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**_Blitz_** · 10-05-2020, 05:40 AM

The St. Louis Scarecrows have a big problem in our drafting and player retention. We've picked up good players and had a number of steals, but a lot of our picks are also busts. For example, out of the S56 class, where we drafted 5 players and picked up a 6th in free agency. Out of that class, 3 are still active. Our S57 class has plainly been bad draft decisions; our first round pick is inactive, and out of all of the players that we drafted, only 1 is updating. We haven't been a solid FA destination either, but the one FA we have signed has been amazing.

Our drafting is a multi-pronged problem. We made a few systemic changes to our pre-draft strategy, trying to draft smarter, and it didn't quite work this season. I think we'll try again next season and see if it gets better or worse before making a call on the effectiveness.

Retention is something that we're working on. We're trying to have a more active and friendly locker room, and this season is miles better than last season on that score as a whole. We've had some bumps, but it's a work in progress. As far as helping rookies get acquainted, I've said many times that I'm happy to help and answer questions, that there are plenty of people in the locker room that can help them if they have questions. I could probably check in personally more often, but I find myself having less time for the league at large now that I'm working. It's on a level where my dilemma is "do I talk to the person that's not talking in the locker room at all and see if I can get them to update/ask questions/talk more, or do I do my update and see if I can do anything with FHM, or do I sleep?" I think the solution is going to be approaching our management team and doing some brainstorming to see what we can come up with.

And then maybe a Jackbox night sometime next week. That would be good.

TomHanks · 10-05-2020, 05:43 AM

The biggest weakness in the SHL, of any franchise, lies in the defense of the New Orleans Spectors. In what must go down as the silliest trade in the entire history of the SHL, they traded away up and coming defensemen Jakob Hamr to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and have never been the same since. Sure, they went on the win the Challenge Cup the season of that trade, but where is the thought about the future? They traded Hamr AND a future pick for one season of a player. A few seasons, Tampa Bay, still seen as one of the lower ranked teams went up against the Spectors. The result was simple, a win for Tampa. This may have been surprising to some, but not to Jakob. I would love to tell you a way to fix this, but it is an irreparable mistake by the NOLA management, and with Hamr bleeding Barracuda now, they’ll never be able to get him back. They could try to replace him but there is truly no prospect as mediocre at this point in his career, and that’s the kind of consistency you want on a team.

Segi · 10-05-2020, 05:51 AM

PT Pass

***bluesfan55*** · 10-05-2020, 07:45 AM

The New England Wolfpack, while firing on all cylinders at the moment (whether it be the MVP-worthy numbers of both Slap McShotty and Sven Yxskaft or the goaltending tandem of Frans Eller and Alexander Thorstrom posting stellar numbers), are prone to having weak spots, and in this case I would say that something that they lack right now is good puck control. The team struggles with giveaways so far. There are a number of players on the team with at least 7 giveaways (an average of 0.5 per game), those being McShotty (7), Jakub Bruchevski (10), Mitchell van der Heijden (7), Rafe Ulrich (a staggering 14, which is tied for 4th most in the league and puts him on pace for over 50 giveaways this season) and Igor Volkov (7). Puck management is really important as you don't want to give away the puck and see a breakaway chance happen so the Wolfpack really need to tighten up on their puck control or else they could be in some trouble there. I would fix this major issue by having the team spend at least 2 days a week working solely on puckhandling and protecting the puck in order to make those takeaway turnovers happen less. The better you are at handling the puck it's less likely you make a stupid move that ends in a giveway. Just working on puckhandling would make this issue better.

Tylar · 10-05-2020, 08:07 AM

The Newfoundland Berserkers are reigning Four Star Cup Champions and are still looking pretty good this season. This season it looks like they could use some more goal scoring and offense on some nights which has been uncommon for the Berserkers in the past. The Berserkers have veterans Mattias Birdstrom and Mats Marner scoring mostly right now, but third year player Liam Slate has not really been scoring to much. One of the main concerns for the Newfoundland Berserkers offense this season is the fact that many of their forwards are currently unexperienced rookies. One could say they could fix their offfensive woes by being patient and waiting for their players to develop throughout the season and by the time playoffs comes they will be a lot better. Another way would be to somehow make a trade for some depth scoring, although this is a tough ask in the SMJHL since most teams keep ahold of their players, so this is probably unrealistic too. The Newfoundland Berserkers can only fix their woes by being patient and hoping their rookie class continues to be strong as it looks right now.

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***Toast*** · 10-05-2020, 08:20 AM

The Minnesota Monarchs are off to a decent start of their season. Twelve games in the team is sitting at a record of 5-7, surprising a lot in the league especially with a steal of a win against the powerhouse Buffalo Stampede. If there was one thing that needed to be addressed in Minnesota though it would be their special teams. While the team has had some success getting their offense going at times, the team really struggles adding on the powerplay points and shorthanded against teams with a few more stars than the developing Monarchs.

The one way I would address the problem is by trying various strategies in every game until one clicks. This is still a building season for Minnesota and they have the foundation to build upon now. It's just going to be a matter of finding a strategy that weaker players can use against offensive teams to counter attack. If Minnesota does work this out they very well could be a .500 team and get into the post-season.

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jRuutu · 10-05-2020, 08:21 AM

Kelowna Knights are currently last in the Western division of SMJHL, they have 3 wins from 12 games. If you look at the stats of their players you quickly notice the lack of players who have scored goals, only 3 players have scored 3 or more goals, but there are 9 players who have at least 20 shots in those 12 games, so the very first thing I would try to fix is the shot selection.

There is no way that many players are just unlucky, so I would guess that they keep firing from everywhere from the ice and hope something goes in, which is a fair tactic, but if there are not enough players in front of the net when those shots are fired the odds of scoring a goal goes down since nobody is there to screen or to shovel rebounds in.

I would look into stopping taking the low % shots completely and instead try to set some cycle action going in the opposite end of the ice, that could in theory at least result in the opposite team have to take more penalties and most importantly it leads to fewer counter-attacks as Kelowna defenders and at least one forward is able to react in time.

Kelowna has good enough players in the roster to play cycle game and more so skill to score on the powerplay, so less simple hockey and more skill hockey!

ddrector · 10-05-2020, 08:31 AM

I'm here to talk to you about the Winnipeg Jets. Nope, not the NHL team, but the copycat SHL team. This team just needs to change it's name and logo as soon as possible before the National Hockey League sends its lawyers to come knock on the door of the SHL with a cease and desist order. Some may argue that the SHL Jets actually have been around longer than the current NHL Jets, and while they technically might be correct one has to remember that the Winnipeg Jets were an NHL team from 1979 to 1996, which is before the time of the internet and well before the time of the SHL. I've spoken numerous times in Media pieces I've written that I'm not a fan of an SHL team using the same location and name of an NHL team. It just feels lazy and boring when in this space we have the freedom to be creative and fun and put a team in a tiny town in the middle of no where or have a fun team name with a crazy logo. I implore you SHL to demand the Winnipeg Jets to relocate and change the team name. At the very least get the team name and logo changed.

***golden_apricot*** · 10-05-2020, 08:35 AM

10-05-2020, 05:51 AMSegi Wrote: PT Pass

ill have this too!

(pt pass)

***Leafs4ever*** · 10-05-2020, 08:36 AM

It was a good start to the season for the Colorado Raptors, but things have taken a little turn since that hot start. One of the reasons for the struggle has been rookie goaltender Yanno Rosejac. Now, this is not a knock on the young goalie by any stretch, but more of a reality of being a rookie in the SMJHL. It's a tough league to break out in when you first enter the league, but Rosejac is trying to buck that trend in net for the Raptors. He started out great, maybe because he was an unknown to the league, but it has not gone well after that. He's currently sporting a 0.879 save percentage and a 3.24 goals against average. Both numbers not good enough for a contending team.

Yanno is going to be the starter for this team as he's shown more work ethic over back up LaFlamme, but it's going to be a struggle for him. Colorado is a good team that needs goaltending in order to compete so there's going to be lots of pressure on the young player. However, he's been amazing in always training and preparing, so if he keeps with it he'll improve in no time, but until then the Raptors forwards and defense are going to need to step up and help out their young, promising netminder.

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Guy Incognito - D - #24
Texas Renegades
Season 80
38-24-4
Regular Season - [G 15] [A 33] [Pts 48] [+/- +13] [PIM 67] [Hits 79] [SB 168]
Playoffs - [G 0] [A 0] [Pts 0] [+/- 0] [PIM 0] [Hits 0] [SB 0]
[Image: ERs3IrD.png]

*Carpy48* · 10-05-2020, 08:44 AM

More like not knowing how to fix it Wink

DELIRIVM · 10-05-2020, 08:51 AM

The Vancouver Whalers are playing pretty well this season. I think there are two places on the team that could be improved. We have a lot of players talented in passing the puck. A lot of setup players. We should try and grab another scoring forward, or more preferably, a scoring defender. Having a player with a big blasting shot from the blueline would be a huge boon for the Whalers. We're already scoring at a very high clip but we could take it to the very next level. On top of that we might want to get a defender or forward that is quick enough to neutralize the breakaways that seem to be plaguing the Whalers. We have lost a few games thus far because we have been unable to control the quick breaks out of the zone and hanging our goaltenders out to dry. I know that both Redacted and Arky would be much happier if we didn't make them have to save 1-2 breakaways per game. But I guess that's what happens when Vancouver is such an offensively oppressive team and plays an aggressive game.

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***TheSparkyDee*** · 10-05-2020, 08:51 AM

The Detroit Falcons have been playing a lot better hockey since going on the massive 7 game losing streak, our issue would have to be shots on goal, we are not getting enough shots on goal during the games. We are not creating enough chances and getting the puck on the net. The games were getting out of hand in the first period, and Detroit would have four or five shots on goal and the score would be 3 to 0 the opposing team. Detroit has been improving a ton! They have been playing so much better hockey in the past 4 games. Scoring goals, getting shots on goals, and the defense is even doing a way better job. They will be competing again, and I believe they will go on a nice winning streak soon enough. The last two games we’ve seen massive improvement from the defense and even goal scoring. Detroit scored three goals in the past two games! That is a massive improvement from the last nine games. We have been hearing a lot of people talking about Detroit and asking what’s going on. Telling us our team isn’t good enough for the future. Well I do not believe it one bit. The team will be ready to win some games here in the near future. Maybe even this season they can pull it off.

Falcons

Go FALCONS!!!! SKREEE!!!! Falcons

iamslm22 · 10-05-2020, 09:05 AM

OK to me the biggest weak spot in the league is the Manhattan Rage. It is an illogical name. I hate it for two reasons. First off there is a zero percent chance that a New York team would name themselves Manhattan. Lets look at the current real life teams. We have the New York Knicks (from Manhattan) the New York Rangers (from Manhattan) the New York Mets (from Queens) the New York Yankees (from the Bronx) the New York Jets and the New York Giants (both from New Jersey which is super weird and super gross, and the Brooklyn Nets. Now Brooklyn Nets makes sense because Brooklyn has much more of its own identity and used to be its own city. It's also "cool". Manhattan does not have that cache and is even known as New York county. I hate it. Second I mean Rage doesn't make any sense for New York, the logo makes no sense, nothing about it makes sense so yea that is what I would change.

enigmatic · 10-05-2020, 09:06 AM

The Winnipeg Jets don't have any flaws as far as the roster goes. It is populated by awesome human beings and they don't dominate the rankings because we all know the SHL is rigged towards Calgary and Edmonton.

The thing that people keep complaining about Winnipeg is their branding because it's a rip-off of a real life NHL team. This SHL franchise is a classic and existed before the current version of the NHL's Jets existed but I get the point.

Rebranding the Jets have been a topic of discussion ever since I joined but nobody ever had the balls to do it.

At this point, if it's going to be done, the branding will need to be really good and relevant to the Winnipeg area. I think the Métis and native heritage of the region should be taken in consideration without sounding cliché or insensitive. I don't know what the name should be because I usually have pretty basic ideas but I like thinking that maybe I'll be one of the first players to play under the new team name.

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