. At 6:00 Urho Mattila gets a slashing penalty, some Penguin cheat gets an embellishment too. At 10:32 Enzo Landrey and Garin Ludwig get coincidental crosschecking penalties. Garin Ludwig is out the box 8 seconds before he gets a high sticking penalty, Pittsburgh get another. It's all got a bit testy. In amongst all the 5-on-4 and 4-on-4 play, Carsen Adair puts Anchorage 1-0 up and Jordan Gavin makes it 2-0. Period two calms down, Kaden McGregor scores for Pittsburgh to make it close again. Period three Oskar Vuollet makes it 3-1, no more scoring but some more penalties late on, coincidental slashing penalties aplenty. Series tied and back to Anchorage. We've taken some injuries though. Game 5 - Pittsburgh Penguins 4 Anchorage Huskies 1 It's time for some oh no! type injuries. Top defenseman Henry Mew has a knee injury and is out for the rest of the series, Urho Mattila has a collarbone injury and is out for the rest of the series. "It could have been worse" said Urho Mattila. No it couldnt Urho. David Prudek makes it 1-0 Anchorage in the first, Jett Luchanko ties it up in the second. It's his 15th goal of the playoffs, he'll be playoff MVP if/when the Penguins win. Second period has another round of slashing/high sticking coincidental minors, lots of 4-on-4. The teams are getting sick of each other. Third period is all Penguins, Wes Filmer puts them ahead, Jett Luchanko scores yet another goal from yet another power play, and Lee Shurgot scores an empty net goal. More injuries, the team is beaten up and off to Pittsburgh for a must-win game. Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Pittsburgh Penguins 3 Dahlberg and Mews are still out, now Leader is injured too. He's day-to-day, less than 100% but can play with a sore ankle. Three of the top four defensemen are out or playing through injury. Getting my excuses in early. We're too beaten up, Pittsburgh take control. Lucas Fenrich makes it 1-0 to Pittsburgh in the first, Lee Shurgot 2-0 in the second. Vasili Podkolzin rises from the grave to get Anchorage back into it in probably his last game at 5:15 in the third, but Jett Luchanko scores his 17th of the playoffs and it's all over. And that's it, another Stanley Cup defeat for Anchorage, and Pittsburgh get their first Stanley Cup of the post-Crosby/Malkin/Letang era. If we'd some how got to game seven we'd have been even more beaten up, August Pettersson is out with concussion. Onto the close season, at least this year the only free agent leaving is Vasili Podkolzin and there are no big price extensions due, so that'll be 6.5 million left over to spend on defensemen. And we'll have a lottery pick in the draft too from sending Jiri Mendl to Washington, not much chance of winning in the lottery, they were 12th worst, but it's a lottery pick. Better than a poke in the eye.

04-05-2023, 12:37 PM	#79
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	Close Season Wrapup I think the Anchorage window with the first batch of rookies is coming to an end. For the average player in the game the peak is 26 to 29 then there's a chance of regression. Some hanging on longer than others, mid to late 30s, others crash sooner. The core of the team (Gavin, Vuollet, Mews, Karmiris, Mattila, Pitre) are all hitting that 29/30 zone now and some of them are starting to show up on the monthly development report with negative development, some have already lost a little from their overall star rating (Mews and Karmiris mainly). Out of the group of them, only Gavin and Vuollet have contracts beyond this season and neither of them are regressing yet. I've tried shopping the other four, they're all asking for big pay raises and/or long contracts to re-sign, but the return on all of them isn't great (the regular 4th round pick + mediocre player offer) so I'll be holding on til the Trade deadline and trying again. Along with the old guys wanting to get paid, the young guys (Leader, Dollack, Landrey and Svensson) are coming to the end of their entry level contracts so maybe it's time to shed the old core and go more youthful. Maybe keeping Gavin and Vuollet as the top centers and getting younger around them. I think that would still be playoff worthy. Or maybe we keep the band together for one more run at the playoffs. I don't really know yet. First news of the close season was former Anchorage favorite and more recently salary stealing has-been Vasili Podkolzin came to the end of his 3x6.5mil contract and promptly retired. 1006 NHL games (809 with Anchorage), 226 goals, 343 assists, 1 Stanley Cup. I'm choosing to believe he's now an in-studio analyst for our local TV coverage. 2036/37 Free Agency We had Podkolzin's salary freed up, and then traded away a couple of others (Matthew Paranych went to NY Rangers for a throwaway player to clear 2.5mil, C Miloslav Martin went to Montreal for a pick) and we had money to burn. First signing was 29 year old Russian defenseman Alexander Filippov. He had 4 years in the NHL at Edmonton but he's been in the Swedish league for the last 3 years so he's a depth addition to a barren defensive roster. And that was the end of the free agents. We should have had money to spend, but we don't and I don't know why. According to the team finances screen we're over 5mil below the budgeted payroll, well below the league salary cap, but it says Available Money for Free Agents = -2.9mil. So no idea, as it stands we need another defenseman and a backup goalie (we really need a backup goalie, we only have 2 and one of them is a .5 star rated Polish teenager). I'm not completely sure that claiming players from waivers doesnt bypass the "offer exceeds your budget" check, so I'll be trying that out to fill the gaps if I cant get round the problem. 2036/37 Rookie Draft Looking through the Anchorage prospect list, it's a wasteland. The last passable prospect (C Spencer Ecclestone 2034 second round pick, 2.5 current 2.5 potential) is in Anchorage now and will be a backup next year and there's nothing left without him, most of them have a potential to one day not really be good enough for AHL. I'd dump most of them but maybe there's a diamond in the rough? Or maybe even a 2.5 star player? I think part of it is I've neglected the scouts. I didn't realize the AI wasn't doing that, the scouting was terrible. So a whole bunch of scouts signed for US, Canada, Western Europe and Eastern Europe and hopefully things get better. I didnt bother with the rest of the world, we might miss out on a 2.0 star Japanese or Algerian outlier but that's a risk I'm prepared to take. This year's draft was underwhelming, a Finnish winger called Anssi Ridanpaa (2.0/3.0) at 1.12 and a whole bunch of 2.0 potential defensemen. We get mentioned in the draft review email for the first time ever, apparently we had the consensus "worst draft of the year". The increase in scouting is not rewarding us with immediate benefits, it seems. 2036/37 Preseason We go 6-1 in preseason, I think that's a record. Even the .5 rated Polish goalie Chwalislaw Janiszewski gets a win in his debut, 3-2 against Pittsburgh. Other than that we move on a couple of bit parts to free up salary space and get a cheap backup goalkeeper so the 19 year old Polish goalie can carry on developing in the AHL. The new goalie is Neil Pintaric, he's been at Hartford's AHL team for years. To add to our lack of defensive depth new FA signing Filippov turns up full of borscht and vodka and is too unfit to play. For free-agent watch, Easten Turko has sat out a whole year but still won't talk to Anchorage. He's gone from being one of the best young defenders in the league to somebody who won't sign anywhere. Tarin Smith signed for the Ukrainian second division last year (he was approaching 4 years without a team), confusingly turned up at Anchorage as a rookie tryout in the close season, and has now signed for a Ukrainian Super League team. At least he's playing for somebody now.

04-06-2023, 01:13 PM	#81
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2036/37 Playoffs Round 1 - Vancouver Canucks Post Season time again, this is the seventh time in a row. This time it's Vancouver Canucks, first time we've played them in the playoffs, mainly because they only make it about half the time despite having had one the best players in the league (Connar Beddard) for a dozen years. I'd been thinking of changing the playoff settings away from divisional seedings to conference seedings so we could have the glamour of Nashville or Minnesota in the playoffs instead of Seattle and Calgary over and over, so Vancouver are a nice change. Vancouver finished 3rd in the Pacific, 10 points behind Anchorage. Main difference being we finished with four straight wins and they finished with three straight loses, so it's closer than 10 points. Connor Bedard is still their best player, he wins League MVP most years and probably will this year since he got 114 points in 82 games. No sign of a post-age of 30 downturn for him yet. Game 1 - Vancouver Canucks 4 Anchorage Huskies 2 No injuries for Anchorage going into the playoffs. Going by prior years Henry Mews should bite the dust at some point though, he loves a week or two out of office during the playoffs. No scoring in the first, Vancouver take the lead with a power play goal 48 seconds into the second period from Mason Kadatz. David Prudek scores for Anchorage (he's on the top line now, it's been a season of change for Anchorage), but Mason Kadatz scores another. Anchorage equalize again, Kaden Price at 17:21, and we're level going into period 3. Vancouver take the lead at 14:28 (Robin Pettersson) and add a power play goal late on (Zachary McKenzie 18:03) and we're 1-0 down. A very balanced game except Vancouver took advantage of their power plays and Anchorage didn't. Game 2 - Vancouver Canucks 3 Anchorage Huskies 6 No changes from game one, same players dressed, same lines set. 5:18 it's 1-0 Anchorage from Enzo Landrey, he's also top 6 now and been great. 29 regular season goals for our 21 year old Center. Kaden Pitre makes it 2-0 at 8:11. Vancouver race back and tie it up though before Jordan Gavin scores at 19:04 to give Anchorage a 3-2 lead after one period. It's 4-2 at 5:20 (Enzo Landrey again), 4-3 at 16:20 (Cole Jodzio for Vancouver), 5-3 at 18:54 (Urho Mattila with his first of the series). Enzo Landrey finishes off his hattrick at 6:08 and the series is tied at one. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Vancouver Canucks 2 Despite the scoreline looking close, Anchorage steamrolled them here. Out shot them 38-16, high danger chances 8-2. Jeff Martin put Anchorage ahead in the first, Denis Mirchink tied it up in the second. Jeff Martin with his second at 6:01 puts Anchorage ahead, Matt Pankratz with another power play goal for Vancouver to tie it up at 11:40. Twenty Six seconds later Borje Svensson gets the game winning goal and Anchorage are in the series lead. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Vancouver Canucks 1 After dominating game three, game 4 is very even but Huskies goalie Lucas Wall makes the difference. 27 saves on 28 shots. Brendan Rudolph puts Vancouver ahead unassisted 18:44 into the first period. Second period Jordan Gavin scores a power play goal at 8:48, the Anchorage power play goes 1 for 1 for the game. Oskar Vuollet adds a second at 14:26 and that's all that's needed. Vancouver have a couple of power plays in the third but no goals and we're back to Anchorage 3-1 up in the series. Still no sign of a goal or assist from Connor Bedard, hope he doesn't wake up. Game 5 - Vancouver Canucks 2 Anchorage Huskies 5 Fifth game in a row with no injuries and no changes for Anchorage, I think that's a record. Connor Bedard wakes up and gives Vancouver the lead at 9:04 in the first, David Prudek ties it up 12 seconds later. 44 seconds later Mikhail Gulyayev puts Vancouver back into the lead and it's 2-1 at the end of the first. Enzo Landrey shows he belongs as a top six center, he scores and the game is 2-2 at 17:26 in the second. Third period Anchorage kill them off. Borje Svensson at 0:19, a Jordan Gavin power play goal at 18:47 (half his goals seem to be power play goals. I should check that, the game seems to track every stat), and Henry Mews adds a late empty net goal and Anchorage are off to round two. I'm not sure if it's new in the latest patch or if I just never noticed before but there's now a tab on the boxscore screen that shows the ice position of all the shots. I like that. I mentioned earlier that we seem to play Seattle in the playoffs every year, next round will be Seattle Kraken yet again. The other side of the Western Conference is Atlanta v Nashville. Over in the east it's Toronto v Nova Scotia (I'm not sure what they're doing right, but the other expansion teams are finishing last while Nova Scotia have made the playoffs each year) and Hartford v Columbus. Reigning Stanley Cup champions Pittsburgh Penguins missed the playoffs, they finished 9th in their division.

04-06-2023, 03:34 PM	#82
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2036/37 Playoffs Round 2 - Seattle Kraken It's feels like we play Seattle every year in the playoffs but it's actually only the 4th time, they've missed the playoffs completely 7 out of the last 12 seasons. They're won twice, we swept them once. This season they've been great in the regular season, 118 points beat their old record by 18 points (their old 100 record was set last year). They're on the up. In the last round I said that Connar Bedard was the best player in the league, Shane Wright of Seattle is 1b on that list. An upturn this year, 111 points as a 33 year old, only the second time he's broken 100 points in a season. Other than Shane Wright they have recently signed Tyler Van Caeyzeele, the star player of the recent back-to-back champ New York Rangers, all star defenseman Milo Eager, and Alaskan Fletcher Spurle. He's not a top player but he always seems to score against Anchorage. Seattle will have home advantage as they won our division this year. Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 0 Seattle Kraken 4 After no injuries in the last series, we have a few problems going into this one. RW Emil Kjellberg is out day-to-day with back problems, David Prudek is doubtful with stomach muscle problems, Enzo Landrey is day-to-day with hip problems too. Prudek and Landrey could be risked, but all three sit to avoid aggravating the injuries. Safety first didnt work, Anchorage are called for 3 minor penalties and one major so Seattle spend half the first period on a power play and score twice. Marc-Antoine Marchant and Milo Eager. Oskar Vuollet took the five minute penalty for boarding, he'll probably be suspended too. There's no more penalties for the rest of the game, but Seattle add two more in the second, one of them as predicted from Fletcher Spurle, and we're 1-0 down in the series. Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 6 Seattle Kraken 3 As predicted, Oskar Vuollet has been suspended for his boarding, he's out for three games. Hopefully we're still alive when he returns. At least it wont drag into next season I guess. Kjellberg, Prudek and Landrey are all still out, Vuollet is suspended and Karmiris is also out with a knee problem, we're getting a bit bare bones. So bare bones that Landrey actually isnt out, we'll risk him. It's the top line that carries us though, Martin/Gavin/Svensson all +4. Martin Erben puts Seattle 1-0 in the first, Fletcher Spurle makes it 2-0 40 seconds into the second, and then Anchorage come zooming back. Jeff Martin (1:15), Peter Hrovatin (6:15), Johan Dahlberg (12:13), Jeff Martin again (17:57) and Robin Hansson (18:48) and we're 5-2 up at the end of the second. Seattle pull one back in the third, but a late empty net goal from Borje Svensson and we're back level in the series. Game 3 - Seattle Kraken 1 Anchorage Huskies 3 David Prudek is back, but Landrey is out again. His injury hasn't been aggravated, but he's too far away from 100% to risk. Jonas Lambert scores at 3:04 in the first, no scoring in the second, Spencer Ecclestone (our rookie center who's only playing because Landrey is out) makes it 2-0 at 2:34 in the third, Urho Mattila (who is playing 2nd line center because Landrey is out) makes it 3-0 at 3:50. Seattle get a late consolation, but we're 2-1 up in the series. Game 4 - Seattle Kraken 1 Anchorage Huskies 5 Landrey back into the second line, and it's domination from the Huskies. 50 shots in a playoff game, not bad. 2-0 after one (Borje Svensson and Henry Mews), 3-0 after two (Jeff Martin). Peter Hrovatin makes it 4-0 in the third before Seattle pull one back. David Prudek makes it 5-1 and we're back to Seattle with a chance to end it. Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 5 Seattle Kraken 4 Enzo Landrey is being rested again, he's back from his injury but not able to play every game and with Oskar Vuollet's suspension ending it's an easy swap to let him recuperate. Before the game I've noticed Seattle's injury list, they have seven players out including Shane Wright. No wonder they're struggling. Spencer Ecclestone makes it 1-0 Anchorage, still in while Enzo Landrey gets back to 100%, Seattle tie is up at 13:27. Jordan Gavin, Robin Hansson and Borje Svensson all score in the first and Anchorage are 4-1 up and cruising against the seriously depleted Kraken. Seattle aren't giving up so easily though, Tyler Van Caeyzeele, Marc-Antoine Marchant and Josh Fluker score in the second and it's back tied going into the third period. It's an unlikely hero for Anchorage in the third, Jonas Lambert scores at 14:53 and Anchorage move onto the conference finals. So the 4th Western Conference final in 5 years, and it's Atlanta Thrashers in the final just like last year. Atlanta got past Nashville in seven games, they were 2-0 down in the series but came back to win. A bonus for Anchorage is that we've had a week waiting after getting past Seattle so all the injuries and knocks have cleared up. In the Eastern Conference it's Toronto Maple Leafs v Hartford Whalers.

04-09-2023, 04:13 PM	#83
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	Missed my second Caps game of the season last night. First game I missed because I went to see America in concert instead, last night I went to see Mickey Dolenz in concert instead. He was good, but I preferred America. And on to the update: 2036/37 Playoffs Western Conference Finals - Atlanta Thrashers For the second year in a row it's Atlanta Thrashers in the Conference final. Last year it was Anchorage winning in seven and going on to lose the Stanley Cup Final, I'm betting this year will be Atlanta's time for revenge. Incidentally I'm writing this before simming, I do know the result and just predicting that to look prescient. Just like last year, Atlanta have more top end talent than anybody else in the league. Four 5 star players (LD Louis-Joseph Boutin, C Brandon Gorzynski, RW Rasmus Rinne, RW Braiden Scuderi), a selection of 4 star players. And they've got home advantage for the series. It's going to be tough. Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 0 Atlanta Thrashers 4 No injuries for Anchorage, everybody is at 100%. The week rest since the last series has been well timed. Scoreline looks bad but it was closer than the 4-0 looks. Atlanta went 1-0 up in the second period from Louis-Joseph Boutin, added a second late in the third from Brandon Gorzynski, then two empty net goals in the last 36 seconds, both from Braiden Scuderi. So quite close really, right? Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Atlanta Thrashers 5 This one wasnt as close as the last one, Atlanta outshot Anchorage almost 2 to 1 (40-21), well on top. Add to that that I said Henry Mews always takes some time off injured during the playoffs for an injury. Looks like this year it'll be a suspension, a 5 minute boarding major in the first period, they normally end up with a suspension. No scoring in the first despite the 5 minute major and a 2 minute minor for David Prudek too, Rasmus Rinne puts Atlanta ahead at 5:18 in the second but Jordan Gavin makes it 1-1 at 15:06. Third period Braiden Scuderi put Atlanta 2-1 up, they really are getting their money's worth from their stars, Henry Mews ties it at 9:34. Atlanta score two quickly and add a late empty net goal and we're 2-0 down. Game 3 - Atlanta Thrashers 3 Anchorage Huskies 4 Good news before the game, Henry Mews boarding was reviewed and judged to not deserve a suspension. Atlanta go 1-0 up in the first, Louis-Joseph Boutin at 16:26. Second period Anchorage drew level with a Henry Mews power play goal, Johan Dahlberg made it 2-1 Anchorage at 11:38, Brandon Gorzynski made it 2-2 with another power play goal and Enzo Landrey put Anchorage ahead again, 3-2 at 14:28 in a penalty strewn period. Into the third and Robin Hansson put Ancorage 4-2 up with a shot from the blue line (the screen with the shot positions is good), Carl Hewity brings Atlanta back within 1 at 13:48. A late penalty against Anchorage meant the game ended with Atlanta trying to equalize with a 6-on-4 minute but we held on. Anchorage rode their luck a bit, outshot and gave up 5 power plays but got the win and back into the series. Game 4 - Atlanta Thrashers 3 Anchorage Huskies 1 Anchorage outshot Atlanta 37-29, but Atlanta had the better chances (Atlanta won "high danger chances 17-9) so a deserved win. No scoring in the first again, but Atlanta win it with three goals in the second period. Luke Gherasim (4:16), Braiden Scuderi (11:35) and Justin Poirier (12:40) and Atlanta have the game won. Urho Mattila gets one back in the third but that's the end of the scoring. Anchorage go back to Atlanta needing to win 3 games in a row to stay alive. Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Atlanta Thrashers 2 And that's it, over and done. Rasmus Rinne puts Atlanta ahead right at the end of the second (19:43), Jonas Lambert brings Anchorage level at 10:46 of the third, but Atlanta win it was a goal from Juha Uusotalo at 14:15. A well deserved win, and a well deserved series win, Atlanta off to their first ever Stanley Cup final. No playoff goals from Lucas Karmiris, one for Oscar Vuollet, two for Kaden Pitre and 3 for Urho Mattila, the old guard have had their day. It'll be all change at Anchorage for next season. Unless the old guys drop their salary demands anyway. So no Anchorage in the Stanley Cup final this year, it'll be Atlanta Thrashers against Toronto Maple Leafs. Will Toronto end the million years of suffering for their many legions of fans, or will Atlanta make the dozens of hockey fans in Atlanta happy? On the plus side I'm apparently prescient.

04-10-2023, 10:42 PM	#84
Travis Pro Rookie Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Canada eh	While no more Cup wins is sad, the consistently great results are really impressive. Especially given the change in roster types with guys peaking/declining/overhauls/etc. Hope another title is coming soon for you. __________________ "I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it." - Rogers Hornsby

04-12-2023, 11:39 AM	#85
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	I think the time for another Anchorage title is running out. The game seems to be pretty good at being NHL-like with teams having period where they challenge and periods where they rebuild. If you've got a top player or two, support them with a halfway decent supporting cast and some role players and you'll be a playoff challenger as long as you can hold it all together. And, like the NHL, eventually the core players will get too old, the supporting cast will be too expensive to re-sign, and the draft picks will be too far down to fill the gaps so it's time for a rebuild. So Anchorage are rolling along as contenders but getting to the end of the Jordan Gavin era, he's 31, still rated 5.0 and hasnt started showing up on the monthly dev report with negatives yet but it cant be too long. I've seen some top players hit their mid-30s still 5.0 star rated, but it seems most regress earlier than that then hang around as over-paid average players for years. For the original Anchorage core Gavin and Vuollet have hit early-30s still at their peak, Mews has started his slide but still a top defenseman, Hemming and Karmiris have hit the overpaid average player stage. I've seen some complaints online that the regression kicks in too early, but it seems varied enough to me and the devs claim to have done a lot of research and are happy with their model, peak round about 29 but some players can drag out their peak. So that's all ok to me. I do think that if you played all out and were not squeamish about taking advantage of the AI you could roll the challenging window on and on, trade for top draft picks, trade for top prospects, so 1. no negotiating trades (take it or leave it) and 2. no offering trades are my house rules. I can shop a player and then pick which offer to take but no haggling and no targeting other team's star players. The game's problem is that if you look too close you start to notice all the strange things the AI does. There will be top players who have gone a year or two without signing for anybody, top players who have been signed on high value multi-year contracts then been cut a month later (apparently when the AI GM wants to free up cap space they'll cut somebody high paid even if they're a new signing), non-top players with gaps in their career too (I noticed one player on waivers who had been drafted then stayed at a team for 6 years never playing a game at NHL or AHL level, just being passed back and forward 3 or 4 times a season but never playing at either level). I think Restricted Free Agents is a problem too, no qualifying offers is another new houserule, it just doesn't seem to work in the game. There's no offer sheets, no arbitration, and RFA doesn't seem to lapse. I think Tarin Smith sat out for 4 years because he was officially still my RFA so that put everybody off him. I've seen complaints online that FHM is stuck with issues that roll forward year after year, top players who sit out years has always been an issue and never been fixed. When you're churning out an annual update it's easier to market with new features than to try to sell the game on fixing the bits that don't work, I guess. So there's a lot to like about the game, it's deep, it's customizable and it's a fairly good sim of real NHL, but it could really do with some patching rather than new features. 2036/37 Stanley Cup Final - Toronto Maple Leafs v Atlanta Thrashers It took 70 years in the end, but Toronto Maple Leafs have finally ended their Stanley Cup drought. It was a great season for them, they won the Atlantic division with 118 points (tied with Seattle for the President's Trophy, they had exactly the same record, same wins, same regulation wins, so no idea what the tiebreaker after that would be, we'll call it a tie). They beat Philadelphia Flyers, Nova Scotia Admirals and Hartford Whalers to reach the Stanley Cup final, then beat Atlanta Thrashers 4-1 in game seven of the series to clinch the championship. Their star players are a couple of Russians, 29 year old Left Wing Nikita Ovcharov (52 goals, 47 assists, 99 points) and 26 year old goaltender Aleksey Medem (.921 save%, 2.15GAA). There are no original players left on their championship roster, Auston Matthews retired as a 38 year old one year too early. Last edited by Critch : 04-12-2023 at 12:05 PM.

04-16-2023, 08:19 PM	#86
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2037/38 Rookie Draft There's normally not much left by the Anchorage first pick at the bottom of the first round, but this year is particularly bad. First Round, pick 38, LW Marc-Etienne Cyr. He's an 18 year old Canadian and he's not very good, but he's 6'4''. He'll be in the juniors for years. From then on it's whoever the scouts select as their best "high risk" pick, probably nobody who'll ever see the bright lights of Anchorage. The Anchorage prospect list is still pretty much bare, low picks every year have caught up, there's really nobody on their way to Anchorage. In the system prospect ranking list Anchorage are listed 32 out of the 40 teams, it's surprising that there are 8 teams worse off. 2037/38 Free Agency A year of change for Anchorage, a lot of old guys pricing themselves out of a new contract. That was the plan anyway, it didnt work out that way though because Free Agency in the game doesnt really work so all that happened was they left and nobody signed them. Five Anchorage players went to free agency (Henry Mews, Lukas Karmiris, Urho Mattila, Kaden Pitre and Robin Hansson), it's now the day before pre-season and only two of them have been signed. So good news for Henry Mews and Lukas Karmiris, they're back at Anchorage while the other three sit at home. Henry Mews left saying he wanted 14mil for a single year extension, six days of nobody calling him and he was back at Anchorage, 2 years at 6.2mil per year. Lucas Karmiris had a sudden realization of his lack of irreplaceability and cut his demands too. A few weeks later I'm already regretting giving Karmiris a 3 year contract, that's 3.5mil per year we're not getting value for after year one. With the money saved from letting Mattila, Pitre and Hansson walk, we added some depth. A handful of rookies on two way deals, pick of the bunch C Aleksandr Unichenko. He was Anchorage's third round pick last year and since then he's had a year of over a point per game in the KHL as a 19 year old so he must be good. As well as all the rookie children we signed one grown up player, defenseman Axel Sandin Pellikka. He was a Seattle player for years but has been over in Russia for a few seasons. It's been a week since I played the game and I cant remember why I signed him, last week Critch really messed that one up. He's old, not very good, costs 3mil per year and he's not even over 6 foot tall. So going into the season the lines look like this: Forwards First Line - Jeff Martin (3.5)/Jordan Gavin (5.0)/Borje Svensson (4.0) - As long as Jordan Gavin is at his peak, we'll be a contender. Jeff Martin will be first line, but he'll spend half the season injured or suspended, he's vulnerable to injury everywhere and a bit violent, so TBD. Second Line - David Prudek (3.5)/Enzo Landrey (3.5)/August Pettersson (3.5) - Enzo Landrey is more offensive than Vuollet so he's into the top 6, Prudek will probably end up on the top line when Martin gets injured/suspended, Pettersson will probably end up on the 4th line when he under-performs again. Third Line - Magnus Larsen (3.5)/Oskar Vuollet (3.5)/Peter Hrovatin (3.0) - Larsen was a 4th round pick and not much of a prospect but seems to improve every time I check on him. He has the dreaded "if he's on your roster controversy will follow" so he's risky. Every year you get bonus points for your stats, I've been pumping all those points into "man management" and "discipline" so I dont think we're as susceptible to harmony and discipline problems now, Magnus will test that theory. Fourth Line - Jonas Lambert (3.0)/Emil Kjellberg (3.0)/Lucas Karmiris (3.0) - Even the 4th line are all 3.0 star rated, think this is the deepest set of forwards we've had. Depth forwards - C Spencer Ecclestone (2.5), C Aleksandr Unichenko (2.5) RW Anssi Ridanpaa (2.5) - this is what remains of the Anchorage prospect list, they'll all get a chance this year to see if they can show a Magnus Larsen like improvement. Defensemen First Pair - Matt Leader (3.0)/Henry Mews (3.5) - standard top pairing for a couple of years, Mews back for 2 more years. Second Pair - Johan Dahlberg (3.0)/Mark Dollack (3.0) - Dahlberg and Dollack are 2 of the 3 successes from our "draft lots of really big defensemen" drive from a couple of years ago (Matt Leader is the other). They're not fancy skill players, just big lads. Dahberg is 6'6'' and 250lbs even without skates. Third Pair - Axel Sandin Pellikka (2.5)/Alexander Filippov (2.5) - A pair of NHL retreads who had been reclaimed from the KHL. Both old, both fairly expensive, Pellikka isnt even tall. Depth defensemen - John Fireman (2.5) Joni-Jukka Timonen (2.5) - more big young lads. One of them is Finnish, can you guess which one? Goaltenders Lucas Wall (5.0) and Neil Pintaric (2.5) - Lucas Wall is the star, but he's a free agent after this season and he wants a $10mil per year salary increase to extend after this season. Eeek! It's been four years since the Anchorage Stanley Cup win and only six players remain (Gavin, Vuollet, Mews, Karmiris, Prudek, Martin). That's more turnover than I expected. 2037-38 Pre-season Each year the game generates a season preview email, this year it makes Vegas favorites, Toronto and Hartford challengers and Anchorage a dark horse. Dark horse sounds fair, pretty sure we'll make the playoffs but not top level talent. No mention of Atlanta on the list of favorites, they've hit the point where they had too many talented players looking for $12+ million per year and have started losing free agents, star defender Louis-Joseph Boutin has moved onto Vancouver for $14mil per year. Not sure why but the big money signings always seem to go to Vancouver. We also get our first mention on the "league's best" email, Lucas Wall rated as the league's best goaltender. He's on the last year of a $1.5mil per year contract and he wants to be seriously paid to stay, his negotiations start at 3 years at $13.6mil so this will probably be his last year as a Husky as Jordan Gavin is on a contract year too. We go 3-3 in pre-season. Strengthening Lucas Wall's contract negotiations is we go 3-0 in his three games and 0-3 in games we gave a backup a start. Last edited by Critch : 04-16-2023 at 09:08 PM.

04-17-2023, 09:48 AM	#88
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2037/38 Playoffs Round 1 - Calgary Flames Calgary Flames are one of the regular playoff opponents, the divisional seeding means you see the same divisional rivals in the first couple of playoff rounds almost every year. 2031/32 we beat them in seven, 2033/34 we beat them in six, 2035/36 we beat them in seven. We've been locked into a playoff series with Calgary this year for a while, we were both clear of fourth but well behind first so short odds to finish second and third for a while, in the end Calgary got second and have home advantage. We only played them once in the regular season this year, a 6-3 Anchorage win in November. Only playing a divisional rival once in the regular season seems a bit off. Their star player is LW Jakub Moravec, he missed our last playoff series with injury but he's fit this year, and goaltender Leland Griffith. Griffith won the Vezina trophy the year before last, was the West's goalie in the All Star game last year, and won a gold at this year's Olympics as the US's goaltender. Lucas Wall apparently won a bronze as Canada's goaltender. Game 1 - Anchorage Huskies 1 Calgary Flames 4 We've had a few injuries in the last few weeks of the season but most of them are cleared up or almost cleared up now. Johan Dahlberg is gone for the year, Oskar Vuollet and Matt Leader both miss game one but should be back soon. It's Leader's replacement, John Fireman (just back from injury himself), who gets called for a roughing penalty that leads to Calgary's first goal, a power play goal from William McIsaac at 7:18. Calgary go 2 up at 9:14 with a goal from Trae Wilke, but Peter Hrovatin pulls one back for Anchorage at 11:42 and it's 2-1 after the first. It's 3-1 after the second, Owen Martin scoring for Calgary, and it's 4-1 at the end. Game 2 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Calgary Flames 3 Same lines as last game, Vuollet and Leader could both play if needed but they're not 100% and not worth the risk. I decide against dropping Lucas Karmiris too, he's playing because of Vuollet's injury, and that works out because he puts Anchorage 1-0 ahead 11:06 into the first period. Into the second and it's 2-0 from Borje Svensson at 0:58, Jordan Gavin makes it 3-0 at the four minute mark and we should be cruising. We're not though, Calgary score twice in a minute (Jeff Smith and Jessy Charon, no sign of their star Jakub Moravec yet) and they're back within a goal. Jordan Gavin makes it 4-2 at 19:34 in the second. Calgary get back within one at 3:54 in the third but Anchorage close down the game and take the win. Our power play goes 0-3, it's been a problem all year. We finished the season ranked 35th for power play, which was a late improvement because we spent most of the year 40th. Game 3 - Calgary Flames 0 Anchorage Huskies 3 Matt Leader is back from injury so the defense should be strengthened and it is but mainly because of the goalie. Lucas Wall faces 27 shots, saves them all, and wins us the game. Jeff Martin puts Anchorage 1-0 up in the first, Peter Hrovatin adds a power play goal in the second, August Pettersson adds an empty net goal right at the end and we're 2-1 up on the series. Lucas Karmiris does pretty well as a defensive center on the fourth line, there's life in him yet just not 3.5 mil per year for the next two years worth. Game 4 - Calgary Flames 0 Anchorage Huskies 3 Oskar Vuollet is back as third line center and we're almost at full strenght, only long term casualty Johan Dahlberg missing. The game has the same scoreline as the last game, but it's a different game. Game 3 our goalie half-way stole, Game 4 is as dominant a 3-0 as you can get. Jonas Lambert and Magnus Larsen put us 2-0 up in the first, Magnus has been on his best behaviour all season despite being a problem child. Enzo Landrey adds a late goal in the third and we stroll home 3-0, outshooting Calgary 32-19. We're off to Calgary with a chance to put them out yet again. Game 5 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Calgary Flames 1 John Fireman picked up a knock in the last game, he'll be missing for the rest of the series with a back muscle pull. It was a tossup whether he played or Axel Sandin Pellikka so no real drop off with him being out, just the decision made for me. Enzo Landrey gives Anchorage an against-the-run-of-play lead at 7:02 in the first period. The second period passes without incident other than Anchorage have woken up after Calgary's fast but unrewarded start. In the third Declan Brinkman ties it up for Calgary at 7:06 and then Calgary have their chance, they go on the power play at 11:39 after Jeff Martin gets called for high sticking. The power play is the decider in the game, but it's Anchorage defenseman Mark Dollack scoring a back-breaking short handed goal. Calgary star Jakub Moravec finally turns up on the box score at 15:05 in the third, he takes a slashing penalty. He's not had the best of series. So we win the series 4-1, the fourth time we've faced Calgary and the fourth time we've knocked them out. The bad news is Henry Mews will be having his annual playoff time injury vacation and will miss most of the next series with a neck injury. He's not a integral as he used to be, but he'll still be missed especially with John Fireman looking like he'll still be out too. Next up it'll be the Vegas Golden Knights, they upset Vancouver in the first round. In the other half of the West it'll be Nashville v Minnesota, and it's Toronto v Nova Scotia and NY Rangers v Washington Capitals in the East. Since the last expansion three of the four expansion teams have struggled at the bottom of their divisions but Nova Scotia Admirals have made the playoffs all three years, not sure what they're doing but they're doing something right.

04-17-2023, 12:34 PM	#89
Critch lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Herndon, VA	2037/38 Playoffs Round 2 - Vegas Golden Knights A new opponent in the playoffs. We haven't played Vegas in the playoffs yet, mainly due to them having a playoff drought for 12 seasons up til last year. The game's pre-season preview listed them as this season's favorites and, despite only getting into the playoffs as a wild card team after finishing 4th in the division, they do have a lot of very good players. The bad news for Anchorage is they have some very good talent, defenseman Martin Hardman, Center Yaroslav Mukhachyov and RW Aleksandr Kalashnikov all in their prime and rated 5.0 current ability. More bad news is that they have a lot of depth LW An Byeong-Hun, LW Matvei Michkov, C Filip Nilsson, LD Soren Brault all rated 4.0+. The good news (for Anchorage) and maybe the reason that a team with all this talent finished 4th in the division, their goaltenders are poor. They conceded 263 goals this season, the most of any team that made the playoffs and almost 60 more than Anchorage did. Another bit of good news (for Anchorage) is that two of their stars, Mukhachyov and Kalashnikov, are banged up and less than 100%. Mukhachyov has a sprained knee that wont fully recover til over the summer and Kalashnikov is playing with a recently dislocated finger. Kalashnikov is dissapointingly not number 47. Game 1 - Vegas Golden Knights 2 Anchorage Huskies 5 Finishing off the last series in 5 games gave us a few extra days to get ready so Fireman and Mews are close to returning but they'll both be missing at least game one. So we'll be relying on backup Joni-Jukka Timonen against the third highest scoring team in the league. We get off to a good start, two defensemen slapshots from the blue line and it's goals for Matt Leader and Reece Gault and 2-0 after the first. The second period is quiet, other than a couple of power plays for each team, until late on when Radim Valecek pulls one back for Vegas, then Vegas get a power play almost straight away, David Prudek called for roughing. There's two goals in the power play, first Oskar Vuollet puts Anchorage 3-1 up short handed before Sam Oremba gets a power play goal for Vegas. 3-2 Anchorage going into the third. David Prudek makes it safer, 4-2 Anchorage after 16:07 and Borje Svensson adds another late on. Vegas goalie Taylor Reynard is rated 1.5 stars and it shows in this game, .857 save percentage. Game 2 - Vegas Golden Knights 3 Anchorage Huskies 2 Still no Mews or Fireman so Joni-Jukka Timonen stays in and he puts Anchorage 1-0 up at 6:00 with another long range slap shot. Aleksandr Kalashnikov ties it up at the end of the first, his first goal of this year's playoffs. They did well getting by Vancouver with their stars crocked. At the end of the second they score twice, Filip Nilsson followed by Sam Oremba. RW Oremba seems to be the support player who has stepped up to cover their injuries. 19 goals in 79 regular season games followed by 5 in 8 in the playoffs. Jordan Gavin scores a power play goal at 9:18 of the third but Vegas hold on and the series is tied. Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Vegas Golden Knights 3 Mews and Fireman both still out. Vegas take a 2-0 lead in the first, An Byeong-Hun (a South Korean hockey star) and Filip Nilsson. At the start of the second Jordan Gavin pulls Anchorage back into it with a goal at 0:50, we kill a power play when Timonen is called for tripping (he's really struggling despite his goal in the last game) then Matt Leader ties it up at 5:53. Shots from the blue line getting past their mediocre goalie is a theme for the series. Alexandr Kalashnikov shoots them into the lead at 19:27, so we go to the third 3-2 down. We only need 11 seconds of an early Anchorage power play and it's tied up, Jordan Gavin putting away a rebound, and at 17:47 Anchorage finally take the lead with a Peter Hrovatin goal. We're 2-1 up in the series, but the defense is crumbling, Leader is injured now too. Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Vegas Golden Knights 2 Mews is still out and Matt Leader has joined him on the bench, a stomach muscle pull. I should probably be announcing these like real NHL injuries for realism, Upper Body Injury or Lower Body Injury and no details. John Fireman is still not 100% but we'll have to risk him as otherwise we'd have to play rookie Aaron Moody and he's rotten. More bad news, it's the beginning of May so time for the dev report and Justin Gavin shows up on it with a negative number for the first time ever. Still 5.0 rated but the rot has begun. Vegas lead after the first, Yaroslav Mukhachyov with his second goal of the playoffs. Mukhachyov is still injured and slowed, but Kalashnikov has vanished off their day-to-day list, he's fully recovered. Anchorage storm back in the second, outshoot them 17-8 and score twice. Jeff Martin at 6:26, David Prudek at 11:59. According to the shot map Prudek's goal was unassisted and right in front of the net a couple of feet out. So somebody has fumbled him the puck and gifted a goal, I'm going to believe it's their mediocre goalie. Into the third and Jonas Lambert puts Anchorage 3-1 up at 11:11. Vegas pull one back late, but we hold on and lead the series 3-1 despite the missing defensemen. Game 5 - Vegas Golden Knights 6 Anchorage Huskies 5 overtime Mews could play if he had to, but we're 3-1 up in the series so we'll not risk him yet. We probably should have risked him, the defense is terrible, Wall is terrible, everything is terrible. The game rates shots from 0 (it's not really a shot, more of a dump in that the keeper holds) 1 (it's a shot but the keeper should save it), 2 (a decent enough shot, but should be a save), 3 (a good chance) and 4 (like 3 but a rebound too so the keeper is out of position). Lucas Wall lets in two 1 rated shots. Their keeper lets in one too, it's like the opposite of a goalie duel. It's 1-1 after the first, Axel Sandin Pellikka with our goal. Oskar Voullet and Jonas Lambert put Anchorage 3-1 up but Vegas score 3 times in the last 4 minutes, the first of them the first of Wall's flubs, and we're 4-3 down. Anchorage bounce back in the third, Alexander Filippov at 5:55 and David Prudek at 9:17 and we're heading for the Conference final. Until 12 seconds to go, Kalashnikov scores on another poor shot that Wall messed up. It goes to OT, not for long, and we lose. Vegas back in it at 3-2 down in the series. Incidentally Lucas Wall now thinks he's worth 14mil a year for five years. Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Vegas Golden Knights 10 Mews is back and fully fit, Matt Leader can play too, so we're as close to full strength as we can expect to be. WTF happened here? Lucas Wall stunk again, 5 goals on 17 shots so he was pulled and backup Neil Pintaric came in and stunk even more, 5 goals on 11 shots. We let in 10 goals on 28 shots, outshot them 40-28 and still got destroyed. 1-0 down after the first, 8-2 (!?) down after the second, 10-2 at the end. Alexander Filippov and Borje Svensson scored for Anchorage and lots of people scored for Vegas but none of them three times. I checked the box score and you couldnt blame the defensive pairings, all three of them were equal, all -2 or -3. It was the goalies. Back to Anchorage for game seven. One has to believe than morale may be low. Incidentally Lucas Wall still thinks he's worth 14mil a year for five years. Game 7 - Vegas Golden Knights 3 Anchorage Huskies 4 I'd been nursing Matt Leader back from his injury, 3rd pairing and limited minutes, but he's back on the top pairing with Henry Mews even with the risk, we need to do something different. The required bounceback is late showing up, 8 minutes into the first period Vegas are 3-0 up, Wall let in 3 of the first 7 shots. At least this time none of them are of the "well he'll want that one back" variety. Since 12 seconds to go in Game 5 we've let in 15 goals in 70-ish minutes. There's signs of a recovery when Enzo Landrey scores at 19:53 and we're 3-1 down after the first. The second period zips past with no more scoring and we're into the third still 2 goals down. The game livens up in the third, Anchorage get a power play after 0:58, three seconds into the power play David Prudek fights a Vegas player for a pair of matching major penalties, it's their star defenseman Martin Hardman. Years ago Vasili Podkozlin started a fight in a playoff game we were losing and it sparked a comeback, the same thing happens here with Prudek dropping the gloves. We don't score on the resulting power play, but at 9:39 Jeff Martin (normally the Huskies player you'd bet on starting a fight) pulls us back within one, and then he scores again to tie the game up at 12:38. Into the last minute and heading for game seven overtime when David Prudek turns up again, this time to score the series winning goal at 19:31, assists for Henry Mews and Mark Dollack. Well that was a strange series. We had it sewn up, and then we really didnt, and then we did for sure. I'll put Game 6 down as "just one of those games". At least Vegas's Yaroslav Mukhachyov can go home and let that gimpy knee heal up. Onto the Western Conference Final, we'll be playing Nashville and will have home advantage. Over in the East it'll be Toronto Maple Leafs against New York Rangers, Toronto have just been brushing teams aside this year, a good bet for back-to-back championships.