Challenge #30 - TBL - Discussion Thread

[jesterx7769]

Finished Q2

-11-5-4 is about the same .500 pace I was expecting. At least I got losses in OT
-Goals were up and goals against went down which is good. But I had a 9 goal and a 7 goal game so if you take those out then scoring is down
-Stamkos is living up to as good as advertised leading the league in points. I want to run a side test to see how many points he still gets with poop players on the line
- St. Louis is tied with Stamkos in goals at 27 through 40 games
-Defense has been disappointing to me as they seem above average but aren't performing well
-PK of 76% is pretty bad. Not sure what I can do to improve it or how much of it is goaltending.
- Not sure how much of it is just superstition but I have been paying more attention to the scouting reports on teams and changing strategy based on what they say i.e. not mobile/small defense
-I took over the AHL team so I could put some of the defenders in forward positions. With the bottom 6 NHL forwards being so bad I am hoping some of the decent defenseman who can't make the NHL will at least be able to fill in as defensive forwards. It was amusing since I got emails from them complaining about practice
-Something kind of interesting, the Bruins went with a full on checking line with Lucic on the 4th line which I thought was interesting.

[Leeman14]

I'm approaching the end of the first season.

I'm going to need a lot of luck if I'm even to remain at .500.

I started the season with Jonathan Drouin on the team but he was horrible. The biggest surprise seemed to be Philippe Paradis who was leading in all statistical categories at one point. I had Riku Helenius as Syracuse's starter and he went on a tear going 12-0-0 to begin the season (including a couple of shutouts). Biggest disappointment was Stamkos through the first two quarters.

Injuries, thus far:

-Stamkos x2 (total of 4 weeks)
-St. Louis x2 (total of about 4 weeks)
-Helenius (8 months)
-Salo (4 months)
-Carle (2 months)
-Malone x2 (3-4 weeks total)

After many years of playing EHM 2007, I'm still a novice when it comes to tactics so I've played with things a little and it's going better.

[jesterx7769]

There appears to be an error with the stats uploader. For Q4 it will not let me upload my stats because it says I have played 22 games when I should have played 20. But I never had troubles uploading for Q4 in the past.

[bruins72]

I may have messed up setting up the challenge. I will go take a look.

EDIT: Yup! I messed up setting up the challenge. It should be okay now. Sorry about that.

[jesterx7769]

All done with season 1. Much better than expected but i don't think its the challenge teams per say that make it hard to win/get to playoffs. The hard part is winning the cup. I feel like we could take any team to the playoffs or close to it. The Leafs was pretty bad season 1 before but mainly because of total lack of goal-tending.

-Finished in 6th place with 91 points. I had 15 OTL so thank goodness for getting points for those as I had a lot of them.
-Stamkos was better than I thought he would be, scoring a whopping 122 points. I essentially just tried to go all out offense like usual (as my poor PK and GA show)
-I beat the Rangers in 7 games in the playoffs thanks to Lundqvist being out prior with an ACL injury
- Then Carolina smoked me but I somehow got two wins thankfully
- Paradis won rookie of the year and was a solid stud as second line RW
-Goalie is obv priority heading into offseason, not really sure where to go otherwise. May just see what is there for best available.

I will post my off season moves in my Q1 update.

[bruins72]

I just hit the half way mark of season 1. I'm currently 8th in the East. Purcell has missed 8 games so far from 2 different injuries. St Louis has missed 4 games. Paradis missed 5. My defense and goalies have remained pretty healthy. I started the season with Cote as my bottom pairing LD because Aulie looked so slow but Cote was a big disappointment. After 10 games I plugged in Aulie and he's been a solid defensive defenseman. I've had Korobov as my bottom pairing RD for most of the season but decided to give Lee a shot over the last couple games. We'll give him 10 games or so and see what a difference he makes.

I can't wait to get through this season and make some changes!

[jesterx7769]

Bah now that I'm in the offseason I'm not sure what to do I thought for sure trying to get a new goalie was priority #1 but Lindback actually played decent and is improving and it is not like there plenty of guys better than him readily available. Crawford is available for a do-able price but Lindback had better numbers than him. I can't help thinking getting some more forwards or a better defenseman would help out more right now

The good news is I had my best draft ever with some guys that may actually play before the challenge is done for once

[Peter_Doherty]

Bah now that I'm in the offseason I'm not sure what to do I thought for sure trying to get a new goalie was priority #1 but Lindback actually played decent and is improving and it is not like there plenty of guys better than him readily available. Crawford is available for a do-able price but Lindback had better numbers than him. I can't help thinking getting some more forwards or a better defenseman would help out more right now

The good news is I had my best draft ever with some guys that may actually play before the challenge is done for once

Before i had to restart my thought was getting 1 D-man and 1 good BP-forward in the off season. The goalie situation isn't good, but its not horrible either with Lindbäck, Helenius, Desjardins and hopefully Vasilevskiy in a few years... that was my thoughts on it atleast

[jesterx7769]

BP-Forward? Yeah I was expecting the goalie situation to suck big time like it did when we did the Leafs challenge. Getting a top 5/10 goalie would be nice but LIndback is in the middle average range in the game.

[Peter_Doherty]

a Box Play guy that can play bottom-6 without sucking ass

[batdad]

Box play is penalty killer? Not a phrase that we would be familiar with in North America.

[Peter_Doherty]

Well, i'm Swedish so i'm probably just wrong PK-guy then =)

[batdad]

Swedes are less likely to be wrong than most when it comes to hockey. Only when they disagree with grumpy old Canadians like me.

[jesterx7769]

lol it makes sense I just had never heard BP before and I worked in hockey for 5 years. Knowledge is power!

[Manimal]

Yes, box play is a Swedish term for penalty killing!
I think there are more examples of us using a different english word for something in hockey that already has a name in english.

Overtime is called 'sudden death' here. I know that phrase sometimes is used in NA, but here that is pretty much the official name
Two-line pass violation was called 'red line offside'

[Peter_Doherty]

Yes, box play is a Swedish term for penalty killing!
I think there are more examples of us using a different english word for something in hockey that already has a name in english.

Overtime is called 'sudden death' here. I know that phrase sometimes is used in NA, but here that is pretty much the official name
Two-line pass violation was called 'red line offside'

In short, we are weird. =)

[batdad]

:I know... we have Eddie Lack remember. BJORK BJORK BJORK.. .Swedish chef, cracks me up.

Sudden Death used to be used a ton here. Still is really, but is not an official term.

[jesterx7769]

Wow the trading in this game has become so broken it is sad. During the season good players are practically given away like Minnesota's fire sale. Then when its just after season i can't trade for dog poop. I did not trade for anyone as I will hope for those fire sales. Then in August all of a sudden someone I previously target in Zajac is give away who had a value of 1 star when they traded him. When I he was for trade they accepted a 5th round pick for him which I had to cancel and watch someone else grab him. The salary floor also hurts a lot for trades since teams under it wont trade yet they suffer no penalty.

[mrballar]

I'm approaching the end of the first season.

I'm going to need a lot of luck if I'm even to remain at .500.

I started the season with Jonathan Drouin on the team but he was horrible. The biggest surprise seemed to be Philippe Paradis who was leading in all statistical categories at one point. I had Riku Helenius as Syracuse's starter and he went on a tear going 12-0-0 to begin the season (including a couple of shutouts). Biggest disappointment was Stamkos through the first two quarters.

Injuries, thus far:

-Stamkos x2 (total of 4 weeks)
-St. Louis x2 (total of about 4 weeks)
-Helenius (8 months)
-Salo (4 months)
-Carle (2 months)
-Malone x2 (3-4 weeks total)

After many years of playing EHM 2007, I'm still a novice when it comes to tactics so I've played with things a little and it's going better.

I was going to get on and post about Stamkos. Through 20 games, he hit a slump with absolutely no points. Bumped him down to 2nd line for a couple games, brought bumped him back up and he took off like a rocket, hitting 22P in 11 games.

Having a rough time with the D and can't seem to get any production out of lines 3 and 4, tried cycling guys out of Syracuse but with not much luck. Aulie went berserk and got himself suspended and subsequently trashed by the media, Filppula's given me 4 points in 17 games for a -10, and Hedman continues to be productive in offense but can't seem to do anything for defense.

Seems like most people have had decent luck with Paradis, any other success stories on call-ups?

I'm chompin' at the bit to pick up UFAs and make a trade for a solid D-man or goaltender. And of course, currently rockin' 14th place...

[mrballar]

is there any chance I could have my stats reset? I didn't realize until today that I patched the game with CSD 1.2 (for some ungodly reason) and my saved game ceases to exist after February 12/13.

[bruins72]

I PMed Archi and asked him to reset you.

[jesterx7769]

Who did you all go with for your new coach? I went with Bobby Carpenter. Limits the options when you have to hire them as an assistant first.

[bruins72]

I hired Bobby Francis as my AGM with an eye towards making him my head coach. He seemed like he had a good balance that would work for our team.

[mrballar]

Who did you all go with for your new coach? I went with Bobby Carpenter. Limits the options when you have to hire them as an assistant first.

I actually picked up Bobby Carpenter to start the season as an Asst. Coach, well balanced, who someday, would be nice to bump up to replace Cooper.

[mrballar]

I PMed Archi and asked him to reset you.

Thanks for the help, Bruins72!