CW TRIVIA LINK

taco



a. Kind of tough because FHM feels like it's more rewarding to building a solid team and STHS felt like it had a much larger luck factor. Honest a cup is a cup to me, attempting to distinguish them by era and/or propping one era up over the other is just a sign of a weird superiority complex and massive insecurity.
b. Almost certainly. Baltimore and Edmonton basically got free passes into the final four, nothing against them because Baltimore at least is a pretty solid team and they have a decent shot at becoming one of those 4-5 teams that can actually make the finals. But the current state of the league is what it is. Let's see what next year brings.
c. I feel like New York City is the obvious choice here. Even with a Manhattan team I feel like there is enough market their to go around and then some. Plus Manhattan being at the bottom of the standings for a decade I feel is enough to warrant something new for NYC residents to cheer for. I guess you could do New Jersey to avoid doubling up.
d. Probably Ryan Shepard. 82 points in one season, 93 points in the next, Shepard consistently performs with two back to back top 10 point finishes. But Chicago, even though they are one of the handful of teams that could make the finals, hasn't for a little bit even with the heavy hitters they have.


I think with these two teams it wasn't a dead giveaway that one team had an advantage over the other. Ham did sweep Tex last season, but obviously this season was a little different and Texas made it close enough to actually squeak out a 7 game series win for the title. All the jokes aside about parity and how we're seeing the same teams every year in the finals, it is nice that at least this time around the finals were at least a close battle as the amount of 4-1 finals we've had over the past 10 seasons is kind of insane when you look at it.


https://simulationhockey.com/showthread....pid3152590


Yeah I don't think it does really exist, there are like tiers of it where you have realistically 4-5 teams that are contenders, 4-5 teams that are 2nd rounders, and another 4-5 teams that scrape their way into the playoffs without any realistic shot at getting further than the first round or maybe two if they have a lucky first round match up. The changing of these teams is a slow, ridiculously long process. A lot of what goes into this is the sim engine producing as consistent results as it does. It's so rare that a Montreal team will beat a Hamilton team, where as in the NHL you'll see bottom of the barrel teams "steal" wins from division leaders with relative frequency. The changes to regression might shake things up a bit, because a team will no longer be set for 10+ seasons from the same group of players. But the GMs that know how to play the game will still succeed, newer GMs that get into it with 0 guidance will have to learn through failure, and nothing will really change.

This will for sure be the season where USA actually gets a medal and I get some money. It's actually kind of wild to think how long it's been since USA has gotten a medal, and now more than ever there is a bit more parity in the IIHF it feels (this is feely crafty based, not based in any sort of fact), so it's going to be much more difficult than it has in past seasons.
Update: Well I checked the standings and sure enough, USA has dominated the initial round of games, losing only 1 so far with 9 wins. Lets see if that carries into the elimination round.