Challenge 23 : The Columbus Blue Jackets

[bruins72]

All Challenge 23 discussion goes here!

[Loosie]

WOOT! Will have to start this when I get home from work.

[bestrafer7]

My first challenge in awhile.. I like the Blue Jackets..

For all of you playing this challenge.. here is a Blue Jackets prospects action-style facepack I made.. http://www.mediafire.com/?577ry41gck3y71c ..There are a few added prospects of when I played with other teams in past games.. guys like Filip Forsberg, Nail Yakupov, etc..

Extract the .rar file to your EHM directory. Most likely located at C:/ Program Files/ Sports Interactive/ NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2007/ data/ pictures/ players/

The file works for the CSD Patched rosters.

Good luck guys and let's have fun!

[thunderbug]

This should be a good challenge. I haven't played with them in 4.1b, but I played with them in 4.0. Clitsome seemed to be a beast for them at times. Nash Carter Umberger were amazing. Too bad it didn't work that way for real. Anyways I have high hopes for this challenge. Wisnewski and Johnson should work well together.

[eric1985]

My first game
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums ... .png[/img]

[timmy_t]

Wow! Even the goalies dropped the gloves.

[eric1985]

Below that was a 5 min major and 10 min misconduct to dorsett for slashing he got suspended 2 games for lol
Gonna be a long season i think. Been away from 07 for a bit, forgot how to play defense haha, hoping for the 1 season turn around though

[bestrafer7]

This team is weaker on the bottom half, but has plenty of players who can make the team in a season or two. Boone Jenner didn't turn out quite how I wanted him too.

Here is my lineup as of the 20th game..

Huselius-Johansen-Nash
Umberger-Prospal-Bass
Giroux-Brassard-Dorsett
Byers-Letestu-Atkinson
Boll

Methot-Johnson
Tyutin-Wisniewski
Nikitin/Lebda-Moore

Mason
Sanford

Nash is having a monster year putting the puck in the net with 17 goals in 20 games and Johansen is the guy feeding him the puck with 16 assists. A real physical game with all of my lines seems to work better than trying to finesse my way through. With smaller teams, I've been able to imtimidate them with my bottom six and have the top six put the puck in the net.

[bruins72]

Well I'm 8 games in and this team isn't looking so bad! So far, my best performers have been Mason, J. Johnson, Wisniewski, Umberger, Huselius, Brassard, Johansen, Bass, and Nash. Bass has been the real surprise here. I brought him up after the first 3 games to replace Cam Atkinson. I can't say that Atkinson was performing all that poorly. He actually had 2 goals and 2 assists in 3 games. I just didn't think he was ready for a full season with the big club. Also, I didn't think he brought the right tools for the second line role I had given him. I had him with Huselius and Brassard. I wanted a winger with some grit and defensive ability to play with them. Bass fit that perfectly. I was a bit concerned that he didn't have the offensive skills to belong there though. I guess he did because in 5 games he has 6 goals and 3 assists! He's leading the team in goals.

Here is my lineup right now...

Umberger-Johansen-Nash
Huselius-Brassard-Bass
Prospal-Letestu-Dorsett
Gillies-MacKenzie-Boll

J. Johnson-Tyutin
A. Johnson-Wisniewski
Methot-Nikitin

Mason
Sanford

[Loosie]

NOOOO!!!

[bruins72]

Well, after a nice start my season went in the wrong direction. At the 20 game mark our record is 8-9-3 and we've given up more goals than we've scored. I've got a great PP but a bad PK. I've juggled my lineup due to injuries and also due to poor performances. I don't know if it's helped though. Bass is out for a couple weeks now and Kubalik has been brought up. I wasn't happy with Gillies or Boyce and now they're both down in the AHL. I ended up bringing up Giroux, who I had overlooked at first. I can't get Prospal to work out for me no matter what role I give him. He's still with us though. I've also flip-flopped Johansen and Brassard back and forth, switching 1st and 2nd line duties between them. I even had them on the 1st PP together.

Oh and I'm not pleased with my defense. I've got a couple good guys but I've got too many left-handed shots. I like playing lefties at LD and righties at RD. I've also got too many 5-6 defensemen and not enough 3-4. I like Jack Johnson, Wisniewski, and Tyutin. If I had another 3-4 defenseman, I could put Tyutin on the LD in the second pairing and put Johnson and Wisniewski together as the top paring. I don't have anybody I can really put on the RD on that second pairing though. Right now I've got Methot on the LD in my second pairing. I love his defensive abilities but he just doesn't have enough stamina for a 3-4 role. I've used Aaron Johnson for the first 20 games and he hasn't impressed me. I'm putting Lebda in there to see how he does. Nikitin has been horrible. Maybe I'll try A. Johnson at RD?

Moving forward from game 20 this is what my lines look like...

Umberger-Johansen-Nash
Huselius-Brassard-Kubalik (Bass when he returns from injury)
Giroux-Prospal-Dorsett (maybe Kubalik when Bass returns)
MacKenzie-Letestu-Boll

J. Johnson-Tyutin
Lebda-Wisniewski
Methot-A. Johnson

Mason
Sanford

[bestrafer7]

Methot has been solid on my top D pairing.. I've been using a more physical game with all of my lines and just throwing the puck at the net. I end up somewhere around 45-50 shots on net a game and I have a record of 7-1-1 with that gameplan. Dane Byers is a really solid defensive player for me and Cody Bass has been a great surprise as well.

Rick Nash is performing at a goal a game pace.

I'm now in 11th in the West and only one or two games out of 8th place.

[bestrafer7]

Crazy Game.

[bruins72]

That's got to hurt. You put up 9 goals ad you lose. Ouch! Which goalie let in the majority of those goals? It's got to be Sanford. Right? He stinks.

[bestrafer7]

That's got to hurt. You put up 9 goals ad you lose. Ouch! Which goalie let in the majority of those goals? It's got to be Sanford. Right? He stinks.

Yeah, but at least I got one point out of the game.. And Sanford let in all 9. Mason has an above .600 winning percentage and Sanford is at like .125. They were both injured and Dekanich lost all three games he played in. Tough luck with anyone, but Mason.

[thunderbug]

If my goalie crapped the bed that bad in the first, he'd be yanked for 1. 2 I probably wouldn't aim to come back. I'd probably look to send a message to the other team in another way. Let them win that game on the scoreboard, I'll knock them into next week.

[timmy_t]

If my goalie crapped the bed that bad in the first, he'd be yanked for 1. 2 I probably wouldn't aim to come back. I'd probably look to send a message to the other team in another way. Let them win that game on the scoreboard, I'll knock them into next week.

I'm with you!

[timmy_t]

I'm going to see if I can get a season or two completed in this challenge. Our baby girl is six months old and sleeping through the night, so that gives daddy some play time. Yay!

I went 1-3-1 in my preseason games but I was playing a lot with my 3rd/4th lines and 3rd d-pairing. I think this is what I'm going to start the season with:

Prospal - Brassard - Nash
Giroux - Johansen - Huselius
Umberger - MacKenzie - Bass
Dorsett - Letestu - Boll

J. Johnson - Wisniewski
Methot - Tyutin
A. Johnson - Nikitin

Mason
Sanford

I'm going to try to match lines, which is why Umberger is on my 3rd line right now. We'll see how it goes...

[bruins72]

I'm going to see if I can get a season or two completed in this challenge. Our baby girl is six months old and sleeping through the night, so that gives daddy some play time. Yay!

I know exactly where you're coming from! I was at the point where they slept through the night but now they're out of their cribs and in toddler beds, so they wake up and want to play. Of course, whoever wakes up in the middle of the night makes sure to wake his brother too. Kids are crazy. Enjoy!

[batdad]

I really want to get into this, but I am having too much fun still with my long term unemployed game. My team is the Nux, Caps, Sens all combined. Finish at or near top of league as the Ducks every year. Still...never win the cup and have only been to the final once. I have never had so much trouble winning the cup. It is really cool. 4th year in with the team, 2 Pres Trophies, 1 final, 2 exits in 2nd round, 1 in first round. I just won't give up.

But when I do finally win a couple of cups, guess which team has fired 5 GMs in 13 years?

[bestrafer7]

To the Admin:

My game save seems to have been corrupted and no matter what I do (system restore, repairing the file) nothing seems to make my save game for the challenge work.

I keep getting this error:


Is there anyway I could possibly start my challenge over?

Please and thank you!!!!

[eric1985]

Man, my first 20 games were rough. Now that ive convinced them to stop taking so many damned penalties they are on a 6-0-2 streak.

[joehelmer]

This will be my first challenge since Challenge 19, wow, it really is a long time.
I played up to 20 games played and is in 8th place, really surprising that we performs this good. One player who is a surprise, shouldn't be after reading this thread, is Ryan Johansen who has assisted to 20 goals in 20 games. I hope him and Nash can keep this good work up. Johansen even won the Rookie of the Month award in September.

[MacPhal]

Hey guys I'm currently in the training camp and I got a bug I did a open training camp (Forgot to turn it off ) And the goalie I got was Robert McVicar. The thing is he was signed by the Cardiff Devils before the end of training camp and I had him set to backup the next game. Now he is with the Devils and off my main roster, BUT I can only dress one goalie and when I go into the tactics screen R.McVicar is right there. I tried playing ahead to the point there the invites go home and he is still on the tactic list. Anyone know what I can remove him from that screen? I also cleared my starting 20 to see if I would still get "1 players dressed" and I get "0 players dressed" and he's still there in the tactics screen all by himself Maybe sign and release him? If I can get the ok to do that?

[bruins72]

I really want to get into this, but I am having too much fun still with my long term unemployed game. My team is the Nux, Caps, Sens all combined. Finish at or near top of league as the Ducks every year. Still...never win the cup and have only been to the final once. I have never had so much trouble winning the cup. It is really cool. 4th year in with the team, 2 Pres Trophies, 1 final, 2 exits in 2nd round, 1 in first round. I just won't give up.

But when I do finally win a couple of cups, guess which team has fired 5 GMs in 13 years?

So keep your save for your long-term game and take a break from it to play around on the challenge for a bit.