Offical Tactics Thread: General / Even Strength

helmespc · Post by **helmespc** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 2:03 am

This might not be exactly the right spot to ask, but I don't want to start a new thread and I saw the talk about the benching. I was wondering if there is any way to call timeout in-game? I seem to recall being able to do it, but was looking for it and didn't see it anywhere.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:28 pm

helmespc wrote:This might not be exactly the right spot to ask, but I don't want to start a new thread and I saw the talk about the benching. I was wondering if there is any way to call timeout in-game? I seem to recall being able to do it, but was looking for it and didn't see it anywhere.

Glad to see things getting back on topic!

To be honest with you, I don't think there is a way to call a timeout in a game. Of course, I just learned about the benching option, so maybe there is something that I've never found. Anyone else?

I miss the old "extra practice" option from the Freeware version of the game. You could run an extra practice on your team if they had a bad game or something and you want to "send them a message". I'd love some more coaching options like that. Anyhow, a "timeout" during a game would be good for resting your top players a bit.

helmespc · Post by **helmespc** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:29 pm

bruins72 wrote:
helmespc wrote:This might not be exactly the right spot to ask, but I don't want to start a new thread and I saw the talk about the benching. I was wondering if there is any way to call timeout in-game? I seem to recall being able to do it, but was looking for it and didn't see it anywhere.
Glad to see things getting back on topic!

To be honest with you, I don't think there is a way to call a timeout in a game. Of course, I just learned about the benching option, so maybe there is something that I've never found. Anyone else?

I miss the old "extra practice" option from the Freeware version of the game. You could run an extra practice on your team if they had a bad game or something and you want to "send them a message". I'd love some more coaching options like that. Anyhow, a "timeout" during a game would be good for resting your top players a bit.

I totally miss the extra practice... I also wish there were ways to praise or reward players as an alternative to disciplining them.

Post by **McQwak** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:02 pm

helmespc wrote: I totally miss the extra practice... I also wish there were ways to praise or reward players as an alternative to disciplining them.

Maybe you can make him Alternative Captain or even the Captain.
Btw. promoting player to first or second line or giving him more icetime should make him happier, too. But it isn't motivating for others to follow him and work/practice harder.

Post by **archibalduk** » Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:07 pm

I have split the Official Tactics Questions Thread into two as it was getting large and difficult to find information. This thread will now be used for general tactical questions/discussion and the other one is for PP and PK discussion. Hopefully this will make it a little easier to find relevant information.

Sucker Punch · Post by **Sucker Punch** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:23 am

Anyone have any advice on minimizing shot quality and scoring chances?

My defense is always terrible, and my goaltending stats are always bad. Even if I play cheaply and have a stacked roster, my goalies always have a 3+ GAA and a <.900 sv%. My goalies however are still getting ratings of 8, even if they let in 5 goals, and my shot against are reasonable. This leads me to believe that the chances the other team is getting are high percentage chances.

I don't know what to do. Loading up on defensive players, and playing a tighter defensive game does nothing. Doing the opposite and going for a puck control style doesn't make a difference. I can't cut down on my goals against.

Post by **Shadd666** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:19 pm

What's your lineup? If the answer is not in the tactics, it may be somewhere in the roster... Or most likely a combination of both...

Btw, allowing 3+ goals per game is not that much of an issue as long as you score 4+ goals per game

Sucker Punch · Post by **Sucker Punch** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:28 pm

Heatley - Spezza - Alfredsson
Jere Lehtinen - Fisher - Daugavins
Zack Smith - Regin - Jesse Winchester
Bass - Kelly\O'Brien - Donovan

Kuba - Volchenkov
Phillips - Erik Karlsson
Campoli/Lee - Jason Smith

Leclaire
Elliott

- This is the 09/10 season, so Alfedsson, Smith and Lehtinen have lost a step, and will be retiring soon.
- I edited a few of the players, so guys like Bass, Winchester and Elliott are not, in fact, completely useless. In retrospect, I think I actually made them too good.

matt44 · Post by **matt44** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:37 pm

I have a query.

Daniel Winnick. In the AHL he tears it up season after season, always ends up with an AVR of over 8.00............call him up to the NHL and he flat out sucks. (well he does for me)

He stats are only 12's-14's so he's not going to get on thetop 2 lines and his defensive attributes arent good enough to play on my checking line so the 4th line centre is the only place I can find for him with some PK time.

So he's in limbo of too good for the AHL but not enough for the NHL..............

Anyone else had a similar situation???

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:53 pm

I not really a matter of tactics. It's more a situation where the player's skill set might be aimed at more of an offensive role but he's not skilled enough to perform the role at the NHL level. Even in real life, some players are great AHLers but can never put together an NHL career.

Post by **Lidas** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 3:46 pm

I've never really used line matching, but I was thinking about it the other day.

Does anyone use it?
Is it very effective?
When is it good to use?
If I have a very defensive 4th line, and match it against my opponent's 1st line, will that put my 4th line on the ice every time the opponent's 1st line is out, and this give a huge amount of ice time to my 4th line, and significantly less time to my 1st line?

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:15 pm

I've never used the line matching that much because it seems to be most effective when using a set of defensive tactics to shut down another team's scoring lines. I've just never been very good with defensive tactics. Plus, it does seem to limit the ice time for my top 2 lines sometimes.

selne · Post by **selne** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:40 pm

I like linematching!!

TomBlain · Post by **TomBlain** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:31 pm

Sucker Punch wrote:Heatley - Spezza - Alfredsson
Jere Lehtinen - Fisher - Daugavins
Zack Smith - Regin - Jesse Winchester
Bass - Kelly\O'Brien - Donovan

Kuba - Volchenkov
Phillips - Erik Karlsson
Campoli/Lee - Jason Smith

Leclaire
Elliott

- This is the 09/10 season, so Alfedsson, Smith and Lehtinen have lost a step, and will be retiring soon.
- I edited a few of the players, so guys like Bass, Winchester and Elliott are not, in fact, completely useless. In retrospect, I think I actually made them too good.

I'm new to the forum but have played this game since it came out so I'll take a crack. If a mod finds some misinformation here feel free to correct. But I went through a similar problem with my Predators. This past season my goalie had better averages and percentages (2.55 GAA, .910 %, 5 SHO) so I have seen my defense improve.

So find out who gets scored on. See if there is a patern. A guy like Jason Smith might be a good defender but if he lost a step (and by 2009/10 in my game I know he did) he might be getting burned a lot. Slow players are ok if paired with fast players but if you get 2-3 together it could be a defensive hole.

Are there some guys with really low Morale? They might be the ones getting beaten on defense too. If I find a guy with low or very low morale I usually try to pull him off my team for a bit, or maybe even send him to the minors if he can clear. Time on the bench or in a lower league sometimes clears low morale to OK.

Sometimes the best way to figure this out is to watch a game or two and see if there is a pattern to which lines are getting scored on. Switch those lines up. Maybe get a bit more balance. One of my buddies has a completely different strategy where he mixes stars with defensive minded players across all four lines. I saw one of his tactics and he had Kovalchuk-Weiss-Gasparini on the third line. I can't imagine putting kovie on the third line but the point is he plays with completely balanced lines.

The other thing I did recently to clear up defensive problems was to adjust a line's tactics; mainly the neutral zone defense. I think the game has 1-2-2 by default but usually I find a 1-1-3 clogs up the neutral zone a little better for some of my lines.

Good luck

Deleted 25-08-19 · Post by **Deleted 25-08-19** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 4:22 pm

I cant get my tactics work.. Please tell somebody easy to pickup tactic..

Iam currently playing with my own challenge, Jets. My biggest stars are Forsberg and Joseph.

Richie Daggers Crime · Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:38 pm

Ronc wrote:I cant get my tactics work.. Please tell somebody easy to pickup tactic..

Iam currently playing with my own challenge, Jets. My biggest stars are Forsberg and Joseph.

Tactics are largely determined by the type of team you build. You can't expect to succeed with a smashmouth type system if you have all finesse players, for instance. The best way, IMO, to have successful tactics is to keep plugging at it and keep what works and discard what doesn't. There really is no magic bullet.

Sucker Punch · Post by **Sucker Punch** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:58 am

TomBlain wrote:
Sucker Punch wrote:Heatley - Spezza - Alfredsson
Jere Lehtinen - Fisher - Daugavins
Zack Smith - Regin - Jesse Winchester
Bass - Kelly\O'Brien - Donovan

Kuba - Volchenkov
Phillips - Erik Karlsson
Campoli/Lee - Jason Smith

Leclaire
Elliott

- This is the 09/10 season, so Alfedsson, Smith and Lehtinen have lost a step, and will be retiring soon.
- I edited a few of the players, so guys like Bass, Winchester and Elliott are not, in fact, completely useless. In retrospect, I think I actually made them too good.
I'm new to the forum but have played this game since it came out so I'll take a crack. If a mod finds some misinformation here feel free to correct. But I went through a similar problem with my Predators. This past season my goalie had better averages and percentages (2.55 GAA, .910 %, 5 SHO) so I have seen my defense improve.

So find out who gets scored on. See if there is a patern. A guy like Jason Smith might be a good defender but if he lost a step (and by 2009/10 in my game I know he did) he might be getting burned a lot. Slow players are ok if paired with fast players but if you get 2-3 together it could be a defensive hole.

Are there some guys with really low Morale? They might be the ones getting beaten on defense too. If I find a guy with low or very low morale I usually try to pull him off my team for a bit, or maybe even send him to the minors if he can clear. Time on the bench or in a lower league sometimes clears low morale to OK.

Sometimes the best way to figure this out is to watch a game or two and see if there is a pattern to which lines are getting scored on. Switch those lines up. Maybe get a bit more balance. One of my buddies has a completely different strategy where he mixes stars with defensive minded players across all four lines. I saw one of his tactics and he had Kovalchuk-Weiss-Gasparini on the third line. I can't imagine putting kovie on the third line but the point is he plays with completely balanced lines.

The other thing I did recently to clear up defensive problems was to adjust a line's tactics; mainly the neutral zone defense. I think the game has 1-2-2 by default but usually I find a 1-1-3 clogs up the neutral zone a little better for some of my lines.

Good luck

Thanks for the in depth response, sir. I haven't touched my game since I made that post, I'm going to give it another shot now. I have sufficient depth to try rolling four lines and spreading out the stars a little.

Another thing I'm going to try is matching up players who like to play with each other. It completely slipped my mind that players develop "favourite players" as the game goes, so I'll try matching them up together on the same lines and see how it goes.

For some reason, the entire organization hates Matt Carkner. In my first season, the board told me they didn't want him on the team, so I let him walk that summer. It's now 09/10, and half my team and head coach have Matt Carkner as disliked.

Post by **McQwak** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:10 pm

Does anyone know, how to improve "boardplays won" statistics? In every game I win only around 30-40%. Does it have something to do with tactics? Which setting can be used for improving this?
Thanks.

Otso · Post by **Otso** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:28 pm

If your lines breakouts is set to Boardplay, then you need to have strong players that can handle playing there. So, it's not wise to put Boardplay on a line that doesn't have the strength or toughness to deal with it.

mtsouth · Post by **mtsouth** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:41 pm

Question about dump and chase - when is this a good tactic? What sort of players would best fit this tactic? I'm going to assume either fast players (to get to the puck first) or strong players (to take the puck away).

Otso · Post by **Otso** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:18 pm

Hi guys, I really need your help. I've started to coach Finland in my recent save, and havings huge problems with tactics. I really really like this game, but this makes it almost unplayable for me. I SUCK at tactics, I have no idea where to start or how to do them. I've read the TBL EHM Guide numerous times but I still cant make a tactic that wins games.
Finished the Euro Hockey tour by losing almost every game by around 4-1 and getting sacked after that.

So, how can I learn how to make tactics that work? I know what all Forecheck etc, things are, but cant seem to put them together.

Anyone had good results with Finland?

Post by **Tasku** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:21 pm

You could always start by asking your head coach to make your tactics, or use one of those in the Downloads section here. Then you can start making little adjustments on them if you feel ready.

Otso · Post by **Otso** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:25 pm

I actually made a hole topic about letting head coaches coach your games, and everythings been horrible. My Senators was ranked number 2 in the preview, and finished 22th. So I don't really trust them. I think I'll try a ready tactic and try to modify it.

Thanks for the quick reply, all other help is also welcome =)

Post by **Tasku** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:37 pm

Ah yes, so you did.

Maybe fire your head coach, and try again, eh?

Otso · Post by **Otso** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:39 pm

Did, three times