Training and development

A player’s attributes are never fixed. He earns experience every day in practice and every night he plays well, and over weeks and seasons that experience turns into better skating, sharper passing or a heavier shot. You decide what he works on and how hard. His talent, his age and his form decide how much comes of it.

How players develop

Players get better from the experience they earn in practice every day and in the games they dress for and play well. You steer what a player learns through his training program and what he does in games; his talent, age and form decide how fast it pays off.

Each attribute develops on its own. Experience builds up in an attribute until the player turns it into progress, and the game checks that every day. The more experience he has built up, the better his chance that it turns into progress. Once he has banked enough progress, the attribute goes up a level.

Every step costs more than the last. Lifting an average attribute takes far less work than lifting one that is already among the best in the league, so two players working equally hard will not climb at the same pace.

Young, talented players can take bigger strides on a good day. The strides get shorter as an attribute nears the top of the scale and as the player gets older.

What speeds it up or holds it back

• Talent. How fast he can climb and how far. See the next section.
• Age. Young players develop fastest, and some attributes come earlier in a career than others.
• Form. A player in good form develops better than one stuck in a slump. The Scouting Report under Development on his player page shows this as Current form.
• The club. On the main team, strong teamwork and winner instinct in the dressing room help players grow, and weak ones hold them back. See team spirit.
• Spirit and ambition. A player with high Spirit and real ambition gets more out of every practice than a lazy or half-hearted one.
• Playing, and playing well. Good games add experience; poor ones earn him little or nothing, as the section on games below explains.
• Training intensity. Harder practices earn more experience. They also wear players down.

Talent and potential

Talent is hidden. It is made up of six potentials: agility, strength, vision, precision, stamina and courage. Each attribute draws on one or two of them, so a player can have the hands to keep improving his shot while his skating has all but stopped climbing.

Talent pushes a young player forward hardest in his teens. By his late twenties it no longer pushes him forward at all, and a player with little talent finds that the lack of it weighs more heavily as he gets older.

Every attribute also has a ceiling that comes from the potentials behind it. Once a player is good enough to be past that ceiling, progress in that attribute slows, and past a second ceiling it slows again. This is why a gifted teenager races ahead while a journeyman of the same age stalls. Only the rarest talents have no ceiling at all. The ceilings are never shown, but a scouting report’s Potential reading gives you a rough idea. See scouting.

Age

Different attributes come at different points in a career.

Develops	Skaters	Goalies
Earliest, in the teens	Shooting, Skating, Puck handling, Endurance	Reflexes, Athletic, Puck handling, Endurance
In the early twenties	Passing, Physical	—
In the mid to late twenties	Faceoffs, Spirit	Puck control, Positioning
In the late twenties	Defense	Spirit

From the late twenties on, players start to slip more than they gain. How that plays out is covered in decline and retirement.

Games and ice time

A player only earns game experience if he dresses. Players who sit out get their practice and nothing more.

• Good and bad shifts. Good shifts earn experience and bad ones cancel it out, so a player who struggles in his role can end a game with nothing to show for it.
• What he learns follows what he did. Playing on the power play tilts his learning toward the attack, and killing penalties tilts it toward defending. The focus you give his line or pair sets the balance too.
• Heavy minutes build endurance.
• Preseason games teach less than games that count.
• The level matters. A player who is far too good for the opposition learns less from those games. Juniors are exempt.

Players on your affiliate play its games and train on your programs, and both count toward their development, though the dressing-room effect only applies on the main team. If a young player would be scratched most nights on the main team, he learns more playing games on your affiliate, as long as he is not far too good for that league.

Losing ground

Attributes can go down as well as up. An attribute that earns no experience for a while can start to slip, and older players slip more often whatever they do. Slipping comes faster for attributes that are already very high and for players with little talent. Youth protects against it.

A player who is gaining in one attribute and slipping in another is normal. Seeing an attribute marked Regressing on a player in his prime does not mean anything is broken.

Training programs

A training program decides what a player works on and how hard. Open Training… from the Actions menu on your team page, put each player on a program, and press Save training.

Every healthy player on your roster trains every day of the year, in the preseason, through the playoffs and in the off-season. Injured players do not train.

A training program is a focus combined with an intensity. A player who joins your club by trade or signing starts on General at Medium.

Focus

Focus	What the player works on
Offensive	What your attacking tactic asks of a player in his position
Defensive	What your defensive tactic asks of him, and what it takes to defend against the style you play
General	A mix of both

What a program develops follows your tactics, so a club trains for the way it plays. When you change tactics, training changes with them. Players on your affiliate train on the programs you give them, under your tactics too. Endurance is part of every program. Centers also work on faceoffs in offensive and general programs, and players on the power play or penalty kill also train for those units.

Each program card shows a Focus line with the main attributes it builds for the position most players on it play. It is a summary, so it leaves out the faceoff work and the special-teams work. To choose a focus for a player, put him on a program that holds players of his position and whose Focus line names what you want him to build; if you want both ends of his game to grow, General mixes them.

Goalies have no focus to choose. They get an intensity only.

Intensity

Intensity is Easy, Medium or Hard. Harder practices earn more experience, but they also take more out of a player, and his Endurance attribute decides how well he copes. Players get their legs back on days without a game.

A player’s fitness reads Fit, Tired or Exhausted. A tired player plays below his level and is more likely to get hurt, and an exhausted one even more so. Games wear players down too, the more so the more minutes they play. A player you give heavy minutes is already carrying a big load, and Easy takes the least out of him. A player who rarely plays can handle Hard. If a player shows Tired or worse, move him to an easier program until he is Fit again. On the training board, a warning mark appears on any player who is on Hard while Tired or worse.

Setting up training

The board shows your programs, with skaters’ programs first and the goaltenders below.

• To start a new program, press + Add program, choose a focus (for goalies, Goaltenders), then its intensity.
• To put a player on a program, Select the program, then press Insert on the player in the roster list.
• Moving a player to another program changes what he works on and how hard.
• Press Save training when you are done.

Following progress

To see whether a player is improving, open Development on his player page. The chart shows how he has moved, and for your own players the panels beside it show what comes next.

The Development chart shows his Career or This season, for his Overall or for any single attribute you pick under Rating shown.

For your own players, and for the prospects whose rights you hold, two more panels sit beside it:

• Scouting Report: his Current form and his Potential.
• Training Progress: how close each attribute is to its next level. Regressing marks an attribute that is heading for a lower level. If an attribute you need is marked Regressing, it may be earning no experience; a program whose Focus line names it, for players in his position, puts work into it again. Older players slip more often whatever they do.

For another club’s player, those readings belong to his club. To get a read on him, request a scouting report from the Actions menu on his page.

On a day when one of your players’ Overall changes, a Training report arrives in your notifications. It lists who Took a step up or Lost ground, who is Close to a step up or Slipping, and who is Exhausted, with a link to Go to training.

Worth knowing

• A poor game never takes away experience a player has already built up; it earns him little or nothing.
• Changing your tactics changes what your training programs build.
• The Focus line leaves out faceoff work for centers and special-teams work, though both are trained.
• A player far too good for the opposition learns less from those games. Juniors are exempt.
• The dressing room helps or holds back development only on the main team.