I'm glad to be back in the SHL after a nice break and really enjoying it again so far. That being said, parity died in the SHL the day that Hamilton broke STHS. STHS has its flaws (will find no argument from me there), but it did add a weird sense of authenticity into the seasons and the playoffs. Did the good teams still tend to beat the bad? Yes. Did the good teams tend to make the playoffs? Yes. But teams that were on the bubble or just sneaking into the playoffs could actually make some noise, but that just isn't the reality in the SHL now. I have no belief that a 8 seed in the SHL could win the Cup the way that LAK did in the NHL. Heck, I don't even think an 8 seed would ever come back from 3-1 down against one of the best teams in regular season history the way Florida did against Boston, much less shellack a top 5 team in Toronto in the next round. The NHL belief that well if we just get in, anything can happen? The exact opposite is the case in the SHL. Sneak in as an 8 seed and be happy that you're there because you certainly aren't making it out of the round.
Alex Winters (retired)
Matej Winters (retired)
Dominik Winters S45 Jesster Trophy Winner Challenge Cup Winning Goal Club: S52
05-18-2023, 11:05 AM39alaska39 Wrote: I'm glad to be back in the SHL after a nice break and really enjoying it again so far. That being said, parity died in the SHL the day that Hamilton broke STHS. STHS has its flaws (will find no argument from me there), but it did add a weird sense of authenticity into the seasons and the playoffs. Did the good teams still tend to beat the bad? Yes. Did the good teams tend to make the playoffs? Yes. But teams that were on the bubble or just sneaking into the playoffs could actually make some noise, but that just isn't the reality in the SHL now. I have no belief that a 8 seed in the SHL could win the Cup the way that LAK did in the NHL. Heck, I don't even think an 8 seed would ever come back from 3-1 down against one of the best teams in regular season history the way Florida did against Boston, much less shellack a top 5 team in Toronto in the next round. The NHL belief that well if we just get in, anything can happen? The exact opposite is the case in the SHL. Sneak in as an 8 seed and be happy that you're there because you certainly aren't making it out of the round.
Tell me which team is like LAK. The only 8th seed to win the Stanley Cup. If the 11/12 LAK team was put down to 66 games they would go 32-22-12. Which is the EDM/NOLA this season
When the 8th seed in the shl is below .400 win% because they are tanking, you think they can win? BAP almost beat ATL this season in the 1st round.
We usually have about 12 teams go above .500 each season. Do I think 12th OA can get to the finals? Yes I do
Look at Manhattan S67 and S68 as proof. 9th in the league, made it to the finals. Both went to 7 games. Now if the 16th team is above .500, and with goalie luck, I think they could win the 1st round if not more.
05-18-2023, 10:43 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: My issue isn't so much that the #1 seed beats the #8 seed, but that the #5 to #7 seed seem to not really have a chance either, even when those teams are decent and not just bad teams who got a spot in the postseason due to our diluted format. Especially in the West where things seemed very static for years even outside. Calgary and Edmonton kept turns dominating each other in the 1st round only to then get dominated in the 2nd by Seattle. And every conference finals since S66 were two our of SEA, WPG, CHI. But yeah with some rebuilds starting and cycles ending, I expect this to change now. The East might be more competitive in the later rounds, but over the last two seasons the higher seeded team won every first round series, and we have go back three or four seasons to find the last case of one of the top three seaded teams being beaten.
I really dislike the narrative that comes up so often in these discussions and in your post as well (I'm not blaming you for this obviously). This is NOT about bad teams being bad, or teams that got into the playoffs due to our generous playoff format, who then naturally have no chance against the very best in the league, as they should. Nobody argues that they should artificially have their chances inflated to create random upsets. For me the core of this discussion is the middle-tier of the league. The teams roughly in the #7 to #13 range, who should at least have a fighting chance, but usually don't.
My very subjective gut feeling is that is what has had the biggest impact on my and potentially many other peoples enjoyment of the league. In the past, be it due to the STHS-randomness or other factors, for most teams there was that feeling of "Let's play decent regular season, get into the playoffs and then everything is possible. We might not have a big chance to go deep, but we have a chance. Let's make the most of it and maybe we can win, as unlikely as it is." But in todays SHL, my impression is that for more and more people the realization is setting in that this chance is simply not there anymore. People in the midfield know that they won't win, and it doesn't take until the playoffs to figure that out, they know it early. Everyone knows that 5-6 teams at most will play for the title and you will realize after a few days of simming if you are on one of those teams or not. After that, it's just riding it out for a large portion of the league. The tanking teams tank while the midfield plays for the right to maybe get knocked out in the 2nd round instead of the first. But yeah as I said, I acknowledge that there seems to have been a slightly positive trend over the last season or two, but the 15 or so before that have left me scarred at this point. Also, this could very well be a personal issue as well where I'm not as objective as I think, because I was on those kinds of midfield teams a lot. And boy does it grind you down after a while...
I also hate that "GMs just need to get better" argument because it takes all the agency away from the players. Most of the players in the league are on teams whose GM isn't top-tier, it's a simple numbers game. There isn't enough room for every player to play for a top-GM and even if there was, we wouldn't want every player to flock towards the same handful of teams because those teams have the best GMs. This is NOT a GM league, it's a player league. GMs are important but they should not be the sole factor that decides everything while the players are passenger and mere pawns in the battle royale of a few great GM minds. And again, it's not about giving shitty GMs random boosts to create upsets. It's about the fact that even decent to good GMs tend to be outclassed by the very best. As counter-intuitive as that might sound to many, GMs have too much weight and power in my opinion. In my ideal world, GMs would still be very influential in building a good roster, drafting well and creating a LR atmosphere that draws people to their team, but their influence on the results through lines and tactics would be greatly diminished.
Naturally, in any competitive league, only a certain relatively small percentage of users can be on the best team. That's not the issue, that's normal. The issue is that we need everyone who is not on those teams to have something to fight for as well, and that hasn't really been the case for the last decade or two. Combine that with the fact that our seasons are so quick and short these days that there is a ton of downtime for everyone whose team doesn't go deep in the postseason, and you will find a large portion of the league simply having nothing going on and no games to follow for more than 50% of the time.
But yeah, I'm getting dragged into another parity discussion which probably isn't super useful. Some of these things are just points that annoy me whenever they come up because they try to frame this in a way that misses the core problem. But yes, things might be moving in the right direction after all, I'm willing to give it some time.
I see the core problem I do. But I also see the core problem not becoming a big problem as it is. I see about 5 teams on each conference be truly competitive, so about 10 teams in the league which lines up with win%. You have 12-13 teams a season that is above .500 win%. Especially in the east since I’m more east centric, the series can go a lot of ways. My goalie was a big reason why we beat montreal in both seasons. Philly beating Atlanta and Manhattan also were close series. When Toronto was in the playoffs montreal beat them and they were worse. For the east at least, the top 5 teams can win the cup. I believe PHI, ATL, NEW, MTL, and BUF(probably like HAM, BUF, or BAP now) can win the cup.
But with the gm problem, in order to have a good team you have to have a good gm that for the most part can rebuild a team. You saw it with TOR for a couple seasons before they blew it up by buying a bunch of guys. You saw it in more greener gms in MTL doing a proper rebuild. EDM doing a quicker rebuild and doing it fine. I rebuilt. Winnipeg rebuilt under ace. MAN rebuilt, went all in for a couple seasons then rebuilding again. Philly had a slow rebuild/competiveness. BUF is trying that. CHI, NOLA, CGY all went in the path of not tanking but trying to always try to replace their older players with less old ones. Some teams like CHI did better with that than teams like CGY
As long as GM’s can manage the roster and do lines, they have that power over the player. If you want a player centric league, then it hasn’t been happening in a while, If you look at free agency. There are still those player first players, but the wide majority will just tell their gm “whatever makes us win”. I can tell you in NEW, there are a mix of them. Both players who want individual success and those who want team success and it’s on the gm to manage both. If a person like Arty who wants to score more, it’s my job to get him to score. Or someone like R1cebowl who gave me what his goals were. It’s my job to get him there, while also trying to get the team to win. And then there are players like myself or Simon(Brie) who won’t care about the player that much and want to win.
Tell me which team is like LAK. The only 8th seed to win the Stanley Cup. If the 11/12 LAK team was put down to 66 games they would go 32-22-12. Which is the EDM/NOLA this season
When the 8th seed in the shl is below .400 win% because they are tanking, you think they can win? BAP almost beat ATL this season in the 1st round.
We usually have about 12 teams go above .500 each season. Do I think 12th OA can get to the finals? Yes I do
Look at Manhattan S67 and S68 as proof. 9th in the league, made it to the finals. Both went to 7 games. Now if the 16th team is above .500, and with goalie luck, I think they could win the 1st round if not more.
Please correct me if my numbers here are off because I didn't have time to check in detail. But you said that you believe a 12th OA can get to the finals, but all we have to show for so far is the #9 team making the finals and that's already extremely rare, usually it ends at about #5 or #6. We still have no cup winner lower than #6, not seed but overall ranking, iirc. So reality isn't backing that assumption up so far.
Tell me which team is like LAK. The only 8th seed to win the Stanley Cup. If the 11/12 LAK team was put down to 66 games they would go 32-22-12. Which is the EDM/NOLA this season
When the 8th seed in the shl is below .400 win% because they are tanking, you think they can win? BAP almost beat ATL this season in the 1st round.
We usually have about 12 teams go above .500 each season. Do I think 12th OA can get to the finals? Yes I do
Look at Manhattan S67 and S68 as proof. 9th in the league, made it to the finals. Both went to 7 games. Now if the 16th team is above .500, and with goalie luck, I think they could win the 1st round if not more.
In the last 15 seasons in the SHL, the team to lead the league in points has won seven Cups, lost in the finals twice, conference finals five times, and the semifinals once. For comparison's sake in the last 15 seasons in the NHL, the President's Trophy winner has won the Cup once, lost in the finals once, lost in the conference finals once, lost in the semifinals seven times, and the quarterfinals five times.
It should not be an almost 50% chance to win the Cup, 60% chance to make it to the finals, and 93% chance to make it to the conference finals. Especially when we look at the league that is closest to the SHL and it has an 80% chance to not even make it to the conference finals if you win the President's Trophy.
Alex Winters (retired)
Matej Winters (retired)
Dominik Winters S45 Jesster Trophy Winner Challenge Cup Winning Goal Club: S52
05-18-2023, 11:54 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: Please correct me if my numbers here are off because I didn't have time to check in detail. But you said that you believe a 12th OA can get to the finals, but all we have to show for so far is the #9 team making the finals and that's already extremely rare, usually it ends at about #5 or #6. We still have no cup winner lower than #6, not seed but overall ranking, iirc. So reality isn't backing that assumption up so far.
Yeah the lowest overall seed to win in the last 15 seasons in 6, New England this year.
Alex Winters (retired)
Matej Winters (retired)
Dominik Winters S45 Jesster Trophy Winner Challenge Cup Winning Goal Club: S52
My only issue with PT tasks and CW is that i really dont feel like writing about the prompts 70% of the time. I don't really understand the intention behind forcing us to write about any given topic, when the point of tasks is just to jump through a hope. The hoop jumping is fine. You need it. I think. Forcing me to jump through the hoop in a very specific way often discourages me from wanting to accomplish the task. I don't want to remove prompts, I just don't want to be put in a box.
however...in contrast to that thought...
Mock drafts are perhaps the best tasks we have. Some people really like the secret trading and investigating. Secret discords and all that. And those who don't can find a good mock in other ways. Bottom line, it rewards engagement with the community. In the past, PTs drove engagement to the site, where the community lived. Now-a-days, the community is on Discord, so driving engagement to the site doesn't do anything. Mock drafts actually drive engagement to the community. So does fantasy. Every discord I've been in has a fantasy channel for help with picks.
In that respect, possibly the best thing we could do is shift engagement away from graphics and writing and into predictions. Create tasks that reward collaboration, or at the very least requires a user ask "Hey, whats a good answer?", rather than sending 150 words to a forum no one will read. There's a number of right and wrong ways we could do this. But, the end goal should be (again) to reward engagement and knowledge of the league.
Or, to move tasks directly to discord, where we can encourage engagement with the community. There are massive tools available to us with discord that the site does not provide as easily. If we are to write or create graphics, why do it here on site?
One big reason to drive engagement to the site is media. I hope there is a way to intertwine the community with media, since it's such a huge part of our league.
Off the top of my head, if we really wanted to remove CW, I would distribute that TPE to fantasy. Give every user who completes fantasy 10 TPE, reward the winner an extra 10, but also reward more of the players in a group. Possibly top 7. This would hopefully drive users to make good picks and take it more seriously, since right now it seems like such a crapshoot. There's no shortage of players who make random picks to pick up their free money.
If we wanted to shift TPE from writing/graphics in general, we would need to create more engaging prediction tasks.
05-18-2023, 12:40 PM(This post was last modified: 05-18-2023, 12:43 PM by Keven. Edited 1 time in total.)
05-18-2023, 12:18 PM39alaska39 Wrote: In the last 15 seasons in the SHL, the team to lead the league in points has won seven Cups, lost in the finals twice, conference finals five times, and the semifinals once. For comparison's sake in the last 15 seasons in the NHL, the President's Trophy winner has won the Cup once, lost in the finals once, lost in the conference finals once, lost in the semifinals seven times, and the quarterfinals five times.
It should not be an almost 50% chance to win the Cup, 60% chance to make it to the finals, and 93% chance to make it to the conference finals. Especially when we look at the league that is closest to the SHL and it has an 80% chance to not even make it to the conference finals if you win the President's Trophy.
For anyone who wants the full tables, here's the last 15 seasons of both the NHL and SHL.
Is the goal of the league to replicate the NHL as closely as possible? No. Is it really possible for the SHL to replicate the NHL with only 20 teams in the league? Also no.
I'd argue that although the SHL playoffs could definitely use a bit more randomness, the only real issue with predictability comes from seeds 11-16 being included as free first round wins. These teams are in the bottom half of the league and just aren't as good as the seeds 11-16 that make it into the NHL playoffs.
I don't have anything more insightful to say. I just like providing the numbers for other people to look at.
05-18-2023, 01:14 PM(This post was last modified: 05-18-2023, 01:16 PM by spooked. Edited 1 time in total.)
05-18-2023, 09:30 AMAcsolap Wrote: Parity comes down to GMs. There's about 4 shl GM's I'd entrust my player to if I wasn't a GM. We've seen multiple GM's in recent seasons give up max retention on contracts for little more than a pittance. For me a lot of teams lack detailed planning or direction or quite simply lose patience and scupper their long term success for a short term all or nothing gamble. There's ultimately no silver bullet for this issue outside of people learning from their mistakes which is about as likely as me winning the euromillions.
I would agree with this. I think the only caveat I have to add is that even if you have a concrete plan (like we have been following in Minnesota for a long time now) it takes a hell of a long time to actually have your team become relevant if there was a stumble anywhere along the way. We had to do a bit more of a rebuild than most teams will have to just because of how our assets lined up when me and muted took over, and it's been like IRL years now and we're only now looking at becoming somewhat more competitive this season... So the turn around time is really insane. If I was a newer user taking on a GM role for a team in the same situation as MIN was in, I don't think I would have had the patience to wait like 2 literal years of my life working on this thing. And that is where the current parity falls apart for me a bit, teams are just so stuck in their phases for so long that the site just kind of becomes a parasite on your life instead of being actively fun to check the standings, etc.
05-18-2023, 01:14 PM(This post was last modified: 05-18-2023, 01:21 PM by Aephino. Edited 2 times in total.)
As someone who very recently took an extended break from the site but has returned, I definitely have some thoughts. I think it's... strange?... that people are so focused on parity. I think as long as we keep things in check and just routine "maintenance" per se on ensuring that every team and player has a fair shot of higher TPE and reasonable builds, there's no use talking about it.
IMO this reminds me of discussions I had with my friend about the FIFA video games. The newer FIFAs just are not fun to play. At all. (talking about FUT, ignoring the fact they haven't changed career mode, pro clubs...) Sure, the graphics are better, there is more content, there is more variety, trading allows to get more coins... but the core gameplay itself is way, way, way less fun. If I were to think back to FIFA 14, 15 - I lost a lot. I wasn't that good. But man was the game fun. At some point people try to start thinking about how to make things "better" or "more efficient" while sacrificing FUN.
I agree with PB that we need to get more media involvement again. I was looking back to when I first started and my draft class was doing so much in terms of media. And I remember being an SMJHL Media Grader going from always having full grading sessions, to sometimes having just 1-2 articles. I also looked the other day and there hasn't been a video created in... ONE YEAR. There was a whopping total of 6 videos created in 2022. I, myself, submitted 8 videos while I was still grinding.
I also feel I might come across as entitled because I'm about to list all these issues but not have a solution. That's because what I think would be fun may not be the same as others. We really need to pool together everyone's thoughts and ideas and create something akin to a Fun Committee. These people decipher all these options and figure out how to move forward.
Conclusion. I agree with PB: "The hoop jumping is fine." Just make the hoop jumping FUN. That's why we're here. Again, I have nothing to contribute at this time. I'm just kind of sick about talking about parity or hearing people talk about parity. I didn't come back to the SHL to win a virtual trophy. I came for the connections with other users and we need to ensure that new users and returning users can all have a good time.
05-18-2023, 01:15 PM(This post was last modified: 05-18-2023, 01:19 PM by luke. Edited 1 time in total.)
05-18-2023, 12:18 PM39alaska39 Wrote: In the last 15 seasons in the SHL, the team to lead the league in points has won seven Cups, lost in the finals twice, conference finals five times, and the semifinals once. For comparison's sake in the last 15 seasons in the NHL, the President's Trophy winner has won the Cup once, lost in the finals once, lost in the conference finals once, lost in the semifinals seven times, and the quarterfinals five times.
It should not be an almost 50% chance to win the Cup, 60% chance to make it to the finals, and 93% chance to make it to the conference finals. Especially when we look at the league that is closest to the SHL and it has an 80% chance to not even make it to the conference finals if you win the President's Trophy.
Looking at S55 to S70 is pointless with the amount of changes made from it. S53-S64 was way too favored to the top 3 teams in tpe. If you look at S65-S70, you see a lot of improvements, because they took a harder stance to improving parity.
Even now, for a top team to make it to the conference final, your 1st round is basically free because you face the #8 seed. The 2nd round gets harder but you are the favorites because you were better. So you just have to win 1 round.
If you look at S65-S70 it’s a lot different from S55-60 or S60-S64
I mean the top teams are still heavy favorites. A lot of them load up to peak for 1-4 seasons in order to try to win a cup in that time. Because top teams in FHM usually win more
05-18-2023, 01:14 PMAephino Wrote: As someone who very recently took an extended break from the site but has returned, I definitely have some thoughts. I think it's... strange?... that people are so focused on parity. I think as long as we keep things in check and just routine "maintenance" per se on ensuring that every team and player has a fair shot of higher TPE and reasonable builds, there's no use talking about it.
IMO this reminds me of discussions I had with my friend about the FIFA video games. The newer FIFAs just are not fun to play. At all. (talking about FUT, ignoring the fact they haven't changed career mode, pro clubs...) Sure, the graphics are better, there is more content, there is more variety, trading allows to get more coins... but the core gameplay itself is way, way, way less fun. If I were to think back to FIFA 14, 15 - I lost a lot. I wasn't that good. But man was the game fun. At some point people try to start thinking about how to make things "better" or "more efficient" while sacrificing FUN.
I agree with PB that we need to get more media involvement again. I was looking back to when I first started and my draft class was doing so much in terms of media. And I remember being an SMJHL Media Grader going from always having full grading sessions, to sometimes having just 1-2 articles. I also looked the other day and there hasn't been a video created in... ONE YEAR. There was a whopping total of 6 videos created in 2022. I, myself, submitted 8 videos while I was still grinding.
I also feel I might come across as entitled because I'm about to list all these issues but not have a solution. That's because what I think would be fun may not be the same as others. We really need to pool together everyone's thoughts and ideas and create something akin to a Fun Committee. These people decipher all these options and figure out how to move forward.
Conclusion. I agree with PB: "The hoop jumping is fine." Just make the hoop jumping FUN. That's why we're here. Again, I have nothing to contribute at this time. I'm just kind of sick about talking about parity or hearing people talk about parity. I didn't come back to the SHL to win a virtual trophy. I came for the connections with other users and we need to ensure that new users and returning users can all have a good time.
One of the old media pieces I actually loved every season was Garbonzo's top 100 players, I actually pitched doing that instead of the all star game half seriously cause I don't really think all star game being streamed is a big draw and doesn't really have any post-event relevance, while the top 100 media pieces did roughly the same thing (identify the top players of the season roughly) while being something you can easily go back to and pick through quickly for content. We lost a lot of media like that, in part because I think jobs became more available and more numerous as we expanded some of the things we bring on the site, as well as compensation went up so less people need to think about media. I haven't tried to make money really at all in a long and I still go up every season cause of GM pay+Casino pay outs mainly.
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