Coyotes 02 Sep : 14:33
Iv been around sim leagues for about 4 years now...I pretty much know how this works...thanks for the warm welcome guys..Ill be posting a trade block soon enough
Stars 02 Sep : 08:12
Matt, Welcome. You got a young and talented franchise. Listen to your mentor before moving any good young talent.
Capitals 02 Sep : 08:03
Welcome to the league Matthew!! Hope you do well (except against the Caps...) and take your team far into the playoffs.
The official list for the NAIHL 2010 Supplemental Draft has been published.
GMs may download the YOURTEAMNAMESuppDraft.xls file from the 'Essentials' section of the NAIHL website. It is required that the spreadsheet be used to submit your bids. If you don't have Microsoft Excel, the free OpenOffice package is available for download from the 'Downloads' section of the website.
The deadline for submissions is Noon Eastern Time on Sep. 6.
The instructions for filling out the spreadsheet are as follows:
Enter information in the yellow cells only. For the "your rank column" enter a 1 for your first choice, 2,3,4,5, etc for your next choices. You can enter as many choices as you want, there is no limit.
Do not delete any rows. You can resort if you wish, but do not delete rows.
To save the file in Excel, click on file, click save as and rename the file substituting your teams name in the file name.
To save the file in OpenOffice, click save as and rename the file substituting your teams name in the file name. Ensure the 'save as type' field is set to Microsoft Excel.
Following the cup win in June, seven of members of cup winning team has left Ducks roster only months later.
Ohlund, Lydman, Conklin, Horcoff, Hudler, Dumont, Devereaux. Lydman and Conklin opted for Free Agency, Hudler and Devereaux went to Europe and Ohlund, Horcoff and Dumont have been traded away.
GM Magnus Bergqvist expressed that while players will be missed the team has been forced to make changes in order to stay competitive. “Mattias, Shawn and J.P were all valuable players to this team the last season, but as there development we saw decreasing roles for them this year. All of them were in the last of their contracts and while having to part with them we made cap space to sign players that we felt would help us more this season”
There are also many new faces on the Ducks roster, perhaps to many. Selanne, Smith, Phillips, Skratins and Marchant are new on the roster and with the development of Jeff Schultz and resurgence of Mike Fisher, competition for roster spots especially on the blue line will be fierce.
Breaking it down line by line. It’s thought that Selanne-Spezza-St.Louis will form the first line providing a lot of scoring, while Vanek-Pavelski-Gionta will try and provide secondary scoring. Franzen-Fisher-Recchi will reunite on the checking line and make the same third line that was very successful for the Ducks in the 08/09 season.
Marchant/Bolland/Ward will make up the energy line.
On defense Niedermayer, Chara and Phillips all have secure spots in the top 4 while Gleason, Schultz, Skrastins and Spacek all battle out for the remaining three spots.
Also with recent acquisitions Ducks need to cut some salary in order to get under the cap before the season starts. Because of this, it is rumoured that Skrastins and Spacek are both being shopped around the league.
Submitted by Ducks
Buffalo Sabres: Small market team with big market dreams
After having long been viewed as one the “Mickey Mouse” clubs in the NAIHL, the Buffalo Sabres seem to be turning the corner to respectability.
It has only been 3 and a half years since the new management team has taken control, but in that short time the Sabres have 3 playoff appearances and one narrow miss to show for it. Not too bad for a franchise which used to struggle every year just to reach mediocrity.
Last season the Sabres had the most successful NAIHL season in their history. They won their 1st division title, made it to the second round of the NAIHL playoffs and posted their highest win total ever with 53. During the NAIHL award ceremonies Nicklas Backstrom won the Vezina trophy as the league’s top goaltender and GM Angus Pippy won the Garnet “Ace” Bailey award as the league’s top GM.
In light of all this success, the Sabres were faced with some tough decisions in the offseason regarding their roster, and management soon came to the grim realization that a shake up was imminent. The Sabres had fallen victim to the dreaded salary cap. Moves had to be made to try and keep the Sabres competitive and flexible financially. Over the course of the summer the front office was busy trying to keep the Sabres a playoff contender, while at the same time shedding salaries and promoting better cap management.
After an examination of the roster it was determined that the place which would have the greatest impact on change would be at the forward position, it was consuming too many cap dollars. The following deals were done with this in mind.
1st deal – The Sabres send scoring winger Brian Gionta and a 7th round draft pick to the Ducks in exchange for Cal Clutterbuck and a 4th round pick. While the Sabres gave up some scoring punch they got back a hard hitting shift disturber with a developing scoring touch himself. The Sabres are hoping Clutterbuck can become a bigger, better version of Sean Avery.
2nd deal – Sabres send Jason Arnott to the Florida Panthers for Maxim Afinogenov. Trading away your team captain is never easy, but Arnott had become a victim of the salary cap, and the Sabres needed to free up his salary dollors for both this year and beyond. While the Sabres traded away a heart and soul player they didn’t come away completely empty handed. Afinogenov, who is quite possibly in the last year of his NAIHL career, will fill in nicely on the wing this year and replace some of the scoring punch lost by Gionta and Huselius.
3rd deal – Sabres send Kristian Huselius and Sami Salo to the Predators for Anton Stralman and Brian Boucher. Huselius and his 5 million dollar cap hit becomes the second scoring winger to leave the Sabres organization this summer, and although Salo was still seen as a big contributor for the Sabres, he became expendable due to the fact that he was set to become a free agent in the off season and is frequently injured. In return the Sabres get a mobile d-man who might be their PP QB of the future and some more depth in the crease in case franchise net minder Backstrom gets injured.
When all is said and done the Sabres end up shedding almost 18 million in salaries while taking back 7.8 million for a net result of over 10 million in cap savings. Next up for the Buffalo Sabres is free agency. Will the Sabres try to continue to dream big and lure some big name free agents to Buffalo? Or will they be content to go after smaller name players. Tune in later this month to find the answer.
The 2009-10 NAIHL award winners were announced Tuesday, and Sharks winger Alex Ovechkin was the big winner, walking away with three awards.
Ovechkin won the Art Ross Trophy and Rocket Richard Trophy as the leading points and goal scorer, and was voted the winner of the Hart Trophy by the league's GMs as the NAIHL Most Valuable Player.
Ovechkin was the only player in the league to top the 50 goal and 100 point plateaus, and received the most votes for any of the awards.
The Norris Trophy for the league's top defenceman went to Pittsburgh's Sheldon Souray, who finished ninth in league scoring with 28 goals and 87 points.
The Vezina Trophy for the league's top goaltender was won by Niklas Backstrom of the Sabres, who got the most GM votes for winning 47 games to go with a 2.27 goals against average and .905 save percentage.
The Jennings Trophy, meanwhile, went to the Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks and Tim Thomas, as they gave up the fewest goals in the regular season.
The league's top rookie was Drew Doughty of the NY Islanders, who edged out Florida's Bobby Ryan in the voting. Doughty contributed 12 goals and 55 points for the Isles, along with a steady +19 rating.
Ovechkin wasn't the only Shark to take home hardware. Ovechkin's linemate Nicklas Backstrom was voted the most gentlemanly player in winning the Lady Byng Trophy.
The Selke Trophy for the league's best defensive forward was won by Pavel Datsyuk of the New Jersey Devils.
Finally, in a close vote that was decided by a coin flip, Sabres GM Angus Pippy was named the winner of the Garnet 'Ace' Bailey Award as the NAIHL GM of the Year. The award was created in 2001 in honor of the former NHLer and the others who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Pippy edged out Stanley Cup winning GM Magnus Bergqvist, himself a former winner of the award.
The NAIHL published its 2010 Free Agent list this morning, as the league announced the free agent bidding period opens at 12:01 AM Eastern Time Monday, August 9.
The free agent bidding period runs for two weeks and closes at midnight on Sunday, August 22. The free agent list is under the Essentials section on the website.
GMs can make their bids using the Free Agent Bid Form in the Front Office section on the website. At the end of the two week period, all bids will be fed into the NAIHL Free Agency Resolution engine, which calculates all of the factors and decides the winning bids.
Each team is allowed to submit up to 10 free agent bids, and must ensure that they will meet salary cap and bonus payment requirements as outlined in the League Structure.
The NAIHL Board of Directors reserves the right to cancel any bids that it considers to be irresponsible, and take punitive action as deemed necessary.
Please direct any free agent questions to this year's Free Agency Administrator, Board member Angus Pippy (thanks Angus!)
