PowerPlay Magazin

As I approached the Biznows dressing room I noticed a foul smell in the air.  Turning to enter the room, I stopped to read a spray painted message on the door. "DON'T OPEN - DEAD INSIDE" it warned.  I hesitated, wondering what I'd find inside the dressing room, but slowly, cautiously, pushed open the door.  As the door cracked open the stench of rotting flesh escaped like it was Frank Morris and the dressing room was Alcatraz.  Thats when I saw it, my entire first line savagely feeding on my starting goalie Trevor Duberry in the middle of the room.  Worse yet, they were standing on the team logo, not cool bros, that's against the code, never stand on the logo. I began screaming at a pitch reminiscent of that heard in Ned Flanders squeel from the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror. Duberry sat up, his eyes now a strange shade of green and yellow. He had been turned into one of them.  How did this happen?  Trevor Duberry, once a cornerstone piece of my franchise, one of my good "young" players, now one of the skating dead.  The first line had turned seasons ago, but now as I watched the horror unfolding before me, I realized almost all of them had turned, my whole starting lineup. Hearing a wimper from inside the trainers room, I bolted through the maze of corpses and kicked open the door.  Inside I found my prospects, shaking and crying, being comforted by my staff. I gathered them all together and we ran for the dressing room exit. After barely making it out alive I came to a realization, having experience is always nice, but not when they get so old they turn into flesh eating zombies.  Clearly, it's time to rebuild.

First, it's important to point out that not every team will be built so as to require rebuilding.  Some managers have successfully built their teams with a steady flow of good young talent creeping into their lineup each season, avoiding having to make such a bold correction as a full scale rebuild.  However, there are a good portion of us who have required a highly experienced lineup for certain situations like post-season play that are now looking at rosters that just can't keep up in terms of training.  There are many ways to go about rebuilding, or retooling your team, and i'm going to talk about a couple of them here. 

There are some managers who will go for a big youth movement.  It's a fairly straight-forward style of rebuilding where you inject a LARGE number of youth into your lineup, potentially a whole roster of young prospects (ages 15-18).  This method will get your prospects some much needed experience.  One thing to remember, this will cost you in the standings and overall team rating, which are key factors in your sponsorship negotiations.  This can be an effective method if your rebuilding process involves not only your roster, but also if your infrastructure needs improving. You can significantly reduce salaries, and even trim unneeded staff giving you an opportunity to save up some money that can be put towards construction.  You can make your best financial gains in the first season of your rebuild this way, while your sponsorship money is still a little higher from your old rosters success and before your OTR drops.  I think it's important that if this is the route you choose, you should start it right from the start of the next season.  Finish out your last season with your old roster, so as not to anger your sponsors, then start fresh the following season so you can make as much money as possible.

If you want to rebuild your team while still remaining somewhat competitive, you're going to have to take things a bit slower.  Start picking out guys off your roster with the worst career longevity and replacing them with slightly older prospects (aged 18-22), which you may have to obtain off the market if you don't have any homegrown talent that fits the bill.  These 18-22 year olds can step in immediately, and if raised correctly will have a little bit of experience under their belt.  If you can manage to add 3-4 of these players each season, you can start to establish a flow of outbound players that is manageable, eventually hoping to achieve the Detroit Redwings model of never having to full-scale rebuild.

The method I will be taking to rebuild my team is a bit of a hybrid of the first two styles.  I want to create a core of players with a bit of experience that will help keep my team semi-competitive while I try to get some of the really young guys in for some experience.  There's a good chance I will relegate, but will hopefully be able to win more games in the lower division to try to keep my OTR afloat.  I'm starting the rebuild by replacing core players from the net out.  I've added two 22 yr old goalies, and will now try to add older D prospects so there is one 18-22 yr old paired with one of the old guys.  As the younger D approach 100% chemistry, I will then replace the old guys with some young prospects (15-18).  Finally, the forwards will be addressed.  Starting with center, I'll follow a similar path as replacing the d-men, adding an 18-22 yr old center, with two older wingers until the centers chemistry catches up.  Finally replacing the wingers with 15-18 yr olds for one season while I try to finish off some construction.  Once all my infractucture is up to snuff, I can start looking to the market to replace any of the really young prospects who aren't quite ready, with some slightly more experienced players to try to climb back up the ranks.

Rebuilding is going to take time.  Plan far ahead,  a full youth movement is going to take longer than just retooling your team.  If I was going to go with all very young players, I'd probably make myself a plan that would allow me 5 seasons to achieve my goal.  I have set a goal of 3 seasons for my hybrid plan and even that may be slightly optimistic.  Don't be discouraged if you lose some games, use your energy wisely, and make the most of the extra money you'll have floating around.  While the ultimate goal for every manager should be to eventually reach the promised land of no rebuilds, sometimes they're unavoidable. Whether through neglect, or the need for experience a lot of us will end up with aged players.   Just don't let them get to the zombie stage like I have.  Once they turn, they're no longer the players they once were, and sometimes you just have to take them out back and put them out of their misery.

Happy Halloween everyone!