Penguins - win now mode

[tk43]

Started with my favourite team the Pittsburgh Penguins as a GM/HC to see what's left in Crosby & Malkin and to oversee a smooth transition to the future...

Started the season on the 1st of july to have time to build a team through trades in the summer...

In Win Now mode we traded away lots of picks and prospects to get the best young players possible ( the trade engine is better than in FHM4 but still has lots to desire )

The following trades and free agent signings took place....

Heading into preseason the HC set out these lines...

Slava Voynov is injured butt will be our 3rd string RD...

All our young stars are resigned to bridge contracts ( another thing that should be a lot better unless real life will prove me wrong, but i doubt any of Laine, Rantanen or Provorov will sign a 4.5mil/3 years bridge deal, or Guenzel a 2.3mil/4 year deal )

[tk43]

The coaching setup was upgraded too, and training was left in the hands of the assistant, lines and tactics were assign manually by HC

[tk43]

The Pens went through the preseason unbeaten, most of the games were close and the D will need to get better, might need to adjust the attacking traits of Letang and Klingberg so they aren't jumping on the rush all the time...

[Duranium]

Originally Posted by tk43

All our young stars are resigned to bridge contracts ( another thing that should be a lot better unless real life will prove me wrong, but i doubt any of Laine, Rantanen or Provorov will sign a 4.5mil/3 years bridge deal, or Guenzel a 2.3mil/4 year deal )

Keep in mind that the cap doesn´t go up in FHM (static at 79mil) so the kinda lower bridge contracts make sense and way more balanced than in the previous iterations of the game.

Trust me, as Beta-Tester for many, many weeks/months i can tell you - if you amass blue-chip talent like Provorov, Laine, etc. in your save, you will eventually enter cap hell - even in FHM5.

Anyway, your plan sound cool and i´ll follow your way to, hopefully, many many cups in the future

P.S. The first trade i do in bascially all my Pens games is
Schultz <> Hjalmarsson

[tk43]

Originally Posted by Duranium

Keep in mind that the cap doesn´t go up in FHM (static at 79mil) so the kinda lower bridge contracts make sense and way more balanced than in the previous iterations of the game.

Trust me, as Beta-Tester for many, many weeks/months i can tell you - if you amass blue-chip talent like Provorov, Laine, etc. in your save, you will eventually enter cap hell - even in FHM5.

Anyway, your plan sound cool and i´ll follow your way to, hopefully, many many cups in the future

P.S. The first trade i do in bascially all my Pens games is
Schultz <> Hjalmarsson

I understand that the bridge contacts are lower but I think these young stars will get 6-8 year deals for top dollar.... see Ehlers, Pastrnak etc

I always upgrade first my negotiating skill and manage to get the blue-chip talent signed at 8/9 mil a year and have my 3rd and 4th lines on very small contracts so it's somewhat possible ;-)

thanks for the the follow and the coments, it's nice to know someone is following your dynasty...

how do you manage to trade Schultz? anytime i try to send him anywhere he was using his no trade clause and I had to place him on the trade block and ended up getting a farm player from the Jets just so i can dump his salary....

[tk43]

The first month is over and we are at a respectable 7-3-0...
2 of the defeats were against the Canadiens which was very surprising, i thought they'll be easy to beat without top end talent and with Webber injured but Price had 2 great games...

We bet Toronto 9-2 which was our best game....

[Duranium]

Originally Posted by tk43

how do you manage to trade Schultz? anytime i try to send him anywhere he was using his no trade clause and I had to place him on the trade block and ended up getting a farm player from the Jets just so i can dump his salary....

The trick is - nearly every player in the NHL with a NTC/NMC has a few teams where he would accept a trade to.
1 - Go to the trade screen and starting with Anaheim, move through the teams, add Schultzy to the trade and write down where he´d accept a trade to. (Coyotes are 100% a no go for him).
2 - Then trade Schultz to an acceptable team for a d-man (or any other player in his rating range) WITHOUT any NM-clauses.
3 - Trade the aquired player(s) for Hjalmarsson

This way you basically mimic 3-way deals in FHM.

[tk43]

The next month is gone and we finished it at 10-6-0...
Still a few things to iron out as regards the tactics ( more so individual ones )
We lost Laine and Klingberg to injuries for the next 2 weeks...

[krownroyal83]

Keep the updates coming, i want to see who end up leading the league some of the stat categories. Can we see the goalies as well?

[tk43]

We reached the halfway point of the season and the Pens are top of the league riding an 19 game winning streak, Crosby having at least a point in the last 18 games...

The streak comes on the back of some tactical changes of individual player roles...

[tk43]

We arrived at the trade deadline, as the Pens are on a roll we didn't need to make any changes ( was very disappointed with no buyers and sellers at all, some very minor trades, the only notable was the Sabres trading away their franchise D Dahlin for a 2nd rounder and an unknown player which is completely unrealistic )

[tk43]

The regular season is at the end and the Penguins are the winners of the Presidents trophy, Crosby leads the league in scoring... Brassard is injured for the start of the play offs...

[tk43]

In the 1st round of the playoffs the Penguins came up against the Blue Jackets...

We didn't have any problems sweeping the series 4-0...

It is very frustrating to see the AI start a 2 star Korpisalo in goal in every game over a 4.5 star Bobrovsky. This needs to be somehow fixed for the playoffs where the AI starts the worse goalie only coz they are on a 2 flame streak....

[tk43]

2nd round, The Battle of Pennsylvania... Penguins vs Flyers...

Brassard returns to the line up after jumping to a 3-0 lead, the Flyers gave themself a fighting chance by winning game 4 but had no chance in game 5.

[tk43]

Eastern Conference final sees the Penguins take on the Maple Leafs.
The addition of Tavares helped the Leafs to make a leap all the way to the conference finals, but they fell short to the experienced core of the Penguins...

Crosby leads the scoring in the playoffs...

[tk43]

The Stanley Cup final sees the Penguins return after a year out to meet with the LA Kings...

The AI decides to start G Campbell in games 3 and 4 and it doesn't go well for the Kings as they lose the series 4-0...

Crosby wins lots of awards, the Jack Adams trophy for HC of the year goes to TK43...

[cshigh]

Go Penguins!

[tk43]

The Off season came and gone and the Penguins made a number of changes to get more experience in D and get younger on O as well as stay salary cap compliant....

We traded D Olesiak to the Red Wings for a 3rd round pick and signed D Schenn to a 3 year contract at 1.15mil a year saving over 1mil in the salary cap

We signed C Martinook to lead our 4th line, LW Wilson to play on the 3rd line and LW Tanev to add some hard hitting to our 3th line

We moved LW Hornqvist ( was aging and dropping attributes really fast ) to LA Kings for RW Paerson who we used in a trade with the Jets (together with a 5th and 7th round picks )for C Lowry after C Brassard retired at the age of 30 (we did let his contract run out anyway )

In the last trade we made a 3 team deal work with the Canucks and the Blues where we sent RW Kessel to the Blues for G Allen. He was then sent the Canucks together with a 1st, 2nd & 5th round picks for RW Boeser what saved us 4.5 mil a year in the salary cap for the next 4 years (very doubtful Boeser will sign a deal like that in real life)

After all the changes and the team getting used to each other we started the season as we finished the last one, still top of the league.
We suffered a host of small injuries including C Crosby for 2 weeks after he fell of his roof and lost D Klinberg for 4 months...

[tk43]

The Pens are strolling through the regular season and at the trade deadline they lead the league by a landslide...

We lost C Lowry for the season ( 7 months ), D Klingberg returned from the IR after 4 months out

The Devils re-signed LW Hall to a 6 year 65mil contract which was really nice to see in the game. It must be the most realistic resigning as regards as length and dollars...

[George_Bell]

I know you mention it early on, but damn, that trade engine need ALOT of work. To me, that's just not good enough. Other then that, this looks good. Good luck building a dynasty!