Looking to join a club as a center. I am not the best at it but am learning I am a very very skilled versus player but obviously it is way different.
Gamertag is xxvenomxx722.

For BRWCRW guys:

I hate to have to do this only a week in but we're already starting to have some glaring leaks in our game. We had a very solid start beating a lot of good teams and generally outplaying every team we went up against for the first 3-4 days. Took a small break off for the weekend and coming back we're just playing absolutely terrible. I realize our record is something like 38-6-5 or something along those lines which is decentish, but the teams we're losing to and the way we're doing it is pretty unacceptable.

I'm coming in early here and want to step in to throw some things out there to patch things up. Main reason is I want to win. We did well last year, and I want to follow in our sucess and even pass where we were. My main goal is to improve as a team, as a player, and to win. I think pretty much everyone is on the same page with this, but if you're not probably best to go ahead and out it so we know where everyone is for mindset for the team.

First thing which is probably the biggest is just our mindset for how we want to improve. We need to be critical of each other and more importantly ourselves. So if you see someone do something suboptimal bring it up at some point. What we don't need though is to be heckling a player when they know they screwed up. I did some talking with a few guys on the team and we proposed to essentially bring up bad plays in between games, and talk about adjustments during the game. So you take a really stupid penalty which costs us our lead, you don't need to be told to be more disciplined in certain scenarios immediately afterwards, but if it's a recurring issue it's definitely a point to bring up between games. For adjustments things along the lines of "cover the points," "work it back to the D more," or "stop trying to force the cross crease" are simple things to bring up during the game.


Now on the topic of things to bring up between games, there's definitely some stuff I've seen that we need to work on.

Most importantly is working on our defense in our own zone. Our defense have a good understanding of the right places to cover in the zone, it's just about making slight adjustments to the way the game plays this year. There's a good video SS posted on defending the cross crease than anyone that is going to play D or C should watch. So the D are covering down low, one guy in front of the net, one guy can semi-chase. Our center (usually me) will need to defend mid - high slot and cover any people cycling in looking for a pass. For our wings we need you guys to be covering your side of the ice to the middle, about the top of the circles and up. You don't need to be lower than the faceoff dot almost ever in our zone unless you're backchecking on a rush or you're following your guy and someone has cycled with you.

One more big thing I've seen that we need to work on is our offense creativity. We can absolutely rape some teams with a combination of shots that are in our go-to arsenal. That's absouletely fine, but when those shots aren't there we need to stop trying to force it. There's been way too many occurances of us trying to force a down low pass when we have one guy covered by three guys in front of the net. Just think about it, if you have three guys on the other team down low where's going to be open? Our wings are fine with positioning down low, and I've been trying to stay higher slot as a third option. When you get the puck on the half boards and cross crease is covered you have the D/high slot option, can just throw it on net, or even throw it behind the net to cycle. If we can start incorporating some different variations like that we'll not only be a ton better but an insane bitch to defend.

Just some thoughts I had and things I've discussed with other guys on the team over the last few days.

For all non BRWCRWers sorry for the wall of text.

/rant

good post Hawk, i'm always looking to improve my game. maybe we can utilize the practice mode even more this season?

lol

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/94021993

I can't explain why but this post made me burst out in laughter Either it's the 2 hrs of sleep last night or just a really well placed "lol"

I have one play to add to creative offense. When Ive been playing left wing, I try to get it going but I'm not sure anyone notices.

1. If the right wing is about to get pinched/trapped at the boards coming in he can throw a hard pass along the boards and it will wrap around to me (or left wing) wide open almost everytime. I can than pass to the center in the slot, or i can wrap back around to the winger again, or i can pass to the point or I can shoot... So much can happen off this little adjustment, and every top team ive played with abuses it. We almost never use it. It also buys us time safely for our D to get in those zone and lock it down.

2. Gives the right wing two options, and a pretty hidden/unexpected one. Also if the winger just decides to shoot I'm in a good spot to pick up a rebound.

The other thing I always say but we do it a lot anyways, is vision. If youre a winger coming in the zone, instead of thinking "how can I get that backdoor pass" think instead "how can I pass to someone who can pass by themselves to that backdoor player". When I play wing I'm never really trying to score tbh. I position myself between two players to bridge the tic tac toe play. Usually when I do this I'm attempting to do a snap touch pass.

Only thing I can add for defense (team defense) Is what I always say, THIRD MAN IN. Most good teams play foward positiions fluidly, meaning they cover for eachother and arent really playing a set position. It's called "overload". Only thing is its very dependent on the third man in. If you are the third foward into the o-zone, you never go low. You should be trying to angle yourself between but above the two fowards creating a support triangle. This could be along the boards, or in the high slot.

nice point about third man in, never really thought about it.

good post by one of our wacky canadians there, and i don't mean the one chilling at joel robuchon on the regular

i know this is mostly for EASHL, but I've been looking to have a question answered and can't find anything on the EA NHL forums about it:

Once you've unlocked a legend (finished amateur 3 or whatever and unlocked Chelios), how do you put them on your Be A GM team?

i've been playing NHL pretty much religiously since '08 came out (skipped '10 and played '09 online daily until they shut down the servers and moved to '11 and now '12), but I've been digging the shift by shift mode in Be a Pro/Legend. This is the same format you guys play, right? I haven't built up a character ever or anything, but I'd definitely be down to start building one and play with you guys in the near future.

good games last night guys. Love being setup by everyone, its so easy to score w/ brwcrw.

don't know about your first question, but yes its the same format except you never come off the ice. (you can also change your be a pro settings to this as well, if you'd rather not sit on the bench and watch the play)

what brwcrw were you playing with?

we were otping it up.
rollo
hawk
khaos
mossy
badger
me dominating in net

Does anyone play HUT? Is the only way to get even remotely decent in a short time (< 20 games) to buy the packs with points?

The one with profmike in goal.

Did rollo refuse? haha

haha just some random restaurant I checked out =p

This game became a lot more fun when I realized you have to set attributes and such differently for your online player versus your offline BAP character.

So am I on brwcrw or is it time to get AHL started? Don't care either way, just need to get on a club

After seeing SS in net last night, I think it's safe to say Rollo "Tim" Thomasi is hanging up his glove and blocker for good.

anyone around to run OTP? even the new rando guys

I have a club with a couple of my friends if you want to join that

Yeah that's definitely a possibility, just waiting on conformation of my pink slip :P