EHM The Blue Line

I'm onboard as well. #Sharktank is ON.

I didn't get the LD I was looking for but still, I'm quite happy with the return on my trades.

Draft was OK, I guess. Didn't get to Matthews.. went with a dude that was quite good in my Canucks games Mascherin.

Anyone else having issues with the forum?

m0fownz0r wrote:Anyone else having issues with the forum?

Yeah I get an occasional Internal Error 500 page popping up

Same.

First time I notice this:

Yes, I've been getting those server errors off and on for the past couple days.

It's been awhile for me, but this one looks fun!

Trades

Joe Pavelski to Oilers for Riley Sheahan, Oiler's 1 round pick (14th), Oiler's 3 round pick (74th)
Mike Kostka to Oilers for David Musil
Brent Burns to Maple Leafs for Stuart Percy, Marko Dano, Leaf's 4th round pick (92nd)
Joe Thornton and Marc-Edouard Vlasic to Duck's for John Gibson
Matt D'Agostini and Antti Niemi to Sabres for Rasmus Ristolainen, Gustav Possler, Jake McCabe
Patrik Marleau and Justin Braun to Stars for Brett Ritchie, John Klingberg, and Stars 5th round pick (137th)

Draft

6th Logan Brown
14th Luke Green
36th Chad Krys
42nd Josh Anderson
74th Carl Grundstrom
92nd Liam Zetterberg
96th Quinn Benjafield
126th Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson
137th Brendan De Jong
156th Jaydan Poole
186th Parker Wotherspoon
193th Joel Daccord

I think most Interesting is Liam Zetterberg. He is un-ranked and 20 years old. But looks like he will be a very good pker and 3rd line centre.

So 20 games in, I am sitting atop the Western Conference with a solid 13-2-5 record. Yeah, I don't like overtimes and shootouts much.

Top Scorers:

1. Hertl 18G 14A 32P
2. Nieto 5G 16A 21P
3. Johnson 3G 15A 18P
4. Barrie 4G 13A 17P
5. Couture 3G 10A 13P

Goalies:

Stalock: 6-1-4 2.76 GAA .906
Grosenick: 7-0-1 2.67 GAA .909

My minor league team is just killing it with a 12-0-1 record and Fiala is tearin it up along with Chatham and Goldobin. I'm glad I kept them down to develop with a good coaching staff as I don't want to rush them

Nice find! That kid would be a great fit on the 3rd or 4th line.

Ok so Stalock is being a pain and not wanting to resign. Can I sign him after July 1st? or is he considered a ufa and gone?

Also I was offered the Czech Micheal Jordan!

If he's a UFA, he's gone. If he's just an RFA, it's okay to sign him after July 1st.

Have you tried changing his role? I forget what he starts at but move him to "Core" or "Key" and you can offer more.

So I'm the only one who got both Säteri and Stalock? Not that my goatending is any good anyway!

I've got Stalock and he's not doing all that well for me. Ullmark has been the better of my two goalies. My team in general has been doing poorly though. We're the worst in the West and 2nd worst in the league. None of my defensemen have a 7-plug average rating. All of my players seem inconsistent. Also, I can't seem to figure out my top lines. Hertl is a center but he can do face-offs to save his life. That's a problem!

I don't use Hertl as a centre at all. He's much better as a winger and I take advantage of his speed. Couture is solid but he struggled for me at the centre position. I put him on left wing and moved Coururier to be my new #1 C. One game is a small sample size but they clicked well. I'm more curious to see how my new 2nd line of Pearson-Wingels-Nieto does.

As for d-men, Johnson is OK, but not a big Doherty fan. Stalock has been mediocre to the point where I have used Grosenick far more frequently

Prowl wrote:I don't use Hertl as a centre at all. He's much better as a winger and I take advantage of his speed. Couture is solid but he struggled for me at the centre position. I put him on left wing and moved Coururier to be my new #1 C. One game is a small sample size but they clicked well. I'm more curious to see how my new 2nd line of Pearson-Wingels-Nieto does.

As for d-men, Johnson is OK, but not a big Doherty fan. Stalock has been mediocre to the point where I have used Grosenick far more frequently

Hertl is my second centerman as I don't really have anybody else but yeah, he's subpar and inconsistent and can't win draws.

Couture is decent as my first C with +11 and 23p/27games. But he is thriving of Coyle who is amazing and leads the league with 20 goals in 29 games!

Dumba is struggling and only got 8 points and can't score. But Johnson is amazing with 4-14-18 in 27! He is only 6.67avg but who cares? If he had better stamina I would play him a lot more.

bruins72 wrote:I've got Stalock and he's not doing all that well for me. Ullmark has been the better of my two goalies.

Ullmark is one of the best goalies in the league so far for Sabres in my game, he is going for both the Vezina and Calder!

Preseason and 1st game done.

Preseason was so and so I'd say, 4-4-0. My defensemen went through it with good ratings though, which is nice since that's the area I focused on with trades.

Starting lineup was:

Nieto - Couture - Wingels
Domi - Smith - Hertl
Zolnierczyk - Oleksuk - Hayes
Goodrow - Tierney - Tarasov

Nurse - Ristolainen
Müller - Tennyson
McCabe - Doherty

Stalock
Bergvik

* Had Johnson injured the day before the game, so replaced him with Tennyson and swapped Nurse up to 1st pairing at LD.
** Completely missed the European deadline, so Karlsson etc sits in Europe still with a move pending for 2017....
***Wanted to keep as many of my youngsters as possible in AHL for at least the start of this season, the depending on how we do I might swap things up. So Petan, Morrissey, Fiala, Goldobin etc could probably have taken a spot but I rather use placefillers atm and let them enjoy AHL for now

First game I played the Wild. Ended up beating them 2-0 after two PP goals (Couture, Domi). So a good start with Defense being solid and PP clicking. Lets hope it continues

Edit: It didn't. I am now after 8 games worst in the league in shot against average, and with that of course letting a lot of goals in aswell

Kinda ok with trades and draft ! Going through offseason !

So since Stalock and Zolnierczyk both turn 29 during the season are they allowed to be traded that season(2016) or do they have to wait for next off season before being traded?

Attempt 2.0! Managed to sign Stalock and Grosenick so I'm safe there. Washington decided to trade Burakovsky to Carolina as I was offering them the same deal and had to panic to find a trade for Thornton and Braun. Thankfully the Jets answered my call right before the draft....whew.... Only other trade I changed from my 1st attempt was the Oilers one. Instead of Yak I was able to get Hope and a 3rd.



Draft coming.........Predators won the Lottery

#7: Taylor Raddysh
#20: Evan Fitzpatrick
#21: Sam Steel
#36: Victor ROsen
#42: David Quenneville
#74: Alex-Oliver Liebel
#96: Jack Lafontaine
#126: Keenan Reynolds(Burke was all about this kid, Crosby comparison...Dropped to a Backlund comp)
#156: Brendan Warren
#186: Nick Heid
#193: Logan Stanley

Post Draft Team Report

Icegoat wrote:So since Stalock and Zolnierczyk both turn 29 during the season are they allowed to be traded that season(2016) or do they have to wait for next off season before being traded?

Nope! You're not allowed to make any more trades in season 1. You're only allowed to make those initial ones before July 1st. Then you have to play season 1 with the team you've got. Once June 15th comes around, you can trade again.

Lessons learned from the last challenge- I'm packaging guys and going for the stars. With such an amazing scouting staff (/sarcasm) it wasn't easy choosing which prospects were going to be good.

I could have pried Nurse and Eichel out, but I didn't like what other assets I could get with them. So...

Justin Braun to BUF for Linus Ullmark
Burns and Niemi to BUF for Girgensons

After those two was the second reason I didn't go for Eichel, it felt dirty trading 6 players in 3 trades to BUF. Girgensonsdoesn't have the stats yet... hopefully he's really ready. Ullmark is insurance. If he develops, I have a starter, if not, I have at least two NHL goalies now.

Kostka, Vlasic and Pavelski to CLB for Johanssen.

This deal was also the nail in the coffin for Eichel, I could've done Eichel and Girgensons or EGirgensons and Johansson and still not have used Marleau or Thornton. Not sure if I was right or not.

D'Agostini for Oleksiak (DAL). He's a body on the blueline for now.

Marleau and Thornton for Josh Morriseey.

This was a flier as my scouts varied from the next Orr to AHL fodder. I'm hoping there were enough Canadian raters that still think he was worth a top 15 pick so he has potential .

Now for the classic question, how young is too young for the NHL? Ullmark will be in the AHL unless Stalock completely folds, Mueller or Morrissey may simply have to be the 6th guy by default. Goldobin and Tierney (sorry for the language) may also be called into more action than I'd like. The question will be do I shelter the good prospects and potentially ruin the bad ones to fill 20 skaters?

visualdarkness wrote:So I'm the only one who got both Säteri and Stalock? Not that my goatending is any good anyway!

I threw the kitchen sink at Sateri every chance I got, full bonuses for first game, first win, first shut out, NTC, 50% two way, no two way, full 402k bonus, key player. Nada. If I could've cleared roster and cap space for the 1.7 million available now for bonuses... maybe had a chance. Not too big a problem, just cost me a trade asset to get another goalie. In hindsight I should've maybe seen if the old guys who we can't resign (and a result, can't trade) could be picked up on waivers to clear some cash.

Sesyde wrote:** Completely missed the European deadline, so Karlsson etc sits in Europe still with a move pending for 2017....

I made sure to get everyone whose rights were going to expire I could and a lot of the Europe guys under offers ASAP, with only 40 under contract at the start, it worked out. Nothing is more annoying that missing the transfer window, especially when we're talking about 27 year old RFA's.

Preseason!

Fired a whole lotta staff and brought in a lot of new staff members

HC: Don Hay(def)
AS: John Anderson(fwd)
AS: Peter DeBoer(fwd)
AS: Joel Otto(Def)
AS: Sam St. Laurent(G)
AS: Phil Walker(C/Fwd)

Hired a bunch of WAAAAY better Scouts

Opening Night Lineup looks like this

Nieto-Couture-Wingels
Goldobin-Hertl-Meier(Both Meier and Gold turned heads at Training camp and played great during preseason)
Rychel-Couturier-Hartman(Sleeper line)
Karlsson-Tierney-Hayes

Muller-Johnson
Gostisbehere-Doherty
Hagg-DeMelo

Stalock-Grosenick

Ben Smith and Matt Tennyson are injured. Harry Z is my scratch

Asher413 wrote:Now for the classic question, how young is too young for the NHL? Ullmark will be in the AHL unless Stalock completely folds, Mueller or Morrissey may simply have to be the 6th guy by default. Goldobin and Tierney (sorry for the language) may also be called into more action than I'd like. The question will be do I shelter the good prospects and potentially ruin the bad ones to fill 20 skaters?

As I wrote before, Ullmark is great in my game and looks to be stealing the first spot in Buffalo.

I've claimed Burrows twice now, without ever going to waivers menu!?!? Has that ever happened to anyone of you? Will it be a problem if i just wave/ release him - providing the related screens? Or I can go on like that?