Asunto: U18 Canada National Team

Thats essentially my Demarion Kidd right there (slightly different distribution, but all things considered very similar):
Off 910 92
Sho 510 63
Pas 458 81
Tec 455 85

Never was NT caliber (mostly cuz I didn't have full facilities when I pulled him), but he's 2/6 CL at 30 and has been playing 4th line long enough to have 133 exp. He also has 129 in aggressivity, and he has 233 points (92 G, 141 A) on 330 regular season games, with a +180 and 54 PIM. ON A 4th LINE!

He's only 150 OR behind Chad Ducharme, an A+ draft pick with 99/99/99/92 as his main qualities with 1 season more on him.

Also, Harry Menard had pretty similar stats and was a staple on U18 and U20 despite his low shooting skill.
Off 676 91
Sho 395 59
Pas 345 97
Tec 349 99

Shooting is an attribute that you NEED to have on a team, but it does not have to be every single player. Plus, wingers tend to get more shots on goal, anyway.

Lemme go put this guy on my scouting list, haha

I was thinking about that, but idk, I still feel like everyone needs a little bit of shooting still, no? If I leave him with his 44 shot, that's not even passable...

Idk.. maybe he creates so much on offense to other his other skills that he could still be a good player this way?

I would appreciate more experienced GMs opinions on the best way to develop him (only big 3 or struggling through with at least a little bit of shooting).

He can be your Joe Thornton, where the only way he scores is by accidentally passing it into the net.

I'd say still work on shooting a bit, but don't spend any more time than you would if his quality was 85+ (so he'll end up with maybe a bit less shooting than his secondary attributes). That way you're not ruining his growth, but he's still passable in that regard.

Thanks for the advice. I will try to mold him into an interesting player. If his CL holds up, he may become something good.

Now, as for the U18 team this season. I finally had some time to look into it more in depth and set the lineup I ideally want to use and... it's weak.

Weakest team since I took over. It's nobody's fault of course. The game gave us all a lot of good centers. We have quite good goalies too and decent LDs, but we are a bit weak on RD and EXTREMELY weak on LW. It's crazy. Our 2nd LWer wouldn't play if he was a center and our 3rd and 4th LWers are 17 years old players. The 4th LW is so weak I am considering putting a RWer on his off-side rather than playing that guy... thing is, even on the RW it's not very strong... we will see. I will try a few experiments during the season.

So, no worries. We may still have a good season ahead, especially if the game decides to like a few of our players, but it's good to know what we work with. And this year is definitely a down year (last season was extremely strong). And the next one looks pretty decent so far.

we're missing wingers because some guy is hoarding the good prospects we have, and only training their offense >_<' anthony manderson has really good qualities, but he's been trained 5-2-1-1 Same with Antoine Heart (17yo)

Must be some sort of experiment to prove that the accepted training ratios are in error! I'm not sure how we find out. He doesn't seem to be active on any forum, and my experience is that he doesn't respond to emails.

Yeah, I've tried mailing him in french once or twice and I don't think I ever heard back. I guess I can try again.

The thing that really gets me is that he just keeps posting his candidacy as NT Manager, but never interacts with other managers or responds to anything. How are we supposed to trust him? He hasn't exactly been super successful, either. Made it to I.1 a few times, yet never managed to stay for more than 1 season.

And I have had players with literally no shooting before (on my team and the NT). It wasn't very successful. It was one of the U20's biggest flaw when I took over, actually - we never played badly, but couldn't score to save our lives.

I have written to him in the past and gotten an answer. Specifically in the case of Cameron King who I wanted to use as my first goalie, but was badly developed. I wanted to make sure he would use the season to straighten his development, which he did so it turned out fine and King played good for us last season.

However, Manderson is beyond repair for this coming season. If he was to fix him, I may still be able to use him, but it is a very flawed build at this point.

Using a center on wings.. anyone ever tried that for long enough that you have a good idea of the results?

Would it make a playmaking winger or would he just suck because he lacks aggressiveness?

I am mostly wondering because of the state of wings on the NT.

I'm sure I must have done it sometime during friendlies over the last three years. I'll give a shot at finding a case or two to see if I can identify the effects.

Go to season 32 (last season) of the senior national team. In the first four friendly games, Belarus,Latvia, Argentina, and Romania, Quentin Larose (centre) played RW on the first line. I believe it only affects the line's offensive numbers (down to about 75%), but you should judge for yourself. In the fifth game, he plays as a centre. If you decide to go that route, I would try it on the fourth line so you can drop to three lines if it is a problem.

Just ran a super quick analysis using my own players and the instant matches. On the 4th line RW I had an actual RW player then a C with similar OR and attribute distribution, bit lower exp (but on his wrong side).

The offense on that line went from 356 to 291.

Having him play on the left but replacing a slightly higher OR/exp player (and putting back the original RW of that line), then offense dropped further to 286 (I would've expected more given the skill difference).

So we're looking at somewhere between 80-85% efficiency, given the player plays on his good side.

In continuation to my previous comment, if you go off my spreadsheet, Mathew Dresser (U) and Kurt mcFarlane (R) both have a higher rating as wingers than anyone but the top 2 wingers on the U18 presently. Probably because they have decent shooting and above 60 aggr. In fact, Dresser's aggr quality if 75, you may be able to convince boba fett to train it. A little.

Alexander MacKinnon is also above 60 aggr and within the top 6.

In favor of a deeper analysis, I went and subbed my center with 125 aggr but lower shooting for a similar winger on a top line this time (higher OR & secondary attribute discrepancy).

Before sub offense: 453
After sub: 373

so for 125 vs 435 aggr, we're getting a drop to around 82% efficiency (~30% of attribute)

Funnily enough, the winger I replaced has 130 in defense (vs 35). My defense rating did not move.

Let's now try a higher shooting but less aggressive center on the left instead!

Shooting rating is up, but offense has dropped further down to 350 (this is a center with 60 aggr, too.)

So for 60 to 435 (14%), now we're looking at about 77% efficiency. a drop of 5% per 15% of the ratio.

Meaning at under 18, where wingers have approx. 150 right now in aggr., 60/150 = 40%, you'd be looking at ~85% efficiency at the start of season, slowly dropping as it goes on unless managers train these specific player's aggr a little over the course of the season.

As managers start putting in their bid for next season, I feel the time is appropriate to mention I will not run for a 5th mandate. I hope to get the best possible results this season, even though it's a weaker season than usual, but I will leave the spot open for another manager eager to learn the ropes and manage the team.

I only hope that the next manager be someone with good experience in PPM and that he is smart enough to surround him/herself with managers with international experience (Krokador/PaulRoedb/BobbyJay being the most solid choices at this point).

Big thanks to all for supporting me. Maybe I will try again someday for our NTs. Time has not been available for the NT much lately and I don't want to half-ass the job. We can find someone who will full-ass it.