All American Team
 

I was thinking about starting an All American team. Basically, I can only draft, trade for, and sign American players... with a league format of 45% Canadian, 35% American, and 20% Foreign players, I think that could be pretty challenging. I would also have only American coaches and scouts.

In all my solo games, I am not allowed to initiate trades or to negotiate trade offers. I can shop players, but I can't negotiate the offers.

I enjoy challenging myself a little. What do you think? Any ideas on the setup or rules I need to follow?

I think your American-only house rule is good enough to start. I'm not totally familiar with the current crop of NHLers (more so the previous couple generations). But I think any country but Canada-only would be a good challenge.

OK, started up the game. Just a standard game. Once I got the game set up, starting July 1, I created an expansion team, called the Montana Americans... based in Kalispell MT, hahaha.. middle of nowhere. I immediately took over as GM and Head Coach. All my coaching staff and scouts were from the USA, so no changes needed. In the expansion draft, I forgot that I was only picking Americans, and I picked Lehner and Elvis as my top two goalies. They are both on the trade block, and I will trade them away before the season begins. Otherwise, I got a pretty average, but deep, team. Mostly 2.5 and 3 star players.

Not much going on in free agency, but I picked up a few extra players. Forgot to create a team in the AHL for a farm team, so I only have an ECHL farm team in my first season. NO real depth, so I'm pretty much stuck with what I've got for the moment. I did go through my coaches and staff and made some changes. I have some super young guys, who I drafted in the expansion draft to use as my draft class... not shown in the roster, obviously.

Hired a new trainer, 19 skill, so that's good. McKenzie I think.
Hired two new coaches in Chris Chelios and Steve Heinze, and dropped two very poor coaches. Finally, I hired several more scouts and fired a couple really bad scouts. I now have an above average coaching staff (maybe even good!).

My scouting looks like this:

NHL: 3 VG
AHL: 3 VG
NCAA: 2 (1 Great, 1 Very Good)
Draft: 5 VG scouts covering draft eligible players
USA: 6 VG scouts, 2 in each US region (Eastern Midwest, Western).

I thought of getting some scouts to cover players in the junior leagues, but there are no more VG or better US scouts available to hire, so I'll hope the 5 draft scouts will do OK. As more scouts become available, I'll do more hiring. All scouts are set to look at US only players.

Basically waiting for trade offers or waivers at this point.

Pretty solid D

Every month I'll play a month and post results. Here's the preseason. Made some bad trades to get rid of my two non USA players. Got a goalie and a prospect in return.

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First thing I did was hire a head coach. Frankly, I didn't really want to do the day to day stuff as coach and also write up what's going on here. So I hired Peter Laviolette. Surprised he was available, but great to have him on board.

Waivers didn't look very good, I only claimed 3 players, a goalie (1.5/2.5) and two wingers (1.5/2.5 and 2/2). Eric Comrie has American and Canadian nationality, the game just shows the Canadian first in the screenshot. Everyone's American :) At the beginning of the month I have 27 contracts and 32 protected players. 5 players are drafted players I picked up in the expansion draft, one of each position except goalie.

Daily I check the roster and waiver wire then I go to the next day. I don't have anyone on the trade block nor am I looking to renew contracts. I want to see how some of these guys perform on the team, and how the chemistry sets up.

I think, before the season starts, we have two weaknesses. First, we have no big time players to lead the team. A lot of 3 star players, so we have good depth, but not much in the way of top talent to lead the team. Second, our goalies are far below average. I think we can win but we are basically going to have to outscore our opponents... just my initial thoughts.

Here's the starting day roster.

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One minor injury, Frank Vatrano, who scored 7 points (2G, 5A) in 9 games had a minor foot injury and is on the Injured list as of November 1.

We started out strong, but faded in the second half of the month, going 6-7-2. van Riemsdyk is 3rd in the league in goals with 11. No other individual stats worth noting. Team wise, we are tied for 9th in the league with a 3.33 goals per game average, and 25th with a 3.53 goals against per game. I didn't post the goalie stats because they aren't worth looking at.


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Anyone know a way to make these screenshots smaller?

Vatrano comes back for the first game of November on the 5th, I send down center Lerg (1/1). Lerg had no points in 4 games played.

November 10 I pick up C Andy Miele off waivers (2/2) and send down RW Drew Stafford (1.5/1.5). Stafford had 1 assist in 15 games played.

November 19, in a game against Edmonton, RD Jacob Trouba gets injured for 1-2 months with a fractured jaw. I only have 7 signed defensemen, so I pick up 21 year old Free Agent RD Eric Jeremiah (0.5/1.5) to add some depth on my active roster.

On November 21, I pick up LW Stefan Matteau (2/2) off waivers and send down LW Nicholas Kerdiles (1.5/1.5) who had 2 goals 0 assists in 14 games played.

November 23... Weirdest thing happened today. Vegas fired Peter DeBoer as coach, and same day rehired him as coach. I guess the AI doesn't look at who they just fired, it just looks at the free agent pool and tries to sign the best one... I added a screenshot for you to enjoy...

November 30, we pick up a C off waivers as we are a little short on Centers. TJ Tynan (2/2) comes aboard. Unfortunately, our scouts didn't do a lot of scouting on him, because once he hit our roster he was (1.5/1.5). I send down the older Miele who is also (1.5/1.5) and had 1 assist in 4 games played.

We finish November with an 8-4-2 record, on a strong month by goalie Eric Comrie (who is now in the top 5 in save % in the league). That brings us from 6-7-2 October start to 14-11-4, good for 32 points and 11th in the division. JVR still leads the team in goals with 18.

So things are picking up! Let's hope it continues in December.

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More November screenshots for you... Goalie stats, Standings, and Active Roster.

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Anyone know a way to make these screenshots smaller?

Simply use Windows Paint software. Then load your picture, Resize it to lets say 70 %. Not too much, because then you cant actually see, what in the picture.

Wow, didn't know I could do that so simply!!! Thanks!!!

Center Nick Bjugstad was out for a few games with bruised ribs. I think he missed 4-5 games total. He was day to day so I didn't move him to the injury list. I guess I should have, didn't realize bruised ribs were going to be a two week thing.

On December 31, 2019, I activated Jacob Trouba from the Injury list and sent our new friend Eric Jeremiah down to the ECHL.

It was a pretty boring month, including the team's play. VERY boring. JVR continued to stay among the leaders in goals (25) and continuing his surprising play, goaltender Eric Comrie stayed in the leaders for save percentage (.924)

We did end up the month on a 4 game winning streak, so can't really complain there, ending up 2019 with a 21-16-6 record, giving us a 7-5-2 month of December. Pretty happy with that record considering we had 10 road games and only 4 home games.. I'm surprised we are able to stay over .500, bit I gotta give props to Laviolette. Great last minute pickup for us, I think. We're just 2 points out of a playoff spot right now, so we need to pick it up in the new year.

Also, January is when I start resigning players, so there should be a lot of action tomorrow with signings going on.

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I'm slowly working on sizing these things. When I saved all these, they looked tiny but are still quite large here...They should be more reasonable in the next few posts. :)

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We start off the new month with a winning record, an empty Injury List, and an owner that will allow us to pay some people if they want to stay with the team. Let's play a few games then start sending out some offers. We have 9 guys on the last year of their contracts. Top two concerns will be defenseman Tony DeAngelo and winger Alex Galchenyuk.

NJ Devils made me a trade offer which I politely declined. They offered 28 year old, 1/1 defenseman Julian Melchiori for 27 year old, 1.5/1.5 wing Kyle Rau. Rau is older and better than Melchiori. Plus, I don't need a defenseman.

Unfortunately, I keep seeing players on waivers that could definitely help my team, but none are American :(

So, after the January 7 game with Minnesota, I make offers to DeAngelo and Galchenyuk. Both guys asked for 3 year deals and wouldn't come off that 3 year mark. Really wanted longer terms, and couldn't get it.

In 46 games, DeAngelo (24 yo) is a top line defenseman, getting over 22 minutes per game, and has scored 12 goals and added 19 assists... a premiere defenseman for us. We are THRILLED to pay him $2.75 million a season for 3 seasons. I'd have paid $4 million plus for a longer term deal but he wouldn't get off that 3 years.

Galchenyuk, who is 25, has been played almost 16 minutes a game, or just under 2nd line minutes. He was making $4.9 million and we signed him for $5.18 million a season for 3 seasons. I think we are overpaying for a 3rd liner but we have cap room right now and we are hoping he makes the jump to top 6 forward (he has the offensive skills). He has 7 goals and 9 assists in 43 games this season.

Next we focus on 25 year old G Jon Gillies (2/3) and 27 year old winger Austin Czarnik (2/2). Neither player wants to resign with us. Gilles because he wants to play in the NHL, and is currently in the ECHL. Czarnik is a 3rd liner who wants more icetime, and doesn't feel he gets enough here in Montana.

We sign winger John Hayden to a 2 year $850k per year contract. Hayden, 24, played 18 games with Montana picking up 2 assists in limited ice time (under 7 minutes a game).He's played 5 games in the ECHL and he has 4 points in 5 games there.

That leaves four 1.5/1.5 players I won't, at this time, try to resign. They are 34 year old winger Drew Stafford who is currently in the ECHL, 33 year old center Bryan Lerg, who is a regular scratch on the Americans. 27 year old winger Kyle Rau and C TJ Tynan. Stafford and Lerg are on the decline, and I can get younger players of the same quality out of free agency. Same goes for Rau and Tynan, I can get same quality, younger players from free agency or the draft to replace them.

So resigning is done. After the season, I will put offers in to both players that didn't want to negotiate a deal... whether they sign again or not is another story :)

On with the season! Vincent Trocheck had an infected insect bite, which made him day to day but he didn't miss any games from it.

Czarnik gets a day to day back injury after the resigning... In all he missed 4 games, before being completely healthy February 2.

This month saw our record climb to 28-21-7, good for 8th in the conference (tied with Chicago). JVR continues to light the lamp with 33 goals putting him in 7th in the league. Comrie is 7th in the league in wins with 21. Comrie is also tied for 9th in the league in save percentage at .920, plus 3 shutouts puts him tied for 8th.

For team stats, our power play (16.3%) and penalty kill (77.3%) are both 27th in the league. Our 10.5 PIM per game leads the league. We are 12th in goals per game (3.09) and 20th in goals against per game (3.16).

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Another day, another month of the Montana Americans. I think I finally have the sizing of the screenshots figured out, so hopefully that will make this more readable. If only I had a personality, it COULD be enjoyable. Oh, well ;)

We start February with an empty Injury List. Our trainer must be doing something right.

On the 16th, JVR comes down with 'nausea', and Bjugstad is day to day with a bruised elbow, so I bring up 21 year old LW Riley Tufte (1.5/3). Tufte should get some playing time in the bigs. I send down 28 year old 1.5/1.5 LW Kyle Lau.

On the 22nd, with the trade deadline looming, I start to shop some players. I'm mostly looking for picks or youth. A defenseman for some depth in the organization wouldn't hurt either.

I get several offers for Lau, but only one draft pick, a 7th rounder from the New York Rangers. I take this offer.

No offers for 31 year old Center Miele or 34 year old center Lerg. I was hoping :)

ON the 23rd, surprisingly I got no offers for other older players on my team... So I have to build my team the hard way... through drafting, waivers, and the occasional lucky find in free agency :)

Of course, no trade offers at the trade deadline.

Overall a bad month for us. We ended up 32-28-8. Worst of all, the rat from Boston is leading the league in points. I can't take it. That's 4-6-2 for the month of February 2020. This is the worst month in team history... so far. JVR is still amongst the leaders in goals with 29. Comrie is dropping out of rankings, as his actual abilities are catching up to him.

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We lost defenseman John Marino to a strained forearm for a few weeks. So we put him on the Injury list and brought up our only other defenseman, Eric Jeremiah. It's funny that several 2/2 defensemen have been on waivers, but they are all un-American :)

Starting March 18, I took my 5 scouts that were assigned to players entering the NHL Draft and cleared their jobs. Then, I went to the draft page, and started looking at the top American players in the draft. Every week, I'll have 5 players scouted by our scouts to try to better prepare for the draft.

Defenseman Neal Pionk had knee soreness which kept him out of several games as it was day to day... Winger Ryan Dzingel had hip abductor strain which kept him out of a few games.

I also renewed defensive coach Clarence Poteat's contract for 4 years at $85,500 per year. He very good with Defenseman, great with prospects, very good with offensive skills and great with defensive skills.

All my other staff already were good.

We were 8-4-0 in April and I played through the end of the season. We had one game against New Jersey which we lost in OT, so we finish 8-4-1, end up in 10th place with 89 points in our conference, 5 points out of the playoffs. Our goal for year 2 is 100 points. Yeah, good luck :D

We also pick up RD Zach Trotman off waivers. He's a 1.5/1.5 player who is 29 and has 2 years of $700k each on his contract. Too late for this season, but adds some needed depth on defense for us.

I wouldn't say it was a great season, but I'm content. Considering that, if I didn't HAVE to have only Americans on the team, I would have made the playoffs for sure... it wasn't bad. Now we just have to find ways to get better... the draft is going to be important in this game.

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Start off by picking up 1.5/2.0 LW C.J. Smith to add a little more depth and competition. I give him a 2 year extension.

The team had no nominees for any awards this year. So sad :(

My choices for nomination for the Hall of Fame:
Keith Tkachuk
Ray Whitney
Pat Verbeek
Teppo Numminen
Glen Wesley
Steve Larmer
Bobby Smith
Doug Weight
Alexander Mogilny
Steve Duchesne

Who would you choose? I will post who I nominated in the draft post.

San Jose Sharks win the Stanley Cup in 7 games over Pittsburgh. I'm not going to post all the awards, just too much to post. But here's the playoff bracket...

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After the Stanley Cup, I move some players up to the big team so that they get a chance to learn and grow.

Below are the top 4 pages of American players in the draft...

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Tomorrow we'll run the draft and get to July 1 where I can add a farm team in the AHL.

By the way, I picked Ray Whitney. The guy had almost 1100 points as a defenseman, plus he does a pretty funny alcohol commercial for a drink called the Pink Whitney. Love the guy!

We're drafting 15th. In my opinion, my 3 biggest needs are G, C, RW.

Here's our first round pick Center Ty Smilanic (1.0/4.0):

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RW Sam Colangelo is our 2nd round pick, 47 overall...

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At the time of both these picks, there were similarly rated goalies, but in every case the goalies were scouted as not being good in pressure or big game situations. Not a trait I am looking for in a goaltender, so I passed.

3rd round, 79th overall, we pick up defensemen Nathan Staios. At this point we are trying to find players who can, long term, make our team.

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4th round, 111th overall, C Tyler Tullio.

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I think the rest of the players are, at best, mundane. So I will list them with no player card.

5th round, 143 overall is LW Andrei Bakanov (USA and Russian citizenship). He is 0.5/2.5.

6th round, 175 overall is Wyatt Schingoethe, a 0.5/2.5 Center.

7th round, 207 overall is RW Joonas Oden, who is 1.0/2.0. I almost took another RW only because he's from my hometown (love this game that they have guys from my home).

7th round, 219 overall is Center Landon Slaggert, who is 0.5/2.0 but has a 12 or 13 in almost every ability score. Couldn't pass him up.

My philosophy for this team, after watching this first season, will be simple. I will try to build an offensive team with a good goalie. I will try to find a goalie in free agency. But this is why I picked most of the players I picked.

So, for Smilanic, he has good offensive skills, solid mental skills, good faceoff guy for a center, and has good speed. Hoping he'll develop into a solid top 6 center for us. Same for 2nd round pick Colangelo... good offense and speed. Hoping, again, he can be a top 6 guy. Would be even better if I could pair him and Smilanic together and they could get great chemistry going. Staios had 61 points in 62 games as a defenseman.... that's offensive enough for me :) He's also got some speed and good mental stuff... and again with our 4th round pick... good offensive abilities plus good speed.

Granted 14 is not great, but these guys should all develop, and I'm HOPING they'll develop those skills that are already good. I will try to invest in the best offensive coaches I can find.

To finish up my assessment of the draft... Bakanov has good offensive numbers, good speed, and some good defensive qualities like read, positioning, and checking. Schingoethe was the last 2.5 potential player left, so I grabbed him while he was still available. He's average all around. While Oden's upside is below par, his current is very good. He has 16 shooting accuracy, 15 in read and puckhandling, and 14 or 13 elsewhere. 14 speed and 16 acceleration as well. Lastly is Slaggert, who is not great anywhere but is 12 or 13 literally everywhere.

Next up free agency.

I start out by signing my 20 year old draftees (I have 3, including Oden who was a 7th round pick this season). I also sign a 19 year old draftee whose rights run out in 2020.

Lots of coaches fired this offseason. I will keep Laviollette for one more season. Only one American Very Offensive Head Coach candidate and I didn't really like him.

Before July 1, we resigned Goalie Jon Gillies. Or, I should say, he accepted the offer I made during the season.

We signed RW Joonas Oden (1.0/2.0). RW Jesse Ylonen (1.5/3.0), 19 year old LD Zach Jones (1.0/3.5), and C Jack Drury (1.0/3.0). All rookies, all 20 except Jones.

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July 1... First thing to do is add the Missoula Mericans to the AHL, and they will be my AHL affiliate. Now I can build a proper roster!! I also took the US logo and copied it, then changed the name and pasted it (with FHM6 shut down, of course) to the proper folder... When I restarted, I had a new logo, but not the one I tried to use to overwrite the old logo. Oh, well, I tried...

While our goalie, Eric Comrie, played great (2.95 GAA with .914 save percentage in 64 games), I can't expect him to continue to play so well, so my first order of business is to try to upgrade at goalie in Free Agency. I also feel our top end talent isn't top end, and we also have a few overpaid players (RD Trouba making $8M a year for 6 years, C Hayes making $7.14M a year for 6 years are two of them) that we need to get rid of to make room for better highly paid talent. JVR is getting $7M a year at age 31, but he delivered last season and I'll keep him around.

Tory Krug is the best American free agent, asking for $6.6M a year at age 29. If I can trade Trouba and get Krug, it saves me about $1.4M a year and improves my team's strength, which is our defensemen. I'd rather work on goalie and some more offense, but there's nothing really out there that will improve my top end, so I have to find players to fit in the middle or improve my bottom part of the lineup. Unfortunately, I think a balanced lineup is one of our team's strengths, even if the overall is average...

The two guys I hope to add to the main lineup are winger Jimmy Vesey and goalie Garret Sparks. Neither will set the world on fire, just add some decent depth. I also try to sign some young fellas to create more of a prospect pool. Defenseman Alec Rauhauser, C Tanner Laczynski, and winger Ara Nazarian are 3 young guys who I hope can develop into something... All of these guys received contract offers July 1. I also throw an offer at young centers Tyler Sheehy and Patrick Harper.

At the end of the day, I tried to shop Trouba. I got a lot of offers of a 4th round pick, and a few offers for a decent, not good, young player. If I could negotiate, I'd try to get a defenseman in return that can play 2nd or 3rd pairing plus a prospect or draft pick, as I think that would be fair value... but I can't, by my own rules, try to negotiate. And I can't take a 4th rounder or a so-so prospect for him just to dump salary. He'll be an American for a while, until someone comes to me with more desire to get him. So, no offer to Tory Krug.

Krug signs with LA for $6.6M for 4 years. I would probably have gotten him at $6.75M. I also reject all national team job offers. I just frankly don't care about the National teams and the world cup, Olympics, etc. I'd turn them off if I was able...

All my initial offers were accepted. I send everyone down that is under 1.5 stars. I'll look for more and trim the roster a little more as the free agency continues on. My goal is to have 40 contracts going into the season.

Attachments messed up.

I'm not usually one to go after RFAs, but center JP Dubois was available, a 4.5 star player... perfect complement to JVR... so I made him an almost $8 million a year offer, assuming that if the offer goes through, I'll trade away Trouba. Columbus immediately matched the offer, so no go there.

Up to my goal of 40 contracts, so I'm only looking to pick up a big time player at this point. I'll go through the rest of free agency watching to see if some big name goes on waivers or hits free agency. Probably no more deals will get done, though.

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We did get the above shown trade offer... Kevin Hayes for a 2.0/4.5 20 year old center. Man, what an easy to make trade there. The only problem, he's not American. So sad that I can't accept that :(

Into September now. Nothing new to report. Unless things change, here are our contracts, 40 in total, for this season:

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And our unsigned draftees:

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So nothing interesting. We run through preseason with 5 of our top players on the world stage instead of in training camp as they should be.... Here's how it went in preseason...

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Time for waivers... woohoo!

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We claim RW Bryan Rust, LW Sonny Milano, and LD Caleb Jones... We got all 3. We send down defenseman Chad Krys, RW John Hayden, and LW CJ Smith.

Let's start the season!

During October I got three trade offers. In all 3 I was offered a player from Finland (3 different teams, 3 different players offered). Weird. Obviously I couldn't accept even though I wanted to at least once. Same issue with waivers after the long waiver list at the start of the season... some worthy players on waivers, but none were Americans.

I think the biggest problem with this team and the hardest thing to try to overcome is the team is so average. We'll draft in the middle of the round forever, so we'll never get top end talent to put us over the top, unless we get some lower round picks to boom to great players... On the other side, the bottom half of our lineup is as good if not better than most other teams.

Near the end of the month we lose Trocheck for up to 2 months with a torn hamstring. We call up LW Ara Nazarian, as he won't have to go through waivers when we have to send someone back.

We end up 6-9-0 for October, tied for 13th out of 16 teams in the Conference. 6 back to backs, so 12 of 15 of our games were part of a back to back... I wish there was a way to create better scheduling. You NEVER see 6 back to backs in one month in the NHL. It's hard on teams.

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Picked up RW Mason Appleton (2.0/2.5) off waivers. Sent Nazarian back down after getting Appleton.

Two or three small injuries, very few games missed... We finish the month at 12-13-3 (6-4-3) for the month. Five back to backs this month... giving us 11 in two months. Pretty ridiculous.. just getting worse. Just October through March is 182 days (183 on a leap year). Playing every other day, you'd use 164 days, which means you can literally have 18 times during the season where you can have 2 days off between games and not one single back to back. And this doesn't even consider days into April before the playoffs. Now, take out 5 days for Christmas and 5 days for All Star Weekend, and you still have 8 extra days AFTER running games every other day. Just look at this schedule, not one Saturday or Sunday game... this could easily have been set up so there were NO back to backs... Sorry for the rant, it's my pet peeve in this game... scheduling. In a few days I could come up with a full schedule for all 32 teams with 1 back to back a month, to add some flavor and strategy.

Here's the schedule for November, Standings, and team's stats.

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On December 5, we pick up 24 year old, 1.5/2.0 center, Shane Gersich from waivers. Just a little added depth and a young guy who we had D level scouting on. Hoping to find out he's better than that :) Then we immediately send him down to Missoula.

LW Frankie Vatrano (34GP, 6G, 7A) goes down for a couple of weeks with shoulder soreness. Put him on the IR, and wait for Trocheck to be ready to come off IR. No other roster moves.

Trocheck comes back to the roster on the 19th.

When Vatrano comes back, I send down Jimmy Vesey, who has 5 points (2G, 3A) in 35 games.

We end up 17-23-3 at the end of the month (5-10 for the month of December). Only 3 back to backs this month, for a total of 14 in the first 3 months of the season.

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Again, we come back to January, where I'll be renewing contracts for players in the last year of their contract. On January 2, we sign:

24yo LW Sonny Milano (2.0/2.5), 2 years, $1.05M per year.
24yo LW Ara Nazarian (2.0/2.5), 2 years, $825k per year.
25yo G Eric Comrie (2.0/2.5), 2 years, $955k per year.
25yo C Tyler Sheehy (2.0/2.5), 2 years, $815k per year.
26yo LW Nicolas Kerdiles (1.5/2.0), 2 years, $765k per year.
26yo LW Stefan Matteau (2.0/2.0), 2 years, $940k per year.

We still want to sign 4 players on the Americans... Not sure I'll be able to considering what they are asking. So I'll have to make decisions and maybe shop a player or two around. Especially considering we are in last place in our division right now.

On the 3rd, we sign 23yo RD John Marino (2.0/3.0) for 2 years at $2.16M per year.

I put C Nick Bjugstad on the trade block. He's basically a 3rd line center for us, and he wants over $5M a year. I can't give him that much to play on the 3rd line. I also have Palmieri and Dzingel to sign. Two RW at 29 and 28 years old respectively to sign. Palmieri is our 1st line RW and Dzingel 2nd line. I'm going to sign them with the idea that I will probably try to trade one of them at the trade deadline.

On the 5th, we sign 29 year old RW Kyle Palmieri to a 3 year, $5.05M per year contract.

On the 10th, we sign 28 year old RW Ryan Dzingel to a 5 year, $4.7M per year contract. That ends our resignings.

Still, we really need top end talent at Goalie and forward to allow us to be a playoff team.

LW Alex Galchenyuk has a 6 week strained posterior cruiciate ligament. We move up Ara Nazarian.

We end the month at 22-29-3 (5-6-0 in January 2021). We were in last near the end of 2020, but a few wins got us out of the cellar.

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By the way, one more back to back with only 11 games this month. That's 15 back to backs thus far with 2 more months to go.

On February 6, got a trade offer from Chicago Blackhawks which I HAD to accept. They got 28 year old G Kevin Boyle (1.5/1.5), who is in the last year of his contract and was not going to be renewed. We got 20 year old RD Alec Regula (1.0/2.5), who has a 4 year contract.

On February 11, got a trade offer from Vegas. We got 21yo C Paul Cotter (1.5/2.5) for 30yo RD Zach Trotman (1.5/1.5). Trotman is another guy in the last year of a contract that wasn't getting renewed. Cotter has 3 years left on his deal.

On February 21, I put 26 yo RD Jacob Trouba (2.5/3.0) on the trade block. Got a ton of offers for a 4th round pick. Detroit is currently worst in the league, so I took their offer of a 4th for Trouba. Trouba was playing 2nd/3rd pair minutes, just under 19 minutes a game and playing 55 of our 63 games... missing several games with minor, nagging type injuries. He was also making $8M a year getting 19 minutes a game. Next year our cap gets very tight and we needed to get rid of a highly paid player to make some room. I can't trade Kevin Hayes (who is having a good year this year) because of his no movement clause... so it's Trouba. Not really great value for the pick, but looking at Trouba's playing time and statistics, he just is not worth $8M a year for 5 more years.

After the Trouba trade, we bring up LD Chad Krys.

At the deadline, we get offers for all 3 players on the trading block, C Kevin Hayes, C Nick Bjugstad, and C Andy Miele. I couldn't accept the Miele trade because it was for a 22 yo Canadian (Miele is 32 and on the last year of his contract). Same with the Kevin Hayes offer... for a 24 year old Kazakhstani. But the Bjugstad offer I could, and did accept.

28 yo C Nick Bjugstad (2.5/2.5) for 19 yo LD Thomas Harkey (2.5/3.5). Bjugstad was a 3rd line center making over $4M and wanted over $5M, so he wasn't getting renewed. Great deal for us, especially after giving up Trouba.

After the trade deadline, I send defenseman Krys back down to Missoula and bring Galchenyuk off injury list, although he's not quite ready to play. He's still day to day, so it may be another week or so until he is ready.

After the back to back to end the month, we get two DTD injuries to top line players JVR (sore back) and Kyle Palmieri.(minor neck laceration).

So we end up 29-35-3 after February.(7-6-0 for February)... looks like we aren't going to get that top 5 pick after all :(

As you can see, FIVE more back to backs, for a total of 20 for the season, with one more month to go. 20 is way too many in a season, and the season isn't even over yet.

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3 more back to backs in March, bringing the total to 23, more than half of the games we've played are part of a back to back. We have been told the average is 15 per season... 23 is quite high comparatively. Plus, there will be 2 more back to backs in April, bringing the total to 25 back to backs for the season.

Not much to talk about in March and April. We end the season 35-44-3.(6-9-0 in March and April). Not a very good season, and hard to try to get better.

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I'm not resigning any of the staff, hoping there are better candidates available. A lot of good picks available, but not many Americans.

Pick 7: 17yo C Jeremy Wilmer (2.0/4.0)
Pick 38: 18yo RW Dylan Duke (0.5/3.0)
Pick 70: 18yo C Tyler Boucher (0.5/3.0)
Pick 97: 18yo LD Joe Palodichuk (0.5/2.5)
Pick 102: 17yo LW Justin Janicke (0.5/2.5)
Pick 134: 18yo C Caden Brown (1.0/2.5)
Pick 166: 18yo LD Jason Marsella (0.5/2.5)
PIck 198: 20yo RW Hunter Campbell (0.5/2.0)

After the draft, I sign 4 draftees.

19yo LW Arthur Kaliyev (3.0/5.0). He was drafted in 2019, 2nd round, 33rd pick by the Kings. We picked him up in the Expansion draft. He is the only player I HAD to sign.

I also had three 20 year old draftees. It's usual for me to sign any 20 year olds.

47th pick in the 2019 draft (Colorado) RD Drew Helleson (1.0/3.5). Picked up in the Expansion Draft
79th pick in the 2020 draft LD Nathan Staios (1.0/2.5)
198th pick in the current draft (2021) RW Hunter Campbell (0.5/2.0)

I'll pick up tomorrow with the start of free agency.

We let our Goalie Coach go and fire Skill Coach Chris Chelios (my advisor, Ron Hextall, didn't like him).

Anyway, we hire two new assistant coaches and 4 new scouts.

44 yo Jared Boynton is the new Goalie Coach. 15 training Goalies and 17 training Prospects. Now all I need is a goalie prospect.

47 yo Tom Carbaugh is the new Skill Coach. 15 training Prospects and 17 training Physical skills. Hopefully he will help our guys get a little faster so we can forecheck better ;)

To make it easy, we signed two scouts with Great Evaluate Ability and two scouts with Great Evaluate Potential. Most of our guys are Very Good or worse, so we improved our scouting a little, even though the guys are late 50s early 60s guys. I like to get guys who will be around a longer time.

Now on to free agency. My best player right now is Shane Gostisbehere, who is 3.5/3.5. I have 3 other 3.5 star potential players, ALL defensemen. I have one 5 star potential in Kaliyev, who is 3.0/5.0 and a rookie this season. I have 3 players who are unsigned draftees that are 4 stars or higher potential, so there is some future for us. Right now, I need a top tier goalie and maybe a top tier C or RW, if I can find them. My financial page says I have $33M available to sign free agents, so that will help. Of course, I have 47 players currently under contract so not much space unless I start dropping players. Let's see if anyone is available to pick up.

Three 4 star guys available, none American. Led by Ovi and Dougie Hamilton. Two 3 star American players available, both LW. I already have Kaliyev and JVR at LW, so no real upgrade there.

When I was resigning players last season, Nick Bjugstad wanted over $5M. Now, in free agency, he's asking for a little over $2M. I can do that! I would have given him $3M last season, but he got greedy.

I put in offers for RW Cole Bardreau (2.5/2.5) and C Nick Bjugstad (2.5/2.5). I still have space for one more contract and I will start considering buying out some players if both these guys sign.

Received several national team offers, declined them all.

Bjugstad signs on the 5th, 3 years, $2.04M a year. After a bit of a bidding war, I sign Bardreau as well, 2 years, $1.85M a year. I shop RD Eric Jeremiah (1.5/1.5) and am offered a FOURTH round pick for him. This is an easy accept, especially since the few other offers were players that were old or bad or both. I tried to shop around 1.5/1.5 Center TJ Tynan, but somehow he has a no trade clause, so I put him on the trade block. I also add a couple of 27+ minor leaguers to the trade block. I may shop more later, but I should be good with 2 spots open.

So let's start Preseason '21...

2-5 in preseason. Not really much to talk about. I had a LOT of players on the roster to give them a chance to play, and things ended up about the way I expected. No injuries.

Here's our opening night roster...

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We have 5 back to backs in October. End up 9-4-1. Pretty good. Don't know how, but really happy with our start. A couple of small injuries, nothing to get on the IR.

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