How's your franchise going? NHL 19 Edition

[DarthRambo]

2018-2019 Colorado Avalanche season update #2

The first 20 games of the season are complete! We continued the now extreme good start, going 8-2 over the last 10.

Date: November 21, 2018

Record: 15-4-1 (31pts), first in Central Division.

Injuries: (games missed)

D I. Cole (2)
C N. McKinnon (1)
LW G. Landeskog (1)


Games I played:

6-3 L vs Senators

3-2 OTW @ Flames

4-1 W vs Predators

2-1 L @ Oilers

3-1 W vs Capitals

Team leaders:

Points... Rantanen 26pts (12g 14a)

Goals... Rantanen (12)

Assists... McKinnon (15)

Goalie stats:

Semyon Varlamov- 12w 3L 1otl 2so .928% 2.04gaa

Philipp Grubauer- 4w 1L 0otl 1so .937% 1.72gaa

Games I will play out of next 10 are: I play every other game!

@ Kings (11-9-0)

vs Stars (11-8-2)

vs Penguins (15-2-2)

@ Red Wings (10-8-2)

@ Panthers (8-8-2)



Sent from my LG-G710 using Operation Sports mobile app

[allenbraxton]

Started a franchise with my favourite team, the Vancouver Canucks. Completely summed the first season (assisted line changes on, injuries on, etc.) I was out of playoff contention around the trade deadline, and managed to make some trades with contenders. The trades were:

To WSH: Markus Granlund, 2020 2nd round pick, 2020 3rd round pick
To VAN: Tom Wilson, 2019 1st round pick

To PHI: Derrick Pouliot, Anders Nilsson, 2019 2nd round pick
To VAN: 2019 1st round pick

To TBL: Tim Schaller
To VAN: 2020 4th round pick

Feel like I won all three trades, and managed to make them because all the pieces I received were on the trading block.

At the draft, I had the 28th overall pick (Washington), 20th overall pick (Philadelphia), and the 13th overall pick (Vancouver.) Montreal ended up with the 2nd overall pick and had it on the trade block. Taking a shot in the dark, I decided to make an offer... and it was accepted! This was the trade:


To MTL: Nikolay Goldobin, 2019 13th overall pick, 2019 28th overall pick, 2020 4th round pick
To VAN: 2019 2nd overall pick

Selected Kappo Kakko with the pick, and was quite happy with the rest of my draft. In free agency, I wanted to add another top-6 guy and another solid defensemen. I ended up signing Jeff Skinner and Anton Stralman. My 2019-2020 opening day roster looks like this:

Jeff Skinner - Elias Pettersson - Brock Boeser

Sven Baertschi - Bo Horvat - Jake Virtanen

Loui Eriksson - Brandon Sutter - Tom Wilson

Tyler Motte - Jay Beagle - Antoine Roussel


Alex Edler - Chris Tanev

Ben Hutton - Anton Stralman

Erik Gudbranson - Troy Stecher


Thatcher Demo

Jacob Markstron

Top prospects include Kappo Kakko, Quinn Hughes, Adam Guadette, Olli Juolevi,

[Lumpjaw]

Record: 35-40-7 | 7th in Central, 13th in Western Conference, 27th in NHL

After barely playing NHL for the last two editions I decided to buy it after christmas. After playing around with some threes and HUT I decided to wander into franchise mode. Expansion team it was and I felt it was time for Houston to get their team. So let me introduce Houston Dragons, who will play in the Western Conference as a part of the Central Division forming a rivalry with the Dallas Stars. As AHL team we have the newly founded Alabama Rockets. I turned of Owner Mode for this one as it's my first one. Also, the first ever game for Houston Dragons ended with a 9-1 loss against Vegas as I decided to try out AlTito's sliders. Safe to say I was not used to them. Injuries, morale and assistant making line up changes was turned on while simming.

We did however score the first goal in the game and the historical first goal in franchise history will forever belong to Mark Letestu who tucked it past Malcolm Subban in the Vegas net. This was the only game I played the first season as my main priority was to get used to all the things off ice and try to maximize the return of our assets. We ended up with a 35-40-7 record which places us 7th in the division, only Nashville were worse, and 27th in the league. Not at all bad for the inagural season. After the draft lottery we ended up with the 2nd overall pick in the 2019 entry draft. The result from that draft will follow in the review of season number two. The first captain of the Dragons franchise was Mattias Ekholm with Rick Nash and Tyler Myers as assitant captains. Adam Henrique and Mark Letestu later replaced Nash and Myers. The reasons for that? Continue reading.

The Houston Dragons will play in three different jerseys with the primary color being maroon and gold. White and black will be the supporting colors in the team identity. A maroon home jersey, white away and black third as shown below.

After looking at the exposed players in the expansion draft I was sure of one thing. There were plenty of good defensemen out there and not much to write home about regarding at center. Therefore the strategi was to pick as many good defensmen as possible no matter the salary as we'd not be near the salarcy cap when it was all said and done. And all in on defensemen it was. Mark Giordano, Adam Larsson, Mattias Ekholm, Josh Manson and Houston native Tyler Myers was quickly picked with intention to swap atleast a couple of them before the inagural season was over. Alex Killorn, Jesper Fast and Mark Letestu was probably the "best" forward picks. In goal the thought was to have Jaro Halak with Dell backing up – but a big blooper from the front office happened as Halak somehow was let go to the free agency and there we stood with Dell and Linus Ullmark as our duo. Givet it was the inagural season we decided to run with Dell and Ullmark.

NHL Expansion Draft 2018
Pick	Team	Player	Pos	Ht	Wt
	Anaheim	Josh Manson	D
	Arizona	Freddie Hamtilton	C
	Boston	Riley Nash	C
	Buffalo	Linus Ullmark	G
	Calgary	Mark Giordano	D
	Carolina	Trevor Carrick	D
	Chicago	Connor Murphy	D
	Colorado	Sven Andrighetto	RW
	Columbus	Mark Letestu	C
	Dallas	Gemel Smith	C
	Detroit	Matt Puempel	LW
	Edmonton	Adam Larsson	D
	Florida	Colton Sceviour	RW
	Los Angeles	Alec Martinez	D
	Minnesota	Gustav Olofsson	D
	Montreal	Kerby Rychel	LW
	Nashville	Mattias Ekholm	D
	New Jersey	Jimmy Hayes	RW
	NY Islanders	Jaroslav Halak	G
	NY Rangers	Jesper Fast	RW
	Ottawa	Tom Pyatt	C
	Philadelphia	Taylor Leier	LW
	Pittsburgh	Carl Hagelin	LW
	San Jose	Aaron Dell	G
	St. Louis	Oskar Sundqvist	LW
	Tampa Bay	Alex Killorn	LW
	Toronto	Brad Smith	C
	Vancouver	Reid Boucher	LW
	Washington	Alex Chiasson	RW
	Winnipeg	Tyler Myers	D

The first entry draft the Houston Dragons participated in was the 2018 one. Seven picks, one in each round, was at the disposal of the new franchise. We picked 6th overall and while we missed out on Rasmus Dahlin we were more than thrilled to make Filip Zadina our first overall NHL Entry Draft pick. We then followed that up with picking Ty Dellandrea, Adam Ginning, the russian Kozhevnikov, american Arnason before rounding it all off with Henman and then the finnish defenseman Ruutu who has low Top 4 potential. Apart from Zadina, there may not be much to say hooray for – but I hope for the best. If it stinks, I´ll blame the rookie GM.

We started off with filling in some holes after the expansion draft with signing Rick Nash on a one year deal. JT Brown, Sean Kuraly and Mackenize Weeger was also signed as UFA to bolster the NHL roster. Scott Wedgewood, Matt Hackett, Fredrik Claesson, Corey Tropp, Emilie Poirer, Travis Morin, Brian Flynn, Miro Altonen and Jeff Schultz to go play on the farm.

The interesting stuff however was done in trades. A grand total of seven trades were made before the trade deadline passed. As we were not shooting for playoffs we had our mind set to maximize the value for our assets. As talked about earlier we hade picked as many good defensemen as possible, with purpose on shipping a couple or more out during the inagural season. The first one who got traded was Alec Martinez who went to St. Louis together with Carl Hagelin and a 2nd round pick in 2020 in exchange for Jordan Kyrou, a 1st round pick 2019 and a 2nd round pick in 2020.

Trade number two was with Florida who gave up Aleksi Heponiemi, Jamie McGinn and a 1st round pick (2019) in exchange for Mark Giordano. Adam Larsson were seconds later shown the door and flew to Anaheim with a 2nd round pick in 2023 for Adam Henrique. Henrique quickly became our 1st line center and top scorer, he also got the assistant captain duty when Rick Nash were traded to the Kings for Sean Durzi and a 2nd round picl in 2019. Henrique then signed a three year extension with an AAV of $5.4 million.

Houston native Tyler Myers were shipped to the Rangers with a draft pick and 50% retained salary for the last months of his contract. Houston Dragons instead got Pavel Buchnevich, a 3rd round pick and Marc Staal back. Buchnevich is a great prospect, but Staal was a throw in to even the salary out. We'll have to ship him out soon though as he's on the books until 2021.

After all the trades we hade secured three picks in the first round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, which is a great situation to be in. Hopefully I don't messed up the picks and scouting leading up to them.

Trade summary:
Houston acquire: (C) Jordan Kyrou, 1st & 2nd rnd pick (2019)
St. Louis acquire: (D) Alec Martinez, (LW) Carl Hagelin, 2nd rnd pick (2020)

Houston acquire: 2nd rnd pick (2019)
NY Rangers acquire: (C) Tom Pyatt, 3rd rnd pick (2019)

Houston acquire: (C) Aleksi Heponiemi, (RW) Jamie McGinn, 1st rnd pick (2020)
Florida acquire: (D) Mark Giordano

Houston acquire: (C) Adam Henrique
Anaheim acquire: (D) Adam Larsson, 2nd rnd pick (2023)

Houston acquire: (LW) Pavel Buchnevich, (D) Marc Staal, 3rd rnd pick (2020)
NY Rangers acquire: Tyler Myers (50% retained), 3rd rnd pick (2020)

Houston acquire: (D) Sean Durzi, 2nd rnd pick (2019)
Los Angeles acquire: (LW) Rick Nash

Houston acquire: 2nd rnd pick (2020)
Boston acquire: (RW) JT Brown

Houston Dragons Stats - 2019-20 | * Indicates player was acquired during season
Skaters	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	GW	PIM	SOG	SPCT
Adam Henrique (A)	82	21	35	56	-1	0	12	188	11,2
Alex Killorn	77	21	33	54	-4	1	26	161	13,0
Jesper Fast	81	19	31	50	0	4	10	185	10,3
Pavel Buchnevich*	73	18	25	43	-6	2	33	132	13,6
Riley Nash	82	14	29	43	-5	6	33	164	8,5
Mark Letestu (A)	82	13	25	38	-14	4	12	117	11,1
Alex Chiasson	82	14	18	32	-2	0	32	103	13,6
Sean Kuraly	82	9	23	32	-4	1	26	100	9,0
Colton Sceviour	82	15	12	27	6	1	28	101	14,9
Jimmy Hayes	82	12	15	27	6	1	19	87	13,8
Jamie McGinn*	72	12	14	26	-23	2	36	119	10,1
Josh Manson	75	7	18	25	-3	0	42	148	4,7
Connor Murphy	73	6	16	22	-24	2	36	119	5,0
Mattias Ekholm (C)	69	3	16	19	1	0	20	125	2,4
Marc Staal*	82	2	15	17	-18	0	44	84	2,4
Mackenzie Weegar	45	5	8	13	2	0	12	68	7,4
Sven Andrighetto	47	6	5	11	-4	0	8	60	10,0
Gustav Olofsson	82	2	7	9	-11	0	31	88	2,3
Goalies	GP	W	L	T	GAA	TOI	SV	SV%	SHO
Aaron Dell	62	29	26	6	2,94	3754	1697	90,2	1
Linus Ullmark	21	6	14	1	3,76	1212	547	87,8	0

I plan to make a more detailed review of the second season when it's time for that. Just tweeted out some bits during the last week for season one at my twitter and then realized I should write something too, therefore not much info about the entry draft picks from 2018 as I´m not at the console right now. Will continue to tweet aboute the franchise over at @lumpjaw_fm if anyone want to follow along.

UPDATE: There's now a dynasty thread about this: https://forums.operationsports.com/f...s-houston.html

[DarthRambo]

2018-2019 Colorado Avalanche season update #3

The first 30 games of the season are complete! We really turned to crap over the last 10 games. We went 2-6-2, with a six game losing streak within that.

Date: December 11, 2018

Record: 17-10-3 (37pts), third in Central Division.

Injuries: (games missed)

D I. Cole (5)

C N. McKinnon (1)

LW G. Landeskog (1)

G P. Grubauer (3)...with him out I was forced to play with my AHL starting goalie who is only a 68ovr.


Games I played:

3-2 W @ Kings

2-1 OTL vs Stars

3-0 L vs Penguins

3-2 L @ Red Wings

5-4 SOL @ Panthers


Team leaders:

Points... Rantanen 28pts (13g 15a)

Goals... Rantanen (13)

Assists... McKinnon (18)

Goalie stats:

Semyon Varlamov- 14w 8L 2otl 2so .916% 2.33gaa

Philipp Grubauer- 4w 1L 0otl 1so .937% 1.72gaa

Spencer Martin- 0w 2L 1otl .850% 3.79


Games I will play out of next 10 are: I play every other game!

vs Oilers (17-12-1)

vs Stars (17-11-2)

vs Canadiens (14-14-3)

@ Coyotes (14-10-5)

vs Blackhawks (17-14-1)

Sent from my LG-G710 using Operation Sports mobile app

[DarthRambo]

2018-2019 Colorado Avalanche season update #4

40 games of the season, basically half of the season is complete! We turned it around the other direction with a 7-2-1 record over the last 10. We had a six game win streak as well.

Date: January 2, 2019

Record: 24-12-4 (52pts), first in Central Division. Dallas and St. Louis have 50, and 49 points respectively.

Injuries: (games missed)

D I. Cole (5)

RW S. Andrighetto (4)...+4

C N. McKinnon (1)

LW G. Landeskog (2)...+1

C A. Kerfoot (1)...+1

G P. Grubauer (3)

C C. Soderberg (1)...+1

Games I played:

3-2 OTW vs Oilers

5-2 L vs Stars

2-1 W vs Canadiens

4-1 W @ Coyotes

5-1 W vs Blackhawks

Team leaders:

Points... Rantanen 40pts (16g 24a)

Goals... Rantanen (16)

Assists.. McKinnon, Rantanen (24)

Goalie stats:

Semyon Varlamov- 20w 9L 2otl 2so .916% 2.38gaa

Philipp Grubauer- 5w 2L 1otl 1so .930% 1.96gaa

Spencer Martin- 0w 2L 1otl .850% 3.79

Games I will play out of next 10 are: I play every other game!

vs Sharks (27-13-1)

@ Jets (21-12-6)

@ Canadiens (17-19-4)

@ Senators (14-22-4)

vs Predators (13-26-2)



Sent from my LG-G710 using Operation Sports mobile app

[DarthRambo]

2018-2019 Colorado Avalanche season update #5

50 games into the season, and we are starting to think playoffs! We had a 6-2-2 record over the last 10 so still overall pretty good!

I do not forsee any trades before the deadline. I'm just going to roll with what we have.

Date: February 2, 2019

Record: 30-14-6 (66pts), first in Central Division.

Injuries: (games missed)

D I. Cole (5)

RW S. Andrighetto (4)

C N. McKinnon (1)

LW G. Landeskog (2)

C A. Kerfoot (1)

G P. Grubauer (3)

C C. Soderberg (1)

C T. Jost (10)....broke his wrist and is out until early April.


Team leaders:

Points... Rantanen 50pts (20g 30a)

Goals... Rantanen (20)

Assists.. McKinnon, Rantanen (30)

Goalie stats:

Semyon Varlamov- 25w 11L 4otl 2so .915% 2.38gaa

Philipp Grubauer- 6w 2L 1otl 1so .935% 1.84gaa

Spencer Martin- 0w 2L 1otl .850% 3.79


Team Stats (league rank):

GFPG- 2.84 (9th in NHL)

GAPG- 2.46 (7th in NHL)

PP%- 20.7% (9th in NHL)

PK%- 81.6% (17th in NHL)


Games I played from last 10:

7-4 W vs Sharks

3-1 W @ Jets

3-1 L @ Canadiens

4-3 OTL @ Senators

2-1 L vs Predators


Games I will play out of next 10 are: I play every other game!

vs Canucks (15-32-4)

@ Capitals (29-16-6)

@ Bruins (35-15-1)

@ Jets (26-18-7)

vs Golden Knights (22-29-3)



Sent from my LG-G710 using Operation Sports mobile app

[Hunkerdown]

I decided to restart with real teams after latest patch and roster.

All star competitive default
1.01 tuner
Florida Panthers
Simmed till real life date
Play every other game

Here is first 2 games played.
20190203_015219.jpg20190204_232754.jpg

PSN: GRINGOyGUAVA
YouTube: Hunkerdown

Madden 19 - Falcons year 2
(Mizzourah setup)
FIFA 19 - Las Palmas year 1
(GaloVingador settings)
Show 18 - Braves year 2
(default AS quick counts)
NHL 19 - Panthers year 1
(default competitive sim)
NBA 2K19 - Hawks year
(Trifecta with OS Roster)

[MizzouRah]

Started up a St. Louis Blues franchise with the 1-30-19 roster and latest tuner.

Salary Cap/CPU Trades/Player Morale - all ON, the rest are OFF

Simulation/AS/8 min/Fighting 2/2 - Penalties 4/4/Trade difficulty - Hard/Auto Scouting - Both/Fog of war - Off

Trades:

LW Alexander Steen (84) to Vegas for LW Max Pacioretty (84)
Steen has become stale and complacent here in St. Louis, so he'll get a change of scenery in Vegas and not only do we get a comparable replacement, we also save about $1.5M in salary.

LW Jaden Schwartz (86) to NY Rangers for their 2019 1st round draft pick
Even at 26 I don't see Jaden in our long term plans. The previous GM traded away a bunch of draft picks and I'm going to work hard on getting them back. It's a great start getting a 1st round pick back for the 2019 draft. Bonus is getting rid of his $5.5M contract.

That's just a start and as the season goes on, I'll evaluate our younger players, hopefully resign our rising stars and prepare for the 2019/20 drafts by getting more picks. Many of our core players need to show me they want to be here in St. Louis or they will get shipped out.

2018/19 Starting Lineup:

Pacioretty (84) - [C] O'Reilly (88) - [A] Tarasenko (90)
Perron (84) - Schenn (86) - Fabbri (80)
Maroon (81) - Bozak (82) - Sundqvist (77)
Sanford (76) - Thomas (77) - Barbashev (78)

Parayko (85) - [A] Pietrangelo (88)
Dunn (82) - Edmundson (81)
Bouwmeester (80) - Gunnarsson (79)

Allen (82)
Binnington (78)

* I'm going to play key games and simulate the rest.