drafting russians

[Hadehariast]

Originally Posted by Adam B

When you click on a player and it brings you to his Bio Page, on the far right there is an option of "History". You can see previous injuries, where they've previously signed, etc.



There is roughly 210 men drafted every NHL year. We are dealing with a small handful that may actually be effected. I understand some frustration with it, but simply taking one extra step for if you are to see if a foreigner is sign somewhere else should not be that hard to do.

That being said, it is something we are looking at changing for FHM3. Some occasional frustration will likely still occur.

I'm feeling a little bit like banging my head against the wall at the moment.

This effects every player in any European league, including the ones with transfer agreements with the NHL.

This also effects free agents who are European, but whose rights you own. To give you an example-- in my last game, I traded for the rights to Gabriel Carlsson, a Columbus prospect. After his contract with Linkopings ran out, and while he was a free agent, I tried to sign him, only to have him tell me he wasn't interested in coming to North America.

This is not just a problem for Russian players under contract. It's a problem for all European players under contract or not!

[Adam B]

Originally Posted by Hadehariast

I'm feeling a little bit like banging my head against the wall at the moment.

This effects every player in any European league, including the ones with transfer agreements with the NHL.

This also effects free agents who are European, but whose rights you own. To give you an example-- in my last game, I traded for the rights to Gabriel Carlsson, a Columbus prospect. After his contract with Linkopings ran out, and while he was a free agent, I tried to sign him, only to have him tell me he wasn't interested in coming to North America.

This is not just a problem for Russian players under contract. It's a problem for all European players under contract or not!

I completely get what you're saying - and again, we are planning on try to work on it in FHM3, but what you've got to understand is (a) there's not much we can do to change feedback in FHM2 now, and (b) the problem is small in terms of the game. Yes, you can lose a player and it is unfortunate, but it's not every single player that it's happening to (or even 20%). If it is, that's something that should be said here - which has not been yet..

Hundreds of players are drafted every year. Thousands are playing hockey in all parts of the world right now. Not everyone wants to leave where they are. To remove it would actually take away from some of the reality in the game. Yes, I get the frustration of little feedback of not knowing when it's going to happen or with who, that's why Jeff and I both have been discussing creative ideas of how to address this, but it doesn't take away from the fact right now there are players who are overseas right now and have little to no interest in coming overseas - including some who were drafted.


All what I'm saying in the end is to mitigate the risks you know of right now when you're drafting. It's the easiest solution to make sure the risk-reward of drafting foreign players doesn't affect you.

[ike121212]

There's a cumulative effect of all these draft issues on the game. Even if I can lower my risk of getting bit by this one, I'm guessing the AI doesn't.

As for reality, the current CBA awards a compensatory pick for an unsigned first rounder. Outside of a Ranger pick dying a few years ago, I don't recall this ever happening. In game, this effects a few players each year. It's easy to see when they hit the UFA market. I get that it's not a huge volume, but all of these issues break the balance of a career mode. It's turned this version into a casual sim for me, which I guess is OK.

[josephyw]

Adam, this has been discussed on this board since at least January. Also, your assertions regarding the severity of this issue haven't been my (or many others') experience after several in-game years. For one, avoiding European players in the draft over time has become nearly impossible. Secondly, over time it is rare to be able to sign a European draftee. To wit, from a post of mine from another thread:

Just knocked out another year and did the math for the 2023 draft: only 14% of draftable prospects were North American. Also, 100% of the prospects I drafted years prior that I have to sign or lose the rights to (mostly Swedish, with some Czech players) aren't "interested in playing in North America right now."

Every season, less and less draftable players are North American, and more and more drafted players, no matter where in Europe they are, are not interested in playing in North America. It's a pretty untenable situation that has required a lot of time and effort to make playable, and I think it's still worth discussing as-is in FHM 2 in order to brainstorm possible workarounds.

[josephyw]

I'm still trying to figure out (from earlier in the thread) what history I'm supposed to be looking at that will give me a clue that a European won't sign with my team. I went back and looked at some of the players who have told me they are not interested in playing in the U.S., and all their history showed was that they were on a U14 team, then a U16 team, then a U18 team, and then sometimes a U20 team.

[Adam B]

Originally Posted by ike121212

There's a cumulative effect of all these draft issues on the game. Even if I can lower my risk of getting bit by this one, I'm guessing the AI doesn't.

As for reality, the current CBA awards a compensatory pick for an unsigned first rounder. Outside of a Ranger pick dying a few years ago, I don't recall this ever happening. In game, this effects a few players each year. It's easy to see when they hit the UFA market. I get that it's not a huge volume, but all of these issues break the balance of a career mode. It's turned this version into a casual sim for me, which I guess is OK.

I totally get that. But it does happen. Anton Rodin just signed a 1 year deal to finally try and come back to America. Carl Soderberg was drafted in the 2nd round in '04 and took 8 years before he came to the NHL. It is becoming a bigger issue now especially with American College kids. Chicago lost Kevin Hayes that way in 2014. It could be happening with Jimmy Vesey.

Originally Posted by josephyw

I'm still trying to figure out (from earlier in the thread) what history I'm supposed to be looking at that will give me a clue that a European won't sign with my team. I went back and looked at some of the players who have told me they are not interested in playing in the U.S., and all their history showed was that they were on a U14 team, then a U16 team, then a U18 team, and then sometimes a U20 team.

Whoa, don't take things out of context there man! The History tab was pointed out so you can see if (for instance) a Russian player is actually signed in the KHL right now. It may not give you what you're looking for.

[josephyw]

Originally Posted by Adam B

Whoa, don't take things out of context there man! The History tab was pointed out so you can see if (for instance) a Russian player is actually signed in the KHL right now. It may not give you what you're looking for.

Ah, I see what you mean now that I re-read the original question. I was genuinely curious, though. I thought maybe there was something I was missing. My bad.

I hope my other remarks were considered as well.

[JeffR]

There are two or three different issues that are getting confused here.

There are two separate reasons for European players not signing immediately: their contract being owned by a team with in a league with no transfer agreement (specifically KHL teams), and the player's own wishes about whether or not to leave Europe.

First one: There's no option in the game yet for the KHL players to buy out their own contracts, as occasionally happens in real life, so the lack of a transfer agreement has a stronger effect in the game. The self-buyout is something we want to do, but have to be careful about how it's implemented because it'd be easy to completely neuter the difficulties of signing players out of the KHL if it's too widespread.

Second: The biggest factor in whether or not a player decides to switch continents is his hidden Adaptability rating. That'll show up in scouting reports in the personality section as a reference to adapting to new surroundings, thriving on change, being comfortable in new situations, etc. If he's seriously deficient there, that's a warning sign that there may be signing problems. As a secondary thing to check, comments about strong loyalty to his team may also be an indicator that he's going to be tougher to pry loose. And, as Adam mentioned, if they came over to play in the CHL leagues that's pretty much a big flashing neon sign that they're North America-friendly.

That doesn't rule out the possibility that there may be too many guys getting generated in later years with low Adaptability and/or very good players getting a very low Adaptability; I'll do some investigating into that to see if something needs to be adjusted.

Finally, the question of the number of non-North Americans in the draft: once the junior-age rosters are populated entirely by game-generated players, there are inevitably going to be a lot more draft-eligible European players than North American ones, simply because there are a lot more of the former generated to keep the European rosters filled. That doesn't mean the composition of the top end of the draft pool (i.e., the guys actually getting drafted) is mainly European - I've run enough tests into the 2030's to be sure that North Americans remain in the majority amongst the guys who are actually good enough to play in the NHL. There's just no reason to create vast numbers of low-skill Canadians and Americans to balance out the total numbers of draft-eligible players, since those guys will never get near a playable team and wind up retiring, like their real-life equivalents do, when their midget or Junior B careers end. But the lower UK leagues, for example, need domestic players for their rosters, so their countries produce players of a quality that Canada and the US never will - 95% of English players are created with skill/potential levels that are below the absolute minimum levels for Canadians. When those guys become draft-eligible, they'll be on the list with every other 18-year-old, but they're not going to get drafted. Secondarily, the more obscure leagues also tend to produce bigger scouting errors - those are weighted towards underestimating players, but given the numbers involved there are going to be a few guys creeping up into the top 200 or so when they don't belong there; that's up to scouting to correct (and the AI has been improving at that, the number of draftees from non-major hockey countries, particularly towards the beginning of the draft, has been declining in recent updates.)

[ike121212]

Retracted, Jeff posted faster.

[josephyw]

Thank you for your thorough reply, Jeff. What you say makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate you giving us an overview of the mechanic. I will pay a lot more attention to the that element of the scouting reports from now on.

I can say that in our league, the ratio of draftable prospects still seems proportional to the ratio of prospects, and North American skaters seem to have the same sort of skill distribution of the rest of the world. I believe the last I looked, only 3 out of the top 11 prospects were North American, for example. I'll take a more thorough look when I can, though.

[josephyw]

Okay, for comparison, I tried counting the 2025 draft prospects in my current league to compare Canada and the Czech Republic (because they are in the beginning when sorting by nationality and each represent a North American and European country). These are taken at current scouting levels, which are mostly As with a handful of Bs, Cs, and Es. I also have a smidge of a rounding error in there, but please bear with me because it's the best I could do.

39 Canadians

5* - 1 (2.5%)
4.5* - 1 (2.5%)
4* - 2 (5%)
3.5* - 11 (28%)
3 * - 10 (26%)
2.5 * - 12 (31%)
2* - 2 (5%)

62 Czechs

5.5* - 1 (2%)
5* - 1 (2%)
4.5* - 2 (3%)
4* - 8 (13%)
3.5* - 20 (32%)
3* - 11 (18%)
2.5* - 16 (26%)
2* - 2 (3%)
1.5* - 1 (2%)

Okay, if we grant that 3.5* is the minimum to be a good NHL player in this game, ~52% of all Czech players are worth drafting based on potential.

By contrast, only 38% of Canadians are worth drafting.

That also means the average rating of Czech players is 3.23, whereas the average rating of Canadian players is 3.08.

Sorted by potential (all A ratings), only 8 out of the top 30 prospects are North American. In last year's IRL NHL draft, 19 out of the top 32 picks were North American.

I just wanted to compare our experience to the results you're getting. Is there some reason these results might be skewed when compared to your sim that we can try to correct?

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Thanks for the report. I have a sim in 2032 and will take a look at the draft over the weekend.

Originally Posted by josephyw

Okay, for comparison, I tried counting the 2025 draft prospects in my current league to compare Canada and the Czech Republic (because they are in the beginning when sorting by nationality and each represent a North American and European country). These are taken at current scouting levels, which are mostly As with a handful of Bs, Cs, and Es. I also have a smidge of a rounding error in there, but please bear with me because it's the best I could do.

39 Canadians

5* - 1 (2.5%)
4.5* - 1 (2.5%)
4* - 2 (5%)
3.5* - 11 (28%)
3 * - 10 (26%)
2.5 * - 12 (31%)
2* - 2 (5%)

62 Czechs

5.5* - 1 (2%)
5* - 1 (2%)
4.5* - 2 (3%)
4* - 8 (13%)
3.5* - 20 (32%)
3* - 11 (18%)
2.5* - 16 (26%)
2* - 2 (3%)
1.5* - 1 (2%)

Okay, if we grant that 3.5* is the minimum to be a good NHL player in this game, ~52% of all Czech players are worth drafting based on potential.

By contrast, only 38% of Canadians are worth drafting.

That also means the average rating of Czech players is 3.23, whereas the average rating of Canadian players is 3.08.

Sorted by potential (all A ratings), only 8 out of the top 30 prospects are North American. In last year's IRL NHL draft, 19 out of the top 32 picks were North American.

I just wanted to compare our experience to the results you're getting. Is there some reason these results might be skewed when compared to your sim that we can try to correct?

[ike121212]

Any hope for a small update for some of these? Like I said earlier, these add up into something that's very hard to play with. When the draft gets Euro heavy, the signing issues grow and we get too many top prospects from third tier leagues (who go un-scouted by the AI). The Q still doesn't get scouted. Some years are definitely better than others, but the bad one's are extremely frustrating to play through. Even if I can overcome some of these by playing differently, I know the AI isn't.

[josephyw]

An initial view of the 2025/2026 prospect pool. Seven of the ten initially highest-graded prospects are Russians.

[ike121212]

Originally Posted by josephyw

An initial view of the 2025/2026 prospect pool. Seven of the ten initially highest-graded prospects are Russians.

and they are all un-scouted (E's). Frustrates me that they are fine leaving it like this. The issues this screen shows are the reason I don't play.

[josephyw]

Originally Posted by ike121212

and they are all un-scouted (E's). Frustrates me that they are fine leaving it like this. The issues this screen shows are the reason I don't play.

They're just E because it's early July. The top of the draft is now manually scouted as A-rated for me but not too different in terms of composition. I'll upload a fresh screen shot soon.

Still enjoying the hell out of this game nonetheless.

[Adam B]

Originally Posted by ike121212

and they are all un-scouted (E's). Frustrates me that they are fine leaving it like this. The issues this screen shows are the reason I don't play.

For the last time:

We never said we were leaving it like this, if we can find a good reason it's happening, we may put a hotfix out. But this is, and I can't believe I have to say this again, not happening in everyone's game. Finding problems that aren't occuring everywhere is often like looking for a needle in a haystack. Just because someone says it there doesn't mean you can find it.


It'll be interesting to see where the Top 10 is when they are all As. Potential is great, but does not necessarily make a player either.

[ike121212]

Originally Posted by josephyw

They're just E because it's early July. The top of the draft is now manually scouted as A-rated for me but not too different in terms of composition. I'll upload a fresh screen shot soon.

Still enjoying the hell out of this game nonetheless.

Oops, guess I jumped the gun there. It looked like the start of the draft at first glance.

Adam, I hit these issues in every out of the box NHL league that I've simmed since the game was released, and I try a new one with each patch. Do people really not hit these, or do they just not sim too far into the future? I hope that you do another patch, but Jeff flat out told us that barring any unforeseen serious problems, this was the last update. With the playoffs starting, I'd love to start a new league. If not, OOTP 17 is great.

[josephyw]

Here are the top 50 draft prospects, as sorted by potential. Enjoy.

[josephyw]

I've counted five times and keep missing one, but the breakdown so far is something like this...

Russia: 22
USA: 10
Czech Republic: 5
Sweden: 4
Canada: 3
Germany: 2
Ukraine: 2
Finland: 1