Subject: USA U-18 Team

Oh my goodness. . . I had a moment of panic when I saw the score from today's friendly. I didn't realize we were playing the Swedish Senior NT instead of their U18.

Deep breaths, Cameron, deep breaths.

All of my challenges for today were rejected and no other u18 teams had a slot open, so I accepted a challenge from Sweden. All other games will be against u18 teams.

I understand, I just didn't notice that it was a senior team. I thought they were either unbelievably good, or we were unbelievably bad.

I need sleep.

The United States remained undefeated against U18 last Saturday by beating Austria 3-1. The team's trademark penalty kill survived 4 penalties while it's trademark power play failed to score on three chances. Three different lines contributed to the score while the enigmatic starting goaltender Willman was solid and rewarded the coaches faith in him. The United States also won the battle of the tactics.

Next weekend, the United States will play Bosnia and Herzegovina in a rematch from last year's World Championships.

I can't say whether everyone has been playing the squads that they will play during the World Championships, but there seems to be a lot of parity compared to Division II. Everyone seems to be a comparable contender at this point. If forced to choose a favorite in the 6 team division, I might choose Brazil.

For goaltending, Argentina is leading at 108, slightly ahead of Bulgaria and Brail. The United States is fifth, ahead of Italy, though the United States has a very good chance of catching up to the leaders in this category.

For Defense, everyone is around 130 so far or so except for Argentina (who probably will also be comparable when they have their full team).

Italy, Brazil, and Lithuania lead for offense. USA is fifth, ahead of Argentina.

For shooting, everyone is around 100, except for Brazil at 110.

Overall, Brazil has the highest total at 118, followed by Italy, Lithuania, and Bulgaria, then the United States, and finally, Argentina.

With that said, the United States could easily catch up if its goaltending improves as expected.

Overall, as I believe I've said before, the team seems less talented than last year and closer to the team from two years ago. All 4 lines are solid, but there are no real all stars, except for perhaps the first line defense (and perhaps eventually the starting goaltender - a top goaltender would make a huge difference). My goal with this year's team is to stay in division I. Next year's team will be much better, starting with Louie Lance, and be a contender to promote (or with luck, compete in the top division with the elite countries for a possible title).

Romania and Portugal from group 2 look like they will compete for the title in division 2.

Unfortunately, the United States lost to Bosnia and Herzegovina yesterday, 0-1. The United States actually outshot them 32-22 but couldn't find the back of the net. All special teams were nullified in 10 combined power plays. Bosnia didn't really have great goaltending but managed to get lucky. The United States played without a few starters. There was not really much that could have been done other than playing with the starters and improving shooting, which isn't really possible based on the pool of prospects avaialble.

Next week, the United States will play a talented top division German team. It will be a challenging match, but hopefully the United States can steal the win.

The World Championships are in 3 weeks. It would be very helpful if anyone with a player on and called up for the U18 United States National Team could send their players to training camp before then (if possible without adversely affecting their teams). It's not as important for the players who are currently on the bench though (basically the 16 and 17 year olds other than Lance and Austin). Thank you to everyone who has sent their players to camp.

United States lost another disappointing game to Italy today. Shots were even, and the teams were evenly matched, but luck was just not with the United States yesterday.

It is encouraging that all of the players that were question marks to begin the season have improved to begin strong players for the United States. Next week the United States faces a talented Slovenian team. The following week they face Romania. The first match of the World Championships will be a rematch against Italy.

Overall, the United States has average goaltending for its division (but could still improve relatively fast and catch up to Brazill). Only Argentina has a significant advantage (which is offset by a relatively weak defense). The United States has just a good a defense as any other team in the division; the same goes for offense, though Brazil has a slight advantage. Shooting is also average, with a slight advantage going to Argentina and Brazil. Overall, Brazill looks like the favorite, and Bulgaria looks like the weakest team, with the United States, Italy, Lithuania, and Argentina all about even (though I can't say whether all of the teams are playing their best players right now). Bulgaria almost definitely was resting some players. It should be noted that Bulgaria and Italy were also only playing with three lines recently. In terms of the top 2 lines, now team really has too much of an advantage, though the United States has a slightly weaker top offensive line.

Hopefully the United States can put everything together for the World Championships!

The World Championships start in 8 days. It would be very helpful if anyone who has not yet run a camp could run one as soon as possible (at least, as long as you can do so without causing problems for your team).

The World Championships start today with a game against Italy. The puck drops at 2:00 p.m. ET. In the other games, Lithuania will play Argentina and Bulgaria will play Brazil.

Overall, the teams seem evenly matched at this point. Brazil has particularly good goaltending while Argentina has a very good offense. Anyone could win or lose in this group.

Unfortunately, the first line RW somehow got a concussion during practice and will be out for the entire tournament. The 2nd line RW and 3rd line LW will be able to take over without too much of a drop off, at least on the top 2 lines, but it is still rather inconvenient.

For some better news, starting goaltender Willman, who started the season with a lot of potential but in very poor physical condition, has in the end managed to reach his peak condition just in time for the World Championships. He should provide solid goaltending for the United States.

How do you become the assistant of a team again?

They seem evenly matched. You're right. Anyone can win this. I was also wondering how in the heck you get a concussion at practice. I was considering a good idea for you to move the RW from line2 up to line 1, using a stratch, (or im willing to give up my first line RW) for RW line 2

Unfortunately, Italy managed to win the first game of the World Championships 6-4. I had tried to play offense for the last few games to trick the Italians into using defense for this game, but the gambit seems to have failed.

Italy opened with a 2-0 lead in the first. The United States managed to tie the game in the second. Early in the third, the United States lost and then retook the lead, only to give up 2 goals in the last 5 minutes followed by the EN. Shots and faceoffs were pretty much even. The United States managed to keep the penalties down but failed on the PK. The powerplay was effective at 50%. The United States controlled the ice through the last 2 periods.

In the other games in the group, Lithuania beat Argentina 6-3 and Brazil beat Bulgaria 5-2. The teams still look fairly even, with Argentina and perhaps Brazil as the favorites.

The United States will play an important game against Lithuania tomorrow at 2:00. They play another important game against Bulgaria on Monday.

sorry to hear that U18 lost but i am confident you will turn it around

Thanks - hopefully the U18 team can beat Lithuania today, especially since this will be one of the more winnable games. Losing a first line player on an already mediocre team doesn't help.

If anyone could spare space on their scouting queues, I would appreciate help with scouting. I will have all of the interesting 17 year olds from the United States and all of the interesting 16 year olds from I.1 scouted, but I could use some help for the lower divisions (and for 15 year olds if I run out of 16 year olds).

In addition, I am working on developing a better formula for projecting the improvement of players over the course of a season. While it has generally been easy to recognize the players that will be the best (mostly due to the relative lack of depth in the United States), this will help a lot. I have already made progress on the effect of CL (I just need more data to confirm the multipliers). I have data that I can use to look into facilities/staff in general, but I need to know whether the players I am using went to camp, and if so, how much extra OR they gained during camp since this is a source of error in the OR growth I have recorded. I can sort of tell which players went to camp, at least on teams with a lot of players on the list, but it would help if even a few people could give me this information. I will make a list of the players I am looking at in a separate post.

If anyone else wants to try to calculate the CL multiplier, I am just using canucks357's formula, substituting 1 day for dt, the daily increase in OR for dOR, and the scouted quality of the attribute that was improved (with a weight of 1) for EQ to solve for TR. I am then taking the averages of the subgroups of CL to come up with an average TR for each CL group (I am also trying to find it for the subgroups of each CL group). I am then comparing the averages to the average of the 6/6 group as a reference. Each day can be used as a separate data set to come up with an average TR for each player. For your own team, the effect of facilities will be constant and the effect of staff OR growth negligible in the short run, allowing you to isolate the effect of CL (after averaging away the random fluctuations which seem to be as large as 10% of the average TR in most cases).