[ZootMurph]

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.