Personalised Historical Challenge

[lawrence97]

Thought i'd give myself a historical challenge, by introducing a few house rules and then see how long it takes to win a Stanley Cup.

Rule 1: Not allowed to sign or draft any Forward who has scored 100 points in a real season from when the nhl was 78 games a season plus. For 70 game seasons its 80 point Forwards. For clarification this doesn't apply to players to score 100 points in this play through, just players wbo have done so in real life, So for example Lafontaine is not signable, but Lanny McDonald is
Rule 2: Not allowed to sign any Defenceman who has scored 85 points in a single season
Rule 3: Can not trade for any prospect, Can only sign free agents or trade for current NHL players.
Rule 4: Soviet Bloc will end in 1985, Start date is 1959. Can only draft Soviet players can not sign any of the russian players that are not draft elligible (when soviet curtain is switched off)
Rule 5: WHA will not be part of this history


Game modes,

Season will start in 1959 as the NY Rangers. Any players who fall foul of the point rules will have to be traded.
Game rules- Can't be fired on, Owner challenges off. All seasons are to be 84 games. Draft age is 17 to 19. Financials to change as per normal, goals per game 9, run on Classic mode and 20 man rosters at all times.
Trading set to very very hard, player development is as per the engine not recalculate.No sponsorhips rules, just drafts from 1960 onwards and injuries to fewer.
Some very minor editing allowed, for players such as Bossy who had injured curtailed season, their aging will be modified once started. Player peak age 27, physical peak age 25

NHL will expand team wise as it did and playoffs remain as they did. Waiver drafts and prospect games are off, although waiver rule is on. Expansion drafts as they were.

[lawrence97]

Season 1, can keep GIlbert, as he luckily never hits 100 points in the 76 game seasons, or above 80 in 70. But Bathgate and Ratelle are traded, and can only get Tremblay and Backstrom from the canadiens, who also take Bryan Hextall and 2 3rd picks. Start of the season we are rating worst attack, 3rd best def and 4th best Gk to end up 5th. Boston are below us, but will happily take last.

[lawrence97]

Ranger system. Defence looks ok, especially when Bergman and Tremblay are ready, but best player Gadsby old, will look to move him and Red Sullivan for picks during the season. LW we are ok, but C and espically rw is weak. Backstrom and Ingarfield will be ok, need Gilbert and Jonson to come through. Worsley will do a job in goal till Giacomin is ready. Also have Villemure who will trade when time is right. We will play a defensive but low hitting and low aggresiveness style, but presuure and backchecking at a notch below the highest amount

[lawrence97]

Season 1: Mtl top line of Bathgate and Beliveau simply blast through everone in the regular season but upset by Chicago in 7 who then beat Det in 5 for cup. For us, Harry Howell Worsley and Schinkel play well, but thats about it. We finish 1 pt behind Boston in last. Time to trade out older players and get as many picks as we can.


Manage to get Toronto 1st round pick and Montreal 1st for next year for Gadsby my 62 1st and a 3rd. Picked up Cornoyer, T. Esposito, Parise Boudrais and Rivers in draft. all solid palyers but nowhere near ready yet. Free agenst picked up Red Berenson and defenders Green and Van Impe, but all 20 and not nhl ready yet. Team will need a couple of years to be able to compete. We really struggle to deal with other teams top lines. Phil Esposito went to Boston with the 2nd overall pick as obviously couldn't pick him, which means all my opponents have a superstar attacker, Mon-Bathgate, Believeau & H. Richard! Tor-Mahovlich, Boston-Phil E, Det Howe, Chi Mikita and Hull

[lawrence97]

Season 2: Rated 5th for def att and overall, GK to 4th. Have best Propect pool. Again battling Boston for last.

[lawrence97]

Montreal top again, but again knocked out in in first round this time in 7 by Detroit and Chicago repeats with another 7 game series over Detroit. First half of season it was a real 4 way battle for 3rd, but we fell off drastically, and ended up last by 12 points, Boston really picked up and finish 4th, 21 clear of us. Toronto had a shocking season, withou Mahovlich they'd have been worse than us. Free agents, picked up Bob Berry, Nolet, Stemkowski and Paul Henderson. In the drft we got Dennis Hull and Fre Stanfield. Our team is now full of strong 2nd liners, but all still nowhere near their potential.
Our best potential players Gilbert, Backstrom Cournoyer and Berenson are all still 4th line quality.

[lawrence97]

Season 3 , Tony Esposito not quite ready to play nhl yet, end of season will trade excellent Worsley, an put him in. Cournoyer makes the team, but everyone else in ahl or jrs. We are still top of the prospect rankings.

We are now ranked 4th for def, att and gk, and unsuprisngly are predicted to hit 4th. Boston and Toronto below us. Boston have Phil Esposito in their team this seson. I'll hope for a playoff position, but Esposito should carry Boston past us

[lawrence97]

Season 3, we finish 6 points behind boston for 5th, a mid season 10 game losing streak knocking us out of playoffs and Boston take adv. Chicago win stanley cup for 3rd straight year, Montreal won the league but knocked out early by Chicago. They dropped from 133 points to 115, they are getting old. Jean Beliveau art ross with 141, Bull 139 and Howe 138, 8 players get 100, Howe gets 67, Hull 59, 4 50 goal scorers.

Season 4, trade Worsley for a toronto 2nd rnd pick in 63 and 64. Draft Vadnais and Lacroix. Miss out on Lemaire who goes first overall. Tony Esposito is in net. But he's two stars. Our best players, Berenson, Tremblay, Gilbert and Cournoyer, are all 2 or 2.5 stars, but will be promoted to our 2nd lines. Howell is still a superb defencmen, Prentice Backstrom, Henry and Hebenton, will hopefully start to be phased out of our top lines by these players. In defence Van Impe, Bergman and Green are still 2 star players. We are now ranked 5th overall, with our goaltending 6th, but defence 3rd and Forwards 4th. This season is our best chance of playoffs since we've started.

[lawrence97]

Season 3 and 4 standings.

Season 4 finally made playoffs, without a great improvment, mainly as Boston fell off, Berenson, howeever a 91 point player, and Gilbert and Cournoyer had decent seson with 74 and 64 pts respectively.

Montreal fell to 3rd, and Chicago won 4th straight SC with its first presdients in the 4 seasons we've had.

[lawrence97]

Season 5, traded for Lemaire, and got him for a3 star prospect and 2 2nd's and a 3rd. He will be 4th line with Dennis Hull. Cournoyer-Berenson-Gilbert now top line, with older line taking 2nd. Have Lacroix and Danny Grant from this draft to come through in next couple of years. Carol Vadnais in ahl before promotion next year. Ranked 4th again this years, 4th in Attack 1st in Defence mainly thanks to Howell, and 5th for GK. Target is 80 points this year and to challenge for third.

[lawrence97]

Season 5, was a dissapointment, althought 90 point seasons from Cournoyer and Berenson, we actually were worse than previous year. However meant we could get two great players in the draft, in Redmond and Unger. Also picked up Fairbairn. Schinkel, Ingarfield Hebenton and Henry all out for trades for picks, which meant i could pick up a couple of spots in the draft.

[lawrence97]

Season 6, Aiming to hit 80 points this time and we get 76, led by our front line of Berenson(111pts) Gilbert 94 and Cournoyer(82). Depth is finally starting to show with Boudrais Prentice and Backstrom all getting 50 plus on our second line. Enough to be 3rd. Chicago had won presidents and sc in season 5, but in Season 6 despite being top of the league by 16 pts they were finally dethroned in a sweep by the Canadiens in the final. We were swept by Chicago, which means we are 0-8 in our two trips to the playoffs.

[lawrence97]

Season 7, Target to win a playoff game, this is a tough battle, as superstars of other teams are tough for us to handle. especially the Chicago line of hull mikita and bucyk. Its the Bobby Orr draft this year, obviously i can't pick him, but Brad Park i can. Also notable in draft is Guy Lapointe and Rene Robert(who i can't pick). I have 4th and 7th and 10th pick. Boston take Orr, so they have Esposito-Orr again.(Detroit have Howe and Ratelle). We get Park and Lapointe, gaining a det 1st rounder next year, but losing Prentice(4 star but old winger) our first rnd this year and our excellent backup goalie Giacomin. Our lineup this year looks good on paper, but many are stll 21 and under and not at full potential. Players still to come through really are Grant, Lemaire Hull Redmond Unger and Lacroix. The next decade will be best shot for a championship. Looking forward to pairing off against the great Esposito-Orr combo. This year again out top line will have to do the heavy lifting, but boosted by Carol Vadnais.Harry Howell top d line. We are ranked 3rd overall best Def, 5th attack and 4th gok. Boston have best propect rankings, with Orr-Savard-Apps-Vachon to come! Toronto have Dryden and Pete Mahovlich, whilst we have Park-Lapointe-Unger-Redmond. for 3rd best

[lawrence97]

Despite a late season wobble, we were playing .500 hockey for most of the season, our top line all got 100 pts. We then shocked Toronto in 6 to reach the Stanley Cup final, but season champs Chicago were too strong and swept us in the finals, as they should as they beat us by 50 points in the season!

[lawrence97]

Seaon 8, with a decent season finally on board, have to target a 100 point season, with Unger and Redmond coming into 4th line. Our top line is good but still the worst top line in the league. However we have good strength in depth now, so hoping we can reach SC, in the Bobby Clarke draft, we got Goring Stackhouse and (Jean) Potvin. Missing out on Charron was a blow. Guy Lapointe not ready to go, but traded away 4 players to get 3 2nd rnd picks for next year. We are rated 2nd best this year, with Off-4, Def-1 and Gk -3. Chicago top, with tor 3, Det 4th Bos 5th and Mont 6. Jacques Lemaire is really slow in development, , but we should have 3 very strong lines for the next few years

[lawrence97]

Despite an october start being 3 games below 500, we finally starting to get some winning streaks, and were top by 8 at halfway, Chicago put on a spurt, and caught us, but we won 3 of the last 4 against them, to win the league by a point. In the playoffs we lose the first game against Tor, but then win the next four expecting a battle royale with the Blackhawks, only for Detroit with Ratelle and Howe and a lot of declined superstars(sawchuk,ullman, goyette delvechhio) tp shock the Blackhawks in 6. Detroit throws away leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 in the seires as we win the SC after some tough tough years/ Game 6 was a 6-2 romp for us, but Game 7 was a nailbitter though. We take an early lead but Geordie Howe scores 3 points to rally the red wings from a 3-1 deficit, but our top line all combine to gives us a 4-3 lead after 2. Gordie Howe gets his 4th point of the game to tie the game 38 seconds into the 3rd, and no further goals in the 3rd means OT! 10 mins in and fittingly, Rookie Brad Park wires one to win it for us! Yvan Cournoyer top gs with 82 and top points scorer with 160 beating Mikita by 5. 12 players past 100 pts and 6 get 50 goals. In playoffs Yvan Cournoyer gets 28 points to lead all, he misses out to Mikita for Hart, but gets Conn Smythe. Harry Howell gets the Norris. only trophy before this was Cournoyer getting Lady Bing! Onto the exanpsion years now, this is where i should be able to win a few cups before the nighbtmare of the 80's awaits, where i will have to fight the 200 point Gretzky nightmate with no 100 point players, but Boston look strong, with a lot of players to supplement the powerhouse duo of Orr & Espoito (Laperrie, Savard in D, D. Hextall, Apps, Schmautz, Bobby Calrke and Guy Charron in attack)

[lawrence97]

NHL Expansion 1967. My strength in depth takes a hit losing Tremblay and Green from our D line, and Stemkowski from our offence, but luckily, all our 20 year olds and under are saved, and being able ot save one person after somone is picked, meant we saved everyone else on our starting line up. Goring, Slackhouser and Jean Potvin all signed for the farm team, whilst despite have 6 top 24 picks, we lose out on pretty much all the good players, so trade for Montreal 1st pick, next year and pick up Tallon(good defender in previous games for me)and 2 depth forwards Lefley and Lambert. Perreault Sittler and Macleish go to P[itt, St Louis and Flyers. Leach who i wanted goes to Oakland in 4th, but i couldn't trade for any of the expansions team picks no matter what i tried. however have 2 1st Rnds next year where i hope i can get Salming and Vickers. Draft next year has Dionne LaFleur and Robinson, who are all unavailable to me.

Signed a couple three star player to help boster my strength in depth, and after everything is all said and done we are ranked first, Our defence and gk are ranked 1 and forward line 3 behind Chicago and Detroit. Chicago has great forwards, but defence is ranked 2nd worst in league and trade away future star gk Parent for Laperriere(25). Glenn Hall is 35, Chicago will probably regret that

[lawrence97]

Season 9, Harry Howell at 34 is slowing down, but still all star level, only second to Bobby Orr. He will soon be replaced by Park and Lapointe(ahl still). Our future Defence top 4 is solid, with Park-Vadnais-Lapointe-Tallon with Stackhouse and J. Potvin mopping up. Up front we have 4 very solid lines, Redmond and Unger taking more ice time. Lemaire is still not as good as we'd hoped, hoping extended pp and 2nd line time this year will help him make the jump.

We are favourites this year, but looking forward to seeing Boston this year, as their all star team is starting to look threatening. They easily have the best prospect depth. with 11 player with all star experenience, and 9 of them 22 or under! If they can keep hold of these players, they'll be a great challenge.

[lawrence97]

Boston start hot, but then absoutley fall apart, Orr and Esposito light the lamp, but they don't even make playoffs, 15 100 point scorers, 8 50 goal scorers, Bobby Hull 92 goals, Mikita 132 assists. Season is a streaight fight between us and Chicago, 2 late losses leave the door open for Chicago and they win the league on games won. Their top two are devestating, but they traded for Delvecchio and Richard givings up a 1st and a 2nd for the playoffs! Trading for Montreal's 1st rnd pick turned out roses(not too hard to predict, being in the oriignal 6 division, and not having any decent players! That should be 3rd pick of the draft.

We lose Cournoyer to injury last game of season, and although we deal with Detroit in 4, and take first two games in Chicago, the Blackhawks win their 7th SC in 9 years by winning 4 straight aginst us and thumping North Stars in the SC Final.

[lawrence97]

The 1968 draft with Lafleur, Robinson and Dionne, and I trade 2 2nds and 2 3 star forwards and 3.5 star Def Bergman to the Seals for 2 1st rnd picks. Hopeing they do a montreal next year, but more risky as in the expansion division, and all teams are mediocre. However we have 2nd 6 th and 11th, and straight away have to pass on Marcel Dionne, trying to trade down is almost impossilbe here with trading on very hard, so will just get the best players i can. In a stacked draft,

1, Stl - LaFleur
2, NYR Salming
3 Lak- Dionne(orr, espo and now Dionne, all on teams they were originally on!)
4 Bos-Ramsey, Robinson was probably the better pick
5 Phil-Robinson
6 NYR- Martin


I also get Vickers with the 11th pick. Great draft for us.