[Qb]

Quote: Originally Posted by Simple Mathematics

I'm in love with this post. To go along with what you said, it is difficult to rate most players on acceleration vs speed because there just aren't scouting reports out there that always tell you that stuff. For example, a big resource I use for the Revamped Rosters is The Hockey News. They give pretty good scouting reports for all NHL players, but sometimes even for some of the fastest skaters in the league, it will not even mention his speed.

Without advanced player tracking metrics -- which the upcoming World Cup will feature -- it is hard to quantify. When I had the time to watch a lot of hockey and do a deeply edited roster of my own (NHL08?), I went with a combo of scouting reports, my "eye test", and stats (for things like checking, blocked shots, and faceoffs).

Skating is a tough one, but there a ways to create some differentiation without going wild. Take a guy like Lidstrom later in his career; not a speedster by any stretch, but a very smooth skater and quick to the puck (more due to his intelligence but hey). So I'd go with high agility, slightly above average acceleration, and average speed. With my skating scale -- I considered 80 "NHL quality" -- that worked out to something like 90AGL/84ACC/80SPD. Nothing drastic from the 85-85-85 (or higher) he probably had, but definitely something you'd feel in gameplay switching from him to young Darren Helm at 80AGL/90ACC/89SPD (IDK, just pulling that out of hat).

Quote: Originally Posted by Caniac94

This probably won't help much but I just want to quickly input that I like to keep the speed up high because when you see a game (especially in person) guys are skating around pretty fast, even slower guys as well. I like to keep that speed element there. What I felt makes the most difference is acceleration. When I did my own roster edits I just generally made older guys slower by giving them a slower acceleration and younger guys faster with better acceleration, which is pretty obvious that younger guys are gonna generally be faster anyway.

I feel you. I didn't use a very wide range for speed ratings, with most NHLers falling between 80-90. As I said above, I considered 80 NHL quality, so only guys who known for being slow or the common scouting phrase of "below average skater" (which I interpreted as AGL rather than SPD) would dip much below 80. I agree acceleration makes a big difference and like the idea of younger guys having more explosiveness, but also agility is a great way make the great skaters stand out, or conversely, the bad ones.

Crosby and Kane or two good examples; I'd say they both have above average speed (85+), but what sets them apart is how quickly they can change speeds and direction (AGL & ACC!). That's part of what makes them great IRL, and if the entire league was rated on a similar scale, it'd make them stand out when you're on the sticks too.