09-23-2020, 04:01 PMPremierBromanov Wrote:

09-23-2020, 02:52 PMjfisherr Wrote: Thank you for doing what I was too lazy to and putting this situation into words. I think HO should allow a one time position swap for goalies to become skaters.

This would likely increase player retention, as first-gens that create as goalies would actually have a pathway to future playing time besides getting 6-10 games as a backup every season. This would also help alleviate the lack of depth we have at certain positions (defencemen currently) that are resulting in a number of teams fielding sub-500 TPE IA defencemen.

HO should also be doing a better job at advertising which positions are actually needed. Many first time creates don’t understand that the goalie market is already flush with elite talent.

However, I do see some pushback in this suggestion from GMs and HO. I can see GMs, both SHL and SMJHL complaining about allowing free position swaps as it could screw up their roster in the short term and long term. Allowing these position swaps should thus only occur during the offseason so teams can plan around this. Additionally, there could be some possibilities that a user creates as a goalie in order to tank his draft stock, allowing a team to get additional prospects, knowing that this user is going to position swap from goalie in the future. A rule change must then account for the following;
1. Goalie saturation
2. Team planning
3. Potential abuse.

To counter these, at the present I think HO should implement something like allow any current goalies a free one time position switch. This would likely immediately alleviate the current goalie logjam.
Moving forward however, all future created goalies should only be allowed to position switch in the time between the end of their rookie season, and the time they get drafted into the SHL. This allows both SMJHL and SHL GMs to plan for the prospect’s position switch, and would prevent any abuse of the system through draft stock manipulation.
Ideally in conjunction with these rules, HO would then implement a “Position Need Tracker” of sorts, allowing first-gens and recreates to accurately assess which positions are truly needed, allowing these new users to make informed decisions when making their player.

it seems like our primary concern here is with new players feeling like they've made the wrong decision, particularly with goaltender. Would it make sense to allow all new creates a free position swap within the first X seasons (maybe 3 or 5)?

There are some numbers that may help us speak to this more accurately, and also because I think there is more than one issue at play here

There are 325 Forwards, 192 Defensemen, and 67 Goaltenders. What percentage of these players are new or inactive is unknown to me, but very relevant. That's 584 Players.

That means 55.7% of players are forwards, 32.9% are defensemen, and 11.4% are goaltenders.

Each team has 6 Forward spots, 6 defense spots, and 2 goaltending slots. Really, its 1 goaltending slot, due to the nature of goaltending.

The breakdown for this is 46.15% forwards, 46.15% defense, 7.7% goaltenders

So we have more than just a goaltending issue, we technically have an issue with too many forwards as well.

This speaks to your request for a positional need tracker as well as a free position swap early in the career.

Of course, we could always open up the 4th line, which changes some of the distributions

Nice, all great beginning statistics - thanks for that. But I think the data would be even worse if you assume that, lets be generous and positive, 1k tpe is "SHL impact ready" for goalies but for forwards / dmen the "SHL Impact Ready" value is probably around 1400-1500 TPE. Without having the data myself, I'd assume that there is a bigger need for 1400-1500 skaters than a goalie with marginal upside to being 1k vs 500 tpe lol. Even with only 3 lines.

Also maybe someone who isn't earning that well but is still an active LR decides "wow goalie seems perfect for me since i can't get to 1400 tpe" and they could swap to goalie. Would be nice imo