Subject: Questions & Answers

Play for the OTR

If they regroup the US leagues, you wouldn't be relegated in the first place. They'd simply eliminate inactive teams in Division III and replace them with active teams from IV and the lower leagues of III.

Possible.

RANT:
I'm sure this has been covered numerous times, but i'm bringing it back once more.
The all star selection and the season long all star team selection is totally broken. It's a joke.
I have nothing against any of the teams or managers in my league, most deserved what they got,BUT one stands out in particular that defies all logic.
Gintaras Kilas USA Logitechs 38 2285 2073 271 86.93 5 5

This is the season long all star goalie. I realize Logitechs is focused on building his team facilities and arena, which is going to benefit him greatly, and this season was nothing more than a building opportunity in which he did the right thing, used his money properly. Thumbs up!
This is one of the weakest teams in the division,and i know youre going to say his goalie got the selections because of his play against better teams. IMO, Thats all wrong. We have another team with a goalie with 15 star selections, and many others as deserving, yet one of the divisions weakest goalies wins? Basically he won because he has the weakest team,and horrible stats to match. How is that deserving of the season long all star goalie position? You're rewarding weaker players over talented ones.
The top 6-8 teams are good teams with a few that are exceptional, should they lose consideration because they're better? I thought being better was the point of an all star selection to begin with? This system is fubar.
Logistics, I mean no offense to you or your team.

Looks like he led the league in saves by a wide margin, that must be a significant part of the algorithm for all-star selection for goaltenders. But his goals against average was over 7, so strange selection.

True, but he faced more shots than likely everyone else. That being the case i'd expect more saves.And as you pointed out, avg of 7 goals given up per game. Mathematically I have one of the better goalies in the league,but a weak supporting team for the level i'm playing in,i faced less shots,gave up a fraction of the goals,even beat a couple of the top teams but only had 2 all star selections.I don't feel my goalie was deserving as he wasn't. I just don't understand the irrational all star selection, seems to be based more on shots against as opposed to overall performance.

Skep you should write a PPM article on the whole thing. Maybe even interview the two teams. Your a great writer and it would be an amazing article then at the end you could post the actual info from vlady

I'm glad I'm not the only one who dislikes the irrational all-star selection.

I understand why a lot of the equations in this game are secret. But I think the formulas used to select the all-stars should be public. Or even, a couple of options presented to the players of the game to vote on the equation that we think best represents an all-star by position.

In this case, I think somehow the absolute number of saves is somehow skewing the selection of the all-stars. I agree that saves is a component to consider (you wouldn't want a crappy goalie on a great team getting it because he turned away a few weak shots from game to game), but it should be rank-based instead of based on the absolute number of shots. But we should understand better why we see weird results in the all-start selections otherwise it is not a useful feature.

For me, something simple like take all goaltenders in the league who played at least 66% of available minutes, then rank them 1 to whatever (best to worst) in 1) goals against average, 2) save percentage, 3) total saves, 4) shutouts, and 5) stars earned. Then pick the player with the lowest average rank as the season all-star.

Ummm, not so sure about the great writer thing, but thanks. I just speak my mind, some like it, others may not. But I would like to know the factors involved in the decision making process,as would everyone else. I would never request state secrets, and lets face it, this game has many,and thats the intriguing aspect that keeps us all tweaking our rosters ,etc. I have read several great ideas that would be for a lack of a better term, more appropriate in terms of deciding the season long all stars. In no way am I discouraging the weaker players from receiving recognition for a great game, deserved is deserved. But giving up 7 goals per game on average IMO is not an all star player, atleast in the division i currently reside in.
So, if Vlady is reading this, I extend an offer to you for an open discussion or explanation.
I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel, rather simply understand the mechanics. Cheers!

I think you all are getting ahead of yourselves. To become the season long all-star selection, you must have the most selections to the game day all-star team. You are all considering what a player has done over the course of the season, but consider what the goalie has done in each game to earn the game day selection. That is the aspect that is flawed.

No, something definitely doesn't add up when looking at it on the surface. The goalie who is on the season-long team in my league (III.7) kind of makes sense. He's 9th in save percentage, but of the players who've played at least 1/3 of the games, he's 3rd in save percentage. He has the most shutouts in the league and has faced the second most shots. From there it gets a lot more puzzling. The center is 24th in points, 39th in goals, 17th in assists, and way off the board for +/-. He's not even on the board in PPG, SHG, shots, or shot %. In other words he's good, but there were plenty of better performers in the league (I alone have 2 centers who were better producers). The only thing I can figure is maybe he has a few GWG, which aren't visibly tracked.

On the bright side, the left and right wings make a bit more sense, having been 7th and 4th in total points respectively. How the absolute top players in their position in the league get overlooked though doesn't make sense. They produce more on a per game basis, which should equate to more single game all-star selections.

So your saying the season-long all-star team should not consider game day all-star team?

I would agree with that but I'd like the game day selections to have the players stats from that game and the season-long selections to have the stats from the season. Just showing the game's justifications for the selections.

It doesn't reflect game day performance for daily selection. It meters it by difficulty of the opposing team. My players were never selected if they put up 8 or 9 points in a game. A player from a team usually in somewhere between 8-16th place who didn't produce as many points at the time beat them out. If you want specific examples I can dig later and find them.

It's not just difficulty of opponent. I think popularity also plays a part. I once beat the mighty Irresistible Force 3-2 in OT. He was the top team by quite a bit, and I wasn't even in contention for a playoff spot. His team was probably twice as good as mine at the time. So they obviously had a ton more shots.

His goalie Buckley (best player in the US at the time) was not only the player of the game, but he was also the goalie of the day!

If a crap team beating the best team in the country doesn't matter, then there's something wrong. And it's such a minor thing in their eyes that it'll be a while before they get around to doing anything about it. So I stopped paying much attention to that garbage.