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

[philou21]

First season's over! Things went well and ended like I expected. Finished 7th in the west with 100 points (44-26-12). With 100 pts I expected the team to get higher than that but the central division was too strong with Dallas, St. Louis and Chicago ahead of me and the Predators close behind. (96 pts) Lost in 6 games against the Ducks in the first round of the playoffs.

Six teams broke the 100 points mark in the west and seven in the east. :O Rangers finished first with 124 pts.

The young guns in the team did pretty well. Landeskog with 46 G, 36 A in 82 games finished top scorer. Second is MacKinnon with 39 G, 41 A in 82 games . Third is Duchene with 36 G, 38 A in 82 games. Duchene was a bit disappointing at the start of the season though, with 10 pts in 24 games but he caught on at some point. Iginla had a really good season finishing with 26 G, 44 A in 82 games. The big surprise was Rendulic who was supposed to be send down before I buyout Bordeleau. He started on the fourth line with some PP and quickly went on the second line and ended up with 26 G, 35 A in 79 games! He's probably in the race for rookie of the year award and that earned himself a 3 years contract. (1.5, 2 and 2.2 per year)

In the minors Rantanen did a pretty good job (37 G, 32 A, 75 GP and 7.72) and will most likely play with the big club next year. Grigorenko did pretty good too. (32 G, 33 A, 65 GP and 7.63) He got brought up once and scored 3 pts in 3 games so he will probably follow Rantanen up next year.

Deception of the year was Soderberg and his big contract. Finished with 8 pts and an average of 6.4. So he's most likely gone in the summer as I need cap space for a couple of big deals starting on July 1st. (Johnson, MacKinnon and Barrie) Almost everyone is signed except Tanguay who doesn't look like he wants to sign but I'll try to sign him until the very end. On to the draft now!

[Ozil]

Nice philou. Did you make any trades? How was Pickard?

[philou21]

No major trades. For the first year I wanted to see what the team could do. I only bought out Bordeleau and traded Hishon at the deadline for a third rounder, because I didn't want to sign him and some teams were interested. I pushed hard for Ehlers but acheived nothing. Next is Soderberg for sure but except him I do not expect to trade someone else for now.

Pickard stayed in the AHL and did good. Played one game with us and he won it.

[geckon]

Have you managed to re-sign Jagr? I think he will continue IRL but I wasn't able to extend him. What about your experience, guys?

[tango602]

Only a handful of games into my first season with Fife Flyers of the Elite Ice Hockey League in Great Britain, had 2 wins and 2 losses in pre-season, the wins were against Haringey Racers of National Ice Hockey League South 2 and Manchester Storm who are in the same league as Fife in an exhibition league set up by Manchester with the losses coming at home to English Premier Ice Hockey League side Telford Tigers at home and fellow Elite League side Coventry Blaze in the exhibition league.

In the Elite Ice Hockey League I have played 3, won 1 and lost 2. My only win in the league so far came away to Nottingham Panthers with the result being 5-3, I had been 2-1 down going into the 3rd period of that one so was over the moon to win that one, the losses however came at home to Coventry Blaze who beat my side 4-1 and 4-0 to Sheffield Steelers which if I remember rightly was also at home.

I have only played one match in the Challenge Cup so far which was away to Dundee Stars resulting in a shootout win after being level at 2-2 following Overtime.

The very long term goal for me is to win the Champions Hockey League and maybe then take on the champions of the NHL, KHL and Asian Ice Hockey League in an exhibition league but that is on hold until the bugs with continental competitions are fixed

[philou21]

Second seasons is at the door!

Did not signed any UFA. I only resigned Tanguay with a one year 2.2$ contract though.

Training camp was really interesting I had some good surprises! As expected Rantanen did pretty good and an obscur hero came out of nowhere....Julien Nantel, draft in the 7th round of 2014, that I needed to sign in may. I didn't even checked the guy for the whole year except when I started my game and he develop pretty well, going from three stars to 5 stars! I put him with Duchene and Rantanen for my pre-seasons games and he got 12 pts in 6 games. Duchene did 10 pts in 6 games and Rantanen 13 pts in 6 games! No way I'm dismantling that trio for the start of the season!

Bad news were Iggy, Stuart and Beauchemin taking a hit on their stats. Was predictable though but Iginla, unfortunately, will be my back up attacker for the team as he did very poorly in training camp. I might alternate him with Tanguay since they are both my older fowards. Beauchemin will stay in the line up since his stats are better than Stuart. Bad news for Stuart is that Zadorov and Bigras did well and he kinda lost his spot on the roster. Zadorov, for now, has made the team and Stuart will be the back-up. Bigras will continu his journey in the AHL.

So my line-up looks like this for now:

Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rendulic
Nantel-Duchene-Rantanen
Comeau-Grigorenko-Tanguay/Iginla
McLeod-Mitchell-Everberg

Barrie-Johnson
Gormley-Beauchemin
Zadorov-Holden
Stuart

Varlamov
Berra

Among the young players Rantanen, Gormley and MacKinnon had a great boost in attributes during the summer. Even though Grigorenko did well when I brought him up last season his training camp was pretty average so I'll see what I'm going to do with him. I might try to trade Stuart but I'll keep him during october in case Zadorov does not maintain the rythm.

[marksbros6]

Only a handful of games into my first season with Fife Flyers of the Elite Ice Hockey League in Great Britain, had 2 wins and 2 losses in pre-season, the wins were against Haringey Racers of National Ice Hockey League South 2 and Manchester Storm who are in the same league as Fife in an exhibition league set up by Manchester with the losses coming at home to English Premier Ice Hockey League side Telford Tigers at home and fellow Elite League side Coventry Blaze in the exhibition league.

In the Elite Ice Hockey League I have played 3, won 1 and lost 2. My only win in the league so far came away to Nottingham Panthers with the result being 5-3, I had been 2-1 down going into the 3rd period of that one so was over the moon to win that one, the losses however came at home to Coventry Blaze who beat my side 4-1 and 4-0 to Sheffield Steelers which if I remember rightly was also at home.

I have only played one match in the Challenge Cup so far which was away to Dundee Stars resulting in a shootout win after being level at 2-2 following Overtime.

The very long term goal for me is to win the Champions Hockey League and maybe then take on the champions of the NHL, KHL and Asian Ice Hockey League in an exhibition league but that is on hold until the bugs with continental competitions are fixed

Good to see another user of the UK leagues (and like me feeling the need to explain the UK hockey landscape for everyone else on here)!

Good luck wiht Fife, waiting for the CHL bug to be fixed before I venture into the top league myself.

[Ozil]

I'm starting a new save with the Avs with the new additions. I kept Grigorenko with the big club as he had a solid pre season and sent down Gormley, Bigras, and Redmond.

My lines:

Landeskog-MacKinnon-Boedker
Grigorenko-Duchene-Iginla
Matthias-Soderberg-Comeau
MacLeod-Mitchell-Skille

Beauchemin-Barrie
Gelinas-Johnson
Stuart-Holden

Varlamov
Berra

I would have kept Pickard but I'm thinking for his development, it's better to have more games in the AHL than warm the bench behind Varly.

[GigantorTheGoalie]

Finish 3rd in points in the entire online league I'm in. Go into playoffs and lose 3 straight games in OT then lose the 4th game to complete the sweep. THREE straight games in OT, all loses. Never been so widdled off at the game before now.

[saberhagen83]

New York Rangers in season 5. It's actually a continuation on challenge 40, since I'm now over the cap limit set for the challenge so can't use this there but the save is so much fun I've decided to play it for myself with a little less restrictions.

Last season we won the cup for the first time. This season we had a great regular season (125p) but still ended up 2nd in Metropolitan as Penguins were even more great (132p)! However they were swept in the 1st round. Kreider was great last season but no player really stood out this season. But in the playoffs Kreider, Milano, Stepan, McDonagh, Atkinson all were superb. In the 1st round we played Carolina, ended up down 1-3 but the team played amazing to come back and win the series. In 2nd round we played Tampa Bay, again falling down 0-2 but came back and won 4-2. In the conference finals we faced Montreal and swept them. St Louis waited in the final and everything went wrong.

Halverson played terrible and Howard came in in game 3 in the 3rd period, almost helping us make a comeback. Being 0-3 down we came back strong to win the next 2, not even taking a single penalty in the process. Of course Howard got injured and Halverson leaked goals in game 6, 3 from just 10 shots. Sparks comes on and we manage to tie it up...only to loose in 2nd OT.

My team in year 5:

Chris Kreider - Derek Stepan - Jason Zucker/Riley Barber
Sonny Milano - Ryan Kesler - Rocco Grimaldi/RileyBarber
J.T Miller/Cam Atkinson - Clayton Keller - Vincent Trocheck/Jordan Schroeder
Jimmy Vesey - Kevin Hayes - Bryan Rust/Jordan Schroeder

Ryan McDonagh - Justin Braun
Jake McCabe/David Farrance - Ian Cole/Connor Murphy
Keith Yandle/David Farrance - Jordan Schmaltz/Keith Yandle

Brandon Halverson/Jimmy Howard

[Animal31]

Im in 2020 and I have no joke 25 picks in the upcoming draft; 2 1sts, 3 2nds, 6 3rds, and 11 4ths, 1 of 5 6 and 7ths

[philou21]

Second season's over with a 4-3 serie lost to the BlackHawks in round #1 of the playoffs. Was losing 0-3 and almost did the epic comeback.

Season went both well and average IMO. Team performed well but some players were a "letdown" for me even though their ratings where better than last year, so I guess there is a bit of improvement anyway. We finished 2nd in the west with a record of 49-23-10 for 108 pts. My PP and PK were both lower than last year but that could be explained by the new rookies I had within the team.

Talking about those rookies, Rantanen and Nantel did an awesome job in their first NHL season. Rantanen finished as the best goal scorer of the team. He finished with 38 g, 28 a, 66 pts with a rating of 7.78! Nantel finished with 25 g, 32 a, 57 pts with a rating of 7.55. So I can't say I'm disappointed by those new additions!

The letdown I was talking about came out of my young stars. Landeskog (46 g, 36 a, 82 pts in 2016) finished with 30 g, 34 a, 64 pts with 7.73 (7.91 in 2016). Duchene ended up with 37 g, 34 a, 71 pts with a 7.62 rating. (36 g, 38 a, 74 pts with a rating of 7.37 in 2016) MacKinnon went for 23 g, 47 a, 70pts with a 7.49 rating. (39 g, 42 a, 81 pts with 7.35 in 2016) Overall they did a good job and 2 of them got better ratings than last year but offensively they really struggled some times and I had to often switch Duchene and MacK up and down at the center position to try and launch them again. Which never result in something ground breaking.

I will also have a couple of decisions to take during the off-season. Tanguay, Iginla, Stuart, Weise, Spaling and Mitchell are all UFAs and I don't really want to sign any of them. I lost during the season Everberg through waivers so I've got a whole checking line to sign and maybe I'll try to find a good second line center and third defensemen on July 1st. Anyway I don't have any big contracts that goes on so I will have a pretty good cap space I think.

[rmt_1982]

Just started a game at the Penguins..

Done a couple of trades, got rid of Perron, for Brooks Orpik, who I instantly flipped to Buffalo for Chad Ruhwadel (gives me a long term 3/4 D man), and the rights to Devante Stephens. It also gives me a little bit of room to play if I want to go after a 'rental' winger later on.

[Aahlstroem]

It's all in Swedish but if someone wants screenshots and things like that you can read my whole journey here.

I started 15/16 with the Bruins and failed miserably, we ended up in the bottom but at least we were able to draft Laine as #4 in the draft. The following two seasons we missed the playoffs as well until we finally made it as the 8th seed in 18/19 where we were immediately eliminated by the Capitals. In 19/20 things finally really worked out and we ended as 3rd in Eastern. Then we went all the way in the playoffs and won the Stanley Cup. Both 20/21 and 21/22 we won the Presidents' Trophy but ended up losing in the Stanley Cup final.

After that I felt kind of done with the Bruins and I saw that Arboga had gotten promoted from the Swedish third tier to Hockeyallsvenskan, so I took over them instead. In our first season we ended up last but were able to defend our spot in the relegation league. Then in 23/24 we did a big makeover, a lot of players left and a lot of new were signed. After half a season we were 13 points behind the team on the last secure place in the league (12th, the last team that don't have to participate in the relegation league). But then during the second half we managed to take enough points to eventually end up as team number twelve so we avoided the relegation league

Now 24/25 is about to start and we're aiming higher this season!

[Dadonov63]

New Jersey Devils.
19-20 1st in NHL
18-19 1st in NHL
17-18 1st in NHL
16-17 5th in NHL
15-16 1st in NHL

I havent done that much trades, my defense core has been the same all years (only traded for Gostisbehere). We are absolutly the best regular season team in NHL, and still we cant go far in the playoff. I think conf final is the best we have done.
Now we are in the preason after a really good season. Cammalleri and Sakari Salminen has left as free agents, and Oscar Lindberg has joined as FA.
Hossa i traded for the playoff, i was looking for some older guy with experience, he will turn 41 this season! Jurco was my highest scoring player since i started this save, 86p.. My whole first line did 35-40goals each, and Adam Larsson had +56 in +/-.
My team/lineup for upcoming season will be like this:

Benn-Zacha-Jurco
Lee-Henrique-Nylander
Lindberg-Rasmussen-Hossa
Thomas-Kalinin-Moses

Greene-Larsson
Moore-Severson
Gostisbehere-Santini

Schneider
Blackwood

Edit.. I traded Yakupov to Carolina, and signed Anders Lee from free agents.

[rmt_1982]

My season at Pittsburgh is going OK...

However, I think there may be a team with not many picks in the draft.

[Icos]

As usual with my proper carreer games I try to start with worst teams and grow with the team and progress to stronger leagues. This time I decided to start in finnish third tear, Suomi Sarja, and I just picked the team with the least available players on the roster, namely Seinäjoen Kiekko. With only a handful of players being available on my roster (among with some youngsters), team budged of 13,250€ per month and obvious low reputation, I felt it was the right challenge for me.

Luckily, I had a great starting goalie Joni Laasala on my team already so the first position was filled. My goal was first to complete the whole roster of 20 players with loanees and cheap free agents and start from there. Quickly I found out, that no one wants to come to me on loan, so there was nothing left but to use some of my juniors along with other cheap 'leftovers' from other teams, still being without a contract. I acutally managed to build a team of around 22 players almost within the budged and I opened my first season (being tipped as a battler for staying clear of relegation) with 4-0 record. We played inconsistent, often losing at home to 15th placed teams one day and beating the 3rd placed teams away from home next day. Eventually, we finished the first season on third place and finally losing the Suomi Sarja in the semi-finals against team VG-62, eventual champion of the league (they got swept in Mestis relegation battle, though).

All in all, I signed 18 players in my first season, while only letting the lone foreign player Kevin Ray go during the first season. In the off season I decided not to sign contracts with seven players, while I couldn't keep my best defenceman Antti Uitto (he went to TUTO, Mestis) and Markus Järvelä who ended up in SM Liiga with Lukko.

Now I'm in my second season and I feel the team to be much more stronger now. Still we have stretches of losing streaks, but all in all we are shaping as a proper contender. 11 games to go in the regular season, we are leading the Suomi Sarja with 50 points, our closest followers are Karhu KT with 49 and Kiekkokopia with 48 points. We are scoring more goals this year and it shows up in the statistics - last year Teemu Pulkinnen was our best scorer with 24 points (15+9), after only 25 games this season Tomi Pallassalo already have 28 points (5+23), while both Antti Pusa (26) and our hottest prospect, 19-years old Jan Lehkonen (24) already cought Pulkinnens numbers. Should we kept the last years defence numbers, we would already own the league, but Joni Laasala is not on his last years standards. His GAA this season is 2.43 (compared to 1.95 from last year) and also 92.2% SV is unreachable at the moment (90.9%). He also had 6 shutouts last year, while we are still waiting for the first this season.

Anyway, when I started to write this post, I thught it would be just a brief report (as I imagine finnish third level hockey is not too popular around here), but it ended up quite long, so I apologize for any inconvinience

[rmt_1982]

I'm not happy at all with the season. Let too many leads go..

[Tasku]

As usual with my proper carreer games I try to start with worst teams and grow with the team and progress to stronger leagues. This time I decided to start in finnish third tear, Suomi Sarja, and I just picked the team with the least available players on the roster, namely Seinäjoen Kiekko. With only a handful of players being available on my roster (among with some youngsters), team budged of 13,250€ per month and obvious low reputation, I felt it was the right challenge for me.

Luckily, I had a great starting goalie Joni Laasala on my team already so the first position was filled. My goal was first to complete the whole roster of 20 players with loanees and cheap free agents and start from there. Quickly I found out, that no one wants to come to me on loan, so there was nothing left but to use some of my juniors along with other cheap 'leftovers' from other teams, still being without a contract. I acutally managed to build a team of around 22 players almost within the budged and I opened my first season (being tipped as a battler for staying clear of relegation) with 4-0 record. We played inconsistent, often losing at home to 15th placed teams one day and beating the 3rd placed teams away from home next day. Eventually, we finished the first season on third place and finally losing the Suomi Sarja in the semi-finals against team VG-62, eventual champion of the league (they got swept in Mestis relegation battle, though).

All in all, I signed 18 players in my first season, while only letting the lone foreign player Kevin Ray go during the first season. In the off season I decided not to sign contracts with seven players, while I couldn't keep my best defenceman Antti Uitto (he went to TUTO, Mestis) and Markus Järvelä who ended up in SM Liiga with Lukko.

Now I'm in my second season and I feel the team to be much more stronger now. Still we have stretches of losing streaks, but all in all we are shaping as a proper contender. 11 games to go in the regular season, we are leading the Suomi Sarja with 50 points, our closest followers are Karhu KT with 49 and Kiekkokopia with 48 points. We are scoring more goals this year and it shows up in the statistics - last year Teemu Pulkinnen was our best scorer with 24 points (15+9), after only 25 games this season Tomi Pallassalo already have 28 points (5+23), while both Antti Pusa (26) and our hottest prospect, 19-years old Jan Lehkonen (24) already cought Pulkinnens numbers. Should we kept the last years defence numbers, we would already own the league, but Joni Laasala is not on his last years standards. His GAA this season is 2.43 (compared to 1.95 from last year) and also 92.2% SV is unreachable at the moment (90.9%). He also had 6 shutouts last year, while we are still waiting for the first this season.

Anyway, when I started to write this post, I thught it would be just a brief report (as I imagine finnish third level hockey is not too popular around here), but it ended up quite long, so I apologize for any inconvinience

Keep them coming. I find the odd, unfamiliar league more interesting than the NHL, because most of the time it's the NHL or some other top league we get to read about.

[rmt_1982]

I don't mind winning the cup.. Just not this way too much please guys...

[Icos]

Keep them coming. I find the odd, unfamiliar league more interesting than the NHL, because most of the time it's the NHL or some other top league we get to read about.

Thanks for feedback. As you are from Finland and all, I can already ask you for an advice Just before the playoffs in Suomi Sarja starts with us being a regular season winner, I got offered a job in Mestis. Jokipojat won the league in 2016, but is struggling this season - they are only one point from being last in the league. Would you advise me to take the job and leave a stable, but financially quite limited S-Kiekko for one of the richest teams in Mestis (their budged this year is 3rd highest in the league) at this point of the season? I wouldn't think twice about signing a contract with them after the season (should they stay in Mestis and I fail to promote with S-Kiekko), but at the moment I don't feel that comfortable leaving the successful team for a struggling team in upper league with just a few games in hand (and with transfer window already closed).

[Tasku]

I'd say, as a career move, it'd be a good one. Jokipojat, like you said, is one of the top teams in Mestis, one that could well be a future Liiga team, where as Seinäjoki will probably never be more than a semi-pro team. Just make sure you don't get relegated!

[philou21]

Season 3 is about to start. Couple of changes in the line-up but mostly small ones.

During the off-season I signed Spaling (2 years), Winnik (3 years) and Justin Williams (2 years). I got them all with cheap deals too so that doesn't hurt my cap. I kept Bigras with the team along with Zadorov because Bigras improved alot during last season in the AHL and he's now having better attributes than Zadorov. So I'll try them both and see what's gonna happen but I'm pretty sure Zadorov will leave the team soon. His attributes did not even improved AT ALL during last season and I already have Wood and Green that are slowly becoming stronger and better.

Talking about rookies who did not improved much is Grigorenko. He gained a bit of attributes last year but it did not showed in his stats has he had a mediocre season. For this season I'm gonna try him as the second line center to see if something will happen. If not then he might get trade since I'll look around for a decent second line center.

So here's the line-up for the 17-18 season is:

Landeskog-Duchene-MacKinnon
Nantel-Grigorenko-Rantanen
McLeod-Spaling-Williams
Comeau-Winnik-Rendulic

Holden-Barrie
Gormley-Johnson
Bigras/Zadorov-Beauchemin

Varlamov
Pickard

[StormCloudsGathering]

It's a month or so into 2024, And yet again my team is at the top of the NHL In terms of the regular season, and it has a new face.
In the previous years I have executed pretty big trades,Bennet for Larkin and assets, Brodie and assets for Karlsson, Stamkos and like a 7th for Eichel, a giant list of assets of which I had already replaced for Chychrun, Jiri Hudler and Joni Ortio for Zach Nastasiuk, who's a first liner at this point, Dougie Hamilton for Burmistrov and Zach Werenski (the first year I won the cup).

78 Points in 53 games, Spearheaded by Veterans Mark Giordano, 41, and Duncan Keith, 41 and youngsters like Jason Plocar, a 2017 high draft pick with an excellent shot and Jason Skojdt, a player with unbelievable mental stats, along with long time members Monahan and Gaudreau, and of course flames sophomore Jack Eichel, the best center in the league.

My lines are as following

Skjodt - Eichel - Monahan
Gaudreau - Larkin - Nastasiuk <---- Usually 50 goalscoring Jason Plocar's Spot
Lotvonen - Krejci - Patoprsty
Marchand - Keller - Gauthier < ---- Not usually in the lineup

Chychrun - Keith
Giordano - Clague
Werenski - Bjorkman < ---- Defense's weakest link

Vasilevskiy - M.Murray

With such a good team, i'm bound to lack high end prospects, and I do, replaced by high skilled young talent up front, in the NHL, though 30th overall pick goaltender Kaj Ramo is spearheading my prospect pool to my own surprise, despite the fact that a good portion of my scouts rate him as a prospect that won't grow more, i'm trying to do just that.

My team is also riddled with veteran talent, Marchand, Krejci, Monahan Eichel and more up front, and Still-fit Duncan Keith and Less so Giordano.

Speaking of keith, geez has he lasted long without faulting. He just signed a 2 year contract bringing him to 43, and he still has 16 Stamina!

That's the future flames for ya!

[Icos]

After a few days of thinking, I have made one of the hardest decisions in my EHM life and decide to follow Taskus advice to take over at struggling Joensuun Jokipojat. My goal before the end of the season was clear, to escape the relegation zone. Straight away I noticed Jokipojat has a lot of problems in defence, starting with two quite bad goalies. Mikael Edelmann with 3.24 GAA and 89,5% SV wasn't backed up at all in 36-years old vet Kai Tillanen, who played 8 games for Jokipojat this season, only to win once and record a 3.71 GAA and 88,5% SV. With transfer window closed and not much time in hand, I decided for the only option and it was to sign 21-years old Patrik Virtanen, who played in USHL last season but wasn't able to find a team for this year. He was signed on a tryout basis.

I also appointed Head coach and we made a nice deal relatively quickly. Jussi Tapola, former Tappara head coach took over and join me in the attempt to save the Mestis title defender from getting relegated to Suomi Sarja.

In six remaining games we only lost once in the regular time, but we came three points short after two wins and two losses in overtime. My only addition so far, goalie Patrik Virtanen did just slightly better job than other two guys, winning once in four games with SV 90,6%. 11th place after the regular season sent us to Relegation playoff finals.

Meanwhile my former team S-Kiekko didn't suffer much from my departure. They swept Bewe Tuuski in QF and only lost once in semi finals against FPS. They also won the lone final game against HC Indians and made me proud as they were crowned as Suomi Sarja Champions. That meant, though, they were heading towards the same direction as my team - Mestis Relegation playoff finals. And the inevitable had happend:



Now that will be some series, I can't wait to play it out.