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JHS · 02-24-2020, 01:43 AM

Having just recreated after years of being away from the SHL, and joining a Halifax Raiders team about to face off against the storied Knights franchise in the first round, I figured it might be interesting as a former GM to impart my wisdom on our opponents and provide you all with some insight on what a manager might see looking at the top 6 forwards / top 4 defense of this Kelowna Knight squad.

The line combos and strategies look like this:

C - LW - RW TOI% Phys Def Off

Shephard - Barbashev - Eriksson 40% 0 - 0 - 5

This is a solid line led by two good pass first builds in Shepard and Eriksson designed with Barbashev as the point man of the entire strategy. A thing to mention about this line is their combined high defensive stats: each one of the three forwards is around the 80 mark. When combined with the TWD/OFD combo of Nystrom and Vessot, you get a defensively solid first unit that is unselfish, moves the puck well, and has a flow in it to where its behavior would be predictable in the sim. This line keeps the puck in the offensive zone and shuts down high scoring lines. One thing I noticed is that, having primarily built centers during my time here, Shepard has a lower FO total than I'd build for a center taking the majority of faceoffs, especially considering how front loaded their TOI percentages are. But that doesnt matter much when the unit defense is high, and its likely why they see a lot of puck control even with a 0 0 5 strategy. This units strats build and TOI are likely a reason that they led the league over the season in GFA percentage, and the honestly I'd just like to say Barbashev's build is truly fantastic. Very solid line here overall.

Forestier - Golury - Kaspertomme 30% 0 - 1 - 4

Another solid line here well built with a PLY - OF - SNI type combination, with the pass first playmaking center contributing the puck to the two shoot first wingers. All 3 have checking weaknesses which is an important part of any offensive-minded forward build. Kaspertomme maybe has his PH a little high for a player who isnt supposed to be the main possession player on the line, but his other categories are well fleshed out and he has a big enough pass-score gap to keep that decision-making unmuddled. The thing about the interplay between attributes lies in the decision making of a player relative to others: your "puck possessor" needs the strength to keep the puck, a balance of skating with endurance that allows the player to keep possession over high defensive players without this stat becoming useless with high TOI, and the PH to ensure that the puck is not easily stripped off you. Really, EN, PH, SK, and Strength are the important aspects, with your one Pass/Shoot favorite determining the decisions the players make, on their own and relative to one another. Usually, I favor this build to have high passing for the sake of working with natural sniper builds. Therefore, the main build weakness with this line is the way that Forestier and Kaspertomme's builds might prevent efficiency and limit Golury's scoring ability, as well as letting the better benefits of a sniper build like Kaspertomme's from really shining. With a first line like theirs, though, the GM did well in adding the DEF aspect and having a lower TOI to prevent low endurance from becoming a factor. I think with the builds they have on the line, the strategy is well put.

LD RD TOI% Phys DEF OFF

The defensive top 4 of the Knights has a huge TOI responsibility, and so their fairly defensive strategies work well to limit the negative impact that SMJHL build endurances might have on their effectiveness.

Nystrom Vessot 45 0 4 1

Vessot's OFD build is really on point for what you'd want from a top pairing, high endurance OFD. He's built like your typical blueline quarterback: pass first with high puck handling, defense, and skating. That high skating particularly is important for instances when his OFD nature causes him to pinch, as he can speed up and rejoin the play when necessary. I can tell where the user is going with this build, too: I'm guessing SKT and END are the next big pushes he'll make, attribute wise. This is the kind of player valuable because of both defensive and offensive ability, and probably one of the reasons the Knights have been great at scoring more than the other guys. Nystrom, on the other hand, has a well balanced build that meshes nicely with Vessot's and makes him a valuable supporting player on this first unit. He is built to do two things: play solid defense, and pass the puck. There will be no confusion with the way their builds interplay on the backend, and having a player like this is a real treat as you can basically stick him like tape anywhere and you can be assured there'll be no production dropoff on the unit. This is what i'd call a defensive chemistry 101 unit.

Schiani Zhernov 40 0 5 0

A TWD/DFD combo on the back line is usually a solid way to ensure you're limiting the opponents chances offensively. However, there is an inherent issue with the way these two builds would interplay. You usually want to imagine a blue-line pairing working the way they do in real life: There's usually the more offensively minded of the two, who orchestrates the breakouts from your own zone, and pinches when needed, and the stay at home defenseman who covers when needed and is expected to be the more dependable of the pair. In this case, you'd expect Schiani, the TWD, to be the former, and Zhernov, the DFD, to be the latter. There's an issue, though, in that Schiani's weakness is puck handling. The more puck-friendly of the two needs the attributes to be able to not lose the puck on the breakout, have the stats that constitute reliability, and interplay reasonably well with the other D-man. Schiani and Zhernov have the same skating points, at 70, but Schiani has 60 PH while Zhernov has 73. So, while they're both as likely to skate with the puck, Schiani's 60 PH makes him a much greater liability to lose it. His strength, at 60, isn't very high either, and so he'd be better off in a role where he's not expected to keep solid possession. A team with a heavy forecheck, in a real life scenario, would be th e perfect counter to this pair. Being paired with Zhernov unfortunately lacks the covering of one anothers strengths in weaknesses needed for the perfect blue line pairing. These issues are pretty easily fixed, but as it stands if I were making the lines this is something I'd try to take advantage of.

PP1 -

Forestier Golury Barbashev 60% 0 0 5
Zhernov Vessot 60% 0 0 5

PP2- Shepard Kaspethom Eriksson 40% 005
Schiani - Nystrom 40 005

There are a couple things of note about these powerplay units: One is that seperating Vessot and Nystrom is absolutely the right move, as they need to be your puck movers, and the other is that that the seperation of forwards in this way is a fairly interesting strategy. Normally, you have teams keeping their top forward lines together, or moving one forward around, to create more offensive synergy as is fit according to the pieces you have to work with. The puzzle for the GM here is that your second line and pairing are obviously inferior to your first in terms of the way they work together offensively and also in the behavior of each individual in an all out offensive setting. Personally, my PP for the Knights would look like this:

Shepard Golury Barbashev
Schiani(Or a defensive forward) Vessot

Forestier Kasperthom Eriksson
Zhernov Nystrom

or i'd switch the two pairings of d-men between the first and second PP units.

Keeping Kasperthom and Barbashev on seperate units is the "given" you'd start building your combinations from. They need to be your scoring centerpieces, and Kasperthom's PH tendencies wouldnt play as well with Barbashev's inherent goal scoring perfection build. Then, I'd think about what else you need to untangle for the forwards to be at their most efficient. I think overriding Kasperthom's PH with two high passing players would be crucial, and so I'd want Golury on the first line with Barbashev. With two of your top 3 score first players on that line, you'd need the player best build to feed the puck to scoring threats: that's why I'd have Shepard on the first line with them. To complement this, I'd want my best defensive PPQ with them to start breakouts and be pass first to avoid, essentially, getting in Barbashev's way. This is why I'd put Vessot here. Finally, I'd stick in Schiani so he'd be the lesser of the puck possessors on the back end and wouldn't be likely to disrupt the flow of all the other pieces here. As their PP1 stands now, Vessot and Forestier would be effective at feeding Barbashev and Golury, I just think this would be more likely to highlight the part that you'd want each player to play.

Their current PP2 unit would work fine, with Shepard and Eriksson's chemistry with a sniper still being able to work, I just think that you'd want to see Nystrom override Zhernov's PH and SK and have better interplay between the units collective attributes and roles.

These are, of course, my personal opinions on things I might try, having the luxury of being an armchair GM with no pressure to have my team succeed. I just thought it might be interesting to share my opinion and make a little money now that I'm back. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on it and I hope everyone knows i'm not trying to talk shit on the Knights or their GM nor make anyone feel bad about their builds. Hope you all enjoyed!

Word Count should be 1705

mxman991 · 02-24-2020, 02:03 AM

Yes yes Knights, start doubting your line-up choices

Naosu · 02-24-2020, 02:31 AM

Nice write up. I'll let you in on our secret for line combos, as special teams have been underwhelming the whole season:

[Image: 817704_10587944_001.jpg]

***boom*** · 02-24-2020, 03:13 AM

Nice analysis!

RedCapeDiver · 02-24-2020, 03:38 AM

Nice breakdown
but who the fuck is this Schiani guy in my spot

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