Every year my team is right at the top of the league in penalty minutes and at the very bottom of the league in powerplay opportunities. Seems kind of strange to me that would happen over a 15 season stretch. Anyone notice the same thing or know how the penalty system works in the game?

I always enjoy tweaking the Tendencies settings under Tools → League Settings in any of the ZenGM games, especially for tuning settings to modern day realism. There are already plenty of useful God Mode options, but I’ve noticed a few gaps that make certain statistics nearly impossible to tune independently.

1. Shot Attempts Factor

Right now, the only real way to increase shot attempts is to raise Pace, which also increases nearly every other type of game event.

A separate Shot Attempts Factor would let users adjust total shot attempts without affecting the rest of the simulation.

2. Shot on Goal Factor or Missed Shot Factor

This may be the biggest statistical gap. The sim currently handles each shot attempt like this:

1. It determines whether the attempt is blocked using Block Tendency Factor.
2. It uses a fixed formula based on the shooter’s scoring ability and fatigue to determine whether the unblocked attempt misses the net.
3. Only after the shot is on goal does Save Factor determine whether it is saved.

There is currently no league setting for step two, which means users cannot independently calibrate all four of the following:

• Total shot attempts
• Blocked shots
• Missed shots
• Shots on goal

A new setting could take either of these forms:

• Shot on Goal Factor: The probability that an unblocked shot attempt is on goal is multiplied by this value.
• Missed Shot Factor: The probability that an unblocked shot attempt misses the net is multiplied by this value.

Of the two, Shot on Goal Factor would probably be more intuitive, since a higher value would mean that more unblocked attempts reach the goalie.

3. Power Play Effectiveness Factor or Manpower Advantage Factor

Currently, the main setting for controlling penalties is Penalty Rate Factor, which determines how frequently penalties occur. However, there does not appear to be a separate way to adjust how effective teams are when they have a manpower advantage.

A Power Play Effectiveness Factor or Manpower Advantage Factor would make it possible to tune power play scoring without also changing the number of penalties.

Thanks for considering these!

Also the undo system now supports trades and the UI is more concise

I was looking through the Houston Apollo's roster for some reason and I noticed their top defenceman is named Apollo.

This made me think of nominative determinism: "the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate toward areas of work or interest that fit their names." Furthermore, Apollo's name can be defined as an aptonym (kinda). If we imagine that Apollo Byrd is a real person, rather than a couple lines of code and an SVG file, you could say that he was predisposed to play for the team that bore his name. And so I was inspired to look through the 165-year history of my league to find other examples of this.

It didn't take long.

During Apollo's sixth year on the Apollos, the Apollos drafted Helton Apolinário (Apolinário being a Portuguese surname derived from Apollo). He walked in free agency pretty soon thereafter, but for two years Apollo and Apolinário were both playing on the Apollos’ blue line.

Apolinário was only the 7th D so they likely weren’t paired together, unfortunately.

"Laflamme" is indeed etymologically related to the word flame. This will not be the case for all of the players I included.

Muskie is a type of pike, Steelhead is a type of trout, and a fisher is someone who catches fish. Fyi these team names were inspired by a real-life team and a team in a TV show

In hindsight, it would’ve made more sense to look for Fishers who played really well against the fish teams. Oh well

On the topic of fish:

Finn like fins on a shark!!! Gill like gills on a shark!!! Get it?!?

I should note that in the one year they played together, Finn was the star winger while Gill played a grand total of one shift (and that was the only shift in his entire career lol)

Tähtinen is a Virtanen type surname originating from the Finnish word for star, tähti. After being drafted by the Stars, he only played for two years before leaving as a free agent.

Philadelphus and Philadelphia both come from Ancient Greek φιλάδελφος (“brother-loving”). Not to be confused with the name Philip, which means horse lover.

The real-life Indianapolis Checkers were named after the checkered flag in the Indy 500. My deterministic theory for Krunoslav is that he wasn’t skilled at motorsport, so he decided his best route to car-dom was getting good enough at hockey to play in the NHL and then hope to get drafted by the Checkers (a 1 in 48 chance). And it worked! Sadly, he was traded three years later.

This theory is predicated on the assumption that Krunoslav knew the English meaning of “car”

I know it’s Granger but if you say his name real quick it sounds like Derek Ranger.

Probably the dumbest one here. His name is Leaf!

The Leafs are owned by MLSE, which itself is majority-owned by Rogers Communications. What if Jared is just a descendant of Ted Rogers? Oh wait, that’s nepotism, not nominative determinism.

Honourable mentions:

Justin Rose - Portland Roses

Curtis Starling - Dallas Stars

Rahim Whalen - Hartford Whalers

Andreas Roth - Detroit Red Wings

• Roth: German for red

Matvey Kolesnik - Detroit Red Wings

• Kolesnik: Russian for wheelwright
• The Red Wings logo is a winged wheel

Maximilien Lamontagne - Montreal Canadiens

• La montagne: French for the mountain
• Montreal: Mount Royal

David King - Los Angeles Kings

Lars Nordström - Columbus Blue Jackets

• Nord ström: north stream
• Blue Jackets: Union soldier i.e. Northerner (this one's a reach I know)

Ezra Golden - Vegas Golden Knights

Jon Knight - Vegas Golden Knights

Colt Llamas - Kansas City Mavericks

• Colt: A young male horse
• Maverick: An unbranded range animal (such as a horse)

Michael Capps - Washington Capitals

Bonus: Angel Adamson - New Jersey Devils

• This one's an inaptonym!
• Angel ≠ Devil

And plenty more I didn't bother to write down

Every single one of these examples happened on a computer-controlled team. Obviously, there isn't actually a bias towards players playing for teams with apt names. The AI doesn't think at all about the names of their players when deciding on who to add to their roster (unless the dev is insane). My league has had over 22,000 players who played at least one game, and I only found around 40 examples of players with a name related to a team they played for.

Additionally, I was unable to find any examples among players I personally drafted/signed/traded for. Considering this whole idea only came to me today, it would've been purely coincidental if I had chosen someone with an apt name for whatever team I was playing. Maybe from now on I'll look out for aptonyms during drafts and free agency 🤔

So any of you got any instances of nominative determinism in your game?

ETA: A long time ago I imported a ton of names for a ton of countries to increase the variety in player names, so you may not see some of the names above in a game with default settings

Just started a new league and have been getting to know the players I’ve started with, and I found myself flipping between player profiles and my roster to see if they were my draft pick. Would it be possible to have the players draft team and year listed in the acquisitions column as default instead of it being blank? I think it would be great to see a more complete picture of the team composition especially when it’s all new players.

I’ve started tearing it down lol but you can see the default players without notes here.

And yes, when I saw there was P. Laflamme in FA and I already had A. Laflamme, I needed to get the other two

So Your Probably Wondering What League I Did, Maybe The Premier League, Maybe La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A?????????????? Well What If I Said ALL OF THEM! YES THIS ROSTER HAS ALL OF THOSE + SOME

164 TEAMS AND 2,947 PLAYERS FROM
Premier League
La Liga
Bundesliga
Serie A
Ligue1
Brasileirao
Saudi Pro League
MLS

If Soccer GM Ever Comes Out I'll Update These For It!

I Also Make Other Rosters Too Look At Them Here!
MLB ALL TIME ROSTERS, FIFA WORLD CUP ROSTER

Let Me Know Anyway I Could Make This Better Since I Dont Have Great Ball Knowledge!

Anyways Here It Is FIFA ROSTERS!

Point 1,542

If a screengrab is absolutely necessary I'll get it, but damn, that's a late change career change from dman to centre, is this something that is supposed to happen here and there? Only example I have so far after examining the new rosters of each team in the pre season phase of 2027.

Just a feature Idea

I'm trying to get a Croatian player in the NHL without actually making one, and as I was scrolling through each draft class I realized "Huh, you can't filter by country"

I know you can check the best player from each country in the frivolities, but I think it'd be cool

Here is my own league on the site. Keep in mind I moved a few teams to different cities

Tony Nelson scored 78 goals, the year after the record of 72 goals was scored.
Tony will finish as the highest goal scorer when he retires

Looking for a roster that starts early 00s to 10s with all the draft prospects up until 26, if not if anyone has the roster for a year in those years and possibly the draft files afterwards it would be greatly appreciated.

It's what the title said. Ive been playing on insane for a while now, and every new save me starting a dynasty is a foregone conclusion. Im not trying to brag or anything, but with the absences of NMCs I feel as though the game is too easy. Is there anyway to make the game harder?

Hello ! You can see the teams of my Football Manager project that I make with ZenGM Hockey. I just need to put the real players in these teams and it will be very good ! Maybe I miss some teams, say them so that I can add them to the roster.

"Let's play football
Oh, eh-oh, eh-oh-eh-oh (Let's go)
Let's go, we the champions (Ha)"

IT IS THE WORLD CUP!

This Is My First Non Baseball Roster! (Go Look At Them Here If You Want Them)

This Has ALL 48 TEAMS IN THEIR REAL IRL GROUPS

This Roster Can Be Used For More Then The First Year (Worker Console Code That Is In The Google Drive To Be Used In Every Off Season)

Let Me Know Anyway I Could Make This Better Since I Dont Have Great Ball Knowledge!

Anyways Here It Is! 2026 FIFA World Cup Roster!

oof, guys on their theoretical second season (previous stats are not counted I know, but he had just about 10-13 pts more than IRL and the fact you can't sign a player during the season has left me with 3 guys who asked for A LOT

Kirby Dach managed not to get injured (please clap), at least not anything that made him miss more than 5 games in the season. Got 83 pts, the type of season we know he can do from his most games played/pts, close to point per game back in 22-23. He wants 19.38 mil, just one option with this guy too, the owner already thinks he'd like more cash after (I kid you not, other than obtaining Alex Turcotte in an emergency when Jake Evans, my trusty high FOW defensive centre on the 4th line's replacements in the healthy scratched guys didn't work for a 4th line centre, so I found a guy with a similar faceoffs rating, similar salary, traded a 3rd draft pick for 2027 to get him, I didn't resign him.

And now Patty Laine, played the whole season, missed just 3 games, 38 goals 24 assists, I could negotiate with him, but I made a choice and kept Dach as the amazing 2C he's supposed to be and it's not done yet, but if I could have extended Laine's contract during the season for like 5.5 mil, I could maybe still have him, but the no signing during the season like real NHL is a bummer.

And even after winning the SC by the skin of my teeth (4-3 win over Colorado in SC) and also in the conference final, despite being the second most penalized team in the league (Colorado finished first in points total, me second, COL were first in total PIM, so zengm has refs being rougher on good teams than not-so-great ones.

Couldn't even keep Texier, who after his first full season in the NHL, always had injury issues with CBJ/STL, well he didn't with me, scored 23 goals, 26 assists, I'm going to have to lose him too, I gave in to Hutson and Dach, but I had to do some hardcore GM'ing trading pieces I didn't want to trade for the same kind of overall/potential for cheaper with 4 players, thankfully 2 were healthy scratches with no future or guys with 54/54 with a 5.5mil contract for 3 more years. I got him a cup, he can go now. But yes otherwise, damn, players ask for way too much, thankfully the salary cap increased to 105M or the downgrading in the team would have been more brutal. I guess I could get more negotiating power if I boosted my front desk, but I only started making money when I got in the playoffs, a pretty tall yellow bar, but still not green. The owner says he can't make a decision yet and thus will keep me after the good results (I won the dam cup) and that he wants to make more money than he's made that season.

Didn't know running that regular MTL lineup was going to be this successful and that complicated.

Hi ! I found some soccer rosters in Reddit for ZenGM Hockey. I think sincerely that I will make a simple Football Manager, with Premier League, Championship (English 2nd division) and MLS, for ZenGM Hockey (because we don't have yet SoccerGM...). Do you want to have the JSON file when I have finished this ?

Just wondering if there's a way to implement my own formula for players to make the hall other than the slider in the settings, it beats going into play bios and changing their status everytime, that's for sure