[Malignant]

I created some nice slider settings for NHL 2K3 so I decided to sim a few seasons with the Boston Bruins and continue from there.

The first season saw us finish 8th in the Eastern Conference, where we lost the Quarter-Final series 4-2 to Washington. As I initially made the franchise mode difficult (by notching the franchise difficulty slider to full) it meant my budget was going to be tight if I had a poor season.

The next two seasons saw me finish with the 6th overall pick in the draft, followed by the 3rd overall pick. It meant I could pick up some good young players but due to the lower budget I had to say good bye to a lot of free-agents. It also didn't help that I decided to keep Joe Thornton with a 6-year $42m contract.

The goaltending position was interesting after the second season, as I decided to let go of Steve Shields. It meant I had three goaltenders with a 71 overall rating. John Grahame, Andrew Raycroft and a young Latvian named Bakis Ivanov (who I drafted in the 3rd round after the first season). I decided to give Ivanov another season in the minors, which left both Raycroft and Grahame to fight it out. Raycroft ended the season with the better numbers, so before I started season four I promoted Ivanov to see if he could un-seat Raycroft.

We finished the fourth season in 8th position and earned ourselves a quarter-final series with the New Jersey Devils. Ivanov had the better goaltending numbers so I decided to ride with him for Game One...