2013 Draft Class/Offseason Thread

[Virtual Jarmo]

A couple of GMs have asked me about the upcoming draft class, which I have not started and have not even looked at as of yet. The best I can do is tell you to expect a draft like the one we had in 2012. The young guys in the file are very good and are going to start taking jobs away from real life players. I understand that it's a natural progression in a sim league to have draftees make a big impact, but I don't want to erase all of the realism.

So, plan on a draft like 2012. There won't be another 2010 and probably not another 2011.

I know this is relevant with the trade deadline coming up, so I wanted to make it public knowledge so guys who I have already talked to over the last couple of days don't have a head start or inside info.

[Parker]

One of the discussions some of us have been having is that up until 2012, draft classes have been strong enough for very young prospects to push veterans out of their jobs. This is a much bigger issue in EHM because prospects develop so quickly compared to real life. I believe Riz tried to control this by making leadership and strength develop relatively slowly, but this ovbiously isn't a complete solution. While strength affects almost everything a player does (if you don't believe me, edit players.ehm to make a guy with 9999 strength and just watch him go) a guy with low strength but well-developed in other areas can still be a useful player. Same with leadership - it sure helps in the playoffs but having the stronger team overall is much more important.

Anyway, because of the quick-developing nature of prospects, the league's finances were in danger of becoming extremely unbalanced. Rules were added to make young players relatively less desirable by making them less cost-effective, but the gulf between existing and incoming talent was still there, so drafted prospect quality has begun to drop in an effort to prevent solid veterans from becoming effectively useless, routinely replaced by guys five years younger making the same money and playing at the same skill level.

I'll be the first to admit that subjectively for me, this sucks. We've enjoyed one awesome draft class and one very very good draft class so far, and for managers like me who love to build through the draft without gutting the team, the dream is effectively over. For the good of the league though, this has to happen. Otherwise, we're going to end up with either a) a league where half the talented players are sitting UFA because nobody can afford them due to financial constraints, or b) salaries are adjusted and/or the cap is raised to allow signing of this talent which causes the league to be full of teams whose 75OA 4th liners are unhappy because there isn't enough icetime to go around. Another effect of "b)" would be to reduce the value of true star players because Sid Crosby looks a lot more talented compared to a 70OF than a 80OF player.

The core of the problem is this: management is trying to make the league as realistic as possible, but in real life teams find hidden gems in late rounds in the draft, because talent scouting and projection isn't foolproof in real life. We're never going to get around that roadblock in EHM without resorting to random talent changes post-draft, and I'll be frank in saying that I personally hate that idea - teams don't do better through the draft in real life because of luck; it's because of superior scouting and player development. It does happen a little with POT boosts (for example, without considering the POT boost risk involved, Phoenix looks stupid for drafting Slava Namestnikov ahead of Phil Danault) but other than those cases, you just have to know a little about EHM attribute development and it all just boils down to arithmetic when figuring out prospect value.

Adam has created draft classes with the theory that an asset of a certain value can be acquired with a given draft pick. It's the only way to do it when you're creating all your own prospects. When EHM generates its own draft classes, it has a way of keeping overall player quality balanced: strong league = weaker draft class. As the strong players retire and talent levels drop, draft classes become stronger to replace that talent, and a lot of prospects are true questions marks: a 4X POT 9X CON defenseman, a 9X POT 3X CON forward. This works on a macro scale, but the nature of the system is that a player with under 50 CON is cursed for his entire career even if he doesn't bust, whereas in real life a player with a high ceiling but questionable makeup might grow up a little or benefit from great coaching and become fairly consistent as a player. In EHM, the same attribute that determine's a player's initial ability to succeed also determines his lifelong work ethic, and this is obviously a big limitation. The issue with EHEC arises in that our draft picks (and by extension, our prospects) have CERTAIN value. Because nobody busts, but some players boost, each draft class is always going to be as good as or better than face value, unlike in the NHL where there's an element of risk drafting anyone. Because of this, and because of the fact that prospects unerringly develop quickly, draft picks and prospects are always going to have inflated value in an EHM league, and because our prospects in EHEC are all painstakingly hand-crafted and always turn out as best-case scenarios (barring career-ending injury) then they may have to be manually adjusted. When every prospect is can't-miss, not everyone can have great ceilings. If 5th round picks make the NHL from every draft, it'll only take five seasons for every team's entire roster to turn over, and that's what would've happened two years from now if all our drafts looked like 2010 and 2011's. Maybe the solution is to have more of those extreme POT/CON examples as draftees - it's been brought up a few times but I don't know if it's the right solution just to introduce more uncertainty into draft pick and prospect value.

True bottom-feeding teams aren't going to be hurt as much by a weaker draft, as elite players will still be available with the top picks. However, the league is going to have to get away from the idea that even a strong team can draft better players than the ones it currently has, otherwise the overall talent level is going to spiral out of control quickly.

[Calgary.Flames]

What's the deal with a 4pot/9con guy? Can those player boost 3 times? How does that work exactly?
Otherwise, unless that guy has 150 ceilings, and even then, he'll be a useless player.

[GM Office Q]

It's no secret that the first draft 3 years ago was too strong. Since then, the drafts have been becoming more realistic - though the 'can't miss' factor combined with how quickly players develop certainly amplifies the strength of each draft. However, I think we're heading in the right direction with the draft classes. For each team, even the top teams to add a 72 OA guy, seems to be alright given guys diminishing and retiring at the end of their careers. And this is coming from a guy who traded a first round pick this year.

Throwing an idea out there - it might be helpful, using Parker's concept that EHM creates draft classes based on league strength as self-moderating, to use the automatically generated draft class rather than creating ceilings and stuff for the entire draft class and simply rename the automatically generated players to the guys in the real draft. Obviously a few housekeeping, like the fighting ceilings, might have to be edited, but in general this may help solve a problem if we're going down that path, and in addition would save Adam or anyone else editing the draft class a bunch of time.

[SharksGM]

The EHM-created draftees are terrible. Some years there are maybe 4 or 5 prospects worth a damn, whereas drafting and player development in the NHL has been improving significantly to the point where I'd say a majority of first rounders from the last few drafts are going to become solid NHLers.

Parker, I don't really get what your problem is with the 2012 draft. I picked up guys in the 2nd-4th rounds who will either be decent NHLers or, in the case of boosters, very good NHLers or AHL superstars (if they fail to boost). How does that 'kill the dream' of building through the draft at all? You mean your team is already full of great players that you'll have no trouble re-signing and so you can't expect to improve through the draft? Well sorry if I don't see the problem with that.

[Parker]

The EHM-created draftees are terrible. Some years there are maybe 4 or 5 prospects worth a damn, whereas drafting and player development in the NHL has been improving significantly to the point where I'd say a majority of first rounders from the last few drafts are going to become solid NHLers.

The reason EHM-created draftees are so terrible is to attempt to adjust to the human-created rosters that have set the bar of the average NHLer a lot higher than the software originally intended. Why do you think your fourth liners are demanding to be called core players? If you were to sim ahead 20 seasons, your EHM-generated drafts would be a lot stronger.

Parker, I don't really get what your problem is with the 2012 draft. I picked up guys in the 2nd-4th rounds who will either be decent NHLers or, in the case of boosters, very good NHLers or AHL superstars (if they fail to boost). How does that 'kill the dream' of building through the draft at all? You mean your team is already full of great players that you'll have no trouble re-signing and so you can't expect to improve through the draft? Well sorry if I don't see the problem with that.

I never said I had a problem with the 2012 draft. It's a fact that the drafts have gotten successively weaker, but you can argue that Lukas Sutter is going to be a very good NHLer if you want to. My point was that despite the fact that I loved the strong drafts, and that I still covet draft picks, I also recognize that for the greater good of the league, those draft picks are no longer going to produce players like the ones drafted in 2010. So really, your understanding is correct. You don't get what my problem is because, as I thought I explained in the original post, I don't HAVE a problem with it.

I hope this clears things up for you.

[Jungle Cats]

What's the deal with a 4pot/9con guy? Can those player boost 3 times? How does that work exactly?
Otherwise, unless that guy has 150 ceilings, and even then, he'll be a useless player.

Pierre Gemerre was 47/99con with straight 150 ceilings. Oh, those were the days... He boosted to 67 one year and 77 the next. I think with 99con the odds are pretty damn high, too.

32nd overall. Oof. Makes Granberg look like garbage.


on topic>

We're definitely having the new-talent flood that afflicts every single EHM league, but I think the steps being taken to counter it are effective, and last year's class was just fine. Hard to strike a balance between 'oh, but those guys got good drafts to load up and now I've got bunk?' and that flood, but a worthy cause nonetheless.

I wonder if there's a way to over-correct for the value of veteran players. Middle-tier guys who've never had much LE value could get a substantial bump after x age/seasons/playoffs/missing the playoffs(because they're suddenly going to be showing up), or fiddling with consistency.... might be too radical and destabilizing, admittedly.

[SharksGM]

The EHM-created draftees are terrible. Some years there are maybe 4 or 5 prospects worth a damn, whereas drafting and player development in the NHL has been improving significantly to the point where I'd say a majority of first rounders from the last few drafts are going to become solid NHLers.

The reason EHM-created draftees are so terrible is to attempt to adjust to the human-created rosters that have set the bar of the average NHLer a lot higher than the software originally intended. Why do you think your fourth liners are demanding to be called core players? If you were to sim ahead 20 seasons, your EHM-generated drafts would be a lot stronger.

Ok, thanks for repeating that for the umpteenth time. It doesn't matter why the EHM-generated draftees suck, the fact is that they suck and are useless for creating a realistic draft class because real drafts aren't so terrible.

Parker, I don't really get what your problem is with the 2012 draft. I picked up guys in the 2nd-4th rounds who will either be decent NHLers or, in the case of boosters, very good NHLers or AHL superstars (if they fail to boost). How does that 'kill the dream' of building through the draft at all? You mean your team is already full of great players that you'll have no trouble re-signing and so you can't expect to improve through the draft? Well sorry if I don't see the problem with that.

I never said I had a problem with the 2012 draft. It's a fact that the drafts have gotten successively weaker, but you can argue that Lukas Sutter is going to be a very good NHLer if you want to. My point was that despite the fact that I loved the strong drafts, and that I still covet draft picks, I also recognize that for the greater good of the league, those draft picks are no longer going to produce players like the ones drafted in 2010. So really, your understanding is correct. You don't get what my problem is because, as I thought I explained in the original post, I don't HAVE a problem with it.

I hope this clears things up for you.

Sorry for your semantical confusion. You claimed the dream of building through the draft without gutting the team is over. Then you said that was necessary for the good of the league. The former point is what I objected to. And you also said that it sucks for you. Sorry if I interpreted that as a complaint or a problem. You can pretend that I considered it an entirely neutral and factual statement instead if it makes you feel better.

[jamesredwings]

If you make the drafts weaker, I might kill myself. Having one guy from the draft break the lineup immediately is fine with me. And it made me get Richards one of the best in the league.

Blidstrand was drafted 3 years ago and would not make most lineups. 2 years ago, everybody was applauding when I drafted Adam Lowry in the 2nd round but he is nowhere close to NHL.

Believe me a season is very long when you have no hope. And five year stanley cup plans is great in the real NHL but not for short term life span IT games.

Just fighting for us mediocre teams

[Jets GM]

If you make the drafts weaker, I might kill myself. Having one guy from the draft break the lineup immediately is fine with me. And it made me get Richards one of the best in the league.

Blidstrand was drafted 3 years ago and would not make most lineups. 2 years ago, everybody was applauding when I drafted Adam Lowry in the 2nd round but he is nowhere close to NHL.

Believe me a season is very long when you have no hope. And five year stanley cup plans is great in the real NHL but not for short term life span IT games.

Just fighting for us mediocre teams

This

[Femur]

in real life, Joooooooonnaaasss!!! is merely Joonas (if he is even that)

(one instance i actually prefer reality instead of my fantasy life, btw. Jooooooonaaaassss is a Hawk killer...Joonas works at a laundrymat in Helsinki i believe)

[CapsGM]

If you make the drafts weaker, I might kill myself. Having one guy from the draft break the lineup immediately is fine with me. And it made me get Richards one of the best in the league.

Blidstrand was drafted 3 years ago and would not make most lineups. 2 years ago, everybody was applauding when I drafted Adam Lowry in the 2nd round but he is nowhere close to NHL.

Believe me a season is very long when you have no hope. And five year stanley cup plans is great in the real NHL but not for short term life span IT games.

Just fighting for us mediocre teams

This

Seriously? It isn't hard to develop a 55OA prospect into a NHL-ready player in 40-60 games.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Good discussion so far.

Let me start by saying this: I don't feel like the 2012 draft class was bad. Compared to 2011 and 2010, was it on the same level? Absolutely not. But, I take a lot of time and a lot of pride in creating the draft class. My goal is to make it a puzzle that you have to solve. There are diamonds in the rough, there are players who look good on the surface, but have major flaws. If you feel like the 2012 draft was bad, frankly, I don't think you scouted enough and that's nobody's fault but your own. It's not enough to look at the six major attributes when drafting. If you do that, you're getting yourself in trouble.

Myself, Tommy, and two other GMs have been discussing, via PM, ways to incentivize veteran players. They are going to center around leadership, and specifically target role players. Role players tend to lead by example, vocally, or a combination of both. This will make them more valuable and possibly cause teams to pick a 35-year-old grinder over a 21-year-old kid with similar attributes. All veterans (of a certain criteria) will get a LE bump, some more than others.

There are a few facts that are undeniable:

1. Draftees develop way too fast.
2. The "bust" factor is nearly non-existent.
3. Any future draft changes will not drastically affect the top half of the first round.
4. Some of the bottom-feeder teams are there because of mostly inactive GMs - not a lack of pro talent.

I'm going to address specific posts in my next replies in this thread. I didn't want one long post.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Anyway, because of the quick-developing nature of prospects, the league's finances were in danger of becoming extremely unbalanced. Rules were added to make young players relatively less desirable by making them less cost-effective, but the gulf between existing and incoming talent was still there, so drafted prospect quality has begun to drop in an effort to prevent solid veterans from becoming effectively useless, routinely replaced by guys five years younger making the same money and playing at the same skill level.

One alternative that we have discussed to this issue is a change from the current 75% of previous salary rule for free agents. It's part of the reason why we put in the 50% rule for free agents that went an entire season without playing. For the realism of the league, it's important to keep these players in the file. Our retirement system is not strict at all and a lot of borderline players have been able to remain in the file, if only in an AHL capacity.

This isn't directed at you, Parker, but an overall answer to the points you made.

I'll be the first to admit that subjectively for me, this sucks. We've enjoyed one awesome draft class and one very very good draft class so far, and for managers like me who love to build through the draft without gutting the team, the dream is effectively over. For the good of the league though, this has to happen. Otherwise, we're going to end up with either a) a league where half the talented players are sitting UFA because nobody can afford them due to financial constraints, or b) salaries are adjusted and/or the cap is raised to allow signing of this talent which causes the league to be full of teams whose 75OA 4th liners are unhappy because there isn't enough icetime to go around. Another effect of "b)" would be to reduce the value of true star players because Sid Crosby looks a lot more talented compared to a 70OF than a 80OF player.

I think one of the problems that I have run into in creating the draft classes is that the defensive forwards I've made have been too strong offensively. If I made them more one-dimensional, not only would they not be in the mid-70s overall, but they would also probably not bitch about their organizational status. Furthermore, last year's draft was pretty high in greed values. For whatever reason, greed factors into the calculation for the OA rating. Also, I think it affects morale. The easiest solution here is to give role players a low greed rating more often than not.

The core of the problem is this: management is trying to make the league as realistic as possible, but in real life teams find hidden gems in late rounds in the draft, because talent scouting and projection isn't foolproof in real life. We're never going to get around that roadblock in EHM without resorting to random talent changes post-draft, and I'll be frank in saying that I personally hate that idea - teams don't do better through the draft in real life because of luck; it's because of superior scouting and player development. It does happen a little with POT boosts (for example, without considering the POT boost risk involved, Phoenix looks stupid for drafting Slava Namestnikov ahead of Phil Danault) but other than those cases, you just have to know a little about EHM attribute development and it all just boils down to arithmetic when figuring out prospect value.

I am also 100% opposed to post-draft changes. Last year, I had more low CON players to both lengthen the development process and hope that low CON players would bust. Low strength players can also be an option.

Also, the rate of POT boosting seems to be too high for me to add a lot of them to the draft class, unless they top out as 2nd/3rd line players with a boost (or double boost). There seems to be a lot less "gamble" in those than I originally hoped.

Adam has created draft classes with the theory that an asset of a certain value can be acquired with a given draft pick. It's the only way to do it when you're creating all your own prospects. When EHM generates its own draft classes, it has a way of keeping overall player quality balanced: strong league = weaker draft class.

If somebody has the time, I'd love to see them breakdown the current EHM-generated draft class and see where it's at. That could give me a decent indication on how to construct ours to keep a balance in the file.

As the strong players retire and talent levels drop, draft classes become stronger to replace that talent, and a lot of prospects are true questions marks: a 4X POT 9X CON defenseman, a 9X POT 3X CON forward. This works on a macro scale, but the nature of the system is that a player with under 50 CON is cursed for his entire career even if he doesn't bust...Maybe the solution is to have more of those extreme POT/CON examples as draftees - it's been brought up a few times but I don't know if it's the right solution just to introduce more uncertainty into draft pick and prospect value.

Maybe. Is there an increased CON boost chance via trade based on a player's POT? That could be something that we can explore. If one player boosts as a result of a trade and another doesn't, that simulates your "questionable makeup - getting better" real life example. There have been four or five CON booster trades that I can remember and not once has a player's CON gone up.

That said, will 9 POT 3 CON players even get drafted? Will somebody take a chance on them? Most <50 CON players are auto-drafted in the later rounds. I guess, if they are developed properly and become contributors, this fulfills your "diamond in the rough" concept. But, what are the odds of that? Basically, is it a waste of time to create these players?

[Virtual Jarmo]

Throwing an idea out there - it might be helpful, using Parker's concept that EHM creates draft classes based on league strength as self-moderating, to use the automatically generated draft class rather than creating ceilings and stuff for the entire draft class and simply rename the automatically generated players to the guys in the real draft. Obviously a few housekeeping, like the fighting ceilings, might have to be edited, but in general this may help solve a problem if we're going down that path, and in addition would save Adam or anyone else editing the draft class a bunch of time.

Personally, I don't like this idea. Not only do I have to sort through by position, to match guys up, I also have to adjust everything based on their CSB rank. I'd be completely re-making the player anyway. It's no different than what I already do, just with more sorting and searching. Instead of just searching for "- -" in Notepad to find fictional draftees, I actually have to cross-check their position, country, etc. It's just easier to do it my way and be aware to make a draft that balances out the ones we've already had.

The better option, like I said in my response to Parker's post, would be to have somebody break down the EHM-generated draft to see what it looks like and use that as a guideline for creating our EHEC class, without the wacky ass players EHM makes.

[Virtual Jarmo]

I wonder if there's a way to over-correct for the value of veteran players. Middle-tier guys who've never had much LE value could get a substantial bump after x age/seasons/playoffs/missing the playoffs(because they're suddenly going to be showing up), or fiddling with consistency.... might be too radical and destabilizing, admittedly.

Consistency changes are a possibility. As players get older, projecting them is a lot easier. That's a matter of consistency. It's something we could explore.

The LE value is definitely something I would like to do. There's a lack of LE all across the file and it's very, very hard to develop. To pick up a 57 OF 73 DF 36-year-old forward with 90 LE instead of a 65 OF 73 DF 22-year-old forward with 45 LE would be a matter of opinion based on how you want your team constructed. That's a very realistic notion, as no two GMs approach things the same in the NHL.

[Virtual Jarmo]

If you make the drafts weaker, I might kill myself. Having one guy from the draft break the lineup immediately is fine with me. And it made me get Richards one of the best in the league.

Blidstrand was drafted 3 years ago and would not make most lineups. 2 years ago, everybody was applauding when I drafted Adam Lowry in the 2nd round but he is nowhere close to NHL.

Believe me a season is very long when you have no hope. And five year stanley cup plans is great in the real NHL but not for short term life span IT games.

Just fighting for us mediocre teams

I don't understand the issue here. You traded Tarasenko, Hamilton, and your 2012 first (which became Morgan Rielly) for Ovechkin, and you want to complain about the draft and development time? I'm not saying Ovechkin is a bad player, nor am I saying that you got screwed in that deal. What I'm saying is that Tarasenko is already 79 OF 71 DF after being traded this past June and wasn't even signed for a year after he was drafted. In four months worth of games in the AHL, Dougie Hamilton is already 62 OF 74 DF and Morgan Rielly is already 72 OF 79 DF and playing 18 minutes a game for Washington after being drafted just seven months ago and not playing a single day in the AHL.

If Lowry wasn't playing on your 4th line in the AHL and played all of last season in the AHL, he would already be in the NHL. Hell, Lowry has played two games for Grand Rapids. He wasn't even in the lineup. How's he supposed to develop when he's not playing?

Look at Anthony Stolarz for Pittsburgh. When I traded him in the Colby Armstrong deal in September, he was in the 20s in almost every attribute. In half a season in the AHL, he's up to 69 OA already.

Players don't develop in juniors, for whatever reason. I can't do anything about that.

Developing a player takes about half a season in the AHL. If you had Lowry in the lineup from day one after you drafted him, I guarantee he'd be playing nightly for the Red Wings.

I had Armia in Springfield for 42 games. He was in the 50s in almost every attribute when I put him there. He's now 74 OF 73 DF 72 OA with 79 HI.

I can give you examples from every team in the league.

It has nothing to do with EHM and how guys develop. It has to do with how you manage your drafted players.

[Jungle Cats]

Definitely a bit of a leadership vacuum as the top-tier of guys who started the file as captains/noted leaders move on and the guys who are now veterans in their 30s are still in the 60-75 LE bracket. There are kids like Murray and Landeskog (he has high LE, right? I assume it's decent) who have the high values, but other than Brodeur and a few legends, it does seem like it's getting harder to get these dudes.

On the other hand, there'd have to be a balance with 'building' leadership. Does a player get a flat boost for various milestones (tenure with a team, certain age, certain # of seasons, certain # of playoffs)... without throwing off guys languishing on non-playoff teams (avoid a rich get richer, but also incentivize 'sneaking in' the playoffs.) Not sure what a good system would be.

[Montreal Canadiens]

You also left Brodin in the AHL.....he would have been fully developed by now and better than Godfrey (due to just having better CON) rest of the attributes are similar.

[jamesredwings]

left Brodin in AHL due to cap reasons unfortunately. Was banking on Orlov, Kindl to develop more (cheap guys). They did develop well but not enough to be NHL caliber (might have mixed them up with the real Kindl)

I am not talking about first rounders. I know those young guns were good enough.

I have a few 3rd rounders. I will play them in AHL and see how that goes

Thanks for the info on Lowry! He's going to play forever now.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Was just looking back through based a question from a GM for something unrelated and noticed that last year at this time I had already started the draft class.

Sorry for the delay. I promise I'll try to start working on it soon enough. I've been doing so much writing over the last 3 weeks that I haven't been able to do much else.

I really need to find a better way to manage my time, but I need a secretary for that.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Thanks to the snowpocalypse, Pat (NYR) has volunteered to help me with the draft class. What he is doing is making all of the cosmetic changes to the players. He's changing the name, position, height, weight, etc., and all of that. He is not altering the POT, CON, or ceilings in any way.

So, this is a big help to me. I can focus on the nuts and bolts of the players, whenever I get some time to do that.

Much appreciated, Pat. I cannot thank you enough.

[Commish Bub(NYR)]

No prob, Adam. I got about 80 in last night, listening to the wind howl. In my haste, I overwrote a couple of undrafted holdovers from last year (goalies Andrey Makarov and Johan Mattsson, and forwards Michael Clarke and Colin Smith). I'll add them back in, but they'll live in new places (not that that really matters).

Doing more today. When I'm done, I'll bring the stats and career files up to snuff as well.

[Jets GM]

[Calgary.Flames]

Pretty cool of you, Pat.

[Parker]

Seconded. You're awesome as usual Pat. Especially the career stuff, which has bugged me for a while but not quite enough for me to volunteer to fix it.

[Virtual Jarmo]

The beauty of not having a job is that I can work on the draft class.

The worst part of doing the draft class is not getting paid for it.

So far, best fictional draftee names:

Jeronym Kubes and Juerg Ballweber. Add Werner VonWetl to the list.

Best real draftee name belongs to Wilhelm Westlund, whose nickname will obviously be Kaiser.

Fabio Hogger also has a certain ring to it.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Copied and pasted all of the names from what Pat sent me. Somewhere around 160 names so far.

These are not the final profiles of the players. I'm going to go through and edit all of that throughout the next several weeks.

Also planning on a State of EHEC post later today.

[Commish Bub(NYR)]

Woo hoo.

Let me know if I gotta dig up some more guys for you.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Woo hoo.

Let me know if I gotta dig up some more guys for you.

I believe I counted 3 that were already in the file. No big deal. There are 16 fictional draftees left and I can handle it all from there. I'll have to see whose set for retirement, find shitty UFAs, and all of that. I appreciate everything you did already.

[Calgary.Flames]

Awesome. That's great news.

[Virtual Jarmo]

There are actually 204 players in the CSB. 16 are fictional draftees. So, I'll probably add around 20 more. 210 picks, 225 players. That seems like a good number. Maybe I'll even stop at 215 so we stop having an overlap.

[Virtual Jarmo]

I finished the top 30 NA CSB players today. Here's the list (ignore the numbers):

Code: Select all

Seth Jones: 34
Nathan Mackinnon: 32
Jonathan Drouin: 53
Sean Monahan: 104
Hunter Shinkaruk: 157
Ryan Pulock: 192
Frederik Gauthier: 252
Valentin Zykov: 344
Darnell Nurse: 133
Anthony Mantha: 247
Josh Morrissey: 156
Mirco Muller: 621
Adam Erne: 242
William Carrier: 995
Bo Horvat: 273
Jason Dickinson: 302
Shea Theodore: 1315
Kerby Rychel: 280
Chris Bigras: 641
J.T. Compher: 332
Ian McCoshen: 651
Madison Bowey: 396
Max Domi: 230
Morgan Klimchuk: 265
Ryan Hartman: 337
Curtis Lazar: 291
Nick Sorensen: 1006
Jimmy Lodge: 1463
Oliver Bjorkstrand: 1470
Nikita Zadorov: 126
Michael McCarron: 1517
Connor Hurley: 529
Zach Nastasiuk: 857
Nicolas Petan: 359
Anthony Duclair: 305

These are based off of mid-term CSB rankings. They may change slightly when final rankings come out, but they may not change at all.

[TorontoGM]

Am I the only one who thinks Dallas should get the first overall pick no matter what happens?

[Commish Bub(NYR)]

Am I the only one who thinks Dallas should get the first overall pick no matter what happens?

Meh. Even if they lose the lottery, they'll still get the #2 pick. Even on auto-pick (assuming no new GM has stepped up by then) that'll still be a good player.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Am I the only one who thinks Dallas should get the first overall pick no matter what happens?

Probably. They have decent top-end talent. Really need to be able to draft Seth Jones, though.

[Commish Bub(NYR)]

Some of Kerby Rychel's ceilings are messed up; Nick Sorensen's strength ceiling is 010. Didn't see anything else.

Otherwise....Draftees! Woo!

[Virtual Jarmo]

Some of Kerby Rychel's ceilings are messed up; Nick Sorensen's strength ceiling is 010. Didn't see anything else.

Otherwise....Draftees! Woo!

Yay for adding or subtracting numbers!

Ugh.

[TorontoGM]

What I mean is they maybe should be getting the best player, I just think it might help bring in a GM but your right, they will be getting a impact player either way.

I was actually leaning towards Jones.

[Penguin]

Drouin 150 Stickhandling ceiling plz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7YDx0M51WE

[AnaheimGM]

Drouin 150 Stickhandling ceiling plz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7YDx0M51WE

WOW!!!

[Virtual Jarmo]

Drouin 150 Stickhandling ceiling plz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7YDx0M51WE

Meh. All that shows me is that guys in the QMJHL don't hit enough. NHL defenseman puts him on his ass.

[CapsGM]

Drouin 150 Stickhandling ceiling plz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7YDx0M51WE

Meh. All that shows me is that guys in the QMJHL don't hit enough. NHL defenseman puts him on his ass.

this

But 99ST guys get put on their ass constantly anyways.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Apparently the draft lottery is tonight.

Good luck to those involved.

[TorontoGM]

Fuck my life, first I roll my ankle and now this?

[SharksGM]

The Dallas Stars have been passed a note from Mike Walters...

"STEP OFF MOTHERF********"

[Virtual Jarmo]

Am I the only one who thinks Dallas should get the first overall pick no matter what happens?

[TorontoGM]

Am I the only one who thinks Dallas should get the first overall pick no matter what happens?

[Commish Bub(NYR)]

Recount!

[Virtual Jarmo]

Started the draft class and then got sucked into helping my neighbor carry about 3,000 pounds of wood into his backyard for the deck he's building this weekend.

Here's who was added:

Samuel Morin: 780
Laurent Dauphin: 739
John Hayden: 972
Dillon Heatherington: 1572
Jonathan-Ismael Diaby: 1574
Justin Bailey: 662
Emile Poirier: 1571
Brett Pesce: 1529
Eric Roy: 1088
Adam Tambellini: 1651
Jan Kostalek: 986
Thomas Vannelli: 1725
Steve Santini: 585
Michael Downing: 1606
Pavel Laplante: 1613

Everybody:

Code: Select all

2013 Draft Class Player IDs:

Seth Jones: 34
Nathan Mackinnon: 32
Jonathan Drouin: 53
Sean Monahan: 104
Hunter Shinkaruk: 157
Ryan Pulock: 192
Frederik Gauthier: 252
Valentin Zykov: 344
Darnell Nurse: 133
Anthony Mantha: 247
Josh Morrissey: 156
Mirco Muller: 621
Adam Erne: 242
William Carrier: 995
Bo Horvat: 273
Jason Dickinson: 302
Shea Theodore: 1315
Kerby Rychel: 280
Chris Bigras: 641
J.T. Compher: 332
Ian McCoshen: 651
Madison Bowey: 396
Max Domi: 230
Morgan Klimchuk: 265
Ryan Hartman: 337
Curtis Lazar: 291
Nick Sorensen: 1006
Jimmy Lodge: 1463
Oliver Bjorkstrand: 1470
Nikita Zadorov: 126
Michael McCarron: 1517
Connor Hurley: 529
Zach Nastasiuk: 857
Nicolas Petan: 359
Anthony Duclair: 305
Samuel Morin: 780
Laurent Dauphin: 739
John Hayden: 972
Dillon Heatherington: 1572
Jonathan-Ismael Diaby: 1574
Justin Bailey: 662
Emile Poirier: 1571
Brett Pesce: 1529
Eric Roy: 1088
Adam Tambellini: 1651
Jan Kostalek: 986
Thomas Vannelli: 1725
Steve Santini: 585
Michael Downing: 1606
Pavel Laplante: 1613