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***By-Tor*** · 02-01-2024, 12:42 PM

I've been thinking a lot about player archetypes recently. I'm sure most of us can relate to asking our respective GMs "where should I put my TPE" to start each season. Sure, we have our own ideas of what we may want to see in our players, but there is often that nagging loyalty to the system and how players have been effectively used in the FHM era. When we ask "where should I put my TPE," I feel the real question behind those words is "which attributes are the most important to improve so that we can achieve the highest amount of both personal and team success." Seems reasonable. But you can then go a level deeper and consider what the thought processes are of the GMs of the league. Everyone wants to win (or at least do their best), that's just competitive human nature. In the SHL, this has morphed into the inherent need to employ "safe" or "known" meta tactics. Either out of laziness or tradition, most, if not all, teams in the SHL use, at max, like 12 of the 32 archetypes. Dangler, Gretzky's Office, Power Forward, Two-Way Defender, Shutdown Defender. Without looking at FHM, I bet every teams has multiple of those five roles. But how many Agitators, Screeners, and Punishing F/D are out there? I'll admit, I need to do the FHM research and see, but I bet not many.

In the discussion of archetypes, roles ,and attributes, an interesting topic is aggression, fighting and PIMs. Most of the roles assigned to players today don't involve a high stake in either of these attributes. In fact, only 42 of the 301 players in the SHL in S74 had a fighting rating over 5 and only 54 had an aggression rating over 7. Many will argue those attributes are basically useless. "Put the TPE somewhere else." I'd like to show you that data, and how aggression in the SHL is on the rise. We can also frame this discussion in terms of PIMs and the impact aggression has on PIMs.

Since S53 when we moved to FHM, here is a chart of average player aggression and the average number of penalty minutes earned per player (please excuse the axes, excel wasn't playing nicely):

[Image: image.png?ex=65ce364c&is=65bbc14c&hm=079...y=lossless]

[Image: image.png?ex=65ce364c&is=65bbc14c&hm=079...y=lossless]

At first glance, there appears to be a correlation between the two. Higher leaguewide aggression, the more penalties assessed. The second thing obviously visible is the leaguewide drop in aggression once we switched to FHM, culminating in a low point around S60, and then the gradual rise over the past 15 seasons. The third obvious observation is more penalties are handed out in FHM8 (post S66) than FHM6 (pre S66). While it's not a huge variation in aggression - an average rating of anywhere between 5.7 and 6.7, it is notable. It has increased season after season since S69. As more players feel the freedom to assign TPE to aggression, the league continues to change.

But why would a player do that? What's the value in PIMs? Aren't they a detriment to the team? I would concede that, yes, they are undesirable, but who cares? If someone wants to go through the SHL as a goon, why shouldn't they be allowed to do that? Are the meta-tactics that stringent that someone focusing on aggression and fighting for the fun of it will be left off a team for some other cookie cutter player? Food for thought. We also don't know the impact the aggression slider has on how players act on the ice. Does it send a high aggression player berserk, etc.? Also how do roles play a part - would an agitator take PIMs but dish out more to the other team?

I think it's also worth the discussion of aggressive archetypes as they relate to the Turd Ferguson. Is there correlation?

[Image: image.png?ex=65ce3d4d&is=65bbc84d&hm=06b...height=596]

[Image: image.png?ex=65ce3d4d&is=65bbc84d&hm=06b...height=596]

The data says no, there is no correlation. There are definitely some high aggression players with a lot of penalty minutes, but there are some notable outliers, specifically Juni Panda. How can a player with so many penalty minutes have only 8 aggression? One wonders. There must be a significant role both assigned role and tactic sliders play in how PIMs are assigned. Maybe Juni Panda was specifically assigned as a goon or agitator, even with a minimal aggression attribute. That could be a reason.

So some takeaways: aggression is on the rise in the SHL, and that seems to have a leaguewide correlation with penalty minutes, but not necessarily individual penalty minutes. As players explore different, aggressive archetypes, GMs around the league may do well to consider how to fit alternative roles into a winning scheme.

Thanks for listening to my TED talk.

Credit to enigmatic, Merica, and tweedledunn for sigs

scudmuffin19 · 02-01-2024, 12:47 PM

aggression shifted away from the player and into the users themselves. want your player to be more aggressive in sim? be an ass on the forums

***boom*** · 02-01-2024, 12:50 PM

Shoutout to the time my finesse centre was top 10 in PIMs with no investment in aggression

***RAmenAmen*** · 02-01-2024, 12:59 PM

Food for thought: the aggression slider is pretty high for most teams right now (current copycat meta and all that), and without individual or unit sliders that means even players with 5 aggression are playing with their instructions set to "goon"

***hhh81*** · 02-01-2024, 02:07 PM

02-01-2024, 12:47 PMscudmuffin19 Wrote: aggression shifted away from the player and into the users themselves. want your player to be more aggressive in sim? be an ass on the forums

Why didn't Sobchak lead the league in PIMs then?

scudmuffin19 · 02-01-2024, 02:14 PM

02-01-2024, 02:07 PMhhh81 Wrote: Why didn't Sobchak lead the league in PIMs then?

that is a philosophical question sobchak and I have been working on all offseason

trella · 02-01-2024, 03:41 PM

from my understanding, hits and pims are largely based on sliders/roles and basically have nothing to do with attributes, which is pretty disappointing if you ask me.

Thanks to @karey and @JSS for the sigs!

Former USA Fed Head, Carolina Kraken Co-GM, Tampa Bay Barracuda GM

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