It's been awhile since I've written about my teams.  I've put lots of work into these teams and will start out with tampa bay.  First, a move that may be undervalued is STOLL for ribero.  Tampa lost Joe Thornton in the offseason and that hurt them a lot.  However, as most know, ribero is a beast in the sim and is a solid numer 2 fill in when it comes to simming in this game.  That move alone took weight off my shoulders on how to fix the hole that thornton left.  Hes no thornton but ribero is a cheaper replacement.

After that the once even moreso talented Tampabay Lightning team (formerly Pitts) had some more shuffling around to do.  They actually downgraded a bit when the league went into the short lived salary cap era.  However, tampa had bounced back nicely.  I mainly thank two players for that.  Malkin, and Subban.  When fear told me Malkin is pretty much the best sim player in the game and is a beast he wasn't lying.  Malkin is a serious beast in this game.  That being said, Malkin was traded tonight along with up and comer TJ Brodie who was recently upgraded to an 84 and is tied for 8th in nhl scoring among defensemen in the NHL.

Coming back to TampaBay? The man Malkin just passed for 2nd in nhl scoring Mr Tyler Seguin.  Seguin had a great year in the NHL last year and has kept it up this year in the nhl.  His "low" rating of 89 should go up during the next NHL update and seguin will also remain an rfa for years to come which made the decision of trading malkin easy.  Coming along with Seguin to Tampa is the defensive stud Aaron Ekblad.  Wow this kid has sure impressed in the nhl this year and when Hattrick upgraded him to an 85 it only helps tampas defense.  Ekblad is a young dman and an absolute beast.  He will be the cornerstone of tampa's D and should lead the charge for years to come.  This looks like a downgrade to the eastern conference leading lightning, but Im hoping PERRY and subban can continue to lead the team and with the addition to these next folks im about to talk about, should improve the team overall.

Part of a ridiculous 4 part trade I made with my co-worker (w.k) was Tampa sending Carter ashton who was in the minors for vet adam burish.  Burish will bring the grit and work his hole off every night.  If he doesn't, he will go to the minors, and he knows it.  The other trade was a simple swap that was made before.  Tampa last year had a fantastic line of Rick Nash along with Malkin and perry.  Nash was traded for RFA forward James Van  RIEMSDYK.  It messed with tampas chemistry and tampa regretted making that move.  The only reason why I made it was JVR was an RFA and it was better for FA purposes.  That being said, Rick nash playing with Perry should be a great duo along with Seguin.  Tampa is still looking to tweak a bit but hopefully they stay atop of the eastern conference standings.



Calgary Flames.  This years most improved team by far.  From worst human controlled team in last years standings to the top team in the NHL so far.  We are only 1 sim in but hey, they deserve a pat on the back.  Calgary picked up ryan miller during the free agency selection along with NJ devils rookie dman severson.  This has proved to be a great move.  Calgary was going to select Miller, Sedin, or Green.  They made the right call.

So why mess with a team thats first in the league? I know a lot of gms dont like to move around guys when their teams are doing well and I can respect that.  However, as a gm I am here to always improve the team therefore, if theres a deal I can make to better the team for now along with the future then why not.  Calgary started off by moving the now expandable goalie Holtby86.  There was no room and I wanted Miller to take the reigns in cowtown.  I traded him for lw snp Matt Moulsen.  Calgary needed help scoring and on D so there you have it.  The next move I wanted to do was trade Carter who is a snp centre.  So before doing that I had to secure a decent 2nd line centre.  Calgary traded away a bunch of RFA's to improve their team rating wise last year and that didnt pay off.  Calgary decided to then trade Shane Doan for Grabovski.  Grabo was on a team with a bunch of centres and was excited to join the flames organization.  Especially as a number 2.  Next move? get rid of Horton.  Horton actually played most games last year and did well, but I lost alfredsson to retirement and could not afford to lose another 85 rated player.  So I traded horton to NYR for Cleary and Scuderi.  Calgarys dfense is weak and scuderi will bring the hard working ethics to the team.  Cleary? well, he can play on line 4 and grind away.  The team upgraded Johnny Hockey and Kucherov in the offseason with the hopes they will one day they will be playing on the second line together.


Next, David booth82lw OUT, (letting johnny hockey play line 3) and goalie prospect Pickard in.  Pickard is playing well with the avs in the nhl and im hoping he will get an upgrade.  For now he will go to the awesome goaltending farm that the flames have produced.

To strengthen calgarys D I had to pull a move I may regret in the future.  I traded despres81 rfa to NYR for Pitkanen84.  Pitkanen produces though and gio needed someone to play with.  This move helped calgarys D now.

I found a home for Carter when I traded him to NJ for Marleau.  It is what it is, marleau produces so why the heck not!  Next up was the 4 part trade with WK.  Tokarski81 who was sitting in the goalie farm was sent to WK (who is in love with the man) for minnys prospect Darcy Keumper80.  This was to help make the deal so why not.  I have enough goalie prospects there.  The last part of the trade was trading away long time member Jamie Benn.  If I had of known i could finally pry seguin back from Hattrick maybe I wouldnt have traded benn and got the old band back together, however, such is life, and benn was traded with weber80 for the nhl's leading scorer Voracek87, and to help calgarys weak d they got Smid82rfa who is an upgrade from weber.  

Voracek should get a ratings boost when EA comes out with it later this month or so.  That is the sole reason why I said hey why not.  Cant hurt, and now I have marleau to replace benn on the lw on line 1 so have atter.

The next deal I was ecstatic about.  The flames traded Scuderi and cleary to CAR for Vatanen79 and adam hall79.  So essentially I traded horton for these two.  Fear was thinking vatanen had already got a boost and he maybe didnt know yet, but that's not the case.  I just know eventually vatenen will get a boost and it will help calgary's d blossom with the other rfa's they have there.  All of a sudden Calgarys D is turning out quite nicely and I really like the group I have on their backend.  With the addition of Miller and this d, I think they will only get better.

Last but definitely not least, Calgary traded Matthias83rfa along with severson75 and keumper80 to Pitts for C-Johnson84 and veteran Dan Ellis80.  Well, im sad to lose severson as he should get a nice boost eventually.  However, to lose 2 guys that are not on my starting roster and basically swapping matthias for johnson who is currently 8th in nhl scoring and should be upgraded, then id be dumb not to make the move.  The games now a days are different with the fact that ratings boosts are done throughout the year and we dont have to wait an entire game year for the upgrade.  We can be disappointed earlier now and only have to wait 1 sim season for the ratings to be changed.  This is why I made a bunch of my moves and I really think I have improved this calgary team even more.  I think they might slip from being the best, but I feel they will make the playoffs and hopefully have some success.   The ratings update should be done before next season and if it's what I gambled on then I maybe, just maybe, have hit a hockey jackpot so to speak.  I have yet to win a cup since our league has been reborn and it really does piss me off.   Especially looking at the tampa team I had that could just not get it done.  I have worked the "phones" and have tried some different things and am hoping to bring home the cup and the gm of the year award.  That one means a lot to me because I spend a lot of time talking and sending you guys trades, so if it works out and the team will finally win the cup, hopefully i can get the recognition I feel I deserve with the teams I've built.

Hope you guys have enjoyed the Tommy Tribune.  Good luck to everyone this year!