Spartan 4,817 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 After @badcolethetitan'slovely article about Prague's struggles, I figure I'll do a much shorter hit piece on my favorite VHL GM @STZ's team - the New York Americans! They're under the knife this week (to me). New York has a long-standing history in the VHL, once enjoying immense success in the olden days. These days, they're much more well known for their cup drought and in my eyes, their identity as a defensive stalwart significantly lacking offense. So what's the deal in S98 that needs additional focus? In the past few seasons, New York has made it their identity to prioritize offense instead of relying on an uber-defensive approach in front of star goalie WWW. In S97, New York went out and acquired cup-winning center George Richmond from Moscow in exchange for the pick that would become my own player, Kazuma Satou. The move made sense on both sides, Moscow needed to drop cap and New York needed a top center to drive their offensive-resurgence. In S98, cap issues arose for New York instead and they made a hockey trade, swapping Wayne Gretzky for phenom defenseman Guntis Gavilrovs who'd just essentially swept the defenseman awards in S97. New York was now sporting a roster with strong top-end talent in Richmond, Anisimov (also brought over from WAR a few seasons ago), Gavilrovs, WWW and homegrown defense talent CGY Janser, and also some good depth talent in Doinks in Amish and Reynolds Jr. The main pieces of the roster seem to be where you want them right? In my opinion, there's still some critical pain points. Lack of DF: DF is one of the most important attributes in our sim, maybe even the most important given its overall effect in the sim. Only 4 skaters out of 10 have a DF rating over 85, which has long been a standard I've aimed for my players to reach. On Moscow, only 2 players have less than 85 DF, and that's rookie Satou and impending retiree Catia Goncalves who is deep in regression. But even she at worst has 81 DF, which isn't a horrible number for a 10th skater. New York has 3 skaters under 80 DF, which are arguably worse than high end rookie numbers. It's a critical attribute and New York is struggling in that aspect. Penalties Upon Penalties: New York's top PIM taker almost has the same amount of PIMs as Moscow's top 2 penalty takers - 185 by Gavilrovs to 194 combined for Obuz and Tripp. New York has the 4th most PIMs as a team at this point, and have the 5th most PK goals against, only below a litany of non-playoff teams in WAR/CHI/PRG/MAL. When your top 2 penalty takers are your 2 top defenseman, its a recipe for disaster. Not only are your best players exiting the ice and leading to goals against, but it's just that much less time the team can produce at 5v5. I was going to see if it really impacted 5v5 metrics, but NYA has 197 total goals this season at the time of writing, and taking away their 5 ENGs and 47 PPGs along with their 1 PK goal, they're at 144 goals at even strength. On the flip side, Moscow has 225 total goals, and without the 11 ENGs, 63 PPGs and 1 PK goal, we're at 150. So when comparing 5v5 goals for it's not a massive difference, but when looking at the total PIMs taken at NYA with 310 and MOS with 244, that's an extra 66x2=132 mins of even strength time difference between the two teams where NYA could utilizing their 5v5 offense. There's more nuance I can't really track with overlapping penalties or 5v3's and all that, so it's a basic look. But I strongly feel like the number of PIMs NYA's top players have taken has strongly hurt the team along with NYA's defensive collapse this season, also allowing the 5th most goals against in the league. That could tie back more into my point above about DF though. I don't see PA to SC issues with NYA the same way Cole saw it for PRG, though there could be cause to look into the effect of CGY Janser's pass first build on a team that has struggled to generate above-average offense throughout his career. I've gone way beyond a vhl.com at this point so I'll leave it for discussion and the shit talking. Thunder, Scurvy and Nykonax 2 1 Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grape 889 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 STZ also jumbles the lines a lot which makes it hard to actually know what works. Feels like at this point they're just grasping for anything to show an iota of consistency. Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/#findComment-1058976 Share on other sites More sharing options...
STZ 5,525 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 11 minutes ago, Grape said: STZ also jumbles the lines a lot which makes it hard to actually know what works. Feels like at this point they're just grasping for anything to show an iota of consistency. I’ve changed the lines three times this season… Nykonax 1 Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/#findComment-1058979 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grape 889 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 6 minutes ago, STZ said: I’ve changed the lines three times this season… Let me lie. Its better for forum content Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/#findComment-1058982 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garsh 1,217 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 52 minutes ago, STZ said: I’ve changed the lines three times this season… That basically rounds up to infinity line changes STZ 1 Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/#findComment-1058990 Share on other sites More sharing options...
badcolethetitan 1,039 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 Feels like we just cannot win when it matters. We can keep games close but when we need to show up, we basically become ghosts. My player has fallen off the face of the earth being a 100+ point scorer to now just being slightly over a PPG. I think I've taken more of a TWF role at this point, but when a team this season that hasn't really scored a fair amount, it doesn't help at all. It's like I'm trying to be a two-way while also leading the team in goals. Doesn't make a lot of sense. We all know come playoffs we'll probably bounce out in WC/R1 which sucks. I want NYA to win, but seems we're plagued by super high checking and penalties which, our two defenseman are in the box half the game. Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/#findComment-1059002 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spartan 4,817 Posted April 14 Author Share Posted April 14 46 minutes ago, badcolethetitan said: Feels like we just cannot win when it matters. We can keep games close but when we need to show up, we basically become ghosts. My player has fallen off the face of the earth being a 100+ point scorer to now just being slightly over a PPG. I think I've taken more of a TWF role at this point, but when a team this season that hasn't really scored a fair amount, it doesn't help at all. It's like I'm trying to be a two-way while also leading the team in goals. Doesn't make a lot of sense. We all know come playoffs we'll probably bounce out in WC/R1 which sucks. I want NYA to win, but seems we're plagued by super high checking and penalties which, our two defenseman are in the box half the game. Yea I mean I think the PIMs are obvious since they're tangible stats, then you see the very heavy checking roster including the top D-men. Then the uninspiring DF stats for half the forward group and I just think they're passengers and not really contributing effectively to the roster. Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/#findComment-1059005 Share on other sites More sharing options...
badcolethetitan 1,039 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 25 minutes ago, Spartan said: Yea I mean I think the PIMs are obvious since they're tangible stats, then you see the very heavy checking roster including the top D-men. Then the uninspiring DF stats for half the forward group and I just think they're passengers and not really contributing effectively to the roster. Basically. I wish I could do more to help this team win. Maybe my build isn't the best or something, it was doing fine in Moscow and was fine for the most part in NYA except this season. I just want to help STZ win cause he traded for me, kind of sucks if we never win and he wasted assets to pick me up. It's all RNG at the end of the day though. Who knows, maybe we get lucky and go on a run? Cope? Spartan 1 Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/#findComment-1059011 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pifferfish 823 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 2 hours ago, badcolethetitan said: Feels like we just cannot win when it matters. We can keep games close but when we need to show up, we basically become ghosts. My player has fallen off the face of the earth being a 100+ point scorer to now just being slightly over a PPG. I think I've taken more of a TWF role at this point, but when a team this season that hasn't really scored a fair amount, it doesn't help at all. It's like I'm trying to be a two-way while also leading the team in goals. Doesn't make a lot of sense. We all know come playoffs we'll probably bounce out in WC/R1 which sucks. I want NYA to win, but seems we're plagued by super high checking and penalties which, our two defenseman are in the box half the game. TLDR: Your player just isn't him... Jk but pls clutch up at the end here, I think I have you in VHFL Link to comment https://vhlforum.com/topic/156350-nya-under-the-knife-thornhill/#findComment-1059025 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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