angryjay93

Hey bud, good you see that you're back in the fold. I remember you from way back when because I played some of my first SNES league games against you back in....2007? 2008? One of those Anyways, it's always a good day when we get one of the originals to come back. A lot has happened but the game remains the same, enjoy!

First off I'd like to thank you for taking the time out to read the various posts and to go even further by asking a question. Before I found the site I actually spent most of my time playing the computer with line changes and offsides on. I know auto line changes are a bit different than manual since the CPU likes to match the checking line against Sc1, especially when a team is leading so its pretty important to make sure you have some quality guys on that Chk line. I think Raph gives you a pretty solid break down on how to value your roster spots. I think the extra things I would throw in are skating and endurance would take a higher premium for me than usual. With line changes on, you cant really slam on the C button to get those turbo boosts, otherwise your team is gonna be gassed in short order, especially those low endurance guys. If you combine poor skating with poor endurance then you can be in serious trouble. Luckily Detroit avoids this problem for the most part, Pittsburgh will be a bit more tricky. My Detroit lines: SC 1: Fedorov-Yzerman-Probert SC 2: Ysebaert-Ciccarelli-Ogrodnick Chk: Drake-Kennedy-Kozlov Coffey-Konstantinov Lidstrom-Chiasson Howe-Racine I would try to avoid Ray Sheppard as he is slow and his endurance is below average. Also, I'd try to beef up my Chk line with my best defensive players which the 3 I've included are the best defensive forwards for Detroit and they have just enough skill to take advantage of a team that is pressing for a goal. Not too many differences from Raph, so I don't think you can go wrong with either set. As for Pitt... SC 1: Stevens-Lemieux-Mullen SC 2: Jagr-Francis-McEachern Chk: Tippett-Tocchet-Straka U. Samuelsson-Stanton Paek-Murphy Ramsey-K. Samuelsson Pittsburgh really tests my theories as they have several slow, heavy, and low endurance players. Line 1: Lemieux and Stevens both have very high endurance and should be a good combo together because they can keep up with each other. Mullen gives nice weight variety as he is easily the lightest player on this line, he has a scoring touch to boot. I think the D pair here is the most balanced Pittsburgh can offer and it doesn't make the line too heavy by inserting Murphy over Stanton. Plus, Stanton is just a poor mans Murphy so I dont think you lose much. Line 2: Jagr and Francis should do well with each other as Francis is essentially the best offensive weapon left on the roster for Jagr to feed. McEachern is a role player with good endurance who can keep up with the pace of play and pot his easy chances. Murphy is an obvious choice as he is the best defender remaining, he should be able to further boost this line offensively where needed. Where Pittsburgh really struggles is with its 4th D man, they do not have a good option but Paek is probably the best of the bunch as he has decent endurance and is the fastest remaining player to choose from. Chk: It's really hard to put together a traditional checking line here as the Pens simply do not have the personnel available. Tippett is a well below average player but hes the only player with decent skating as well as some endurance. Tocchet is a skilled player but is incredibly slow and heavy. He doesn't really fit in well with anyone so he kind of needs some lightweight guys to carry him around. Straka is the best checker in Pittsburgh but his endurance is extremely low so you really have to pick your spots with him to be effective. The defense is just the best of the rest as Ramsey has acceptable agility and endurance ratings. K. Smauelsson should be fine in his own zone but he's liability in transition or with the puck on his stick. You'll want Kjell out there though as the rest of the D corps is really, really bad. Pittsburgh is kind of brutal in general and even more so with line changes on. If you can, just steer clear of them. I'll rank my top 5 line change teams below off the top of my head. 1. Montreal (3 good lines, 2.5 solid D pair and a top end G) 2. Boston (Depth galore at all positions) 3. Detroit (Top end F talent, 6 plus defenders, and a great Chk line) 4. Calgary (2 great lines and 6 plus defenders, shaky G) 5. Chicago (1 great line and top G, shaky depth) Honorable Mentions: Vancouver (Speed & depth), Los Angeles (2 insane offensive lines and solid D, abysmal G), Quebec (3 solid lines), Buffalo (1 insane F line, a top G, and then very average depth) I'd try to stay away from these non expansion teams. - Islanders (one good F line, tons of unspectacular D, slow depth F and the worst G) - Pittsburgh (As discussed above) - St. Louis (slow, heavy, terrible depth) -Edmonton (slow, heavy, low endurance, bad passing) That pretty much leaves Dallas, Hartford, NJ, NYR, Philly, Toronto, Washington & Winnipeg as your middle tier teams with various strengths and weaknesses. Generally these teams lack depth or top end skill/speed. If I had to rank the expansion teams I'd go...TB, SJ, OTW, FLA, & Anh at the bottom.

Ronning-Gartner-Granato Ysebaert-Granato-Todd Brindamour-Ysebaert-Carbonneau Zhitnik-Patrick Driver-Patrick Zhitnik-Johansson Terreri EX:Ysebaert

Great draft everyone, looking forward to the start of the season!

I cant help myself. Is it too late to switch from Florida to All Stars West?

Now we just need someone to be the Texas Stars

Florida

A lot of these ratings look very close to what they are in the game except for Michel Goulet. His passing is listed at a 4 but in the actual game it's only a 1. Could have been a typo? Also his shot power is written as 3 but it's a 2 in game. Lastly, his stick handling is 4 on the sheet but 3 in game. Not sure if the last two are a typo or late adjustments. I could spend hours looking at these things

I second removing the army green ban. I think the only matchup below LA that is fair is QUE and even then I'm not too sold on that I'll grant you STL is tough to group but I think I'd put them below WSH. STL seems substantially worse than every team above them but also fairly better than everyone below them except WSH. I would consider flipping PHI and EDM so that you could run a band for STL from Edm to NJ. (Edm, Pit, Hfd, NJ) I would put WSH above Edm and leave them out of the STL band. My argument for WSH over STL can be summed up this way. Wsh has a 6 speed player, a legit sniper in Khristch and a good role player in Ridley. Throw in one of the best and most versatile blue lines in the game and you have a great team with a weak goalie. STL has one player (Hull) who does not have elite skating and can be inconsistent with goal scoring. They lack a true play maker or speedster up front and are brutally slow. Their defense is 1 player deep, but Brown is slow too. Joseph is an okay goalie but nothing more. I think WSH is dynamic and deserves a band along the lines of (Tor, Edm, NYR, Pit, Que). I think they can go even higher but I don't want to go further until I get a feel for the reaction on this line of thinking. I guess Que still needs a band (Tor & NYR for sure). I guess LA? Dal too? But not much more than that. DAL you could give them a line from Van-NYR. They are crazy inconsistent and have no home ice adv. On the other hand their skating allows them to play with anyone and they are great on the road. I intended only to note a few things, I have clearly gotten out of hand so I'll stop now

Man oh man am I still spent after that trip! Regardless, I still want to chime in and send out a bunch of thank yous to the people that help made it happen. I think Troy did an excellent job this year after doing some experimentation last year with running two tournaments in a single day. Things were seamless and flowed without a hitch. We even got done at a fairly reasonable hour which allowed us to maintain a high level of play throughout. I played nearly 30 games in 10 hours but it was hard to notice because again, the flow was perfect and I think Troy has a winning formula here for future events. Also, did I mention the dude picked me up from the airport while the tournament was going on? The guy is everywhere and does it all. He sets up the systems and stream, commentates, makes sure were fed, has tons of door prizes, runs a fair tournament, plays games, and picks dudes up from the airport even though they are over an hour late. I can not thank you enough Troy for making this all happen. As for the tournament, Raph played great in the Genesis finals. Not much I can do on offense and that is a very rare feeling for me to experience, a well deserved victory that has me going back to the drawing board. On the SNES side the Chicago crew that came up certainly made the event more lively and competitive overall. We had a lot more depth in part due to them as well as the RSG crew (also from Chicago) improving their overall ability in the game. From top to bottom the entire thing was competitive and it took some good bounces for me to overcome Raph in the finals as he looked poised to sweep the Edge of '94 yet again. I enjoyed doing what little commentary I was able to do throughout the day, it was weird being in more of a play by play role as I'm used to just providing some color alongside Troy. My main goal was just to make sure I incorporated my partner Raph and he did a great job on the mic spitting all sorts of 94 knowledge. I'm happy to hear that our performance and that incredible series between Troy & EA was received so positively. As usual, it was great to see everyone in person again while meeting new folks as well. I think that SNES crew from Chicago is poised to take the next step and will be very scary at the next tourney. I also think the RSG crew has made appreciable gains in Gens and will be a bigger factor at the next iteration of this event. Meanwhile players such as Mike Gartner, The Shield, and EA continue to be serious players and I think next year will be even tougher on both sides. Just want to send a special shout out and thank you to EA. He really took care of me on this trip as I was dragging some serious ass due to lack of sleep, headaches, and last minute travel plans. He made sure I had a place to sleep in the hotel, carted me around GB and also drove me back to Chicago through a storm that made the roads pretty dicey. He made sure I was well taken care of and that (along with Troy's efforts) made me whole journey possible. I cant thank you two enough and I appreciate everything that this community is. Lastly, we missed you Coach, hope to see you in GB next year and I'm doing my best to get to NYC in April. I will be in touch with you.

I've been going kind of ham with playoff runs lately, here is a link below to my spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10hQu3OMeIkN6dIqPxb_yyzq8oy8Nu9nqETk0axPaKi8/edit?usp=sharing I've been stat tracking in a similar manner to Eman while using these rules -5 min periods -penalties on except for offside -Playing the toughest matchup in the 1st rd -Score by any means possible My goal was to do a run with every team and I accomplished that but I was still tempted to play more games. To satiate my desire I started using 2nd, 3rd, & 4th lines along with backup goalies. I havent included the backups with the main team stats quite yet but you can see the performances I have completed within the team pages. I have found this to be a fun and refreshing way to play the computer when I have a spare 15-30 minutes.

Please feel free to replace me. I'm in the process of moving and will be out of town the next few weekends. All in all it doesn't leave much time for playing.