Subject: USA U-18 Team

пусть так и будет

The United States lost to Serbia 4-1 today in the finals. We will promote to the top division even with this loss. It's an unfortunate loss, but I'm not sure I could have done much different. Shots were about even. The United States had 2 penalties to Serbia's 5 penalties but gave up the only powerplay goal. The United States controlled the puck and won on tactics in the first. Serbia had a goaltender that the United States should have been able to score on. With that said, Serbia won 60% of the faceoffs. They moved their best offensive line away from a matchup with our top defensive line. The combination of low shooting and exhaustion made scoring difficult. The United States only scored more than 2 goals in 3 games (2 of which were the only other 2 games the United States lost). I was counting on Cuellar to continue his strong performance, but I realistically should have subbed in Meyers since Cuellar was tired to the point that Meyers would have been slightly stronger.

In any case, the United States will return to the top division next season. Due to having a lower ranking, it's likely that the United States will have strong opponents in its group, but I've dealt with that before. Next season's team looks like it will be relatively typical with a strong defense and top heavy offense. I'm a bit worried about goaltending though.

Great job man and good luck in top !

Thank you!

I have about 3 pages of my scouting history (~150 players) to add to my spreadsheet before I finalize the roster. I should have enough challenges sent out to schedule exhibitions for this season. I imagine I'll finalize the roster in 1-3 days. Most players currently on the team should stick around except for 1 or 2 players who got sold to teams with much weaker facilities. I'm a bit worried about goaltending for this season.

The roster, lineup, and schedule have been finalized. The team is a little weak with good defense and a lack of offensive depth. Goaltending could be a problem. Then 2nd and 3rd best goaltenders available were 17 year olds.

It's going to be difficult to stay in the top division with this roster. The group the United States was put into with France, Spain, and Switzerland isn't too bad. There's no crazy team like Slovakia or the Czech Republic to contend with. France will likely be the most difficult opponent (though France did win the Senior World Championships, won the U18 World Championships, and lost in the finals of the U20 World Championships last season). Spain is the team that the United States could most likely beat to avoid the relegation round. France is the first opponent and Spain is the final opponent of the preliminary round.

Please try to train shooting to 75% forwards, especially if you have a forward who is currently called up.

Elias Shorkey from the U20 NT is available to be purchased for 50m at the moment. On one hand he has world class OR, nearly perfect qualities, and a decent start on experience. On the other hand, he had already dropped to 4 CL as an 18 year old. He's likely to drop to 3 CL in 1-2 seasons at 21 or 22. It's not impossible he could develop into a useful senior NT caliber player, but it would be a bit risky to invest in him. Nevertheless, I'm bringing his status to the attention of anyone with good facilities in case they want to take that risk.

2 players from the U18 team are also on the market including the intended starting goaltender. If the goaltender goes to a bad team, I'll need to make one of the 17 year olds who are below 800 OR the starting goaltender for this season due to the lack of depth available.

I'm not happy with yesterday's game

You mean your I.1. league game?

The RNG can be troublesome at times. It looks like the biggest problem was faceoffs. Is center an area of weakness for you? It looks like the other team had some higher OR centers, in particular centers who might have been trained to be more focused on faceoffs. That still probably doesn't explain losing nearly 70% of your faceoffs.

How do you train to lose less face offs?

tec controls faceoff training

That's right - technique determines whether your center wins faceoofs.

I can't necessarily endorse deviating from 2:1:1 for more technique or sacrificing shooting for the primary and secondary attributes though since that's what I give preference to for national team selection. Team strength would be negatively affected. With low shooting (below 75%-80% of offense) forwards will have lower shooting percentages in addition to taking too many shots. You can't really train a player to be a playmaker in this game - the player will be better at playmaking and worse at shooting, but the player won't put more emphasis on setting up plays while avoiding shooting (it's the player's position that determines the player's behavior). The best way to be better at faceoffs is to simply have a higher OR/experience players.

Sorry that I haven't said anything about the World Championships yet. Since the team is a little weak this season in a very strong group, especially when it comes to goaltending, it was my intention to play the first 2 games on very low importance to try to sneak into the next round with a win in the third game. This is the same thing I did the season when I was playing a roster of 17 year olds and managed to avoid relegation in the top division. Going into the tournament, the U.S. was lagging behind France by 24 team strength, Switzerland by 14, and Spain by 4. By resting, the U.S. can catch up to the other teams by about 4-5 points per game. I didn't want the other teams to figure out what I was doing before the games. In addition to playing on very low importance, I started the backup (also next season's starter).

If the U.S. wins tomorrow against Spain, then the U.S. will be competitive against two of the teams from group 4 which will combine with group 1 (2 of Finland, Portugal, and Brazil) and have a decent chance to also sneak into the playoffs.