21-22 Status Thread

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

Starting this one a little earlier this year given the upcoming expansion draft and the compressed short season (based on NHL regular season late start/finish)

I won't be making any changes until the offseason but one thing I am going to address is penalties called in the playoffs and late in the game/OT.

Currently the simulation is programmed for the referees to call a game exactly the same in the first period as in OT. We all know that this is not the case in the NHL as officials are more reluctant to make a call that may decide a game late in the tilt.

Because each penalty that could be called has an "egregiousness factor" the foundation already exists to call the only very flagrant ones.

[Jedediah-Hartford]

I thought I posted something here a week or so ago but must have forgotten to click on the button, so take 2...

Has there been any discussion regarding the fortitude ratings for next season? A lot of fringe/young players who would otherwise be racking up higher counts of games played split between AHL and NHL action are going to come out looking like they've missed a lot due to this season's ability to stash players on taxi squads. Is there any way to implement some sort of curve to adjust for this, or should we just prepare for a higher amount of injury-prone players for a season?

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

All will be based on a 56 game regular season as opposed to 82. This means that games played will be multiplied by 1.464 to determine how many they potentially would have played if the full game amounts were played. This will impact stamina primarily (chances to get hurt). As Fortitude is based on minutes played per game, this shouldn't impact skaters Fort at all.

[Scott-New York]

Wouldn't fortitude be impacted primarily (chances of a player getting hurt)? Stamina is based on minutes played per game...

There are many players who will be left out, so to speak, because their teams had then on taxi squad most of the year and they did not have an opportunity to play in the AHL. I know I have a few such players in my team but since AHL cards are useless (at least a roster players for us) I'm not sure that dynamic would have much of an impact on card values overall as pretty much to a man, the taxi squad guys wouldn't have been playing regular NHL minutes. They would have all been AHL players with minimal GHL card value.

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

Correct Scotty, I had flip flopped these in my original answer. Bottom line is 56 games will be this years 82 games so the cards will not be impacted.

[Jedediah-Hartford]

May 9, 2021 19:49:30 GMT -5 Scott-New York said:

Wouldn't fortitude be impacted primarily (chances of a player getting hurt)? Stamina is based on minutes played per game...

There are many players who will be left out, so to speak, because their teams had then on taxi squad most of the year and they did not have an opportunity to play in the AHL. I know I have a few such players in my team but since AHL cards are useless (at least a roster players for us) I'm not sure that dynamic would have much of an impact on card values overall as pretty much to a man, the taxi squad guys wouldn't have been playing regular NHL minutes. They would have all been AHL players with minimal GHL card value.

I can provide an example from last season of a player on my roster who split time between levels and their fortitude reflected the total played, not just one league or the other.  Logan Brown played 25 AHL games and 23 NHL games during the 2019-20 season and still had a usable depth card for the 2020-21 GHL season, with a 7 fortitude, while other players with similar NHL games played and no AHL games played had lower fortitude ratings (Jonathan Drouin, for example).  It does seem like, whichever way the other attributes fall, the total games played between levels contributed to the fortitude rating (as I think should be the case).

I'll argue that the players on the taxi squad are affected, as they get some NHL games in but not the AHL games they would normally get in between call-ups, games that would help fill out their fortitude.  A number of young players on my roster have either gotten call-ups, or have competed for ice time throughout the season and not gotten sent down at nearly the usual rate due to the ability for NHL teams to keep a larger amount of players on hand for emergencies via the taxi squad, particularly teams with logjams at certain positions.  Additionally, AHL schedules are all over the place since play is mostly limited to intra-division play for a league using 5 divisions for this season.  Some teams scheduled as many as 44 games, some as few as 24.  This makes keeping fringe NHL players (whether has beens or prospects getting their feet wet in the NHL) on the taxi squad a more preferable option.

Below are a few examples from my own roster of players who, in a normal season, would at least be getting a few more AHL reps, and thereby would be bolstering their fortitude prospects.

William Lagesson (EDM) - 19 NHL games played this season to date (27.816 adjusted); 0 AHL games; only 10 games missed due to IR status.  (his situation made even tougher by the required quarantines that made call-ups rarer for Canadian NHL clubs with American-based AHL affiliates, like the Oilers)

Niko Mikkola (STL) - 28 NHL games played this season (40.992 adjusted); 0 AHL games; 0 games missed due to IR status

Jeremy Davies (NAS) - Played the first 9 games of the AHL season (for a team that only scheduled 30); called up; played 15 NHL games (21.96 adjusted); Nashville acquires defensive depth at the trade deadline, and Davies has been stuck in taxi squad purgatory ever since; 0 games missed due to IR status.

Now I'm not arguing any of these guys should be getting star-quality cards, so let's nip any assumptions to the contrary in the bud right now. What I do believe is that some players like these might be usable as depth players, and might get stuck with a shaky fortitude because of circumstances other than injuries that affected their games played tally.  All the players I listed above are defenseman so I'm talking about being able to fill in on a 3rd pairing from time to time.  For instance, Mikkola's games played comes out to basically half a season, but he hasn't been hurt, he's just still developing and hasn't earned a full-time place in the lineup.  So while his card for should reflect his level of play and performance from this season, I don't think it merits a 5 fortitude.  I'll say that for Mikkola to get stuck with a low fortitude would be getting penalized twice for the same thing (in this case, being penalized for not being good enough to play 82 games by having card ratings generated by that performance; AND getting penalized with a low fortitude).

I've mentioned in the past my theory that player fortitude gets unintentionally skewed due to what appears to be the treatment of all missed games as being health or injury-related, when the truth is not that simple.  I'm bringing this up again because I think that skew could possibly be exacerbated by this NHL season's use of the taxi squad.

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

Jed,

Because games lost due to injury is not a stat that is readily available, we only utilize that to determine the durability of goalies. This is done by someone (usually Scotty-NY) going through all of the NHL goalies and determining how many game were missed because if injury/illness.

In your examples above, the guys who did play some games in the AHL with have their games prorated just like the NHL GP will be (although the factor will probably be more like 2.5 times) when they are added to the total gamed played to determine fortitude.

I take a pragmatic approach in determining how big of an impact taxi squads are. Because it impacts the fringe NHL players almost exclusively, I can't see putting in a lot of additional coding or research to fine tune these guys.

The cards will be out before you know it. Once released. then we can look to see what impacts there are and if they warrant any corrective measures.

[Jedediah-Hartford]

I figured there wouldn't be a lot that could be done, especially for something that will only likely be a one-year effect (assuming the NHL doesn't keep taxi squads around in future seasons), but if nothing else it was worth mentioning for owner awareness ahead of card release season. But if nothing else it helped fill in the day between Games 6 and 7 of the Johnstown/Seattle series.

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

May 11, 2021 10:07:08 GMT -5 Jedediah-Hartford said:

I figured there wouldn't be a lot that could be done, especially for something that will only likely be a one-year effect (assuming the NHL doesn't keep taxi squads around in future seasons), but if nothing else it was worth mentioning for owner awareness ahead of card release season. But if nothing else it helped fill in the day between Games 6 and 7 of the Johnstown/Seattle series.

Agreed Jed. If we see a major issue once the cards are generated we will revisit to see if there is something that can be done.

On another note, I heard that Hockey Night in Canada might be broadcasting tonight's and the upcoming GHL playoff games...

[Jedediah-Hartford]

A rumor worthy of your 11,000th post!

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

Goodness gracious. I would have never have guessed that I would have made so many. Make that 11,001.

[Phil-Cornwall]

Hours of our lives, ne'er to return...

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

Now that the NHL regular season is finally over (as of last night), card generation has commenced. I spent my lunch time today starting to grab the NHL stats and will continue my work on the cards in earnest over the next week or so.

I have a request in with Justin to grab the AHL stats for us but I have started work on the NHLers.

[Jedediah-Hartford]

CARDS!!!!!!!!!

[Phil-Cornwall]