S63 Championship Week

S63 Championship Week

caltroit_red_flames
Trading Card Admins
S45 Challenge Cup Champion

#66

02-27-2022, 12:06 PM (This post was last modified: 03-06-2022, 10:22 PM by caltroit_red_flames.)

Code:
Affiliate PT, 3 TPE

PBE PT

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1. CW TRIVIA, 3 TPE max - 1 TPE for participation, 0.5 TPE for each correct answer. This is completed through a Google form linked below. Make sure to spell your answers correctly or you will not get credit. Post your verification word in your CW post.

weirdchamp

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3. Written, 3 TPE, Those That Came Before (150 words min.)

When did your franchise last win a Challenge Cup? Write about that team, some of the key players, and what intangibles they had going for them to be able to win it all. If your franchise hasn’t yet won a cup, choose any cup winning team and talk about why you’d like your current team to emulate them. Did they have an all time great roster? Were they scrappy under dogs?

The last time the New Orleans Specters won the Challenge Cup was in S54. The team is almost unrecognizable compared to now, but there are some players from that era that are still left, namely Lyle Odelein III. Odelein III has been a staple of New Orleans and one of the best shot blockers in the league since the swap to FHM season over season. DeMaricus Smyth was also on that team, one of the great S39 players from Czechia. The offense was super dynamic too, lots of goal scorers on the team are going to have a shot at the hall of fame. Lil Manius, Olivier Cloutier, Nicholas Williams, Jimmy Slothface, Michael Fox and Mika Mayfield. They were all super high offense players that dominated the league in their primes. The intangibles they had came from the veteran leadership of Joe Kurczewski and DeMaricus Smyth who were teammates on a cup winning team in Edmonton. They both knew what it takes to get it done in the playoffs.

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6. Written, up to 4 TPE - Grab Bag: Pick up to 4 Challenge Cup related topics to write about! Each topic is worth 1 TPE. Each answer must be 50+ words.

a. Los Angeles has been riding their top players for almost a full minute more of ice time than Hamilton has theirs. If you were a coach, do you buy into this strategy? Do you let your top guys leave it all out there every night or aim for the most balanced attack possible?

b. Guy O'Shea and Evangelos Giannopoulos have been absolute block machines for Hamilton in the playoffs with 109 between them. If you’re looking for offense in this series, how do you get around these two defensemen?

c. Los Angeles’ defense, on the other hand, has not been afraid to join the play and put up points. How do you prepare for a five player offensive attack? How do you counter?

d. The starting goalies for these teams, Olof Karsikko and A Jobin have been nearly unbeatable up to this point with a 0.937 and a 0.927 SV% respectively. If you’re a player on the other team, how would you get inside their heads so that you can put the puck in the net?

a.) I 100% buy into that strategy. This isn't the beginning of the regular season where you're seeing what chemistry works and trying it out, this is the playoffs. Ride your work horses. They'll worry about their bruises and sore legs when the series is over. For now it's time to win, and I've never heard a champion complain about having to carry a team to a title.
b.) Honestly what I do is change up the rush strategy. Usually when it comes to a 3 on 2 you have someone try to split the defense and drive the net then make a cross crease pass if it's open. Instead I would have the puck carrier keep the puck and have the other two drive directly toward O'Shea and Giannopoulos and tie them up. Then it's just the puck carrier and the goalie, essentially a breakaway. Easy goal.
c.) I prepare for a five player attack by telling my center to make sure to watch for the defense to jump up in to the play and cover for them if he needs to. Defense jumping into the play is vital for a dynamic offensive unit, really a skater should be able to play every position when your team has the puck and then when you go back to playing defense you need to put the structure back together.
d.) This is my specialty. Drive the net and just stand in front of them, goalies hate that especially on the power play. Just don't let em see. They'll shove you, cross check you, cup check you sometimes. Always leads to penalty, and usually if you're screening them that means you're going to have a 2nd power player because you should be cycling or in a better shooting position rather than standing in front of the net if it's 5 on 5.

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14. Written, 3 TPE, Blew it up (150 words min.)

In your opinion, which team is has performed a successful rebuild and built a legacy around starting from the bottom? What constitutes a successful rebuild? Cups? Playoff appearances? Is this team still poised to do great things in the future?

I think the definition of a rebuild is different in the SHL than it is in the NHL. In the SHL it's much harder to rebuild because you have to be concerned about players leaving to join an already successful team in free agency after like 3 seasons when their RFA seasons are over. In the NHL you can just draft players and wait for them to be good and they're an RFA for so long that you can just draft players around them. You don't really have to worry about poaching. So based on that a rebuild is successful when you're giving the team a chance to win the cup each season.

I think LAP has done this tremendously well, they started with a franchise that really was in an awful situation and then TDZ and Fuzz came in and through the draft and free agency they made the team into a perennial powerhouse that makes it to the finals quite often. If it were not for HAM they would have at least one cup by now if now more than one.