We have divisions?

[Gaikoku-hito 2,135]

To Many Tanking teams?

 

Here I am at start of a new week and needing to write a new media report; I thought I was going to write something about Halloween but I really have nothing creative to say about a holiday that isn`t celebrated in the country that I currently reside so what am I going to talk about this week?

 

Someone posted a smart comment in the Status updates on the forums about scoring being up so it is now time to buff goaltending. On face value he is correct as scoring is up but so are the goaltenders stats so I thought about writing about the Jackal & hide aspect of goaltending in the league at the moment. While I think it is an issue still; I think I have said my piece last season or whenever it was!!  

 

Nope, What I think I am going to talking about is the tanking issue that we have in the VHL currently and also might sound off why I don`t think any player from European conference should realistically be consider for any awards this season so lets get started shall we …..

 

Defining tanking – a sports reference to the practice of intentionally fielding a non-competitive team to take advantage of league rules that benefit losing teams.

 

 

Why is the definition important?

 

Due to the fact that we currently have teams that might be viewed as tanking team but due to circumstances just aren`t able to field a competitive team at the moment so maybe shouldn`t be consider as tanking teams.

 

Currently we have two teams in the North American Conference that can be viewed as tanking; D.C. Dragons and the LA Stars!! In the case of the LA Stars this is due to those circumstances that they are fielding a team that isn`t competitive rather than actually out and out tanking as they had enough young talent to be viewed as rebuilding team until a bunch of the prospects or young players decided to go awol.. Not really a fault of the team ….

 

European Conference is really bad with four of the eight teams in the conference in a complete tank mode lead by London United, Prague Phantoms, Helsinki Titans, and Warsaw Predators for 50% of the Conference openly tanking.

 

League as whole has six of the sixteen team in a tanking situation with Toronto Legion likely to be added to the list next season so I think it is safe to say that “Houston we have a problem!” or do we?

 

That fact remains that it is common to see teams in both conferences in some cycle of tank, rebuilding and contenders but this is the first time that I have seen this so lopsided to a single division and it is causing an issue in the way of stats for the players with a clear advantage for the players playing these tanking or non-competitive teams.

 

How lopsided will it be?

 

I don`t know but I guess I will try to give more information as to why this is a bit of a problem. Teams currently play everyone other team in the league at least 4 times so usually out of conference teams face each other 4 times where in conference each team faces each other 6 times with two in conference teams only playing five times. This also causes an issue within the conference when I look at this since it is possible that a top team in the conference plays other top teams less and stack their stats by two extra games against weaker (tanking) teams within the conference.

 

As for NA teams; it means that all teams lose two games against London, Prague, Warsaw & Helsinki so cannot pad their stats by eight games in comparisons to the European players. But this is off set by the tanking teams in NA; I can hear someone saying right now? Yeah, by half of the games if you consider that fact that Los Angeles isn`t really a tanking team and would actually be a playoff team at this point in the season in the European conference.

 

We saw this last season to a smaller extent with the majority of the Award winners coming from the European Conference; while I don`t want to take away anything from those that won awards it hard not to see that there might be a case to be made for the current lopsidedness of the conference’s leading to stats padding.

 

How do we fix the issue?

 

Salary Cap Changes

Well, I hate to even suggest this since I don`t have the numbers and I have no intent on trying to get the numbers but I would suggest a forced competitive re-balancing via salary restructure. Yup, I think it might be time we see a salary cap reduced to force top teams to share the wealth of players across more teams to limit the tanking that we currently see as I still think six; soon to be seven teams tanking is a bit too many.

 

Schedule Changes

Add more games to the schedule, well, if you are anything like me you didn`t know that we actually have Divisions within each conference. How the heck am I only learning about this now many seasons and years into the VHL experience is a guess to me! Or maybe it was something I truly didn`t care for so stumbling upon today makes more sense.

 

Division are as follows:

 

Bunclewirth Division

Vancouver Wolves

Seattle Bears

Calgary Wranglers

Los Angeles Stars

 

Low Division

Toronto Legion

Chicago Phoenix

New York Americans

D.C. Dragons

 

Shaw Division

Malmo Nighthawks

HC Davos Dynamo

Helsinki Titans

London United

 

Gow Division

Moscow Menace

Riga Reign

Warsaw Predators

Prague Phantoms

 

Currently if I have it correct, all teams within the division play each other 6 times for 18 games. Which now makes sense why we have the unbalanced 5 & 6 games against the other division. This also makes it easier to see which teams have clear advantages this season but I am starting to get distracted by nothing at all; maybe!!

 

So, more games or at least a schedule change as I am fine with the 6 games inter-divisional games but that means we either need to balance out the rest of the league to 4 games each for 48 games or a total of 66 games meaning a reduced schedule. I think I am not in favour of that myself …. So why not have every team within conference play 6 games each for 42 games within conference and 32 games or 4 games against each inter-conference team for 32 games or 74 games schedule? But that doesn`t really help the unbalanced league schedule as it stands at the moment, does it? Nope!!

 

Okay, so play equal times against each team…. 4 games mean 60 game schedule that is too short and 5 game schedules increase the current schedule to 75 games but I guess the question remains can this be done in STHS or is this a limitation of the current sim engine that we are using.

 

Trust the Award members

Yup, I can hear the laughter already as I know I have questioned how awards have been award in the past so do I think that the Award committee can really understand the lopsided aspect of the stats coming from the European division due to the imbalance? Yes and maybe no!! I have seen at least one other member already comment about the imbalanced aspect of the conference leading to lopsided stats so I have some confidence that we as group could try to determine if it was a great season by player or simple aided by lopsided schedule against tanking teams.

 

Conclusion

I guess either way we are in for an interesting debate around Awards this season due to the unbalanced conference and schedule favoring European teams, players in one conference this season more than the other …… Also interesting to see how many European players win awards this season…..

 

But I guess the final thoughts on the topic; the current cycle of teams tanking is normal but never seen so many in one conference that I can remember or trying not to remember!! LOL!! Changes to the salary cap I think should be discussed sooner than later; even though this really hurts my current teams and we need to trust the processes when it comes to awards as the committee is made up of a bunch of smart individuals  from around the league all debating, discusses before actually coming to a final vote to determine the winners; and it also means we all vote individually so even some of the award winners surprise even us at times so do we really need changes; I am not 100% sure that we really do as a man much wiser then myself once stated if not broken then why try to fix it.

 

As for the goaltenders; well, I think I need to collect data so that I sound like I know what I am talking about but it does still seem like we might have a issue with goaltending still but that is for a later date!!

 

1526 words Nov 3rd, 10th  & 17th claims

[Daniel Janser 2,216]

European conference be like:

 

[CowboyinAmerica 2,911]

I've long advocated for the opposite direction: Location distinctions are pretty much meaningless in a sim league anyway, just get rid of conferences. (Also gets rid of the scenario that's going to happen this year where 6th place in NA will have 30 more points than 5th in Europe.)

[Banackock 8,141]

Seattle tanking

[der meister 3,246]

Contraction. 

[Greg_Di 1,028]

I mean LA is in the wildcard mix and no first round pick that is ours. Don't think were under the definition of tanking (and yes I read the rest of the blurb about LA  )

I do agree with CIA. Get rid of the conferences, top 8 make playoffs, bottom 8 miss.

Edited October 29 by Greg_Di

[Gaikoku-hito 2,135]

6 hours ago, Greg_Di said:

I mean LA is in the wildcard mix and no first round pick that is ours. Don't think were under the definition of tanking (and yes I read the rest of the blurb about LA  )

I do agree with CIA. Get rid of the conferences, top 8 make playoffs, bottom 8 miss.

I actually like the conference as it give the league character but I would like to see an equal amount of games played against each other so I guess I am going with a schedule change to 75 games with 5 games against each team.

 

7 hours ago, der meister said:

Contraction. 

Not sure we are there yet!! And I am also to lazy to run the numbers to see if this should even be tabled but I know it not as easy as some think removing teams and adding them as we feel fit so it would have to make sense for the long term health of the league.

 

8 hours ago, Banackock said:

Seattle tanking

I was going to have Seattle as possible tank team in the future aka next season but we all know you pull rabbit out of your arse every season!! LOL!!

 

It reminds me of Cartmen from South Park!! LOL!!

 

 

[der meister 3,246]

12 minutes ago, Gaikoku-hito said:

 

Not sure we are there yet!! And I am also to lazy to run the numbers to see if this should even be tabled but I know it not as easy as some think removing teams and adding them as we feel fit so it would have to make sense for the long term health of the league.

 

For what it's worth, I agree we aren't there yet. But I don't think we're that far from it. Are teams really tanking, or is there simply not enough talent to go around?

[Spartan 4,531]

3 minutes ago, der meister said:

 

For what it's worth, I agree we aren't there yet. But I don't think we're that far from it. Are teams really tanking, or is there simply not enough talent to go around?

Teams are definitely making the active decision to rebuild. WAR sold all their top players, DC/PRG/HSK were in willing rebuilds after older players retired or got traded, LA has just been in a super slow rebuild since their last core retired with the team and didn't get moved for assets. There's usually like 3-5 pretty clearly tanking teams every season regardless.

[Beketov 9,101]

9 hours ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

I've long advocated for the opposite direction: Location distinctions are pretty much meaningless in a sim league anyway, just get rid of conferences. (Also gets rid of the scenario that's going to happen this year where 6th place in NA will have 30 more points than 5th in Europe.)

 

7 hours ago, Greg_Di said:

I do agree with CIA. Get rid of the conferences, top 8 make playoffs, bottom 8 miss.

FWIW we could keep the character of the conferences and still have playoff crossover, we’ve had it before and that’s how the M works. It’s a bit more work but nothing too insane.

[der meister 3,246]

2 hours ago, Spartan said:

Teams are definitely making the active decision to rebuild. WAR sold all their top players, DC/PRG/HSK were in willing rebuilds after older players retired or got traded, LA has just been in a super slow rebuild since their last core retired with the team and didn't get moved for assets. There's usually like 3-5 pretty clearly tanking teams every season regardless.

 

3 to 5 tanking teams seems like a lot, though

[Beketov 9,101]

6 hours ago, der meister said:

 

3 to 5 tanking teams seems like a lot, though

In theory sure but in practice it’s about the league standard to have 1/4 of the league in a rebuild so it’s not really that unusual. It’s just made more apparent here because they are basically all in one conference. It’s basically an impossibility to remove the concept of rebuilding teams.

[mattyIceman 1,229]

On 10/29/2024 at 1:09 AM, Gaikoku-hito said:

Someone posted a smart comment in the Status updates on the forums about scoring being up so it is now time to buff goaltending.

 

Scoring in the VHLM is way down.

 

Is this a smart comment?

[qripll 519]

lmao rory made fun of vhlm scoring. There's nothing smart in that comment 

[qripll 519]

But I do agree with him. Buffing goalies would probably help Trunov to improve his numbers and crown him as one the best in league history 

[Gaikoku-hito 2,135]

Nov 10th claim

[Gaikoku-hito 2,135]

Nov 17th Claim