Suggestion for FHM4 - display how coaches handle goalies
 

I just hired a new head coach and once the season got underway saw that he was starting my backup goalie (2.5 stars) much more often than I'd expect - especially since the normal starter (John Gibson 3.5 stars) was coming off a season where he won the Vezina trophy.

Poking around I see in the Goalie Starts section that the coach I hired does not consider who the best goalie is at all in deciding who to start (Start Best Goalie is set to 0), but places almost all his consideration on who is hot.

I would have liked to have known that piece of information prior to hiring him. I'm wondering if there is a way in FHM4 to display some indicator as to how a head coach handles his goalies.

I'll also note that it seems odd to me that any coach, even if they prefer to play the hot goalie, would relegate the reigning Vezina trophy winner to a backup role.

A bit more follow-up on this. I finally demoted my backup goalie and called up a position player and set his position as Goalie figuring that with a goalie rating of 0 that would in effect force my coach to play the person who should be the primary goalie. It did - for one game. He had a mediocre game and the next game he started the position player. Well, this should be interesting I thought. And it was - the position player pitched a shutout! I had to send him down to the minors because I knew the algorithm was going to have the coach start him in the next game as well.

At this point the whole scenario seems pretty unrealistic at least with how a coach who isn't going to take into account the basic talent level of their goalies handle things (and having such a coach seems pretty unrealistic in its own right).

I have had issues with this is the past however I just roll with the punches so to speak and keep 2 decent goalies who could be my starter at all times just to ensure every night someone is in there that can win us a game. I do understand what you are saying though.

The first time I ran into this I decided I was going to wait until my head coach's contract was up and then go in and change the goalie starts settings to how I wanted them done and then checkmark the box "Don't Allow AI to change settings" then hire my next head coach or rehire my current one that was waiting on a contract. I haven't gotten to that point to test it out but it is coming soon though. I will let you know if that works or not.