04-04-2022, 05:58 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote:

04-04-2022, 04:45 AMHenrik Wrote: I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment that a player in the 600-800 range is useless in the SHL. I think what you do need is correct application in the line-up and a good build. And a good build is pretty easy to throw together these days since, for better or for worse, its pretty clear what an optimised build looks like in this league atm. At 800 TPE you could throw this build together and still do well, relatively speaking, at the SHL level;

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15's in everything. And this is so incredibly far from an optimised or personalized build. You could take away points from some of the less important stats and you could have an almost identical build for 600-650 TPE and with the earning we are seeing today its not particularly hard to hit that mark in 3 seasons.

I think its more of a matter of perception of those players being 'bad' or 'harmful' for a teams chance at success but we have seen over and over that top teams can play lower TPE guys and still perform and win cups. Couple this with a slight lack of available roster spots and its going to be hard for GMs to call guys up if it means they have to send a valued member of the team out in order to fit the younger player.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I definitely don't think its messing even more with regression or the TPE scale. But this is a J problem that also crosses over into an SHL problem.

One thing that I would like to float though is that I think players should be more open about what they want and not accept contracts willy-nilly. We have offer sheets in this league and we barely ever see them, but they are a valid out for a player that wants to come up earlier. If you think you may want to come up after 3 seasons, be clear about that in your contract talks. Don't sign multi-season deals. Give yourself the opportunity to have an out if your current team doesn't want to accommodate you. When you hit RFA status, write some media explaining your situation and I bet that most guys would have suiters come knocking in no time which for either force an offer sheet or the team that owns the rights to the player to take action. A lot of this in the end has to come from player agency I think. Giving the users more agency to take control of their players careers is a good thing and if we can empower them to improve their experience I think that's something we should strive for. I would argue that we have tools for this, we just don't use them.

You are absolutely right but I also think the problem of players staying down too long is a bit more complex and tougher to solve. It usually isn't a case of a GM strong-arming his player and forcing him to stay down against their will but a combination of factors, the strongest being that a lot of players, especially first-gens, feel a genuine connection to their Junior team which is often actually stronger than the one to the SHL-team that holds their rights. So they genuinely want to spend as much time with their J team as possible, since a lot of them barely feel connected to the team that drafted them until they actual start to suit up for it. Maybe this is one avenue where we could make some nice non-intrusive changes, like a training camp and pre-season system that is closer to real life, where prospects actually get to play in their SHL teams preseason games. Actually getting a taste of what it feels like being part of an SHL team in the sim will make people a bit more interested in their SHL team in general and more eager to move up as quickly as possible.

Also I think another big factor, which is connected to the first one somewhat, is junior players being guilt-tripped into staying down in the J as long as possible. It's usually not aggressive and often implicit and maybe even unintentional, but I think we do tend to send the message to those junior players that do want to move on to the SHL quickly, that they are letting their J team down. In an ecosystem where spending 3-4 seasons with your J team is the norm, not doing that automatically puts your team at an disadvantage and since most junior players like their teams, they don't want to do that to them. Again I don't think GMs are actively telling people that or put pressure on them on a large scale, but I think that's just what a lot of SMJHL players feel and think in the back of their heads: "My team spend a 1st Rounder in the SMJHL Draft on me, if I move up now after my second season then I'm really fucking them over."

I'm not really sure how to solve that but I guess it is connected to the fact that there has been a certain shift in the SMJHL where winning is emphasized a bit more over developing players than it used to be. Maybe the switch to FHM played a role there as well because it introduced a clearer distinction between teams that have a shot and those who don't, but I don't think it's a particularly new development, it has been like that for a long time. An SMJHL team that drafts a player and then develops him so well that he already is ready for SHL action after just two seasons should be proud of what they achieved and not sad or mad about losing them, but that's always easy to say from the outside. It's much more frustrating when you are a GM in a league where your windows for competing have become so small, and losing one or even multiple of your core pieces in that window can be heartbreaking, especially when all you did wrong was doing "too well" when scouting and developing your talent.

Don't look now, but Baltimore (most points in the SHL) has a player at 535 TPE, and Texas (top points percentage) has one at 763.

Players "staying down too long" is certainly a combination of different factors, however the most prominent reason is that a player enjoys their time in the J with the team and group there. I do believe that most of the time its because thats where their player is, so thats where they focus their attention. However, it is also possible that some SHL environments aren't as welcoming or exciting as their J locker room environment is, but I'm only guessing at that.

Even when SHL teams ask to have their prospects in the file, rarely do they actually get added. I've tried doing it a number of times and I think only once did I get my prospects get added to the file, and thats because I went to a simmer directly after the first file was released. I'd love to have more prospects playing in the preseason, but right now it doesn't seem like file workers are adding them. I could be wrong, I haven't asked in a few seasons, but that is my guess currently.

Hard agree with your "guilt trip" comments, ReD.

I do have to disagree about winning being emphasized over development. Sure, some teams have gone a bit too "all in" trying to win a Cup, but most of the league is very hesitant to trade outside of the draft because they don't want to give up the users that they drafted. Most J GMs put far more emphasis on the LR environment that they have and helping out the people/users as much as they can over winning. Even with Newfoundland, their focus wasn't and isn't on winning. Their winning is a byproduct of their focus on their culture, locker room environment, and helping out first gens as much as humanly possible. Their focus on development is the key reason they are winning the way that they are. I do think you'll see a team here and there go a bit too "all in" in pursuit of winning, but 9 times out of 10 you aren't going to see that in the J.