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The Backup Goalie Discussion
#1
(This post was last modified: 10-12-2020, 02:51 PM by Nhamlet.)

So honest preface, this would have gone into the discussion thread on this topic but I went way too long and at this point, would have wanted to get paid for a bad idea anyways. So feel free to respond, critic or say nothing at all and let this sink to the bottom of the pile.


I think there is a bit of a chicken & egg problem with the particular idea of active backups being played more games. I don’t think it’s untrue at all. When you look at the rare tandems that have been part of the FHM era, there’s only really been a couple where you could point to and say that they either have two active or at least two higher TPE goalies. McMahon and Knox Booth last season, Emiko Spector shared the net as well not too recently, and the last couple seasons including this one where Cain has been ahead of Olli Saarinen Jr.

So on one hand you do have instances of goalie tandems splitting varying amounts of game time depending on how close they are with their counterpart but then you also have a lack of desire to necessarily carry a backup unless necessary. Especially with the salary cap restraints that will become more applicable to most teams, the trend has already been spending as little as possible on the backup position and use callups to fill that 6 backup restriction.

Looking forward a little bit, this is a very rough projection of what every team’s goalie situation will look like in a couple seasons (start of S59). Reason being is that we have a rise of goaltending prospects who are going to have to graduate soon, plus the concern about the salary cap which will see fewer grandfathered contracts in place. Of course I’m assuming no player movement just for the sake of team projection and getting a sense of the league’s jobs and goalies. I’m going to disregard sub 450ish TPE goalies as that gets to be the area where the cost savings of paying literally anybody else in order to bring up a callup is more attractive.

Inferno Beibitzhanov (Starter), Hroch (perma backup)
Platoon Del Vecchio (Star Starter), ???
Stampede Doyle (Star Starter), Blunt (potential career backup)
Dragons Vilde (tandem), Amundsen (tandem)
syndicate Soonika (Regressing Starter), Smith/Vertigo (rookie)
Blizzard Spector (Starter), Bloomfield (potential career backup)
Steelhawks Jobin (Starter), ???
Panthers Booth (Star Starter), ???
Rage Larson (Regressing Starter), Redacted (Potential 1B)
Monarchs Tegernako (Star Starter), Borro (perma backup)
Wolfpack Eller (Star Starter), ???
Specters Cain (Regressing Starter), Saarinen Jr (Potential 1B)
Argonauts McMahon (Tandem IA), Odinson (Tandem)
pride Kavanagh (Starter), Antonescu (rising backup)
Barracuda Weaver (Young Starter), ???
Renegades Goodman (Starter), ???
Stars Carpet (Regressing Star Starter), Scoochie (1B capable)
Jets Chamberlain (Starter), ???

So in this projection, we have 7 unknown spots where teams don’t currently have a backup/succession plan in the pipeline and could easily change. Compare that to the currently 13-14 spots that are filled by sub 400 TPE IA goalies who majority of are place holders and it’s clear to see that the number of goalies entering the SHL is going to significantly increase. So with Evok’s “active backups will get played”, you’ll get a fair number of teams who will feel inclined to give them more starts because they want to encourage the players’ involvement with the sim despite going from a full time starter to a backup for several seasons.

As Carpy and others have brought up, goalie awards become a concern. For teams like LAP, NEW and WPG who don’t have a capable backup to rely on down the road, they’ll be more inclined to roll with their starters who will be at least 1300 to even 1700+ TPE. There’s no real downside from them besides the 6 games a season they’ll call somebody up or roll the dice on some IA who’s around that 400-500 mark. These goalies naturally gain the advantage of games played for award purposes even though the players themselves haven’t done anything to earn more games than equal or higher TPE goalies on other teams.

Right now the issues come down to incentives and lack of trade offs:
Teams are incentivized to NOT play a backup more than the 6 games because there is no inherent reason to outside of the odd fitness crunch. If anything the current cap system rewards NOT having an active backup for the 6 games as that means more money to spend elsewhere for your skaters.
There is a lose/lose trade off between giving more games to active backups. You either do give enough that they’re at least somewhat content with the situation and run the risk of your starter missing out on awards/seeing like they’re being short changed for their efforts to become a starter. Or you don’t give enough and run the risk of dropping your backup’s interest in the sim that they see 20% or less of when you take into account playoff games as well.


To address these (not that this is necessarily a solution but I think goals that should be achieved to help guide this solution creation)

Teams should be given incentive to have an active backup AND to play them more than the minimum 6 games. Increasing the minimum is simply just threatening the stick of HO punishment and only serves to force teams to follow the new minimum rather a more dynamic adjustment depending on their situation.
There should be a change in mentality in regards to 44/max starts from being the norm and to be expected and anything less is a detriment to the starter. In an ideal situation for myself, for teams who choose to play their starter more than many games, there needs to be that trade off of making the decision to play their starter at the cost of something. I don’t think the cost is a fine they need to pay. But more so along that the advantage they have from having a lower quality starter and the cap savings is balanced against the fact that they have to force their starter out there more often and subsequently see a lower return on their investment.
Awards are currently very focused on the starter and I don’t know how much of that is intentional. The McBride for best goalie makes sense for a starter versus starter comparison. Yet the Honcho award also went to Doyle specifically last season? Should that not be a tandem/team thing instead? Should there also be a best tandem award on top of the McBride as well? It’d certainly be interesting from my POV to cheer for your counterpart not only for team success but also ‘individual’ awards as well. It’s a positive way to reward not only backups for their performance but also the starters who sacrificed their games to let the backup shine as much as they did.

I’ve rambled on quite a lot and I’m sure that I haven’t concisely covered the extent of this problem, never mind maybe even being accurate about assuming what a lot of goalies, teams or award committee members actually think. Ultimately I still come back to my goalie stamina idea because it addresses a lot of the goals I brought up.

Do I think this actually happens? Probably not. In my suggestion, as a completely arbitrary base number, goalie stamina would cost twice as much to increase. Looking at it really quickly for a 425 capped goalie since that was my primary concern about players who are capped with fewer TPE, creating a fairly solid build in the juniors has typically involved somewhere between 13 to 14 stamina for starters. At 13 stamina, the TPE cost would go from 32 to 64. While 64 on its own sounds a lot, it’s only a ‘loss’ of 32 TPE to be spend on other areas, essentially make it so that going from a 14 or 15 in stats in the J is less difficult. For skaters that would be extremely attractive but with goalies and the fewer key stats that they have need and the seemingly unimportant tertiary stats (or at least some of them) barely getting any attention, they appear to have a bit of TPE to spare.

The other concern with this idea that I have is that when it comes to upgrading stamina to the 16 to 18 mark, it would cost 30 to 50 TPE per upgrade. Some of the higher TPE players already know, saving up for 40 TPE for a single stat upgrade that might not be all that impactful immediately is not the most rewarding thing to do despite how it’s all about improving continually over time.



Unless you have an elite starter who could start many games while still remaining fresh enough to keep going, teams will want to invest in a backup because it means that it improves their chances of success. As a player, you now have some agency in influencing how much you could play. Suddenly the backup position isn’t seen as this extraneous spot to be checked off on the roster but just as important as having a solid 3rd line or bottom pairing. For those teams who had to make the difficult decision of filling it in with weaker players, and putting the load on their top end players, that’s a trade off they had to make. I think backup goalies should be treated in the same way and it will take more fundamental, widespread adjustments outside of minimum games to achieve effective change.


Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk and you’re free to throw the pamphlet in the recycling on your way out.

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#2

buffalo has chimkin tendy as well, they sure are stocking up on young goalies

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#3

No

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#4

I think the stamina cost for goalies makes the most sense, combined with a boost in games to 55/year

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#5

@Nhamlet I'm a star fuck you

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#6

@Hoovuh Why they sleeping on you?

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#7

10-12-2020, 09:12 PMSlashACM Wrote: @Nhamlet I'm a star fuck you

We're already making reservations at the seniors home for you grandpa.

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#8

10-12-2020, 10:32 PMNhamlet Wrote:
10-12-2020, 09:12 PMSlashACM Wrote: @Nhamlet I'm a star fuck you

We're already making reservations at the seniors home for you grandpa.

I'm never retiring!!!!

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#9

This is such a never-ending discussion with no solution. Maybe I'm just very disappointed with my own unique situation so excuse my rant. Working hard on getting to 2k TPE (which might or might not happen, but it doesn't matter) and then having my career split in half by the sim engine change that suddenly no longer cares about TPE for goalies - even before my so-called prime - and then being on a bad team that basically prevents me from winning any personal awards. Bad luck? Yep, my whole career so far has been bad luck. Nothing but bad luck. I just hope for the next generation of goalies that we'll find some sort of solution that makes it fair again for everyone and that people don't regret creating goalies. For awards we should've changed the whole approach right after changing to FHM, we can't look at wins and some other categories that don't have anything to do with goalies at all, but with how good the team in front of them is. Different problem. I like the tandem idea actually, so I'm definitely in favor of each team having two active goalies.

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