How's it going in EHM 1? What team are you?

[saberhagen83]

So it's pretty true to reality, where you can't really know what's going to happen come the draft. I wasn't sure if it was or if it'd pretty much go by the numbers.

It very much is yeah, which is great cause it gives a bit of excitement to the draft. In my last draft I was looking at a C that was gonna go 11. I had my pick at 26th and didn't have the pieces to move up that far. Waited it out though and almost got a deal to move up to 17th...he went 18th. So a lot can happen during the draft. I actually wonder if AI considers team needs/depth chart when making their picks?

[Pahvi]

Well well...i have 38hrs clocked in this game now, i started with Tampereen ilves from Finnish Liiga (cuz da best, after ´nucks, eh?)

Took me approx 5 years to get my 1st Kanadamalja win, then i won it again, it seems like my ehm2007´s teambuilding "rules" still work like a charm...

I should keep on playing until it crashes and/or gives me trouble, and try NHL too, to properly see what is different.

[lemming3k]

So it's pretty true to reality, where you can't really know what's going to happen come the draft. I wasn't sure if it was or if it'd pretty much go by the numbers.

Yeh I think the draft is pretty spot on to reality, some GMs suck and pass up great talent for nothing, some do great deals or get what they want, and some go for their team needs even if it means drafting down a little or picking out a low ranking good prospect.

[hockey17jp]

I just won my third Stanley Cup in a row and I think it's safe to say my team has become the next great NHL dynasty.

39 year old Ryan Miller was the story of the year, he started off by taking the starting job away from slacking Sergei Bobrovsky, and then won a mind boggling 51 games in one season before leading the Blue Jackets' third cup, and his first.

The 2020-2021 Blue Jackets are looking almost exactly like the 2019-2020 team, Gustav Nyquist was resigned long term after winning his fourth Rocket Richard trophy and his third Art Ross and Hart Trophies. Offensive dman Mike Green decided to leave the team after 4 seasons to join the Colorado Avalanche, so the Blue Jackets picked up 36 year old Dan Girardi on a one year deal to help fill the gap until some new defensive prospects are ready to take over. Kris Letang and Alexander Wennberg were also resigned.

The Jackets were very active in free agency and extended offers to a number of players including Danny Dekeyser, Emerson Etem, and Devante Smith-Pelly, but almost all of these deals fell through.

It was a very entertaining offseason that saw a lot of surprising moves. 34 year old Alex Ovechkin signed a two year 24 million dollar deal with the Chicago Blackhawks, while Steven Stamkos signed a long term deal with the Kings that will pay him 11 million per year. Evgeni Malkin decided to move as well and he left the Penguins for the Washington Capitals for a 3 year deal worth 10.5 million a year. Even players like Loui Eriksson were finding huge offers. Eriksson moved to Florida to cash in a contract that will pay him 9 million a year, despite not scoring over 80 points in 3 years.

[titi21]

Hi guys. Let me share my experience with the game so far. I am portuguese (so no ice hockey in my country), but i usually watch NHL because it passes in Portugal. I am a big fan of FM, so i know my way through this type of games, even tough they are quit different. I started by playing 2 or 3 short careers (in NHL and in Russia) just to experiment the game and understand how things work, and then i started a career with Columbus Blue Jackets, because it seemed a team with some good youngsters, and i want it a team with a lot of youngsters so i could build a good team in the future, and also because they have never won Stanley Cup and my goal was to give them one. Well, i did it in the first season!! I don`t know if i got lucky or if i build some good tactics, or even if i got the right trades, but the fact is that i won the stanley cup in my first season!! That was awesome!! No i don`t know if i keep going, or if i start with some other team that also has a lot of youngsters. Any ideias??

[hockey17jp]

Hi guys. Let me share my experience with the game so far. I am portuguese (so no ice hockey in my country), but i usually watch NHL because it passes in Portugal. I am a big fan of FM, so i know my way through this type of games, even tough they are quit different. I started by playing 2 or 3 short careers (in NHL and in Russia) just to experiment the game and understand how things work, and then i started a career with Columbus Blue Jackets, because it seemed a team with some good youngsters, and i want it a team with a lot of youngsters so i could build a good team in the future, and also because they have never won Stanley Cup and my goal was to give them one. Well, i did it in the first season!! I don`t know if i got lucky or if i build some good tactics, or even if i got the right trades, but the fact is that i won the stanley cup in my first season!! That was awesome!! No i don`t know if i keep going, or if i start with some other team that also has a lot of youngsters. Any ideias??

Would you mind showing me your line combinations? Did you make any big trades or anything? I'm playing with the Jackets too and I'm interested.

[titi21]

Hi guys. Let me share my experience with the game so far. I am portuguese (so no ice hockey in my country), but i usually watch NHL because it passes in Portugal. I am a big fan of FM, so i know my way through this type of games, even tough they are quit different. I started by playing 2 or 3 short careers (in NHL and in Russia) just to experiment the game and understand how things work, and then i started a career with Columbus Blue Jackets, because it seemed a team with some good youngsters, and i want it a team with a lot of youngsters so i could build a good team in the future, and also because they have never won Stanley Cup and my goal was to give them one. Well, i did it in the first season!! I don`t know if i got lucky or if i build some good tactics, or even if i got the right trades, but the fact is that i won the stanley cup in my first season!! That was awesome!! No i don`t know if i keep going, or if i start with some other team that also has a lot of youngsters. Any ideias??

Would you mind showing me your line combinations? Did you make any big trades or anything? I'm playing with the Jackets too and I'm interested.

My lines for most of the season were: Bobrovsky
Savard Johnson
Goloubef Murray
Connauton Tyutin (then i signed Lundin that replaced Connauton and traded Scandella that replaced Tyutin)

Atkinson Dubinsky Hartnell
Foligno Anisimov Jenner
Weise* Johansen Spalling*
Morin (or Palmieri*) Letestu Calvert (i then traded Calvert) and began playing with Wennberg

*this were the players i traded

[hockey17jp]

My lines for most of the season were: Bobrovsky
Savard Johnson
Goloubef Murray
Connauton Tyutin (then i signed Lundin that replaced Connauton and traded Scandella that replaced Tyutin)

Atkinson Dubinsky Hartnell
Foligno Anisimov Jenner
Weise* Johansen Spalling*
Morin (or Palmieri*) Letestu Calvert (i then traded Calvert) and began playing with Wennberg

*this were the players i traded

That's funny, I picked Weise up early in my game as well. I would recommend my all-star Jenner - Johansen - Foligno line to you, but you already won the Cup so you're doing it right .

[Be26]

As well as my game playing the Leafs and using Phil Kessel's multiple Hart, Art Ross, Rocket Richard and everything-winning seasons as carthasis, I've also got a watcher game running purely because I like reading about them in other games and I thought it'd be interesting to see if trends emerge, who turns into a superstar, who busts out, whether any nations can overcome the hegemony, that sort of thing. Right now, it's the turn of the decade and here's what's happened:

- It looked like Tampa Bay were in prime position to become the next big dynasty, with two Cups in three years and a Finals appearance in the year they didn't win. However, they're going to have an incredibly tough time living up to that because their cap situation is so screwed. Steven Stamkos is on $10.5 million already and in line for a raise this year, which is fair, but they're paying Dustin Brown $5.8 million and T.J. Oshie a ridiculous $7.8 million for another two years after they picked him up from free agency. The guy's best season is 63 points on the STACKED Blues team that won the Cup in 2017/2018 and Tampa Bay have just made him their second-highest earner, above two Conn Smythe winners in Andrei Vasilevsky and Ben Bishop, multiple-time All-Star Victor Hedman and two-time Richard winner Jonathan Drouin.

- Speaking of the Conn Smythe, I've seen five Cup Finals and in four of them, the winning team's goalie has won the Conn Smythe. As well as Bishop and Vasilevsky,, Corey Crawford and Jake Allen have both claimed it and I suspect it was only Semyon Varlamov being not very good at all during Colorado's run to the Cup that led to Nathan MacKinnon winning for that year. It's an odd quirk and I'll be keeping my eye on it because it's already out of whack with reality.

- Henrik Lundqvist is a monster and basically the only thing keeping the Rangers relevant. Disagree? He's won the Vezina four out of five times - only Pekka Rinne stopped it being a clean sweep - and the 2015 Hart as well. He's 37 and when he retires, New York are going to collapse.

- Initially, I was concerned that we wouldn't see any big trades. I can report this is not the case. Kris Letang, Phil Kessel, Claude Giroux, Logan Couture, Nikolai Kulemin, Brent Burns, Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd and Tobias Enstrom have all moved teams within the last couple of years - Letang twice - and so often that it seems stupid. I'm choosing to believe Kessel's trade must have been orchestrated by Joffrey Lupul, because I just checked his bio to see when that trade was and he and Lupul are listed as enemies.

- In the original EHM, I used to enjoy seeing what happened when you evened out the generation of players across all nations. As I recall, it took about fifteen years after I did that for Canada to win it's first medal at the World Juniors and Italy were multiple-time champions. In this game, I'm expecting any effects to take a lot longer - I increased the quality of a number of domestic leagues elsewhere in the world, hopefully that'll do it - and that shows, because I've yet to see any surprise teams emerge from the international competitions. Canada have won four gold medals at the Juniors and the Olympics, while Russia and Sweden fight for domination of the World Championships.

[plaaplaa72]

I've noticed too that Phil Kessel is dominating the league, in my 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 seasons Kessel wont Art Ross, Hart, Rocket RIchard and Ted Lindsay trophies.

And about my save, as it seems that like many others i am playing as the Blue Jackets, won the cup last season (2015-2016) and looking to repeat this season, my current lineup is:

Grabner - Johansen - Atkinson
Anisimov - Zajac - Tikhonov
Hartnell - Jenner - Pulkkinen
Carter - Mitchell - Beagle
Boll

Murray - Green
Lindell - Braun
Tyutin - Harrington

Bobrovsky
Dansk


Got lucky in the 2015 off-season and happened to sign both Green and Braun which really boosted my defense, and Grabner has been a beast for me this 2016-2017 season, so far 23 goals and 42 points in 31 games, and having a 8.32 Av R.

And in the 2016 off-season i got Zajac, i noticed that Devils put him on the block, i offered a 3rd for him, they didn't think it was enough, added Ryan White and they were ok with it.

Going to have to trade my whole 3rd line away next off-season since, Wennberg - Dano - Nylander will be replacing them.

[peachesgp]

Well, season 1 for the Bruins is in the bag, lost in 7 games to the Blues so overall I'm pretty satisfied with the result of the first season. Just got past the draft and I've offloaded Lucic, Seidenberg, and Chudinov and got all the guys I was targeting in the draft. Only issue I'm having is that the team's being cheap as hell. I'm 10 mil beneath the cap and it won't let me offer Spooner, Hayes, and Connolly more than 1.5 mil per.

[saberhagen83]

NASHVILLE PREDATORS

2021/22

After the good years 2-4, with 1 Cup and 2 President's, the team fell back a bit and notched only a couple of 100p seasons and early exits. Then in year 7 we started to move forward again, coming inches close to winning the President's. Had it not been for the long term injuries to Saros and Huberdeau we might just have won it! In both year 6 and 7 we made it into the 2nd round, but both times Colorado were too good....winning the Cup in year 7.

A lot of tinkering with the roster last few years have now brought us back to another Cup winning season! Year 8 marks the 2nd Stanley Cup win! Arizona were really strong and won the President's with some margin. We came in 2nd in West and 3rd in the league. Then came a really tough run to the title! We had to go to a game 7 in every round (beating Vancouver, Colorado, Edmonton), but the guys stood up in the final game 7 against the Rangers. We were down 0-4 heading into the 3rd period. We managed to get back in and tie it and won the title after 58s into OT!

Watson - Toews - Forsberg
Huberdeau - Turris - Mäenalanen
Pirri - Esposito - Smith-Pelly
Girgensons - Samuelsson - Lindblad

Josi - Jones
Weber - Ekblad
Matheson - Ellis

Saros/Lehto (Drafted: 180th in 2019)

Notable players: Zach Geoffrion (G - Drafted: 149th in 2017), Ryan Collins (D), Filip Ahl (LW/RW - Drafted: 53rd in 2015), Joel Kiviranta (LW/RW - Drafted: 90th in 2015), Topi Piipponen (LW - Drafted 174th in 2016), Timotée Bergamelli (C - Drafted: 54th in 2019)

On a side note, our AHL team Milwaukee Admirals won the Calder Cup! Got some interesting prospects coming through I hope. They took a major leap from barely making the playoffs and going out in round 1 to winning the league and the cup in the same year. Our young goalie Geoffrion made some major improvements this year as did Bergamelli that got some good gametime up in the NHL as well.

[Epic]

I'm 10 mil beneath the cap and it won't let me offer Spooner, Hayes, and Connolly more than 1.5 mil per.

Upping their player status usually does the trick for me.

[peachesgp]

I'm 10 mil beneath the cap and it won't let me offer Spooner, Hayes, and Connolly more than 1.5 mil per.

Upping their player status usually does the trick for me.

Yeah that ended up helping, but I had to wait to change it because I was giving them the role they expected so it wouldn't let me change it immediately to be able to offer more.

Also my team picked up Franzen off waivers without my having done it, so I don't know how that happened.

[hockey17jp]

Going to have to trade my whole 3rd line away next off-season since, Wennberg - Dano - Nylander will be replacing them.

Ooh I would keep Jenner around if I were you. He's had 6 straight PPG seasons for my team, and he's an excellent penalty killer. Heck he's even my captain.

[ClassicSwarley]

I'm controlling the Oilers, I'm in February, 2018 at the moment. Absolutely love my team, lost my 10th game in regulation in game 55, Taylor Hall and Eberle are tearing it up. I also have Gustaf Franzen doing really well in the AHL, have some nice defensive prospects in the system, so I have a bright future ahead of me!

[MattL41]

Although coming from Scotland I've been a big New Jersey Devils fan for the last 15 years, so I currently have control of the 2014-15 Devils.

All is not going well. The horrible mix of expensive, aging veterans cobbled together by Lou is just not getting it done, and at 15-31-1 I'm second last in the East and third last overall as at mid-January 2015. I was keeping within a reasonable distance of 8th for the first 15-20 games or so, but from about December onwards the wheels have come off.

I lost Cory Schneider after a dozen games to the old four month UCL tear injury. As a result I am now playing my back-up Keith Kinkaid as my starter. I'd anticipated giving Kinkaid maybe 20-25 starts this year, but at this rate he's going to start nearer to 70! I did explore acquiring a replacement goalie (at the time Ottawa had four on the NHL roster and Minnesota had Kuemper in the AHL) but the prices were too steep for what would essentially be a four month stop-gap so I decided just to tough it out. I've lost more one goal games than I can count and maybe Schneider would have been the difference between a one goal loss and a one goal win in some of them, but it is what it is.

Still, I'm pretty optimistic about the position I'm in for building the organisation up. My first rounder in 2015 is going to be quite high, although I'm certainly not deliberately tanking. I also managed to ship Zubrus to the Sharks for their 2015 first rounder just after training camp. Little did I know at the time but the Sharks are also terrible and are currently fifth last overall. At this rate I'm looking at having two picks certainly in the top 10 and possibly within the top half dozen overall. That'll really help kick start the rebuild. Beyond that I've also got two second rounders, three thirds and four fourths. I'll take a view one the picking order is determined but I'll probably be exploring (a) moving up in the draft and (b) turning some of those into current NHL players.

I'm clearly not making the play-offs this year so, with so many old and expensive forwards, I'm expecting that I'll be in full-on seller mode at the deadline. Having already accumulated the number of draft picks I have, I'll be wanting to see what I can add in terms of prospects and young players. If I end up taking on a few more 2015 picks then that's fine and I'll be really aggressive at the draft. If nothing becomes of it then the prospect cupboard is in dire need of being restocked anyway.

I've been testing the market on a few of the players I'd like to move on and I'm being offered a number of 2016 picks. I'm considering an approach whereby I accumulate some 2016 picks and then use them to either offer sheet RFAs or hang on to them until training camp next season. I am anticipating that a couple of teams will be capped out by then and looking to shed salary. I don't expect AI teams to be taking that sort of view at this draft, but when teams set their rosters for the 2015-16 season I'm thinking that having a little stash of draft picks might allow me to pick up some players in cap-related deals.

In any case, youth, speed and offensive amongst my forwards is the order of the day between now and the start of next season!

[comatose]

Been playing with 06-07 roster but the 2006 rule set sucks for assigning players to AHL/ECHL. 1 goalie, 4 skaters? From game start up I remain over the max roster on most teams and can't send anyone down. Any way to change that? Turn off the max?

[Stormsky]

I've been playing with the 2006 rosters and rules and I don't think there is a limit. I have a ton of players in the AHL (thought the ECHL is a bit trickier, it won't always let you send players there). Are you sure the players don't just need to go through waivers first?

[comatose]

Nah. I get an actual message saying that I can't have more than 1 goalie, 4 skaters on my AHL team or ECHL team. Even tried waiving beforehand, etc.

[Asher413]

Some teams had limits to AHL and ECHL in 2006 DB's. Look under the info team for the parent team, you may see (looking at the Bruins) Independent- Limits (1GK: 4SK) on that affiliate.

There were only 27 AHL teams back then so at least 3 NHL teams had to share/spread out their prospects. I believe loans will work around that if you wish.

EDIT: As far as removing the limitation, you'd have to edit the affiliations and start a new game IIRC.

[comatose]

Ah, I see. Makes a little more sense. Unfortunately Brent Burns will not accept a loan

[Kobrakay]

I'm having a blast so far! After not playing EHM2007 for 3 years or so this looks familiar but "new" at the same time, having to re-learn some things and discovering others.

For my first game, I started with 2 teams:
- TBL - main objective: the CUP!
- EDM - main objective: McDavid!

Has been very fun and challenging so far. Due to some luck (Drouin and Kucherov mostly ) and some GODLY performances from Bishop (despite his low stats compared to other starting goalies) I manage to get TBL to top the league in December.

On the other hand, EDM are dead last. So far so good. My main problem is that despite my initial objective, I've not made any effort to lose games....that scares me...next year, when I want to start challenging for a playoff spot, the team will be roughly the same + McJesus but will he be enough to change THIS MUCH in a team? I have to pick some good players in the offseason to go along him.

I have a question for you guys. Regarding attributes, from what I see, more than half of the junior players have their best "technical" attribute being hitting. Is that normal? Hell, a lot of NHL'ers also have a higher stat for hitting than what I would expect. Do you guys experience this as well? Or is the "average" value for hitting somewhat high so a guy with hitting 13/14 is actually below average and not a project of a bone crushing train? Thanks

McDavid isn't too great if you put him straight into the NHL after the draft. Carolina drafted him in my save, put him on the third line and and he put up something like 15 points in 70 games. I'd suggest another year in junior to fill out his stats a little.

Yeah but I'll put him in the second line for a few months then straight first line. Hall and Eberle/Yakupov will help him produce I hope

Regarding the hitting stats, have you noticed something similar to what I've described?

Got it!

First season Tampa won the Cup and Edmonton were dead last, won the lottery and got McDavid. Success!

I'm almost done with my second season and Tampa remained dominant (apart from the fact that I can't seem to get Stamkos scoring goals it seems only wingers can score huge amounts of goals for my teams, my centers are often relegated to assist position and, sometimes, not even getting points as the most common goal scoring pattern has been center->Dman->winger->winger->goal).

Edmonton turned it around. Are now first in the west Yakupov was having a tremendous season until the injury but Hall and Eberle carried the team after that point. McDavid started really really hot but is now averaging slightly below a point per game (despite a huge +/-, see the above scenario of the most common goal scoring pattern for my teams hence his so far inability to keep a point per game). Do you guys have centers reaching 40 or 50 goals a season?

The highest performing players in the league are close to reality (at least this past season's reality) with low scoring numbers, the first place scorer got over 80 points but slightly.

So far in my experience I only see two strange things...the previously mentioned hitting stat being high on most players (either young or developed, almost everybody can hit like a truck) and the fact that in the second season, almost ALL of my games go to SO. It is becoming annoying to go every other game to a SO.

Cheers from Portugal.

[djskek]

[Asher413]

I REALLY hope you're also the coach of the German national team