Halfway mark 16/17

[Dallas Stars GM]

So, we've reached the halfway mark of the 2016-17 campaign now.

What are the positives and also the negatives of your ongoing season?
...and what should your team look to work on?
Plus, how are your top 3 prosects in the system doing?

I'll start with myself.

Positives:
- Managed to bring some good two-way defensemen to our top 4 for assets whose substraction didn't hurt the overall NHL team. (Ballard, Backman, Klefbom)
- Klefbom can play C. Positive surprise. It's very valuable invention, especially now that the team lost Conner Bleackley. Klefbom took his place and he's doing pretty good job at it.
- Tavares fitting well here in Dallas. Gives great flexibility to first and second line because Boyle is a good C too.
- For a reasonable price, Eller is also bringing quality and improving the overall play of 4th line.
- Meloche is playing very well for such a young man. He looks very promising!

Negatives:
- Goalies are not doing well (moderately speaking). But at the end of the day, not a big surprise. Because EHEC hates goalies. And yes, not excluding Carey Price.
- Overall defensive play of the team is not so good as it should be. Something has to change.
- Le Sieur started well when he joined the team (was signed as a free-agent, as a substitution for Charlie Coyle), but his level of play is going down. Needs to develop quicker.

Things to work on:
- Find the right chemistry for the all lines cominations.
- Goalies have to help the team more and not let 3-4 goals per game on a consistent basis.
- We have to gain some victories against the teams which are placed as high or even higher in the standings than we are and not just counting on getting victories against those who lay lower in the standings.
- We have to be more dominant on home games to gain more confidence overall.

Top 3 prospects:
- no. 1.: Jakob Chychrun: His developing in the AHL went very good but then he got injured for a month and then the team acquired Radovan Bondra so there is no left slot for Chychrun now that he came back from an injury to insert him back in the Texas line-up. Chychrun got a taste of high-level competition play again, representing Canada on U-20 World Tournament and was doing very good for Team Canada. He'll be reassigned back to AHL as soon as Bondra will turn 20 (27th of January).
- no.2.: Nicolas Meloche: Already mentioned above, is having pretty good transition from AHL to NHL. Is playing hard, making good decisions most of the time and already showing some offensive upside to his game. He still needs a lot of time and work to reach his cellings, but so far, he's looking sharp. Way to go Mr. Meloche!
- no.3.: for a no. 3, I can name both Dergachyov or Guryanov for this spot. Both are wingers and pretty simillar to each other. Guryanov maybe has a bit higher offensive celling but Dergachyov is a little bit harder to play against. But both are rugged-bodies with interesting offensive skillset. Dergachyov seems almost NHL ready. He just needs to work on his skating a little bit and he might get a taste of NHL real soon. Guryanov needs more time but he's still just 19. So, no hurries.

[AnaheimGM]

Positives:

--->The acquisition of Jeff Carter and Jani Hakanpaa. Jeff Carter helps the team to score more goals and Jani Hakanpaa solidified our defensive corp.

--->The developpement of Mattew Barzal and Ryan Groop. Mattew is becoming a great consistant offensive tool in our team and Ryan is playing really well since he was called up.

--->The good record of the team. It been a while since i'm the GM that the team is playing over .500 after the half season. It will certainly help for the battle race this season.

Negatives:

--->Cody Ceci. Really disapointing season so far. I expected a lot more from him. I hope he will have a better second half season.

--->We allowed too much goals. We hope that Hakanpaa will help the so poor defensive play of the team.

Things to work on:

--->Well... I would apreciate to acquire an other offensive sniper like Carter. The team need to score more goals to be more consistant.

--->We hope that our defensive corp will help goalie's stats...

Top 3 prospects:

Kieffer Belows: Good developpement. Has already the strengh to be pro, but need to improve his two way games to move up in the pro.

Brett Howden: Good developpement. He needs to work on his body before coming up in the big league.

Mitchell Vande Sompell: Already in the big league and playing really well so far. We hope he will keep those good performances!

[SharksGM]

I don't understand how Jayce Hawryluk is -17 playing 10 minutes 5v5 per game. Like my 4th line/3rd pair/shit goaltending is single-handedly responsible for the team's negative goal differential.

[SharksGM]

Ok, full serious answer:

Good:

Nuge has 22P/+11 in 24GP since joining the Sharks and is nearly 69% on draws. He good.
After a disappointing start, Galchenyuk has 34P in 36GP. He good, but his two-way play sucks.
Derek Forbort's on pace for 60+ points, although he could stand to get a few more takeaways.
Nelson and Radulov are scoring at will. Nelson's a nice surprise considering he doesn't have much besides a great shot.

Bad:

Sharp/MacInnis, supposedly 2-way guys getting buried in their own zone and showing zero chemistry.
Guys in their early 20s with < 70 strength. Hit the gym, assholes.
The only player doing worse than Petrovic is everyone else I've tried to play with Komisarek. WTF?
Everybody who plays on the 4th line. Fuck you all.
Have I mentioned goaltending at all?

Prospects:

Haha, I don't have any of those. Keller will be an NHLer sooner than later, maybe even getting a taste this season. Somppi and Siebenaler will develop into depth guys, but they're all soooooft. Vladar could be a good goalie in a tandem if he cuts his GAA in half.

[JacketsGM (Jer)]

First season in the league, and have been enjoying the community and the awesome GM Office.

Thanks to everyone that has reached out with a hello, or a trade offer.

--Positives--

With a new team, it was difficult to know how this team would stack up. But I've been pretty happy with the line-up. No 'super-stars', but a solid team game (much like their NHL counterparts).

Top line has been great, Nieves has obviously been a pleasant surprise on the wing and a great value contract.
Grind line has been worth the money, Forney was signed to a burdensome contract in the offseason so it's nice to see a bit of value there.

Powerplay has come around with a few tweaks.

Injuries have been mainly an AHL issue, so we've been lucky in the first half.


--Negatives--

Penalty Kill has been an issue. I'll admit that I haven't spent as much time trying to fix this as it hasn't been losing us games -- but should probably look harder heading toward the play-offs.

Goalie contracts have made managing the team interesting, and this season's intense amount of back-to-back games has made it difficult to own two young goalies.

Slumping players have been difficult to remedy - but we'll keep plugging away.

Cheers guys.

[Vik (Habs)]

Negative
Team: Some bad luck at the start of the season (luck is the only possible explanation, I'm sure of it) left my team low enough in the standings that I stopped caring about winning.
Player: Cam Ward. 4.20 GAA, 0.856 save %, and only just recently passed Pascal Leclaire for wins on the season despite playing in 23 more games.

Positive
Team: Some bad luck at the start of the season (luck is the only possible explanation, I'm sure of it) left my team low enough in the standings that I stopped caring about winning. I figured my team would be middle-ish whether I wanted it to be or not so I was trying to make the playoffs but another high draft pick would probably be better for me.
Player: Alexander Burmistrov. Leads the team in goals and assists and has the third highest +/-. Even better than I'd hoped for.

Prospects
1) Matthew Tkachuk: has developed better than expected and is looking like he'll be pro ready sooner rather than later. Also leads St. John's in goals.
2) Gabriel Carlsson: ready to play right now, pretty much just letting him get stronger until I have cap room for him. Imagine he'll be up by next season at the latest.
3) David Cotton: going with Cotton because he's developed so nicely this season. Ready to come up right now but we'll let him work on his faceoffs a little more (if he hadn't been injured for a month, probably be set there too).

[Capital Gains]

Team Goal: Just coming back into the league and getting use to the players on the Capitals, we are still assessing the direction we want to go in. The team as a whole, is on the younger side with only 6 players over 30. The club as constructed won't win a championship, nor will it come close to. We see a re-tooling to a style that I'm more use to playing. We would like to be a cup contender within 4 seasons.

Positives: Zach Parise: leads the league in goals and is 3rd in points. Zach is also on a team friendly deal for another 6 seasons. Definitely a keeper, unless we are blown away with an offer.
Nikita Gusev: 8th in the league in goals and is also on a team friendly deal for 5 more seasons. Wish he was a bit more of a 2 way player, but we will live with that for now.
Vladimir Tarasenko: A dominant player who's 5th in the league in helpers. Another team friendly deal will keep Vladimir in Washington for many a year.
Tom Kuehnhackl : Tom is a sniper, but is really one dimensional. Contract is up at the end of the year and he could cost a bit more then what we might be willing to keep him for.
Prospects: Hershey currently has 4 forwards that could make the jump to the big club next season.

Negatives: The Goaltending: It hasn't been the best, but for now, it will have to do. We should be getting some better play from both goalies, but it might not be all of their fault. The team as a whole has been dreadful even strength and something has to change or changes could be made.
The lack of jam: The team needs to start hitting a bit more. The opposition needs to know that they will be punished when they get the puck and not receive a free ride.
Prospects: The team doesn't have a single defensive prospect that could make the jump next season. This is a priority that needs to be fixed sooner rather then later.

Top Prospects: 1. C/LW Thomas Novak: The 19 year old is definitely the top dog in the system. Thomas should be a strong 2 way player who can hit. ETA: 2017/18 SEASON
2. C/RW Nick Merkley: Merkley has the tools to become a regular in the NHL. The only thing is will it be with the Capitals or another team? Washington already has a bunch of young forwards and really needs a defensive prospect. ETA: 2018/19 SEASON.
3. C/LW Tyson Jost: Tyson needs to work on his playmaking a bit, but he should over time get better in that aspect. Tyson should make the jump to the AHL next season and get his feet wet in the Pros. ETA: 2019/20 SEASON

[Jets GM]

Team goals: Stanley Cup.

Positives: The re-tooling early in the season was due in large part to Seguin and his lack of production for an elite player the last few seasons. He's above a PPG pace over the half way mark and it looks like he could break 100 points for the first time in his career. Kovalchuk has been worth the price we had to pay to get him. Despite being waived almost everyday, Zbynek Michalek has 21 points this season. Bryan Little has provided some depth scoring from the 4th line and his contract is very team friendly.

Negatives: Mike Smith's GAA and SV% are abysmal when compared to historical norms, but people are scoring more this year and we don't have a great defensive core. We expected to let in a lot of goals this regular season, so can't be to disappointed about that.

Top 3 Rookies:

#1 Reid Gardiner RW/C - After having a great season in Syracuse last year, Gardiner we recalled after Alex Tanguay was traded to Calgary a few months ago. He has 13 points in 21 games while playing on the 2nd line with Crosby and Hossa. A former 4th round pick, Gardiner continues to exceed the low expectation label applied to him at the 2014 entry draft. The big minutes will continue his development, particular his laser like shot.

#2 Brien Diffley LD - Diffley was a 5th round pick in the 2015 entry draft. He stepped right into the AHL after being selected and provided reliable defence; however, in the long term the Lightning staff expect him to round out his game at both ends of the ice. 5 assists in 16 games played would indicated there could be some offensive upside. He has thrown a lot of hits, but needs to improve his GV/TK ratio. Diffley will get a chance to stick with the club into the post season.

#3 Jack Glover RD - Glover is the most highly touted Lightning prospect in the system. A part of a major deal with Chicago in the off-season, it was a surprise to see him not make the team out of camp. The recent transaction that saw Kevin Klein head to Chicago meant it was time for Glover to join the big club. He has stepped in to play a major role immediately, alongside Cam Fowler on the first line. Glover has shown a physical game with contributions offensively with 2 assists in 4 games. If he can regulate his behaviour and stay disciplined, Glover looks to be the real deal.