Historical NHL starting in the 47-48 Season

[tcblcommish]

I will try and run this for as long as I can. I don't know how long I will go but will try and do this to current. I will have no control over anything, the game will literally do everything and I will just watch and report.

IF you have any questions, comments or anything else, please feel free to add whatever you wish. Just don't come in here and bash the game and say how the game doesn't do this right or that right.

That being said, here is the 1947-48 season in recap.

[tcblcommish]

The megapower Montreal Canadiens won basically from start to finish this season powered by Elmer Lach and Maurice Richard. Both had outstanding season with Richard winning the goal scoring title with 47 goals, a huge 17 more than Bud Poile of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Habs finished top of the league with a 31-16-13 record scoring more goals (170) and alllowing less (121) than any other team.

Detroit, who came in 2nd place had a great season as well, and were close to taking over the top spot on the Canadiens a few times but just couldn't do it. They finished 7 points back of the Habs with their 27-19-14 record. The other playoff teams, Boston Bruins (28-22-10) and the Maple Leafs (23-28-9) were quite a bit back. This was for sure a 2 man race in the league.

Come playoff time however, this was a much different story. The Bruins came alive ffor sure and hit a huge hot streak punding the Red Wings then taking on the Canadiens for the Finals and beating them 4 games to 2. Billy Taylor led the Stanley cup team in the regular season with 16 goals and 36 assists int he regular season. However Maurice Richard still won the playoff MVP with his 13 goals in 15 games even though they lost.

AWARDS FOR SEASON
Goals: Maurice Richard (MON) 47
Points: Elmer Lach (MON) 68
PLUS MINUS: Elmer Lach (MON) 31
NORRIS TROPHY: Butch Bouchard (MON) 24pts, plus 16
DEFENSIVE FORWARD: Elmer Lach (MON)
VEZINA TROPHY: Bill Durnan (MON) 60 gp, .927 svpct
SAVE PCT: Bill Durnan (mon) .927
GA AWARD: Bill Durnan (MON) 121
LEAGUE MVP: Max Bentley (CHI) 67pts in 60 gp, +6
PLAyOFF MVP: Maurice Richard (MON)
GM of the Year: Evan Stevens (DET)

Standings at the end of season


Team Statistics


Post Season


Skater Leaders


Goalie Leaders


Attendance Figures

[tcblcommish]

After the season, a few players have decided to call it a career.

Syl Apps Maple Leafs
Mud Bruneteau Red Wings
Don Gallinger Boston Bruins
Reg Hamilton Black Hawks
Hal Jackson Red Wings
Nick Metz Maple Leafs
Hugh Millar Red Wings
Red Mitchell Black Hawks
Johnny Mowers Red Wings
Billy Taylor Bruins
Phil Watson Rangers

There was a lot of little trades, nothing really big to speak of at all during the main part of the offseason however just before the start of the season a couple of teams made some decent moves.

The Hawks signed Bobby Bauer to a 2 year 1.1m deal and the Bruins signed LD Allan Stanley for 3 seasons, 2.7 mil.

Also just before the season, the Leafs and Bruins made a pretty big trade. The Leafs sent Tim Horton, Jack Hamilton, Tod Sloan and Turk Broda to the Bruins for Paul Ronty and Rollie McLenahan.

[sprague]

So....
Tim Horton, Todd Sloan and Turk Broda
for Paul Ronty

Quality trading there. Amazed the Leafs didn't throw in the future rights for Mahovlich, Sittler, Salming and Keon too.

Frightening trade AI logic.

[Bigby Wolf]

This is great - really looking forward to seeing how this unfolds!

[Duranium]

Originally Posted by sprague

So....
Tim Horton, Todd Sloan and Turk Broda
for Paul Ronty

Quality trading there. Amazed the Leafs didn't throw in the future rights for Mahovlich, Sittler, Salming and Keon too.

Frightening trade AI logic.

very true - the trade engine is a mess but i´m sure they´ll improve that in the future

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by sprague

So....
Tim Horton, Todd Sloan and Turk Broda
for Paul Ronty

Quality trading there. Amazed the Leafs didn't throw in the future rights for Mahovlich, Sittler, Salming and Keon too.

Frightening trade AI logic.

Here's how the AI is looking at it:

Broda, at that point, is 34 and past his prime. Part of that is my fault, I've got him set to start declining after he comes back from the war in 1945, and he actually had some solid years left in him at that point. I'll move that back to 1950, the year he lost his full-time job, so he'll hold his value a while longer in the early part of a game starting in 1947.

Horton is 18, in real life he was coming off his rookie year at St. Mike's. He's just a prospect at that point; the AI can see he's got a lot of potential, but doesn't understand that he's a sure thing to reach that potential.

Same with Sloan to a lesser degree. He was in the AHL at that point, but still a couple of years away from making the NHL full-time. So, another prospect.

Ronty may not be remembered well now, but he was the Bruins' leading scorer in 48-49 and 49-50. His career derailed in his mid-20's when he apparently lost interest in hockey, started talking about retiring, which got him traded, and then followed through on the retirement talk at 26 when he didn't like his contract offer that summer.

So, what it boils down to is an aging goalie and two good prospects for a 20-year-old who's just entered his prime (and McLenahan, a throw-in, albeit a pretty good minor leaguer.)

As for why the AI made the deal, it's not entirely clear which team initiated it. If Toronto has acquired another goalie, then it'd be trying to offload Broda and be willing to sell at a loss. The Bruins have Frank Brimsek starting to decline in goal (in real life, they sold him to Chicago the next year), so they may have wanted a replacement there - Broda's not a great choice, being slightly older, but the goaltending pool is a little weak that year, so the options are limited. The third possibility would be that Leafs may have been looking for a centre, but I doubt it, they have several good ones in the late 1940's.

But the heart of the deal is Broda for Ronty, and Ronty, a rising star, is going to be worth more than a declining goalie. So both sides attempt to complete the deal by adding pieces, and it turns out that adding two good prospects to one side and a minor leaguer to the other gets it to a point where both sides are satisfied. Aside from depth chart considerations, the teams's basic roster-building strategies (win now or build for the future) would have entered into it as well, but in this case both finished in the lower half of the league and would've valued prospects more. That would've lowered Broda's value and increased that of the other 4, so it was likely a wash.

If the AI was just looking at the literal amount of value each player would add in the future, no, Toronto would never make that deal. But it doesn't know that Ronty is going to flame out and be done early, or that Horton will play into the 1970's. Obviously, if you want, you can exploit that and get good deals on players you know will last. We could change the AI in historical mode so it has perfect knowledge of exactly how much each player will contribute in the future, but I'm not sure that's a good solution - then a star with an abbreviated career, like Cam Neely, will get undervalued.

[sprague]

Hi Jeff, good to see you respond. Hadn't seen you on the boards for a while and was wondering if you were all right.

My question now comes from this one comment

Originally Posted by JeffR

Horton is 18, in real life he was coming off his rookie year at St. Mike's. He's just a prospect at that point; the AI can see he's got a lot of potential, but doesn't understand that he's a sure thing to reach that potential.

If the AI was just looking at the literal amount of value each player would add in the future, no, Toronto would never make that deal. But it doesn't know that Ronty is going to flame out and be done early, or that Horton will play into the 1970's. Obviously, if you want, you can exploit that and get good deals on players you know will last. We could change the AI in historical mode so it has perfect knowledge of exactly how much each player will contribute in the future, but I'm not sure that's a good solution - then a star with an abbreviated career, like Cam Neely, will get undervalued.

So far in historical mode one can only play with development off- as I understand. As such players will perform as to their ratings year in year out. Hence a human player will have a great advantage then if I know the career Horton and Sloan are going to have, but the AI is only seeing these players as prospects, guys who might be good or might not.

That was the point I was making in my earlier comment. Yes if you had a game with development off, (an ootp fictional game for example) then us or the aI does not really know what a player's long term career will be. But in ootp historical it does seem rather tough to say trade away a 37 year old Ted Williams for a 20 year old Sandy Kaufax as the AI tends to know what each has left in their careers.

Hence for a fair game challenge I would suggest that something similar exists for the historical game where the AI had the same long term knowledge as a player- otherwise there will be some quite massive lopsided trades along the way. Granted there were lopsided real life trades of course (ie Espo) but if Chicago could see his ratings the next 12 years they don't make the deal. So I would hope it would be the same for the game here

sorry to TBL for the semi-hijack that came to the thread, but your replay is opening up some questions that are likely good to examine and discuss for everyone- so from that respect your replay is offering a good overview for that.

Cheers

[Jaurxe]

Originally Posted by sprague

Hi Jeff, good to see you respond. Hadn't seen you on the boards for a while and was wondering if you were all right.

My question now comes from this one comment



So far in historical mode one can only play with development off- as I understand. As such players will perform as to their ratings year in year out. Hence a human player will have a great advantage then if I know the career Horton and Sloan are going to have, but the AI is only seeing these players as prospects, guys who might be good or might not.

That was the point I was making in my earlier comment. Yes if you had a game with development off, (an ootp fictional game for example) then us or the aI does not really know what a player's long term career will be. But in ootp historical it does seem rather tough to say trade away a 37 year old Ted Williams for a 20 year old Sandy Kaufax as the AI tends to know what each has left in their careers.

Hence for a fair game challenge I would suggest that something similar exists for the historical game where the AI had the same long term knowledge as a player- otherwise there will be some quite massive lopsided trades along the way. Granted there were lopsided real life trades of course (ie Espo) but if Chicago could see his ratings the next 12 years they don't make the deal. So I would hope it would be the same for the game here

sorry to TBL for the semi-hijack that came to the thread, but your replay is opening up some questions that are likely good to examine and discuss for everyone- so from that respect your replay is offering a good overview for that.

Cheers

This makes the game more "gamey" than a pure simulation, but it certainly does sound like a more fun way to play historical mode (to me, at least).

[tcblcommish]

As far as the trade goes, the Leafs have the following in goal.

Les Colvin. He is a 5.0 for both and is average at best for sure.
Jack Gelineau. he is a 5.0-6.0 goalie. Another that is average at best.
There is nothing in the reserve at all. That is the only 2 goalies in the system whatsoever.

The Leafs however, have a very large stockpile of Dmen so dealing Horton as good as he will be, wasn't as hard of a hit as people might think. They could certainly gotten a lot more for him tho but Jeff's explanation does make sense.

As far as centers go for the Leafs, they arent stacked there at all and Ronty is now their best center.

Take out the names and the fact that we know their careers, the trade isn't that bad really. Nothing that you wouldn't see in real life I guess. Tho I guess we see trades like MArkus Naslund for Alec Stojanov lol

[tcblcommish]

Through the whole 48-49 season, the Chicago Black Hawks were the team to beat. They basically led the league from start to finish and really were only out of first place for a few weeks in the middle of the seson. The Hawks finished 31-21-8 for the season and only finished 3 points up on the Bruins but the Bruins went on a huge winning streak to get them back there and make it so close.

Max Bentley led the team again this season, scoring 32 goals and adding 27 assists for 59 points in the teams 60 games. Brother Bentley finished with 33 assists leading the team in that stat. However, the Red Wings who finsihed in the middle of the pack for the season were led by Woody Dumart who finished with 63 points to lead the league in scoring. Paul Ronty, the center for the Leafs had a solid season finishing 4th in scoring with 57 points.

Max Bentley won the goal scoring title with his 32 goals but top goal scorer Maurice Richard missed most of the seson with a serious knee injury and the start of the next season will be in jeopardy now as well. Hopefully he can bounce back.

Bill Durnan of the Canadiens was the top goalie again this season. He finished the season with a 2.43 gaa and was a .34 lower than anyone else. Unfortunately, as good a season as the Habs did have, they beat the Hawks in the first round only to lose in the finals against the Red Wings.

STANDINGS

PLAYOFFS

LEADERS

GOALIE LEADERS

BOSTON BRUINS

CHICAGO BLACK HAWKS

DETROIT RED WINGS

MONTREAL CANADIENS

NEW YORK RANGERS

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS

LEAGUE AWARDS

MORE AWARDS

EVEN MORE AWARDS

[truebatman]

Go Wings! Lets start chanting repeat!!

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by sprague

Hence for a fair game challenge I would suggest that something similar exists for the historical game where the AI had the same long term knowledge as a player- otherwise there will be some quite massive lopsided trades along the way. Granted there were lopsided real life trades of course (ie Espo) but if Chicago could see his ratings the next 12 years they don't make the deal. So I would hope it would be the same for the game here

Easier to say than do, though. To go back to my Neely example: if you acquire him, you know what you're getting: a huge boost to your team for a handful of years. That might make sense in your team's immediate circumstances - maybe you're just a little short of being a cup contender, and are willing to rebuild after you take your shot. Getting the AI to use that kind of logic, and know when to use it, is a challenge.

The answer in the long term may be to do something like have the AI have a particular horizon for the way it values players - say, only looking at their expected contribution in the next season or two if it wants to win right now, versus an unlimited number of years in the future for a brand-new expansion team. That's a big step forward in AI complexity, though, and it may take us a while to get there.

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by sprague

Hence for a fair game challenge I would suggest that something similar exists for the historical game where the AI had the same long term knowledge as a player- otherwise there will be some quite massive lopsided trades along the way. Granted there were lopsided real life trades of course (ie Espo) but if Chicago could see his ratings the next 12 years they don't make the deal. So I would hope it would be the same for the game here
Cheers

Funny, but when I play historical I want the opposite. I want all the busts being drafted high with the AI not knowing. That's the fun for me. To see Alexandre Diagle go first overall and laugh. Hopefully one day it will be to appease both of us groups with 2 different options.

[AlpineSK]

Originally Posted by dave1927p

Funny, but when I play historical I want the opposite. I want all the busts being drafted high with the AI not knowing. That's the fun for me. To see Alexandre Diagle go first overall and laugh. Hopefully one day it will be to appease both of us groups with 2 different options.

See, what I like is the ability to develop players within the game. Give me starting ratings for players in a season, and let them develop how they will with the ability to adjust a TCR and development speed. Maybe Gretzky has a career ending injury in 1985.. or Bobby Orr plays another 5 seasons. Just start the game with the historical season, scouting turned off, and let players develop.. Much like historical sims in the game that shall not be named..

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by AlpineSK

See, what I like is the ability to develop players within the game. Give me starting ratings for players in a season, and let them develop how they will with the ability to adjust a TCR and development speed. Maybe Gretzky has a career ending injury in 1985.. or Bobby Orr plays another 5 seasons. Just start the game with the historical season, scouting turned off, and let players develop.. Much like historical sims in the game that shall not be named..

Ok, three ways lol. Yes, letting the game engine naturally develop the players changing their careers is another way people would like it.

[tcblcommish]

I'll bbe updating a couple of seasons tonight hopefully. Been super busy last few days

[Fred Shero]

This is why I hope this game is a success. Action PC Hockey only goes back to 56-57

[tcblcommish]

With Christmas and the purchase of a new laptop, I messed up and didnt bring the league over and wiped out my old one and lost everything. I am just going to try a real world one and build a team up that is garbage

[truebatman]

That's a bummer... than I'm just gonna pretend the Redwings won the next 10 or so Cups from where you last left off