Offical Tactics Thread: General / Even Strength

[Shindigs]

Just a little update on how I'm doing with the tactics I posted above, they are pretty much just broken good. We just came off a 400 goal season, haven't had less than 90% Pct in 7 seasons and our players win every single award (that matters) every single year. The only iffy one is the Roger Crozier, that sometimes just eludes us. But that's got nothing to do with tactics and everything to do with Carter Hart not feeling like being the best goalie in the world some seasons.

This is what our record looks like:

The tactics in their exact state that I posted them here have been in use since around the 2025-26 season. I hadn't added the tighter marking and more pressing personal tactics before that. Another huge thing that happened at that time was that I replaced our backup goalie, he was the reason we were down to Pct in the 80s after that early 19-20 .900+ season. So never underestimate the value of a good backup in EHM. There isn't really a good way to check our playoff records that I know of in EHM but I don't remember losing a single game for at least 5 seasons now, probably more. We're at 15 cups in a row and just getting ready to go for the 16th.

Considering this was the first tactic I tried after only ~10 games of playtesting I'm a bit surprised at just how good it is. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good I guess. It has morphed a bit over the seasons, but it is largely unchanged. The biggest thing to me is that it's consistently remained nearly unbeatable despite a complete change of manpower. There isn't a single player on the team that was on it for our first cup. The personal tactics just get so much value out of your players that it barely matters if your players have 150 PA or 185 PA, you get 100+ points out of either in a good year. We had 5/6 top 6 forwards on 100+ points last season, the only guy who missed it by 9 points was out injured for 7 games, and was projected to hit it had he not been injured. So if you're afraid that bringing two more defensive forwards into your top 6 will limit your scoring, don't be. They score almost as much as your snipers and playmakers do, if not more.

There is one little caveat to mention though, generated players tend to have much lower Natural Fitness than premade players, this leads to your younger players having issues with fatigue towards the later half of the season/playoffs when playing on Overload. This doesn't matter that much since they still perform admirably after getting fatigued, and it helps build their resilience for future seasons. But my quick tip is that when you have 18-21 year old in your top 6 and play on Overload; Make sure that whenever you have a 3+ day rest between games you put their practice schedule on "Resting". The first two days will be spent getting their condition up to 100% again, but the third day will give them a legitimate day of rest at 100%. This helps slow down the rate at which they get fatigued (the little "Rst" box next to their name). I've had 3 young players suffer from this same issue, around their 3rd-4th season they will have gained enough Natural Fitness from being played so hard that the problem will go away. At that point you can stop resting them in the 3 day breaks. Worth noting is that some seasons the scheduling will cause your team to simply not have any 3+ day rests mid-season. There isn't really much you can do about that, just let them get fatigued and harden them for later seasons by playing them through it. I've never seen it have any backlash, and our current player going through this phase scored 90 points his rookie year at 18 and 105 in his sophomore year. So it's not like it kills their production or anything.

[bede420]

So you are using Overload on forwards and defenders? Whats the avarage icetime of your top scorers? I use Normal on both defenders and forwards all season and playoffs on my tactic. I think Zetterberg, Tatar and Nyquist has most icetime of my forwards, 18-19min.
It have given me two Presidents and two Stanley Cups in my two year as a GM.

[Shindigs]

So you are using Overload on forwards and defenders? Whats the avarage icetime of your top scorers? I use Normal on both defenders and forwards all season and playoffs on my tactic. I think Zetterberg, Tatar and Nyquist has most icetime of my forwards, 18-19min.
It have given me two Presidents and two Stanley Cups in my two year as a GM.

Yup, I use Overload on both, icetime varies a lot based on PP time, but it's normally in the 19-21 range for the top 2 lines, your 1st line doesn't play that much more, it's more that your 2nd line also gets close to 1st line ice time, and your 3rd line gets around 12-14 minutes per game. Depending on the amount of penalties your 4th line will actually be sat the entire game sometimes, which isn't ideal. But the more bang for your buck you can get out of your top 6 the better. It also lets you skimp on the budget for the bottom 6 to keep a really stacked top 6.

I started using Overload during the .8xx Pct era as a way to try and minimize the losses from our backup being a calamity. At first I only used it in the games he started, then I started using it for all games we had at least 2 days of rest after, and finally I started using it for all games except the first game of back-to-backs. As you can see our win rate slowly increased as I started using Overload more, and it also makes it much easier to get your top guys awards.

What I've noticed is that players don't end up with less condition after a game than they do on "normal". What I mean by that is when I play on "normal" our guys with the lowest con after a game have 80, in rare cases they go as low as 78. When we play on "Overload" they also drop no lower than that, the only difference is that more players drop to 80. From the over night rest that takes them back to 87-88 condition, the 1 day off before the next game then takes them up to 94-96. The difference between that and the 100% they would be on if I used "normal" is pretty neglible, not to mention the only guys you really care about the condition level of is your top line, and they were already going to drop to 80ish regardless. The only difference is that now the 2nd line joins them. I have a tendency to end up with a more prolific 2nd line than 1st line, so using this really capitalizes on the "depth" of my top 6.

[m0fownz0r]

So you are using Overload on forwards and defenders? Whats the avarage icetime of your top scorers? I use Normal on both defenders and forwards all season and playoffs on my tactic. I think Zetterberg, Tatar and Nyquist has most icetime of my forwards, 18-19min.
It have given me two Presidents and two Stanley Cups in my two year as a GM.

Yup, I use Overload on both, icetime varies a lot based on PP time, but it's normally in the 19-21 range for the top 2 lines, your 1st line doesn't play that much more, it's more that your 2nd line also gets close to 1st line ice time, and your 3rd line gets around 12-14 minutes per game. Depending on the amount of penalties your 4th line will actually be sat the entire game sometimes, which isn't ideal. But the more bang for your buck you can get out of your top 6 the better. It also lets you skimp on the budget for the bottom 6 to keep a really stacked top 6.

I started using Overload during the .8xx Pct era as a way to try and minimize the losses from our backup being a calamity. At first I only used it in the games he started, then I started using it for all games we had at least 2 days of rest after, and finally I started using it for all games except the first game of back-to-backs. As you can see our win rate slowly increased as I started using Overload more, and it also makes it much easier to get your top guys awards.

What I've noticed is that players don't end up with less condition after a game than they do on "normal". What I mean by that is when I play on "normal" our guys with the lowest con after a game have 80, in rare cases they go as low as 78. When we play on "Overload" they also drop no lower than that, the only difference is that more players drop to 80. From the over night rest that takes them back to 87-88 condition, the 1 day off before the next game then takes them up to 94-96. The difference between that and the 100% they would be on if I used "normal" is pretty neglible, not to mention the only guys you really care about the condition level of is your top line, and they were already going to drop to 80ish regardless. The only difference is that now the 2nd line joins them. I have a tendency to end up with a more prolific 2nd line than 1st line, so using this really capitalizes on the "depth" of my top 6.

There is no chance that your top line is playing in the 19-21 range if you are using overload. Especially when special units were taken into account.

This is an ongoing topic among the ppl plaing online EHM. Using overload is consider a cheat by many while others claim that it's just a game and keeping as real as possible is not the top priority, so you can have your 3line hockey. Better yet 15 man roster, with a couple of D/FW as spare parts.

[Shindigs]

So you are using Overload on forwards and defenders? Whats the avarage icetime of your top scorers? I use Normal on both defenders and forwards all season and playoffs on my tactic. I think Zetterberg, Tatar and Nyquist has most icetime of my forwards, 18-19min.
It have given me two Presidents and two Stanley Cups in my two year as a GM.

Yup, I use Overload on both, icetime varies a lot based on PP time, but it's normally in the 19-21 range for the top 2 lines, your 1st line doesn't play that much more, it's more that your 2nd line also gets close to 1st line ice time, and your 3rd line gets around 12-14 minutes per game. Depending on the amount of penalties your 4th line will actually be sat the entire game sometimes, which isn't ideal. But the more bang for your buck you can get out of your top 6 the better. It also lets you skimp on the budget for the bottom 6 to keep a really stacked top 6.

I started using Overload during the .8xx Pct era as a way to try and minimize the losses from our backup being a calamity. At first I only used it in the games he started, then I started using it for all games we had at least 2 days of rest after, and finally I started using it for all games except the first game of back-to-backs. As you can see our win rate slowly increased as I started using Overload more, and it also makes it much easier to get your top guys awards.

What I've noticed is that players don't end up with less condition after a game than they do on "normal". What I mean by that is when I play on "normal" our guys with the lowest con after a game have 80, in rare cases they go as low as 78. When we play on "Overload" they also drop no lower than that, the only difference is that more players drop to 80. From the over night rest that takes them back to 87-88 condition, the 1 day off before the next game then takes them up to 94-96. The difference between that and the 100% they would be on if I used "normal" is pretty neglible, not to mention the only guys you really care about the condition level of is your top line, and they were already going to drop to 80ish regardless. The only difference is that now the 2nd line joins them. I have a tendency to end up with a more prolific 2nd line than 1st line, so using this really capitalizes on the "depth" of my top 6.

There is no chance that your top line is playing in the 19-21 range if you are using overload. Especially when special units were taken into account.

This is an ongoing topic among the ppl plaing online EHM. Using overload is consider a cheat by many while others claim that it's just a game and keeping as real as possible is not the top priority, so you can have your 3line hockey. Better yet 15 man roster, with a couple of D/FW as spare parts.

Yeah, in a lot of leagues playing ECHL style with only 3 forward lines is just better than playing with 4 lines. It's a bit wonky. But then you have leagues like the EIHL in the UK where the AI uses that strategy (due to how silly the UK roster rules are) to avoid having to use any british players, so I think it's fair game. From a game design perspective it seems to be intended, as the AI makes use of it. With the old conditioning system it wasn't feasible to do, at least in most european leagues. Your players would just end up dead tired after every single game. But after whichever patch it was that updated how conditioning worked it's a non-issue. So the game was patched into working this way, which should mean it was intended. But with the QA EHM has, that's not necessarily true. Also what's the point to having it be "cheating" in online leagues, if everyone uses it it's still an even playing field? And if someone doesn't use it they are purposefully limiting themselves in a competitive environment (which is a silly thing to do). Unless you just want as much realism as possible, but if that's your goal you probably shouldn't be playing EHM as it's anything but realistic.
This is my end of season review from last season:

Blixt, McPherson and DeBoer are my 1st line and all three are on the 1st PP unit. As you can see they play roughly 14 minutes of 5v5 hockey per game and about 6 minutes of PP per game. I also flicked through my previous 8 seasons of reviews and they were in the 19-21 range every single season. Ignore the red highlights, those were for another thread. The weird thing to me is that even with your defencemen on overload you can't get your top 2 up to the 30 minutes you'd see in the real NHL. I really wish you could just set how much ice time you want each line/pairing to have per game rather than the arbitrary "Overload" system. Unless the PPATOI isn't baked into the ATOI? Maybe that's a thing I just wasn't aware they did, for the longest time I didn't actually know PP goals didn't count as a +. I just returned to hockey last year after a 12 year break from the sport since I had to stop playing myself due to health issues. So there are some holes in my knowledge of stuff like that.

[m0fownz0r]

Also what's the point to having it be "cheating" in online leagues, if everyone uses it it's still an even playing field? And if someone doesn't use it they are purposefully limiting themselves in a competitive environment (which is a silly thing to do). Unless you just want as much realism as possible, but if that's your goal you probably shouldn't be playing EHM as it's anything but realistic.

It might not be as realistic as possible but if you are using overload, it basically eliminates the need of 4th line (hell, you can prolly do without a 3rd one as well, why not remove 5-6D as well). It also forces your opponent into using overload as well and it becomes less about he tactics and more about a dice roll.

[Shindigs]

Also what's the point to having it be "cheating" in online leagues, if everyone uses it it's still an even playing field? And if someone doesn't use it they are purposefully limiting themselves in a competitive environment (which is a silly thing to do). Unless you just want as much realism as possible, but if that's your goal you probably shouldn't be playing EHM as it's anything but realistic.

It might not be as realistic as possible but if you are using overload, it basically eliminates the need of 4th line (hell, you can prolly do without a 3rd one as well, why not remove 5-6D as well). It also forces your opponent into using overload as well and it becomes less about he tactics and more about a dice roll.

What does the conditioning situation end up like with only 2 lines? It's so bonkers I haven't tried it. Seems like it would come back to bite you in the long run. But as mentioned there are leagues that run 70+ game seasons with only 3 lines IRL (ECHL). So it's not like that's unrealistic. Sure it's on a lower level than the NHL, but they still do it. Besides no matter how good your team is the goalie performance roll pretty much decides all games anyways. If it's not one dice roll deciding it, it's the other. Also I've been forced to play with only 4 D in some playoff series due to the hilarious amounts of injuries we got the last playoff. Didn't notice a difference since defenders have essentially infinite condition in EHM. But in Europe you have 4 defensive pairings, so it's not like the 3 being used in the NHL are set in stone either.

What rule-set a league wants to use depends on what the league's goal is though. There's no inherent reason why using overload shouldn't be allowed. Unless that league wants to specifically promote another playstyle. If you ran an online league in the ECHL for example you'd be forced into playing that way regardless. But by default you play the game as it is, not as it should be. If you can do something you shouldn't be able to (which is highly subjective anyways) the underlying issue isn't the player, it's that the game is poorly balanced. Expecting someone to not use all available tools in a competitive environment is just being unreasonable. Unless a rule specifically prohibits it of course. But you know there's at least one guy who's going to use it regardless unless the means of controlling that it isn't being used are fool-proof (which I hope they are in online leagues). I believe the saying is "If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

[nino33]

Also what's the point to having it be "cheating" in online leagues, if everyone uses it it's still an even playing field? And if someone doesn't use it they are purposefully limiting themselves in a competitive environment (which is a silly thing to do). Unless you just want as much realism as possible, but if that's your goal you probably shouldn't be playing EHM as it's anything but realistic.

When I played EHM online I never played it in a way that I thought was unrealistic, and there were others who chose to play in a similar fashion.

There were also those who believed similar to what you're expressing, that it was a "competitive environment" and "everyone should play in the same style/everyone should do their best to manipulate the game, and not even bother trying to play realistically" and some people (like me) thought "I don't want to play that way as I don't think that's fun"



Your idea that "EHM is anything but realistic" is primarily because of your chosen playstyle; many people choose to purposely play realistically, and "limit themselves" as you say (examples would be Challenges and those that have their own "house rules"), and as a result of doing so the game is much more realistic (they admittedly don't dominate as you do, but I'm sure noticed some posters note they'd not want to play like you do/they'd get bored dominating like you do)



For me a huge issue with thinking like you're describing is it's really hard to get motivated to research/create databases/etc when I think about what you're saying.....with a goal of just taking advantage of the game as much as one can, and not even trying to play realistically, I think "what difference do real rosters even make/why should I spend my freetime on it" (and to be honest I haven't done much roster work in quite awhile because it's not the same fun it used to be, and a big part of that is I do figure "what's the point"); with the playstyle you use one could just use fake players/teams/etc as far as I'm concerned

[Shindigs]

For me a huge issue with thinking like you're describing is it's really hard to get motivated to research/create databases/etc when I think about what you're saying.....with a goal of just taking advantage of the game as much as one can, and not even trying to play realistically, I think "what difference do real rosters even make/why should I spend my freetime on it" (and to be honest I haven't done much roster work in quite awhile because it's not the same fun it used to be, and a big part of that is I do figure "what's the point"); with the playstyle you use one could just use fake players/teams/etc as far as I'm concerned

Part of why I play on the 15-16db with my balancing changes is that exact reason, I'm looking for more of a "balanced" gaming experience than anything else at this point. It should be noted that I didn't always play like this. I just took the realistic route to the point where I was "done" with it. My personal issues with the realistic playing style is that the AI will just keep making horrible decision after horrible decision. It really saddens me to see just how fast the AI ruins all the hard work you put into the database. By the 2nd season most teams will have made at least 1 trade that makes me wish there was a "veto" button for the player on AI trades. I just can't stay immersed in a "realistic" experience when the AI is as incompetent as it is. If the AI actually played well and managed their teams properly I'd be much more interested in playing it more realistically.

Naturally this isn't an issue in online leagues, but I prefer playing on my own schedule so I haven't really looked into going that route yet. May come a time when I do though, and on the point of the challenge rules; Most of them aren't really realistic so much as they are there to minimize the effect of unfinished/broken elements of the game as far as I can tell. The AI can't properly evaluate deals with too many pieces, so you're only allowed 2:1 and 1:1 trades; The AI can't properly evaluate 1st round picks, so you're not allowed to trade for 1st round picks; The AI can't properly sign it's RFAs so you're essentially not allowed to sign good RFAs, etc.

I do think the challenge rules promote a very interesting play-style though, which is why I intend to try them out in my next save. Believe me when I say the domination I got out of these tactics was not something I had ever anticipated when I started this save, which was meant to be a challenge save. I just completely underestimated how much better proper tactics make your players compared to the AI coach tactics. So what was meant to be a save with very stringent trading/free agency rules to make sure I could only ever build through the draft ended up being a save where I just tried to go for silly goals like 400+ goals seasons, 100% win rate and the 25 Cups record; I'm pretty much counting the seasons until this save is finished and I can start doing some tests at this point, but I'm way too stubborn to stop once I set my mind to a goal (even if that goal is freaking dumb, and it is).

[nino33]

the challenge rules; Most of them aren't really realistic so much as they are there to minimize the effect of unfinished/broken elements of the game as far as I can tell.

Minimizing the effect of unfinished/broken elements is maximizing realistic play (it's not so much what the AI can't do that makes things significantly unrealistic, it's how much the user takes advantage of exploits)

By the 2nd season most teams will have made at least 1 trade that makes me wish there was a "veto" button for the player on AI trades

I too wish there was a trade veto button!

Believe me when I say the domination I got out of these tactics was not something I had ever anticipated when I started this save, which was meant to be a challenge save. I just completely underestimated how much better proper tactics make your players compared to the AI coach tactics.

Fair enough! I accept you legitimately didn't realize this would happen

I did tons of reading when I first discovered EHM in 2010 (if you had been posting back then I would have read/studied all your posts...I read and took notes on everything back then) - the point being that if a user chooses to take advantage of the game they can easily dominate, and the user setting tactics makes a huge difference, these two things were "common knowledge" before I even discovered EHM

My personal issues with the realistic playing style is that the AI will just keep making horrible decision after horrible decision. It really saddens me to see just how fast the AI ruins all the hard work you put into the database.....If the AI actually played well and managed their teams properly I'd be much more interested in playing it more realistically.

Yeah, it saddens me too (and while far to few in number there's still a bunch of researchers, and I suspect most don't care about this issue as passionately as I do)

I'm not one to say "if I can't beat it, join it" - I'd prefer to continue to do my best following what I believe is right

[vadyand]

Shindigs! Can you upoload your tactic?

[Shindigs]

Shindigs! Can you upoload your tactic?

It's a bit hard to do since it's mostly driven by personal tactics on each player rather than the actual "team tactics". The only thing that's actually controlled by my team tactics is the dumping frequency, and the breakout/neutral zone/off zone shapes. The rest is all done via personal tactics on each player as detailed in the pictures I posted previously.

So I could upload it, but I doubt it would save you much time compared to just doing it manually. Since like 90% of it needs to be done manually for each player anyways.

[StormCloudsGathering]

Looking for advice on a different level than seems to be usually asked here. I'm in an online league and trying to get better at tactics, had advice from a very good tactician in himself. Most of what makes his team good is a lot of tinkering with personal tactics, so I want to know: When analyzing play-by-play what are some key things you look for to tinker with personal tactics?

[burglebuber]

My roster is not built for any one tactic. I have a variation of players. I'm in 2025 and my core of Jack Eichel, Ryan O'Reilly, Alex Nylander, Sam Reinhart, and Rasmus Ristolainen, and Jakub Skarek are being paid a total of 50 million combined. This means I have about 20m for the other 20 players to fill out my depth chart. As a consequence, my depth is lacking and most of my bottom 6 are rookies that I recently drafted. I've been targeting checking and defensive forwards in the draft recently for this reason, because they are often ready for a bottom 6 role sooner and never progress from one. However I started to stray from this tactic because I feel it is a waste to use a 1st on a future 3rd liner.

So anyways, my roster is pretty inflexible at the moment. I can't really make moves to gear towards a certain style of player (eg: Speedy players with great skating and mentals, Skilled players with great shooting and puckhandling, or defensive and physical players). 70% of my team has terrible balance and agility, however all of my players are atleast 70 in speed and they are all good shooters, passers, and they all have a good work rate and other mentals. I set my entire team to barrage shooting, high tempo, and offensive mentality. We're hovering around 7th-8th in the East which concerns me because my team looks better on paper than it is playing, and earlier in the year we were 2nd in the East and we went to the SCF last season (lost in 6 to CGY). I only started to look into tactics more after my team went on a skid in December.

Because of my diverse roster, can I put tactics to good use? Or am I better off using personal tactics (as I have been doing) and setting each player to play to their strengths. I've read on a speed oriented tactic that focuses on conditioning and physical atts, but my team probably wouldn't work with that. And I've read on barrage tactics, which I am currently leaning towards because of the shooting ability of my players.

I will post any screenshots that are asked of me but currently I'm not sure what would be necessary to see.

[Shindigs]

My roster is not built for any one tactic. I have a variation of players. I'm in 2025 and my core of Jack Eichel, Ryan O'Reilly, Alex Nylander, Sam Reinhart, and Rasmus Ristolainen, and Jakub Skarek are being paid a total of 50 million combined. This means I have about 20m for the other 20 players to fill out my depth chart. As a consequence, my depth is lacking and most of my bottom 6 are rookies that I recently drafted. I've been targeting checking and defensive forwards in the draft recently for this reason, because they are often ready for a bottom 6 role sooner and never progress from one. However I started to stray from this tactic because I feel it is a waste to use a 1st on a future 3rd liner.

So anyways, my roster is pretty inflexible at the moment. I can't really make moves to gear towards a certain style of player (eg: Speedy players with great skating and mentals, Skilled players with great shooting and puckhandling, or defensive and physical players). 70% of my team has terrible balance and agility, however all of my players are atleast 70 in speed and they are all good shooters, passers, and they all have a good work rate and other mentals. I set my entire team to barrage shooting, high tempo, and offensive mentality. We're hovering around 7th-8th in the East which concerns me because my team looks better on paper than it is playing, and earlier in the year we were 2nd in the East and we went to the SCF last season (lost in 6 to CGY). I only started to look into tactics more after my team went on a skid in December.

Because of my diverse roster, can I put tactics to good use? Or am I better off using personal tactics (as I have been doing) and setting each player to play to their strengths. I've read on a speed oriented tactic that focuses on conditioning and physical atts, but my team probably wouldn't work with that. And I've read on barrage tactics, which I am currently leaning towards because of the shooting ability of my players.

I will post any screenshots that are asked of me but currently I'm not sure what would be necessary to see.

The tactic I posted above is very lax on the manpower you need honestly. I've built a dynasty using nothing but power forwards/defensive forwards/checking forwards and defensive defencemen with it too. It's just trying to get players into the best scoring areas in EHM to create as many high% shots as possible. So should be workable with what you have. I have also gotten to a minimalist version of it that uses almost no personal tactics (other than on the PP, kinda need them there) which gets you the president's trophy just about every year. But the lack of shot targeting/checking means it falls short a lot more in the playoffs. But I'm currently running simulations on the WHL so can't post it atm.

[burglebuber]

I started playing online league in early January after playing offline for 1189 hours. I'm not very well versed in the tactical side of the game, basically what I do is set my individual tactics to each player's strength, and I send my best checkers (and every D-man) after a few of the other team's best. Everything I know I learned from trial and error. Here's my questions:

* Does setting your player to check one of the other team's players limit their ability to do other things? I feel like I've noticed a decline in offensive production and a lower AVR when I set my players to check a specific guy on the other team.

* On the unit tactics page, how do the different things such as forecheck (2-3 vs 1-2-2, etc) and neutral zone offensive (grouped, free flowing, etc) and the different breakouts impact team play? Which types of players are best suited for each of them? at this point there's no way for me to tell which one I should be using.

*Zone coverage vs man coverage? I know zone means you guard your area vs man means you follow and shadow your man, but which types of players are best at the different types? I'm assuming the positioning attribute helps zone, but what is better for man?

Thank you

[Shindigs]

I tend to favor players with positioning and teamwork over players with checking/pokecheck so I run zonal over man coverage.

The reason I use grouped neutral zone and overload slot offensive zone is simply because the player AI is very keen on going to the corner and then losing the puck rather than actually heading to the front of the net and make things happen. By using grouped neutral zone your guys get off the boards a bit before zone entry and then with overload slot they crash the net (kinda); This means you get a lot more chances for cross-crease one timers, and seeing as the aforementioned one timers are among the top two scoring chances you can generate in EHM it's pretty strong to try and get as many of them as possible. The other top tier scoring chance is any play from an offensive zone faceoff, since your guys struggle to setup a proper shape and play the outside dynamically in EHM you end up needing to force said faceoffs to create that shape. The reason I have all Dmen on Barrage isn't to try and score, it's to try and create offensive faceoffs galore.

Never really played around with the different forechecks that much, since the lack of useful checking related stats means I'd need to actually watch the 2D some more to figure that out and consindering the effect watching the 2D engine has on my sanity I tend to avoid that as much as possible.

After the passing changes in the 1.4 patch you can set almost all players to adventurous passing to create even more cross-crease passes, as before the patch a player with creative passing had around 80-85% pass completion and you get that with adventurous in the "new" patch. So with the exception of some players with a low combination of decisions, creativity and passing who drop below 80% completion with adventurous you can just put that on everyone. It really makes your playstyle a lot more dynamic from the few goals I've watched highlights of in 2D. You can actually get a decent amount of solid breakout passes leading to breakaways and odd-man rushes as a result of those changes.

[Saytham1980]

Does anyone know if there is a correct use of players personal tactics to encourage them fighting?

Because, for example, when I give my def. defensemen the permission to get into a fight, they pretty soon get suspended for a few games, return... fight again... get suspended again...

Is there a correct use of this option or should it just be ignored?

[stone169]

Does anyone know if there is a correct use of players personal tactics to encourage them fighting?

Because, for example, when I give my def. defensemen the permission to get into a fight, they pretty soon get suspended for a few games, return... fight again... get suspended again...

Is there a correct use of this option or should it just be ignored?

Are you "allowing" them to fight or "encouraging" them to fight?

By setting the fighting to "allowed" it should just allow them to fight every so often during the season, no harm no foul. If you "encourage" them to fight, then they'll go out and start a fight or two and more than likely pick up, at the very least, a 2, 5, and 10. Get too many 10s and your player will get suspended. At least that has been my experience.

[Saytham1980]

If you "encourage" them to fight, then they'll go out and start a fight or two and more than likely pick up, at the very least, a 2, 5, and 10. Get too many 10s and your player will get suspended. At least that has been my experience.

Yes, I guess that's it! Thanks for the quick answer.

So if I want an opposing player to draw a penalty I "allow" my dman to fight that guy and hope for a PP?

[stone169]

I think one way you could do it, is not allow your dman to fight, but have him shadow a specific player by selecting a player to check under personal tactics.

I personally have specific players who are allowed to fight, but come playoff time, no one is allowed to fight, which seems to help me out more.

[Saytham1980]

I personally have specific players who are allowed to fight, but come playoff time, no one is allowed to fight, which seems to help me out more.

That's what I did, too. But I have my def. defensemen/two-way defensemen and def. forward/two-way forward (1 on each def- and off-line) checking the top 2 players my "next opponent"-scout found out for me.

Always thought that's just to take the best players out of the game, but not that it could result in a penalty for the opposition.

[burglebuber]

Anyone have any experience with the breakouts, and neutral zone? I run free flowing, positional, and point shot faceoffs currently just because i'm going for barrage, offensive tactics. I've tried grouped before but it sucked. Overload slot didn't seem to impact much for me for better or worse.

[stone169]

I personally have specific players who are allowed to fight, but come playoff time, no one is allowed to fight, which seems to help me out more.

That's what I did, too. But I have my def. defensemen/two-way defensemen and def. forward/two-way forward (1 on each def- and off-line) checking the top 2 players my "next opponent"-scout found out for me.

Always thought that's just to take the best players out of the game, but not that it could result in a penalty for the opposition.

Best practice, at least what I've found, is have two guys allowed to fight, as long as you have a guy or two who can fight.

I don't normally use the personal tactics. I used to. I know some people do. But if you are going to use them, then I would have your best checker on their best player.

[Warhorse]

Just wanted to send a big thank you out to Shindigs for the tactics he posted, I've won two consecutive Stanley Cups in two seasons with the Sens using them, with 140+ points each year and winning most of the big individual awards. Somewhat ironically, the team I beat for the Cup each year was the Jets ...