82 replies to this topic

[YzerFan19]

As mentioned in the roll call thread, we do have an opening this offseason. Notes about what will happen with the California Seals are in that thread.

Award voting is complete. Your Season Eighteen award winners are as follows:

Barry Moore Memorial Trophy: Dan Marvin (Hamilton Tigers)
Frank Nighbor Award: Daniel Sedin (Detroit Red Wings)
Jean Beliveau Award: Jonathan Toews (Hamilton Tigers)
Ray Bourque Trophy: Drew Doughty (Hamilton Tigers)
Terry Sawchuk Trophy: Ryan Miller (Detroit Red Wings)
Carl Voss Award: Joshua Bailey (Winnipeg Jets)

[YzerFan19]

I'm not fixing how the above post looks on the home page right now, that's part of a bigger issue.

[YzerFan19]

Alright, the deadline for current owners to declare interest in taking over the California Seals has passed. No one asked to take over the team, so now we're moving on to see if anyone wants to do a team swap with the Seals.

This will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis. Anyone who is interested in swapping so that their team will take on the California Seals name should contact me. If any team does make a swap, that team's name will then be made available. If no one wants to do a swap, we'll move on at noon on Monday. If swaps are made, the deadline will slide based on activity.

Keep in mind that no swaps will be effective immediately. So as to not interfere with draft order, all swaps will happen after the DFHL Entry Draft. Anything that gets sorted out now will be queued up to happen automatically at that time.

If there are any questions, feel free to ask.

Edit: And if anyone already has the CPHL ratings set, send it on to me. Probably faster than waiting to get it from the source.

Edit 2: Ratings acquired, re-rates to come early this week I think.

[YzerFan19]

Re-rates and roster cleaning have been completed. If you think I missed anyone, let me know.

One thing about roster cleaning is that every player's contract status and NHL games played was determined early evening yesterday. I'm going to make the cutoff noon on Wednesday, so if any players make their NHL debut between now and then, they'll be eligible for this DFHL season but I'll need to be notified to add them.

As always, let me know if there are any questions.

[YzerFan19]

Point of clarification on roster cleaning... If you want to send someone back to the property list, their games played as of Saturday is what counts. If you want to bring a rated player who got roster cleaned out of this season back in, you can use their games played as of this Wednesday. I'm just adding the time because I realized not every NHL team had played yet, I'm not even sure anyone is affected by it.

No requests for a swap with the California Seals came in so I'll be sending out an invite to the prospective GM at the top of our waiting list. Mathieu_Datsyuk132351 leapfrogged over detroitredwings00 due to sponsorship, so she gets the first shot at the team.

[YzerFan19]

We're back to a full set of GMs as Kristen / Mathieu_Datsyuk132351 has taken over the California Seals.

The next big thing up is the draft but I want to have a couple discussions first. I don't have time to put those posts together right now so we're just hanging out for a bit.

[YzerFan19]

Alright, I've been a bit more swamped than I expected lately, sorry about not posting any further updates sooner.

Next up is the DFHL Entry Draft. I know we typically hold this on a weekend but I think I'm leaning towards a weeknight this time around, given that we've gotten it down to two hours. Any thoughts on that.

Additionally, I'd like to hear thoughts on an issue the league has been having for awhile.

I like our rules for what defines activity in the DFHL. You're just required to respond when someone contacts you. No arbitrary rules for how often you have to make a line change or a trade or anything like that.

That said, it leads to certain cases where GMs can be classified as "active" while really not doing anything. If you're rebuilding, you can just sit on your team for ten seasons until your mistakes have passed and you've drafted a new lineup.

I'd like to hear the rest of the league's thoughts on how we can increase actual activity (forum discussion at the very least, maybe player movement) without imposing rules on how a GM runs his or her team. Any ideas?

[burke6687]

Weeknight draft sounds good to me, I believe with how quick it goes now, that I would prefer it. I don't think we should force GM's to be active while rebuilding. If we look at David he was taken to the cleaners in the first few months and set California back years. I don't see much incentive for a new GM to make any moves as the other GM's are just looking at taking his or her best prospects and not helping that team rebuild. To do a proper rebuild you have to do it through the draft, the only trades you could make are if you have desirable veterans another GM would want and send you prospects for that player. I say the new GM's should guard their prospects and be patient and let the team develop.

[Stormo]

My only concern is what an evening draft would do for the Habs as it would then be an overnight draft. Other than that I'm good. I'm thinking an 8pm EST draft time would have us done by 10pm.

In some ways you could say the league is only as good as its weakest team. That said I think any focus of increasing activity needs to centre around disbursement of talent and not forcing activity from building teams. These discussions always turn really defensive really quick. Since I am rebounding from my own errors, I realize that GMs at the top have learned from mistakes and worked hard to get where they are now. No one is disputing that. But the bloodbath is quite ridiculous.

I have some ideas of what I've seen in other leagues,but no time to lay it out right now. I'll try to get around to typing them out over the next couple of days.

[bstewart]

I am ok with the draft being at night. It might actually be better for me if it's during a weekday night.

Also not sure about forcing activity(ie.trades). We have some teams that the only thing they can really do is acquire as many picks and prospects as they can and wait it out. If they haven't made any deals in awhile that's ok as they are probably hoarding their prospects and don't have any veterans that the better teams would even think of acquiring.

However if you want to put something out there that everyone must sign in every x amount of days or make so many posts every x amount of days to make sure that all owners are active and engaged with the league that's fine with me.

[MapleLeafsGM]

If we're going to do the draft at night please make it Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Those are the nights I have off. I have limited internet at work. Thank you.

[shaker5585]

Since I work shift work as a vacation replacement I will have to let you know what is good for me when we actually set out some specific dates.

[JSIMMS]

I am good for a Monday or Thursday draft day.

[eaglesj]

A weeknight draft works for me too. I think it would be great and if we start around 8:00 pm est that would ensure it does not run too late in the late night.

I know as one of the teams on the bottom it is hard to do a lot of things. I don't have a lot of active roster players to move around and am forced to wait until some of my prospects turn into pros. (hopefully soon)

Balance and parity = activity in my experience. I think we should at ways of helping some of the bottom teams rebuild a little faster but without altering the upper teams rosters - as they have built and worked hard to establish a team.

I love this league and DO NOT want to see it change drastically change. Any change that we make should be done with the integrity of keeping this pool going in the right direction.

Ideas
Increasing Roster Sizes for bottom teams
Mid - season draft of non drafted players or prospects based on current standings


Just some thoughts.

[DFHL_Habs]

Stormo, on October 18, 2011 - 05:51 AM, said:

My only concern is what an evening draft would do for the Habs as it would then be an overnight draft. Other than that I'm good. I'm thinking an 8pm EST draft time would have us done by 10pm.

Thanks for thinking of me Stormo, appreciate it.

Since it'd be a bit silly to change a whole draft schedule that seems to fit most just for me I'd say: go on with it and I'll make sure my list is long enough. Due to my travel schedule these days (only home 1 or 2 days a week) I won't be available much anyway.

_j-

[mike7psu]

Don't really have to care about this years draft as I have no picks but in future seasons I am ok with weekday drafts.

As for activity, I am not sure where you want to take this. As a team that has gone from top to bottom and back to the top and back to the bottom, I am not sure activity has seemed like an issue for me. We have GMs that are crazy active and are near the bottom of the standings and GMs that it seems have no activity at all and are near the top. I just would like a way to increase parity and ways to bring our cronic bottomfeeders an easier trip to competitive. I am not sure a mandated trade activity is going to do that because that is how most have gotten to where they are. Maybe rules that would drive the hoarders of talent to move their players more often would help but not sure how we agree to get there.

[-Al-]

I'm fine with weekday drafts, just not on Wednesdays, as I have a 7-10 PM class on Wednesdays.

As for activity, personally my opinion on this is fairly neutral. As most have said, the best course of action for those of us at the bottom seems to be to build with youth by hoarding prospects and picks. Some will be fairly active, some will be less so. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to anything to help the bottom teams, but I'm not going to push for it either. I think it would help activity slightly if the bottom teams were more competitive, but I don't think it would make a huge difference.

[Pitts GM]

A week night draft is fine with me also, 8est should work too.

I think there should be a way to just watch the activity of GM's that sign in, I don't trade much and don't say much on the forums so that wouldn't be fair to mandate that kind of activity, just a thought.

[DiamondKings]

A weekday evening is a preferable time for the draft for myself.

As for creating more parity within the league, the quickest way, I think, is to have a one time waiver draft. Each team for example protects 20 skaters and 2 goalies, plus 10 farm/prospects that way your core team is maintained as well as some of the future. Have a snake draft until the maximum roster sizes are reached. This can be a lot of work to reward poor drafts and bad trades albeit most situations have been inherited.

Another way that could help parity and increase activity is to allow for free agent pickups at any time. It can use the same ranking as the waiver wire, a team picks someone up they then go to the bottom of the list. Restrictions such as, the player needs to have an NHL contract or have to be 25 years or older, undrafted players would still need to be aquired through the regular draft. By doing this there could be an increase in a GMs activity both in the real hockey world as well as in our simulated league. A rotating committee of 3 GMs would need to verify and approve the eligibilty of the free agent would also increase activity.

[Stormo]

Just running a couple ideas out here of ways to improve parity that I have seen in other leagues.

1) Salary Cap - cash is a great equalizer...I know Yzerfan has said in the past he is not interested in a cap, but it's hard to deny it would level the playing as I would love to see some of our team's payrolls if you transferred over their NHL salaries. Would make the Yankees/Royals discrepancy look like chump change.

2) Limit on OV rating of players on the farm - Another league I'm in says no skater can be over 75 and no goalie over 77 for the farm team. Keeps the best players in the big leagues and on the ice. - Point to clarify - Currently in the DFHL you could scratch your entire farm roster and thereby comply with this rule. Rule would have to include a maximum of say 5 scratches.


Here are a few ideas of my own.

1) Waiver drafts - Have been discussed before, but having to expose x players every season ups the ante a little.

2) Free Agent draft - just because we do not have salaries in the picture shouldn't mean that guys are in contracts of lifetime servitude. I propose that when new ratings are released every player 33 and older (open to a younger age, but I think older makes it pointless) goes into a draft pool and the DFHL version of free agency is conducted with pick order based upon the last two seasons played.

4 things to consider. Of all of them I like the FA draft best. I think it would give the league an interesting wrinkle.