DYNASTY - Florida Panthers
 

Well having read many of the other Dynasties (and admired them all for the effort and skill put forth) I thought I'd try my hand at it.

******** When Creating a Franchise P L E A S E un-check the leagues you are not going to play... ie; I'm playing NHL so I uncheck all overseas leagues and Federal League and ECHL. This speeds up the sim capabilities of the game dramatically!!! I also recommend choosing the daily save in manager options. If you have unchecked the other leagues - its no more than 15-20 seconds per day delay when simming to do daily saves.


I have a slightly different flavor in that my beginning post will deal with the "nuts and bolts" of the franchise and its manager. I have noticed that there is very little attention paid to the front office/scouts/coaching relative to the roster. That's right where we will begin here...

First lets look at the Panthers financials - $73M Budget / $53.4M payroll, with $17.7M if free cap space. The difference between the budget and payroll/cap space figures means I'm holding between $1.5/$2.0M in dead cap/penalty space for now. Oh well - that's not crippling to my plan.

Second is my injured players - Ed Jovanovski is probably most if not all of the dead cap space on my roster, End of his career player - but loyalty does mean something and I can use his skill set for my style of managing. More on that soon.

Messages - Here is the games gold mine in my bonehead opinion. This is where most of the day to day business is done and where my plans go to wither on the vine... I see a scout has reported on the 2014 Entry Draft but I'm not checking on it just yet. There is more important set up work to do first.

Next up - the Manager options

Aside from the old fart jokes, two points here to bring up is

1) The news subscription to my entire organization is so I don't get overwhelmed with every teams injury or call up/send down of players. If you enjoy that level - then feel free to indulge yourself!

2) I'm most interested in pointing out my OCD in controlling the team and leaving only the training to the AI assistant. There are times, especially in the offseason when I will have the AI manage the scouts but from late August to May - I have specific jobs for the scouts and skills and regions I want them to cover.

Again we will cover that in more detail later.

Now we get to the scouts and assistant coaches.

Understandably - I'm pretty weak in the coaching dept. My assistants are:

Craig Ramsay - A 62 y/o with a good reputation who emphasizes defensive play. Craig primarily works with forwards (14) and is merely average working with youngsters (12) I will probably keep him for his skills with forwards and his cheap salary. I will look for an upgrade but not reach for one.

Gord Murphy - a 46 y/o with a good reputation and utilizes standard tactics. Gord works with defensemen well (15) but only has above average player management skills and average evaluation and below average potential evaluation skills. This is another position to look at upgrading - Gord will be fine with an experienced group of rearguards, but if I have youngsters I would want someone who could relate to them and help them grow better than Gord would.

the other coaches in the next post...

Coaches continued -

Bryan McCabe - 38 y/o former NHL blueliner (like his counterpart Gord Murphy) Bryan is slightly less proficient with the rearguards (13) but better with prospects (13) than Coach Murphy. Coach McCabe has a good reputation but is merely average at evaluation and below average at potential evaluation.
Again all of the coaches come at a bargain price (>$150K) so upgrading the position is a consideration, but not vital at this point.

Robb Tallas - 40 y/o goalie coach with a good reputation and good goalie coaching skills (14). However in a familiar refrain his player management skills are average, as is his evaluation skills. Coach Tallas' potential evaluation skills are also below average. I would most likely make a change here as I know the Panthers have good young goaltenders (Markstrom) and maximizing his progress is a priority for me.


There is one other alternative as I am allowed to hire five assistant coaches. I have sometimes found obscure and odd foreign born coaches who have outrageously good ratings, to hire them as the fifth coach invariably brings bad reputation ratings but awesome skills or evaluation ratings. Its a crapshoot but one avenue to consider for upgrading the coaching corps.

SCOUTS

This area has been a point of discussion and I think its vastly underused by most players based on the posts I read here. No of course I'm not talking about you. :rolleyes:

Fifteen scouts seems to be the limit, and that should be plenty to accomplish your goals of finding the best player, the hottest prospect, or who's finally slipping in oblivion skills wise.

From the attachment is the list of fifteen scouts currently employed by the Panthers. The AI obviously picked Garrett Doyle to scout the Entry Draft and from his Excellent rating at evaluating potential, I should get a pretty accurate report of the potential of the top prospects.

Ideally I like to have just over half of my scouts from North America and I have them scout one area to build up the skills in that area. Think of it as the scout getting familiar with the juniors teams and coaches, as time goes on the scout gets better information on the prospects because he becomes a familiar face to the coaching staff.
Whether you choose 9 or 10 North American scouts, it is important not to overlook overseas scouting. Former USSR is a gold mine of talent if you can get them signed and kept out of the KHL. Nordic scouting also breeds talent and needs watching. The same principles apply to overseas scouting and trying to keep that scout in his assigned area brings benefits of better scouting over the long haul.

Now as to ratings for the scouts, they are the lifeblood to a good draft. You need to identify both the BPA (best player available) and getting solid prospects that fit your system of play. Remember the scouts sometimes have coaching skills in forwards/defense/goalies - this does affect their efficiency in scouting reports as much as the potential or existing skills such as learning or ability to absorb instruction. (See Frank Mahavolich's attachment)

Using this information, I sometimes have a scout do a 4 to 8 week research of a player or position if I'm going after them because the scout is accomplished at that position as well as evaluating skill.

My final comment is the ratio of Excellent/Very Good skills should be a minimum of 4 scouts per 15. Conversely if you have a below average or poor skilled scout - dump them! There are far too many good scouts available in the pool to be wasting your time with this handicap.

Finally the players! Since I chose the opening day rosters for 2013-14, I'm not going to try making huge or wholesale changes the first year. Now that's not to say I won't make trades or waiver wire pick ups (I wont grab AI "dumps" because I feel that's an AI problem and the AI can give them to another AI team - no harm to me, where if I pick them up it harms the AI)

My very first step is to bring every signed player up to the big club. In this case it brings the number of players to 47/23. Now doing this limits me to doing day by day turns, otherwise if I sim the days, the AI automatically sends down what it considers the weakest players to the farm club(s) to get back to the 23 player limit.

First since the AI is doing the training, I don't have to check each player to see what skill they are lacking or need training in, which is a huge time saver. Second I get a look at where my depth positions are and what I need to upgrade.

Here is the current roster and I welcome comments and constructive criticisms along with the suggestions to fix what I got wrong.

First steps - I want to see if my coaches can be upgraded, then my scouts. I will try to make this as interactive as possible so feel free to join in.

I selected four candidates for the assistant coach position, either adding as the fifth asst. or replacing one of the existing four. Each of the candidates has strengths and weaknesses and I'd like to hear why you would select your candidate over the other three or the current staff.

Next up Hiring Scouts;

Nice start so far. I probably hire the second guy. Panthers have a young roster so "coach prospects" will be important, and he has good ratings in general. Just make sure you have someone who is good at coaching defenseman.

Also, I don't think you are limited to 15 scouts. I'm running 24 scouts in my dynasty.

Thanks - I liked your Dynasty reports too. I'm reading through several of the dynasties to see if I'm making any dumb mistakes.

I agree that you can have more than 15 scouts and I probably worded this poorly. What I've found is that the AI will dispose of scouts at the July 1st new season and I always seem to end up with 15 scouts for the new year.

If that is not happening to you - let me know your secret!:D

I'd hire the second one as well, and for the same reasons .... coaching prospects !
By the way if you need a young defensman, you should scout Kyle O'Brien, from Bentley Falcons in the NCAA, he is free to sign and a good pick !

I'll be reading this .... Good luck !!!

We all agree that coaching candidate Adam Pauwelyn is the best candidate for the open fifth asst. coach.

However I'm a little surprised that neither of you opted to hire coaching candidate Eduard Tyulin to replace either Gord Murphy or Bryan McCabe. Tyulin's scouting ratings (15/12) are clearly superior to both coaches, his coaching defensemen (19) and forwards (16) is better than anyone currently on staff. Now his shortcomings are in player management and adjustments and he has virtually no patience. But in keeping one current defensive coach and adding Tyulin's forward coaching skills to shore up Coach Ramsay's are an overall improvement to the team IMHO.

The goalie coaches have impressive coaching skills, but not enough to warrant the upheaval at this time. Both of you noted that Pauwelyn is outstanding at potential evaluations and should handle any duties assigned to that skill set.

Kyle O'Brien NCAA, got it! Actually one of my friends sons is playing juniors up in Mass. right now - I'm hoping he makes it into the game when they update it this year.

Scouts - Final

I decided against doing the scouts the same way as the coaches, because of the sheer number of selections to go through. I'm attaching the final list and will start assigning the scouts to what I want them to accomplish.

I want to note I did not get 4 scouts who were very good or above for evaluation, so I'm violating my own "rules". However there are 4 scouts who are very good or above in potential scouting and 7 of the scouts are also good evaluations along with above average or better in potential. So I feel pretty comfortable with this group.

Coaching - Final

I hired two coaches and fired one... Coach Murphy was called in first and told to pack his bags... I'm sure he will be employed very quickly at the NHL level and probably by one of my fiercest rivals!

My decision on keeping Coach McCabe was his youth and likelihood of getting better at coaching and his good skills at player management which will counterbalance Coach Tyulin's shortcomings. As we all agreed, my fifth asst. coach will be Adam Pauwelyn for his evaluation of potential and prospect coaching. Both of the new coaches came cheaply but will have to work hard to keep their jobs and improve their skills, just like the players!

Scouts - assignments

to begin the scouting game I choose regions, especially if the scout is already familiar with that region (regions/leagues are highlighted in green). I also have regions/leagues where more than one scout is familiar, the top rated scout will get first dibs on it.

After assigning all regions but The Rest of the World, I'm left with three unused scouts, Madden is above average in both skills, Mahovolich is good at evaluations and average at potential, and Stewart is very good at evaluations and average at potential. These three will do quick evals of players and trades
I am considering, and at least one will be doing the shortlist and free agents when the season rolls around.

Wow how about that !!! In my games he makes it to the top 8 defenders at Montreal, with some icetime at the start when both Murray and Emelin are injured ! After that he makes the journey to Hamilton in the AHL and is recalled occasionally when needed !

Bu the way speaking of sending down players, I noticed that they tend to get upset when you do that and I found a way to bypass that (kind of gamey but ....). I send them first to Wheeling in the ECHL and then up to Hamilton in the AHL. That way they don't get annoyed (when they are upset they don't progress as fast ^^)

Good luck with the start of the season !

Starting the ball rolling -

OK, all the players have been moved up to the parent club, all players have been shortlisted, and now its time to start simming days to the season's start.

BEFORE you start getting upset that I'm not putting overpriced players on the trade block... I make sure my best scout gets a chance to evaluate them first and that takes around four weeks to complete. There are almost never any major surprises from the initial scouting, BUT I have played the Panthers before and the 6.0/6.5 Brad Boyes put up 30+ goals his first two years as a first line RW - even though by the evaluation he should only be a weak second or strong third line player... I have also commented here on the forums that some players blossom when paired with another player - where they were definitely playing below capabilities earlier in the year. I have not seen a definitive answer to this, but think its like a chemistry bonus in the background of the game.

Any requests/ coments before we begin?

Week one 8-15/8-26
 

No action or reports locally

I am going to go with a Monday to Monday report period. This makes week one a little long but not much to report. When I report on trades and moves I will attempt to put the player rating in parenthesis but only when they are in green or blue (14 or above) I also will include salaries and my own $.02 opinions. (feel free to disagree!)

There were two trades this week and I'm already feeling a little jealous and left out.
1) The Winnipeg Jets sent 29 y/o Adam Pardy LD(20)/RD(18) 6.0d/6.0d and rights to 23 y/o Jordan Samuels-Thomas LW(20)/RW(16) 4.5e/5.5e to the Carolina Hurricanes. In return the Hurricanes send Jay Harrison LD(20)/RD(19) 7.0b/7.0b and rights to 19 y/o Brendan Collier LW(20) 3.5e/5.5e to Winnipeg.
This is a steal for Winnipeg, The only reason I can see for the trade is cost cutting by Carolina. Harrison is two years at $1.5M while Pardy is a paltry $600K one year deal. The baggage players will never see quality NHL time and are a wash.

2) The Montreal Canadiens shook things up a bit and came away with a quality defenseman at the cost of 29 y/o Brandon Prust LW(20)/RW(18) 6.5c/6.5c a well known enforcer, and 22 y/o forward Dustin Walsh C(20)/RW(18)LW(14) 4.0e/5.5e. In exchange for Prust and Walsh the Ottawa Senators traded 28 y/o Marc Methot LD(20)/RD(15) 7.0b/7.5b.
This trade is a little closer but still curious as the Senators are not known for having great defense depth. Prust is lugging a 3 year $2.5M price tag while Methot is also slightly overpriced at two years $3.25M followed by a $3.75M anchor. This is probably not the last move these two teams make before the start of the season.

8/26/13 Top Free Agents
 

If I can remember to post this weekly, I will organize the lists for top free agents and trade lists by ability evaluation. This weeks free agents is completely grey as none of the scouts have had time to make reports. There is not much F O W with these ratings, as soon as the scouts get done the players are invariably right where the game starts em at.

8/26/13 Top Trade list
 

The same as the free agents, the trade list is organized by existing skills evaluation.

8/26/13 Injury list
 

This is an afterthought...