Team spirit and focus

A club is more than its players’ ratings. How much it believes in its system, how well the room gets along, who wears the letters and how ready the group is at puck drop all show on the ice. You shape them through your roster, your captains and your team focus. This page covers the team spirit readings, the captains, team focus and game preparation.

Team spirit

Team spirit is five readings on the club, in two groups that change at very different speeds. You don’t set them: team confidence follows how you play, and the dressing room follows who is on your roster. You find them in the Team spirit panel under Info on the team page, for every club.

Group	Readings	What moves them	When it changes
Team confidence	Offensive, Defensive	The chances you create and allow	After every league and playoff game
Dressing room	Culture, Teamwork, Winner instinct	The personalities on the roster	Every couple of days, as the roster changes

Each confidence reading has a word (Crisis, Anxious, Uncomfortable, Ok, Good, Perfect), a meter and an arrow for where it has been heading over the last few games.

The Confidence pill at the top of the team page is something else: it is your players’ own confidence, averaged. It links to this panel.

Team spirit works through your skaters. Goalies play on their own confidence and are not lifted or held back by team confidence, teamwork or winner instinct.

Team confidence

Team confidence is the club’s belief in its playing system, read separately for attack and for defense. You can’t set it; it follows the even-strength chances your team creates and allows. It is not the same as a player’s confidence, which is belief in his own game.

What moves it

Chances, not goals. After every league and playoff game, offensive confidence rises if your team created more even-strength chances than it should have, and falls if it created fewer. Defensive confidence does the same with the chances you gave up.

“Should have” takes into account:

• the team focus both benches played,
• the strength of the units on the ice each shift,
• who had home ice.

So a goalie standing on his head can win a game without lifting offensive confidence, and a team that outchances a stronger opponent at even strength and loses on the night still gains. Power plays and penalty kills are left out.

Only the last several games count. A team on a run reads like it, and one bad night costs one game’s worth. A new season starts close to neutral, with a small carry-over for a club that finished well above or below. Preseason games, friendlies and national-team games do not count.

What it does on the ice

A confident system lifts your skaters, and a doubting one holds them back: offensive confidence when you have the puck, defensive confidence when you defend. Each player has to take the lift or shrug off the dip himself. Spirit, experience and leadership help him resist a dip, and good captains make both easier (see Captains below).

The effect is real but bounded. Over a season it shows in goals for and against. Ratings and tactics still decide more, and confidence never decides a single game alone.

During a game, the bench’s confidence also rises and falls with what happens, such as goals, a timeout or a change in net. Those swings stay in that game. The next game starts from the stored reading.

On the game page

Under the box score, the Team confidence block shows what the game did to each club: Offensive and Defensive, each with Big dent, Dent, Steady, Lift or Big lift. The note under it is a reminder that confidence follows how the play went at even strength against this opponent, not the score. A game that does not count says so.

The dressing room

Culture, teamwork and winner instinct are the club’s character. They come from the personalities on your roster, so you shape them through who you sign, trade and name captain. Each player’s culture fit and winner instinct are in the Personality section of his profile. See player personality.

They follow the roster, not results, and they are worked out again every couple of days through the season and the summer, so a trade or a signing shows within days. Only players on your main roster count. Players assigned to an affiliate do not.

Culture

Culture is how well the egos in the room fit together. Ego counts most, then greed. Humble, loyal players build a good culture, and cocky, greedy ones wear it down.

Some voices carry further than others:

• your captain most, then the assistants,
• natural leaders,
• players with a big reputation,
• players who have been with the club for several seasons.

If culture reads Negative or Toxic, start with your captain: his voice carries further than most, and a captain whose Culture fit reads Positive helps the room, while one whose reads Negative wears it down.

Culture does nothing on the ice by itself. It works through teamwork: a good culture lifts it, and a poor one drags it down.

Teamwork

Teamwork is how well the players work together. The best room has a balanced mix of the four personality types: Competitors, Inspirers, Peacemakers and Tacticians. A roster that leans hard toward one type plays below its parts. The captains’ personalities weigh more than anyone else’s.

Unhappy players pull teamwork down (see player form and happiness). Teamwork also builds slowly over time, and losing an established player costs some of what the room has built. It builds less on a club where teamwork is poor to begin with.

If teamwork reads Bad or Chaos, look at the Persona of each player on your roster: a room that leans toward one type pulls it down. Look for unhappy players too.

Teamwork lifts or drags every skater in every game.

Winner instinct

Winner instinct is the will to win in the room. It comes from the Competitors on the roster, the players who will do almost anything to win, and most of all from the captains. More Competitors raise it. Too many tip the room’s balance, though, and you pay for it in teamwork.

Unhappy players and contract worries pull it down.

If winner instinct reads Weak or Paralyzed, a player whose Winner instinct reads Strong or Very Strong raises it. If the room already leans toward Competitors, another one tips the balance further, and teamwork pays.

Winner instinct counts in every game. It counts for more in the playoffs and from the third period on.

Captains

Your captain and two assistants lead the room before and during every game. You name them from the team page: open Actions, choose Captains…, then pick a Team captain, a First assistant and a Second assistant and press Save captains. You can only pick skaters, so you need at least three on the roster. The roster shows a C or an A next to their names.

If you are choosing a captain, look in the Personality section for a player whose bars lean toward Leader and Clutch, and pick one who dresses every game.

Captains matter in three places:

• In the room. They weigh more than anyone else in culture, teamwork and winner instinct.
• Before the game. Their leadership decides how ready the team is at puck drop, and whether the team shakes off a slow start between periods (see Preparation below).
• During the game. They make it easier for every player to take a confidence lift, to shrug off a dip and to carry the pressure of a big game.

A captain’s leadership comes from his leadership and big-game nerve, his spirit and his experience. The captain counts for more than either assistant. A captain who is scratched, injured or out of the game gives no leadership in it, so a leader who often sits out is a weak choice for the letter.

A player who is traded, released, placed on injured reserve or assigned to an affiliate loses his letter. If a letter is empty when the next game comes around, the club fills it: the assistants move up, and the open spots go to the available skaters with the strongest leadership.

Team focus

Team focus decides how open your team plays. You set it in Tactics, under Game-state focus, with one setting for each score situation: Behind 3+, Behind, Even, Ahead and Ahead 3+. During a game the team plays the setting for the current score. Ahead 3+ and Behind 3+ apply to a lead or deficit of three goals or more.

The five settings run from Very defensive through Defensive, Normal and Offensive to Very offensive.

If you lead and want to protect it, a defensive setting for Ahead closes the game for both teams. If you trail and need goals, an offensive setting for Behind opens it, and you give up more as well.

How the two benches combine

Focus controls how many chances a game produces, in both directions. An offensive focus opens the game for both teams: you create more chances, and you give up more. A defensive focus closes it for both. Focus never decides which team gets more chances. Your ratings and tactics decide that.

The two benches’ settings add up:

• Very offensive against Very defensive plays much like two Normal teams.
• Two offensive teams make a wide-open game at both ends.
• Two defensive teams make a tight, low-event game.

Focus changes how many chances there are, not how good they are. Finishing and goaltending are untouched.

What focus is not

• Not a confidence cost. Team confidence already expects fewer chances from a defensive game and more from an open one, so neither choice costs confidence by itself.
• Not for special teams. On the power play and the penalty kill, the units play to the situation and your team focus does not apply.
• Not line focus. The focus you give each line and pair in Edit lineup is a separate setting. See lineup.

A team far ahead also eases off on its own, whatever its focus.

Preparation

How ready your team is at puck drop rests on your captains’ leadership. You don’t set it; you shape it by who wears the letters.

Before every game, the captains get the group ready. Strong leadership makes an off-day rare and sometimes brings a sharp, well-prepared start that gives a small lift. Weak leadership lets the team come out flat now and then. An unfocused start holds back every skater for as long as it lasts.

Taking an opponent lightly

A club well above its opponent in the standings is more likely to take the game lightly. This starts once the season is under way, between teams in the same league. Playoff games are exempt: nobody takes a playoff game lightly.

Waking up between periods

A team that starts flat gets a chance to shake it off at every intermission. The captains’ leadership decides it, and a team that is trailing is easier to wake. Once the message lands, the team plays to its level for the rest of the game.

Pressure

Big games bring pressure: every playoff game, and, once the season is under way, a game where you are the heavy favorite against a team far below you. Each player carries it with his big-game nerve, spirit and experience, and the captains help. This applies to goalies too. Pressure and taking an opponent lightly never pile up past a limit.

When a team came into the game sharp, unfocused or taking the other lightly, the game report’s Readiness section says so. A normal start for both teams is left out of the report. The play-by-play tells you when a bench woke up.

Worth knowing

• Team confidence follows chances, not goals: a team that outchances a stronger opponent at even strength and loses still gains.
• Team focus costs no confidence by itself: team confidence already allows for both benches’ focus.
• Focus changes how many chances a game produces, not which team gets more of them.
• Goalies are not lifted or held back by team confidence, teamwork or winner instinct.
• A captain who is scratched or injured gives no leadership in that game.