Agreed. I traded Ray Whitney because I knew I'd have to make a decision between him and Brodeur in the future. With the new system in hindsight I could have kept him for 3 years at 1.5? That doesnt mirror the NHL that great. However, I will not criticize without having a potential solution:

What if we took 4 or 5 of the major rating categories (they could be different from position to position) and took an average?

Forward: Scoring, Passing, Skating, and Puck handling

Keep checking off because often 3rd liners and shut down dmen are high on this category and may not be reflective of what an elite players stat would hold. Keep face offs off because some forwards aren't centres, keep EX/LD off because most taggable players have pretty comparable ex and not necissarily LD but don't really see a need for it as a taggable rating. Strength is another to consider but likely closely linked to checking. I've debated on DF for a while but after looking at the "elite" forwards in the league I think it scews the tag to much to include it. Even a guy like Brind amour didn't get a great DF rating though.

Everything 78 and above is Lemieux, everything from 70-77.9 is Lowe and below 70 is Semenko.

A few examples:     SC PA SK PH            This system                       Salary System
Selanne                 78 73 89 80 = 80         Lemieux                      Lowe (for 2+ after)
Savard                  73 91 81 80 = 81.25     Lemieux                      Lowe (for 2+ after)
Brind Amour          66 74 79 75 = 73.25     Lowe                          Lemieux
Cole                      67 67 89 73= 74            Lowe                         Lemieux
Ra.Whitney           72 85 81 77= 78.75      Lemieux                      Lowe
S.Kozlov                74 83 81 83= 80.25      Lemieux                      Lowe
Laperriere             60 60 70 56= 61.5        Semenko                    Lemieux
Owen Nolan          78 69 75 77= 74.75      Lowe                          Lowe
Zetterberg            77 80 91 79= 81.75      Lemieux                     Lemieux
Drury                    71 73 86 80= 77.5        Lowe                          Lemieux
Kessler                 74 72 88 71= 76.25      Lowe                          Lemieux



Now this is just forwards but I've taken many hours with scenarios and reseach and I think this is a pretty fool-proof system. I do not disagree with one tag under this system, whereas with a salary system I disagree with over 80% of them. Guys like Kessler and Zetter I just threw on for non UFAs to see where they were at. I honestly believe with drury's season was Lowe worthy, while guys like Kozlov who had exceptional seasons must be Lemieux.

Anyways, I have only take time on forwards but I have no doub that I and a team could come up with comparable stats for Dmen. I was thinking potentially, DF, DU, and PA as 3.

Thoughts?




-- Edited by Sabres_Luke on Friday 22nd of May 2009 02:34:45 PM

Only 2 of those categories are based off of statistical categories. Some would say it would be best to rate completely on objective ratings. However, I included skating and PH because I believe Bryce and the team did a great job on those.

Just because someone makes over 2.5 million doesn't mean they are a elite status and worthy to be eligible for Lemieux status; conversely, just because someone makes 1.5 million has no reflection that they aren't an elite players. My personal opinion is that this tag rules create many loopholes.

We want to create a system where someone is restricted from tagging elite players at cheap prices (very counter nhl) and where someone is forced to make a decision on someone who makes medium price range but the can can be used much more frequently. Ex. I am choosing not to tag Lehtinen at 3.5 because I think he's worth just a bit lower than that, but with the Lemieux system I would have to decide on him with my top tag which would be out of the question.

If we're trying to create more of a pool of UFA, I would suggested getting rid of the tags all together.

To Mr. Evans question....so what? The previous tags were based off of the overall and it was very difficult to fall into the 80 range without a strong statistical year. While there are multiple facets of the game, if we're being honest, a forward makes the big bucks for scoring, and it effects the sim the most. For a defensive player it's different ratings that effect the sim.

Base the tag categorization off of NHL salaries.  Those are most reflective of the NHL ... LOL.

Serious though...

>=2.5 NHL = Lemieux
>=1.0 NHL = Lowe
<1.0 NHL = Semenko

Edit: Just to clarify, I disagree with changing the tagged players salary - just base the categorization of NHL salaries, don't change the salaries to NHL salaries.

-- Edited by PhoenixGM on Friday 22nd of May 2009 07:19:44 PM

Wow, some good constructive critisism and some comprehensive solutions.

I guess my interpretation of accruing tags has been misunderstood, and should be clarified. Please understand that any time I discuss Lemieux or Lowe tags, I am talking in 2 year intervals. So when I say you can accrue Lowe tags, that doesn't mean that you can have like 5 of them accrued, but in years 2-4-6 etc you might have 2 too use if you didnt use one the prior year. But then it gets reset in the next season. Clear as mud.

I am willing to listen with open ears on suggestions though. Thats one of the reasons I wanted to get the rules and page up before we opened trading was to make sure the dialogue was open, and undeerstood, and the kinks worked out. All I sask is to keep your teams specifically out of it, and look at it from a what works best system

One thing I would suggest is maybe we restrict it so a player cannot be tagged more than 2 seasons in a row. Maybe we make the Lowe tag only useable once every two seasons and not accruing.

Honestly, I think the suggestions above are all pretty good, and pretty easy to implement. Remember if we need to come up with some sort of OV rating to use for tagging, I can build our own OV rating, and have it show in the PO category

Keep the thoughts coming

HOTLANTA wrote:

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my personal idea if we want to mimic the nhl is eliminate the tags right now..

what the tags do in my opinion is allow alot of the "ufa pool" to get depleted as the players get "tagged" at their old cheap contract...  then what happens is insane contracts in the UFA period as their arent alot of players to go around and their is alot of free cap space on rebuilding rosters look at pittsburgh last year....

i dont remember the nhlpa ever agreeing to something so in favour of the team/owner..



-- Edited by HOTLANTA on Saturday 23rd of May 2009 12:06:53 AM

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The tags are taking the place of in-season negotiations.  We have no way to resign a player before July 1, whereas most NHL teams at least attempt to sign their top players (and in the case of Detroit, succeed).  If we were to remove the tags, we would need to come up with another system to do the job, and I believe that Eric and Bryce don't want to deal with individual negotiations (which is why we have a formula for RFAs) and the associated bitching and complaining that would come with it.

I would rather have no tags at all to be honest. I think UFA would be great that way and we would finally see prices come down to where they should be. If we don't remove completely I see it as pretty irrelevant what we go with. 1 out of every 2 years does fix a problem, but it doesn't fix the fact that the pricing is completely skewed. Just look at my chart it's almost completely opposite as it should. What about 1 out of every 2 years based on NHL salary as PHX has suggested?

I am also not really in favour of tagging. I would rather see a significant loyalty bonus (Not 10%, but greater) for teams that try to resign their UFAs. You can make all sorts of bonus criteria.

For example, if a player is above a certain calibre, ice time could create loyalty. Winning can create loyalty. Or whatever.

As for tagging, if the concern is locking a player up at too good a salary, the goal is to be able re-sign some UFAs and creating artificial loyalty. Make it that a team can choose at a certain point each season one UFA that they can negotiate with and extend the contract.(At market value.) Basically one tag.

If you want to make it more realistic, make a sliding scale of loyalty based on number of games or seasons that a player has been on the team.(Kirk will hate this.) If a player has played more than 160 games for a team, his willingness to renegotiate would be X %,(Then you can use a randomizer to determine whether or not he will test FA)

If a player received X amount of ice time per game he receives a 5% added bonus on that loyalty.(Or whatever percent)

If a player won a major award, he receives X % bonus.

We can create loyalty without tags, and not only that, get rid of the (I tagged the guy and get to keep him at his low salary) benefit. That is the unrealistic part.