EHM The Blue Line

Started the 2016-2017 season as the newly formed Seattle Metropolitans. In a spectacularly ugly fashion, the poor Coyotes and matching Roadrunners organizations went defunct and all current contracts and rights of the teams were reneged (I basically sent all of the current players on both teams as free agents in the database editor and released all players rights).

In order to fill the voids left by the mission organizations, the NHL expanded its reach to the pacific northwest city of Seattle, Washington. The new team would be named the Metropolitans, in honor of the first American hockey team to technically win Lord Stanley's cup. Their AHL team would be located in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (to match with the slick Sault Ste. Marie Voyagers logo I found online).

Players (excluding ex-Coyotes and ex-Roadrunners) and coaches were brought in from free agency to form both teams. I do not coach games personally, so I have tried to assemble the best coaching staff I can as well.

Now 52 games into the season, the Seattle Metropolitans are on pace for one of the worst NHL seasons in record. Despite a 4-4-2 record in their first 10 games (surprisingly not last in the Western Conference), the Metropolitans are now 10-36-6. The next closest team are the Ottawa Senators, who are 17-30-7. Frustratingly, many of the team's losses are one-goal close games. Team morale is at an all-time low, and only makes players play worse. Of particular note is the recent poor performance of the team's goalies.

Anders Lindback (who started the season well) has been pulled three times in his last ten games. Karri Ramo had a rough December and January, but has seemed to recover so far in February.

Jiri Tlusty leads the team in points, with 24 points in 49 games. Former Sharks first round pick Steve Bernier leads the team in average rating and +/- somehow averaging a 7.28 (0.35 higher than the next best player in that category, Chris Higgins with a 6.93) and an even +/-. He is second in the team in points with 21 in 43 games, and is tied with Tlusty with the team lead for goals with 10. Michael Raffl, a waiver acquisition, started strongly with the team, but has put up only 2 points in his last 15 games. He is third in the team in points with 20 in 52. Bottoming out the +/- losers is our top pairing defenseman James Wisniewski with -28. His partner in crime, Christian Ehrhoff is only a -16. Leading the team in penalty minutes is Brad Richardson (yes, he's an ex-coyotes player but I picked him up on waivers) with 56, and would be last on the team in terms of average rating with a 6.06 if you didn't count Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom, another waiver acquisition, is 5.67 throughout three games. I'll continue to let the three goalies duke it out up until the trade deadline, at which point I will most likely unload one of them for draft picks.

Speaking of the trade deadline, I will most likely fire-sale as many of the players as I can (making sure to stay above the salary floor). Ehrhoff will most likely leave the team, as will one of the goalies and potentially Steve Bernier. I have a big list going of who I want to draft, so I want to stock up on as many picks as I can. I am very tempted to trade away my high draft pick in return for a large amount of picks in the draft in order to build up my prospect pool.

On the upside, their AHL team is sixth in the Atlantic Division, just shy of a wildcard spot. The team was in fifth, vying for fourth place after a strong December and January, but have recently slumped, winning only two games in their last 10.

Cody Ferriero is 4th in AHL scoring with 46 points in 44 games and leads the league in +/- at +21, while Peter Trainor is sixth in AHL scoring with 45 points in 46 games, and is fourth in the league for +/- at +18.

Metropolitans roster/statistics:

Sault Ste. Marie Voyagers roster/statistics:

16/17 | 2nd in Hockeyallsvenskan, 101 P, 30 W-14 L-3 OSW, 160 GF, 107 GA. | Loss 2-4 in promotion series against Leksand

My first save for like 8 months and I opted for my youth club Timrå IK in Hockeyallsvenskan. The board wanted the championship and a place in the promotion series. I was a bit more pessimistic and aimed for a top five spot. We did however end up in second place, seven points behind AIK who spent more than 12 million SEK more on salaries than what we did.

In the finals, played between the top two teams in the Hockeyallsvenskan for a spot in one of two promotion series, we face AIK. We lost the first game before we got it together and went on to win three straight to win the series 3-1. That was really strong considering we did have to play without Dahlén, Pettersson, Boyce and Molinder due to injuries.

We then face Leksand, who finished last in the SHL, in the promotion series. To be fair, we were never really close, and it was noticeable that Dahlén, Pettersson had missed almost a month before the promotion games. We lost the first three games before we bounced back and won two in a row. I game six, at home, we lost in OT though and the series went 4-2 to Leksand.

I'd say it was a more than good season. We got a taste at the promotion games, and the goal next season is to return, and hopefully win the series to earn promotion.

Jonathan Dahlén 43 (16+21) - Sebastian Lauritzen 52 (13+27) 'C' - Johan Persson 45 (18+20)
Jan Sýkora 26 (9+12) - Elias Pettersson 44 (11+13) - John Westin 52 (7+18)
Jens Lööke 44 (12+9) - Jeremy Boyce 24 (2+7) - Ludvig Nilsson 52 (13+12)
Anton Wedin 52 (9+12) - Andreas Molinder 46 (7+11) - Andreas Stene 48 (9+7)

Emil Berglund 27 (6+4) - Johan Johnsson 29 (2+7) - Filip Hållander 25 (5+3)
Jesper Wiberg 4 (0+1) - Anton Kalte 3 (0+0)

We had lot of firepower this year with almost three really good lines. The first line was really good, where Dahlén and Lauritzen led the pack. If not the Senators bring Dahlén over, he will return, as will Pettersson if whatever team which drafts him does not want him to come over right now. Jan Sýkora was brought in from the Czech league and was really good when he played. He did miss three months tho due to a fractured shin. The top 6 forwards and Nilsson, Wedin, Lööke will return next year with Hållander and Kalte being the prospects. Will need to revamp bottom six though and get some more consistent and cheaper players.

Conor Allen 29 (1+16) - Robin Persson 52 (5+16) 'A'
Didrik Strömberg 44 (3+5) - Jens Westin 52 (2+14)
David Westlund 40 (0+4) - Jesper Dahlroth 52 (6+19) 'A'
Mattias Nilsson 51 (1+12)

Marcus Hardegård 16 (0+6) - Calle Själin 4 (0+0)
Simon Sandström 4 (0+0) - Algot Landin 4 (0+0)

Connor Allen was a real steal from the Grand Rapids Griffins and had one of the lowest salaries in the team. He did really good, but did not want to extend his contract. Jens Westin and Jesper Dahlroth impressed. Westin went and signed with rival team Modo after the season. What a prick.. Dahlroth and Strömberg will return, as will prospects Sandström and Landin. Själin and Hardegård opted for SHL. Maybe I can get Hardegård back on loan, that would be great.

Johan Mattsson 40 30-6-3 1.63 GAA, 92.8%, 9 SO
Henrik Haukeland 4 0-3-1 3.22 GAA, 86.9%, 0 SO
Marcus Dahlbom 9 3-5-1 3.17 GAA, 85.6%, 1 SO

Mattsson was the best goalie in the league this year, and got the MVP trophy and was named goalie of the season afterwards. He gave us the chance to win every night, and to my happiness, he extended his contract despite interest from the SHL. Behind him we struggled mightly. The backup that was in place from the start, Adam Ohre, had a salary at 465k SEK per year, which was top five in the team, so I sold him. Dahlbom replaced Ohre, but was not that good and got fired when I loaned Haukeland from Leksand in the SHL, and he was not good either. Here we need a solid backup next year.

Won't return to team: Andreas Molinder, Andreas Stene, Emil Berglund, Jeremy Boyce, Johan Johnsson, Mattias Nilsson, David Westlund, Henrik Haukeland.

18/19 | 2nd in Hockeyallsvenskan, 94 P, 28 W -18 L - 4 OSW, 193 GF, 144 GA | Win 4-2 in promotion series against Leksand

Oh boy. What a season. First, Caroline Hurricanes drafted Elias Pettersson 8th overall and the signed him straight away. We started with five straight losses, won one and then lost three more in a row to startit off with a 1-8 record. I was more than confused. I did know we may had a slightly downgrade on D, but 1-8? Come on. And to add to the confusion, neither of the goalies did much good. However, we then went 9-4-1 in the next 15 and was starting to climb out of the hole we had put ourself in.

We continued to put together runs of 7-2-1, 8-2-0 and such to continue the climbing towards the top. I had, however, no hopes of getting a top two spot as AIK and Modo were outstanding - and spending 6-8 million more on wages than the rest of the teams. So, cue the last game of regular season. Two points behind second place team AIK. We face Vita Hästen and win 6-1. AIK faced Pantern and managed to lose and we got a new 2nd place result.

In the following HockeyAllsvenskan Championship Finals we faced rivals Modo, who hade piled up on former Timrå IK players. A 3-2 loss in game one sparked our team and we went on to win 5-2, 5-1 and 6-3 to claim the trophy and a place in the promotion series.

And who do we face in the promotion games? Leksand! The same team who beat us 4-2 last year. We got a good start winning 3-2 on away ice, but then lost two straight. Game four, at home, we scored on almost everything and won 6-1 to tie the series. Down to Leksand again where we led both 2-1 and 3-2 but they managed to tie our lead twice to take it to overtime. Four and a half minute into the overtime Axel Eidstedt finds a lane and scores the GWG tog give us the 3-2 lead heading home to NHK Arena. In front of a sold out arena we take the lead with 16 minutes played of the first period and then Jonathan Dahlén makes it 2-0 just 47 seconds in the second period. Leksand got one back half way into the game, but Johan Mattsson then played like last season and stopped the rest of the shots they had at him winning the game 2-1 for us. 4-2 in the series and we managed to get promoted.

Jonathan Dahlén 46 (23+26) - Sebastian Lauritzen 48 (8+27) 'C' - Johan Persson 52 (19+26) 'A'
Jan Sýkora 48 (24+22) 'A' - Carter Camper 9 (3+7) - Jens Lööke 48 (20+18)
Henrik Björklund[/b ] 49 (22+9) - Kevin Stenlund 49 (14+14) - Ludvig Nilsson 50 (7+12)
John Westin 51 (11+8) - Sam Marklund 50 (3+14) - Isak Stenlund Ädelgran 52 (5+9)
Marcus Sirén 2 (0+0) - Kyle Flanagan 39 (6+10) - Filip Hållander 7 (0+0)
We got even more firepower this year with the additions of Henrik Björklund and Kevin Stenlund. Besides the new guys it was very much like last year where Dahlén, Persson and Sýkora was the go to guys. Dahlén was perhaps the best skater in the whole league for long stretches and was the only one in the league scoring over a point per game. But now he will leave us for Ottawa Senators. One big flop however was the signing of Kyle Flanagan. I had hopes of him being a good 2nd line center, but oh was I wrong. It ended up with him being fired with around 15 games left to play and was replaced a week later by Carter Camper who was much better. I have som thinking to do now on who I want to stay, who is not good enough for SHL. And how to replace Jonathan Dahlén.

Mat Bodie 52 (3+30) - Nils Andersson 42 (6+18)
Axel Eidstedt 40 (2+9) - Jesper Dahlroth 49 (2+19)
Didrik Strömberg 48 (2+10) - Jonathan Carlsson 52 (5+8)
Rasmus Edström 33 (1+6) - Filip Hedberg 46 (0+14)
Jonathan Nordin 2 (1+0)
Neither Conor Allen, Jens Westin, David Westlund, Mattias Nilsson, Marcus Hardegård, Calle Själin, Simon Sandström or Algot Landin stayed with us which forced me to a big overhaul on defense. We struck gold with Mat Bodie and Nils Andersson. The two who stayed, Strömberg and Dahlroth was solid again while we got some solid contribution from the rest of the new pack, but most of them will not return next year, Mat Bodie, Nils Andersson and Dahlroth I do want to stay.

Nathan Lieuwen 31 19-10-2, 2.66 GAA, 89.2%, 0 SO
Johan Mattsson 21 13-8-0, 2.80 GAA, 88.4%, 1 SO
I wanted to get a better backup this year and signed Nahtan Lieuwen, but turns out neither of him or Mattsson was that good this year, atleast not during regular season. I opted for Mattsson in the promotion games and in the championship finals. He has one more year on his contract and will stay while Lieuwen will leave.

Individual prizes
League Top Scorer: Jonathan Dahlén
Player of the Year: Johan Persson runner up, Jonathan Dahlén third place
Best forward: Johan Persson (Dahlén runner up)
Rookie of the Year: Kevin Stenlund
Coach of the Year: Roger Rönnberg

Third season with Saskatoon completed.

This season was a bit tougher than the last ones. Even though I had a good attack and a decent, young defense, I lost all my goalies and all around the league it looks like the same happened to many teams. Most "stars" goalies were 17 years old rookies and the teams that did not had any good goalie prospects ended up signing free agent that weren't that good. I ended up with Luke Richardson and Kirt Wilkins who were...well, pretty average.

We still managed to qualify for the playoffs with a record of 36-31-5 good for spot number 6 in the conference. The youngsters in the team played really well again, so I hope next year is going to be better IF I'm able to find a decent goalie since my prospects are still too young for the league. Top scorer this season is Warren (LW 33+34=67), Comeau (D 15+49=64) and Luukkonen (C 23+41=64). After Comeau who had a realy good season for a defenseman, I can also mention that Robinson (D 14+37=51) and Yeo (D 8+41=49) ended up with nice stats for their position. Yeo was also at his first year with the team at 16.

Hrading to the playoffs we are facing Brandon. With the goalies I have now I can't say that I have high hopes for this year's playoffs. On top of that Brandon outscored us 29-20 in the season for a record of 1-5-2 against them. Big surprise as we won that serie 4-1! The first four games went into OT, so it was a very close serie!

Next round we're facing Swift Current. The season's battle was even at 2-2. Bad luck struck when we lost Richardson for 2 weeks right at the start of the first game. We ended up quickly with a 0-3 deficit. The team gave it all though and we bounce back to tie the serie 3-3! Game #7, third period starts and we are losing 2-4. I set my team tactics on agressive and we tie the game 4-4 for the OT. Unfortunately it wasn't enough and we lost 4-5. That's three years in a row that we lose in the second round, seems like I'm cursed.

Has anyone else noticed scoring going throught the roof in 1.4? I can't say if it's that or that I'm using custom tactics rather than letting my AI coach take care of tactics for the first time in about 1900 hours. But I just had Wheeler score 97 points and Little score 95 points in the same season (Team had 332 goals total) in the first season with the Jets:S At the very least passing % are up (as the patchnotes mentioned) from about 77% to about 83% for similar players, won faceoffs still count as completed passes though so the C inflation is still a thing.

Regardless this has been the craziest first season I've ever had in the NHL. The aformentioned insane scoring from Wheeler and Little saw us ending the season with 123 points (President's Trophy winner by 2 points) Ehlers put up 74 points making him the runaway Calder winner. We then followed that up with going 16-1 in the playoffs, losing only 1 game against Washington in the Finals due to me forgetting to change shot targeting from Low to 5-hole against Holtby (derp). Ehlers ended up with 25 points (11+14) and a shared first place +20 rating in the playoffs. So unless something fishy happens he's going to be good for the Calder and the Conn Smythe in his first season in the NHL. Oh and our "best" goalie in the regular season was Hellebuyck with a .889. Who cares when you outshoot the second best team by 500 shots, right?

I even traded away Ladd for a 1st rounder in the pre-season. I was "looking forward" to a #tank4Matthews (yeah, I still use the 15-16 db) season, then this happens. Which just makes no sense at all. The update also seems to have fixed old players being useless, so SJ are suddenly a real team again. Sadly I only noticed the latter after I traded for their first round pick...whoops.

Highest shots on goal in a single game of the season:


Player stats for the regular season:


Final Standings(right) and Ehlers Playoff Shenanigans(left):


I was quite looking forward to rebuilding through draft picks over the coming 5-6 seasons. This does put somewhat of a wrench in those plans>.< I realize me using actual reasonable tactics and personal tactics would make my players more efficient than using the AI coach, which I did to penalize myself for the longest time. But when I hit what I think is the ceiling for the dynamic difficulty things were starting to get just a little bit unfair (3% offset in goalie savepercentages being the main culprit) so I said "F it, I'm doing my own tactics" for the first time since march last year. This can't just be due to custom tactics though, right? There must have been something that got over-tweaked in 1.4, anyone else been seeing similarly silly things since the patch?

Edit: I'm into season 5 now, I think this screenshot sums up how things are going quite well

Trying to rebuild the Islanders to a respectable squad. Had some trouble in 2016-17 finishing 6th worst in the league. Traded Tavares to Leafs for Rielly, 8th overall pick and other prospects. Wanted to rebuild from the net out so thats why I got John Gibson (for Beauvillier and more) as well as Rielly. Definitely improved the team for 2017-18 but still not doing as well right now (Christmas time). Looking to maybe package Strome and some prospects to upgrade my first line.

John Gibson - JF Berube

Gibson looks to be my starter for a while and Sorokin is coming up as a backup. Huge potential. Berube sucks, can't wait to get rid of him.

Nick Leddy- Travis Hamonic
Morgan Rielly - Ryan Pulock
Thomas Hickey- Calvin DeHaan
*Stuart Percy

I feel like my D is really solid and still young. Rielly and Leddy are playing very well. Pulock has huge potential. Hamonic is okay. DeHaan/Hickey are good for 3rd pairing duties. Don't have much coming up in the pipeline though I think.

Anders Lee - Joe Thornton - Ryan Strome
Evander Kane - Mat Barzal - Josh Bailey
Boone Jenner - Brock Nelson - Cal Clutterbuck
Scott Hartnell - Casey Cizikas - Jiri Tlusty
*Alan Quine

Offense is good but like I said looking to upgrade. Thornton can't skate so I think it is one of the reason why my team isnt winnin as much as it should. Could probably play him on the 4th line and 1st PP instead. I like my depth and I have a ton of prospect coming up includin Vilardi, Bellows, Dal Colle, HoSang, Grundstrom and Lias Pettersson.

Been a long time since I was here ,

The other day I thought about playing EHM again as I haven't been on it for such a long time (I can't even remember the last time I played 2007) and even though I bought EHM as soon as it was available for pre-order on steam I actually haven't had a go of it. So while I have considered diving straight in at the deep end and managing the Bruins, I think I am going to give that a miss, and manage in the UK leagues just while I get a feel for the game again and also see how well my PC can handle running all the leagues on enhanced, after I do I will then move on and start a career in the NHL and also a career where I start unemployed and try to work my way to the top. I might eventually get back into challenges at some point too when I feel confident about the game again.

Oh hey Mark been a couple of years! Glad to see you around.

philou21 wrote:Oh hey Mark been a couple of years! Glad to see you around.

Cheers, good to see so many old faces still around to be honest.

Well I have just set the game up, and the loading seemed to be rather quick, so hopefully that is a good sign that I will be able to get through the seasons quickish without too many issues, but I have come across my first stumbling block now, I have no idea what team to chose from. I am tempted to start a game with Manchester Phoenix (they were my UK team), but now that they have gone bust, I am thinking I will start with somebody else, I just don't know who.

How are the teams in the game compared to real life on the new EHM? Do they finish as to where you would expect them to as per their real life counterparts? I did think about the Steelers but I don't want a team that would be too easy to win things with, but I also don't want a team that would be impossible to have any success with. I ideally want a team that will have a chance of success from the start but with some good guidance from myself can have a bright first few seasons, without too much work in the beginning (just while I find my feet again), any suggestions from anyone? It doesn't have to be a team from the Elite League, but anyone from Britain.

Welcome back Mark!

mark_htfc wrote:How are the teams in the game compared to real life on the new EHM? Do they finish as to where you would expect them to as per their real life counterparts? I did think about the Steelers but I don't want a team that would be too easy to win things with, but I also don't want a team that would be impossible to have any success with. I ideally want a team that will have a chance of success from the start but with some good guidance from myself can have a bright first few seasons, without too much work in the beginning (just while I find my feet again), any suggestions from anyone? It doesn't have to be a team from the Elite League, but anyone from Britain.

The UK player ratings are relatively up to date but the EPL ratings are more recent than the EIHL. I'd suggest the EIHL as the EPL still has a few issues with very young players over-performing. Cardiff would be a good one to try. Or if you do want to try the EPL, try Guildford, Milton Keynes or Swindon.

, Thanks Archi, it's good to be back too!

I decided to just bite the bullet and start a game with Phoenix, I will see how long that will last before I decide to start a new challenge haha. Speaking of Phoenix, it probably would be a good idea to try and think of a team to use that could be my new British team and see what I can do with them.

Shindigs wrote:I was quite looking forward to rebuilding through draft picks over the coming 5-6 seasons. This does put somewhat of a wrench in those plans>.< I realize me using actual reasonable tactics and personal tactics would make my players more efficient than using the AI coach, which I did to penalize myself for the longest time. But when I hit what I think is the ceiling for the dynamic difficulty things were starting to get just a little bit unfair (3% offset in goalie savepercentages being the main culprit) so I said "F it, I'm doing my own tactics" for the first time since march last year. This can't just be due to custom tactics though, right? There must have been something that got over-tweaked in 1.4, anyone else been seeing similarly silly things since the patch?

How do the other teams do? It seems that it's just you who's killing it there? The AI doesn't have a chance against you, you mean? 3% offset in goalie SV% is pretty realistic as you're the Jets.

So it has come to this! Since Espoo is no longer in the Finnish Liiga, I'm forced to play a game with TPS (the closest team to my geographical location), if I want to play Liiga.

I feel dirty.

Not interested in getting Espoo back up ? I've always loved such challenge games in sports manager games

Ukko wrote:Not interested in getting Espoo back up ? I've always loved such challenge games in sports manager games

There's no promotion between Mestis and Liiga. In real life a team can be promoted, but it's always a decision made at the league office. I did start a game with Espoo, but at the moment the team's budget is not realistic, so it didn't feel right. I could of course edit it myself, but then I'd have to look at other Mestis budgets as well to avoid pushing the league out of balance. It's been a while I've done any editing and I have no desire to get back to it at the moment.

I don't know if picking Phoenix to start off with was a good idea, it looks like I have my work cut own but it will certainly be a good challenge for me to get back into understanding the game and player stats etc.

Before I even look at players or anything like that, I thought I would see what staff I have at my disposal, and unfortunately it is just myself and the Chairman, so obviously far from ideal.

Firstly, what staff positions do you think I should make as a priority to sign? I am going to definitely get a physio and a couple of scouts, as scouting looks to be the only way I will be able to get players as my budget doesn't look great. I am just a bit unsure on who else I need, out of a GM, Assistant GM, HC or an assistant HC? Also what sort of ideal attributes would I be looking for, while being in the EPIHL?

I daren't even look at my playing squad yet to see what I need from there but I am already starting to think I probably would have been better picking an easier challenge

I have now just looked at my playing squad and oh my, it doesn't make good viewing at all, I am extremely short in a few positions, I am starting to think the Phoenix was not the best of choices.

Nah, go for it mate. Phoenix in the game are nowhere as bad as they were this season in real life. You should still have room in the wage-budget to recruit, there are a good few veterans in the database whom we've not got round to retiring, and EPL-level guys plying their trade in the NIHL who could be persuaded to move-up I'm sure.

Plus something I've found is that teams at this level almost always make money (unlike in real life). I've been trying to get the finances under control in one of my save games (to a more realistic level) for a while now but they almost always make an unrealistic profit from gate-receipts and merchandise (as opposed to real-life in the EPL where finances seem much tighter).

I'd get a scout and a decent youth coach in. Scout some decent 16+ players, bring in some NIHL guys to fill out your lines and then try to develop them to make it realistic.

Let me know how you get on, I'm sure Arch will be interested too. Any data will help us fine-tune the UK Database.

I will definitely be persevering with the Phoenix. I put a couple of offers in last night for a phsyio and a couple of scouts, and then pretty much spent a few hours just looking over my squad and making notes as to what areas I think I need to strengthen (probably all of them, but some areas need higher priority). At least if I can make a success out of the limited Phoenix team I have from the start, I can safely say I have been able to pick up EHM straight away again hah.

I could have started the game with the AI adding key members of staff and filling up my roster etc but I never like doing that, as I always like to make things as realistic as possible. I have loaded up all leagues on enhanced, so at least that way I have a wider range of players to select from, and starting from July gives me plenty of time for me to try and get my team in order before the season starts.

I will probably spend most of Sunday sorting out my team, and then hopefully next week, manage to start going through the season and hopefully I won't be sacked haha

CJ wrote:

Shindigs wrote:I was quite looking forward to rebuilding through draft picks over the coming 5-6 seasons. This does put somewhat of a wrench in those plans>.< I realize me using actual reasonable tactics and personal tactics would make my players more efficient than using the AI coach, which I did to penalize myself for the longest time. But when I hit what I think is the ceiling for the dynamic difficulty things were starting to get just a little bit unfair (3% offset in goalie savepercentages being the main culprit) so I said "F it, I'm doing my own tactics" for the first time since march last year. This can't just be due to custom tactics though, right? There must have been something that got over-tweaked in 1.4, anyone else been seeing similarly silly things since the patch?

How do the other teams do? It seems that it's just you who's killing it there? The AI doesn't have a chance against you, you mean? 3% offset in goalie SV% is pretty realistic as you're the Jets.

The 3% offset was with Corey Schneider, John Gibson, as well as about 4 different swedish goalies in Swe-2. For some reason when I hit 1700 hours played the game started to off-set the normal goalie results by 3% against me. I looked at 49 playoff games in the NHL and Swe-2 with a lot of different goalies. I then normalized the amount of playoff centric attributes from all the goalies involved based on % of total playtime in the 49 games I looked at. The end result was that both sides had a total of ~75 IIRC, with me having like 0.2 more than the AI teams on average. But the AI team was out-saving my goalie in the playoffs by 3.08% on average. In games where we outshot the AI that increased to 4.0% and in games where the AI outshot us it dropped to 2.8%. Games where we outshot them we had a 40.7% win rate, and games where they outshot us they had a 80% win rate. So before hitting continue on a playoff game I knew we were unfavored to win even if we played better than them. Schneider was at or below .900 for 5 playoffs in a row, so it was pretty BS. But now I'm setting tactics myself and steamrolling, so that's cool I guess. When you outshoot 37:25 on average and have 2 def players on each line set to check their top two scorers the risk of losing a playoff series is pretty much non-existant. Especially when you luck out and draft the 2nd coming of Carey Price at 11th overall. The kid has won 3 Vezinas and 3 Conn Smythes (in a row) in his 4 years as our starter. The only reason he lost the Conn Smythe last year was Pierre-Luc Dubois putting up a 8.6 AvR and 24 points in 17 games in the playoffs as our 1st Center.

In other news regarding the Jets save, Blake Wheeler will hit 1k points this season. He won the Art Ross last year despite his legs almost being entirely down the drain with 96 points. He was 2nd best on +/- after Nikolaj Ehlers with an impressive +62. His goal-scoring has dropped with age, so he's more of a playmaker than he used to be. But my 1st line is really stacked to help him get into the 1k point club. I'm running Ehlers on LW, due to how my team has shaped up he's been a LW his entire career in the NHL. Pierre-Luc Dubois at Center and Wheeler on RW. They put up a combined 280 points last season. Dubois picking up 89 as the "defensive" forward on that line.
This is what they all look like going into the 2022-23 season:



If you're wondering why the top bar looks different, I'm currently in the process of reskinning EHM to a more minimalistic look akin to that of FM16

After more than a year I started again a game. Since I've been busy with the Hockeyallsvenskan for a year, I decided to take IK Pantern. Before the start of the game, I have put together the current team with the editor.

First steps:

Complete staff dismissed


Player Out:

Axel Wemmenborn
Kim Johansson
Mads Larsen
Viktor Bjorkung

loan list:

O. Nord
A. Söderberg

Which players are supposed to leave:

R. Dahse
O.Malm
J. Karlsson

Called up:

Mattias Persson (RH Malmö )

Player in: (free)

C. Engstrand
E. Roy
M. Degon (IRL retired)
J. Bergenstrom
K. Kasyanchuk
J. DiBenedetto
J. Ross (IRL he has retired after the last season, but I still he take it)
M. Santorelli

Currently, the budget is unfortunately overdrawn. (120.000 €) What the heck!

Team:

31 Engstrand, Christian
- Malm, Oscar
1 Williamsson, Tex
5 Bjork, Johan
6 Carnestad, Emil
2 Ivarsson, Johan
8 Persson, Dennis
25 Roy, Eric
3 Windlert, Filip
4 Blomqvist, Anton
7 Cederholm, Jacob
24 Degon, Marvin
32 Bergenstrom, Jens
38 Bryggman, Lars
- Karlsson, Jakob
21 Kasyanchuk, Konstantin
- Nystrom, Erik
9 Sandin, Emil
- Blomberg, Patrik
16 DiBenedetto, Justin
37 Flodqvist, Thom
11 Haudum, Lukas
55 Ross, Jared
22 Svensson, Dennis
- Dahse, Robin
18 Dyk, Sebastian
61 Janolhs, Martin
44 Karlsson, Ludwig
96 Rosdahl, Kim
19 Santorelli, Mark

Exhibition games:

Pantern 5:0 Karlskrona
Pantern 6:3 AIK

I am curious to see how this will continue.

Just came off winning the 6th cup in a row in the Jets save. But man the game did NOT want us to win it again. Coming into the seriest Tampa Bay's goalie, our backup until this season, Connor Hellebuyck was sitting on a .89x save% in the playoffs. Our goalie, Carter Hart, was sitting on a .93x save% in the playoffs. Clearly this series could only go one way! But EHM had other plans, despite us outshooting Tampa 245-167 over the 7 game series, we had to take it to game 7 to get the cup. What makes this even more impressively rigged, is that despite their goalie over-performing the save% for the series was .904 vs. .902 in our favor. That's right, we outshot them by 53%, had .002 better save% and we still went to game 7. That is very close to being mathematically impossible. So how did it transpire?

Game 1:
We get Bryzgalov'd on the scheduling so our 2 starting home games are back-to-back, meaning we have to not use Overload for our forwards in the first game. Despite this we outshoot them 32-23, but Hart puts up an abysmal .870, typical of a goalie that's won 3 Conn Smythes in the last 4 years. Hellebuyck pulls a .938 out of the hat. And Tampa walk away with a 2-3 win away from home.

For reference, prior to this Hellebuyck's save% against us was sitting at .844

Game 2:
This game we could use Overload again to get one back from Tampa, we outshot them 34-20 and walked out victors with a 4-1 scoreline, this is pretty much the expected result for us against Tampa, Hart put up a .950 and Hellebuyck put up a .882, still overperforming by about 4% to his record prior to this series. But that happens (rarely).

Game 3:
Still on Overload we're looking to take the wind out of Tampa's sail in their barn. We outshoot them 41-23, Hart puts up another .870 (against the EXACT same amount of shots as his previous one) and Hellebuyck pulls a .951 out of the hat, a solid 10% more than you'd expect from him...reasonable. We lose 3-2 in overtime away from home.

Game 4:
Looking to take at least 1 game off them in Tampa, we come out on Overload again. This was the only game simmed on this day, so I expected the normal ~2 second load time. Instead I got a 2 minute long load time, and instead of being at the boxscore screen when it ended. The game dumped me in the News screen, where I had a news item stating that Carter Hart was out for 10 days with a groin strain. At this point the game is just blatantly cheating, but that's standard. Let's just win with my horrendous .856 regular season backup I guess. Because we did outshoot Tampa 38-26 and took the game 5-2, Hart had a .944 before getting injured and Spencer Knight jumped in to see out the game with a .889. Hellebuyck put up a .868, that's within standard deviation of what he should do against us. That's fair enough.

Game 5:
Finally back in our own barn we're looking to get a lead in the series, we proceed to outshoot Tampa 40-15, with Knight recording a 15 save Shutout and Hellebuyck a .925. A huge over-performance, but not enough! We walk away 3-0 victors. The series is now 3-2 in our favor.

Game 6:
Back in Tampa we look to close out the series away from home, we outshoot Tampa 36-28, Knight puts up an embarrassing .821. Hellebuyck on the other hand puts up a .889 which is good for him. We lose the game 5-4 in the 6th minute of OT.

Game 7:
A series that by any and all metrics should have been a 4-0 sweep is now down to a nail-biting 7th game at home, with us fielding a goalie who's put up results as low as ~65% saves in the regular season. Anything can happen at this point. Hart is still Red injured. We put up a poor game by out standards and only outshot Tampa 34-31, Knight puts up a Third star performance with a surprising .935. Hellebuyck is apprently done cheating at this point and puts up a .857, bang on what he should be doing against us. We run out 5-2 victors, and set a new NHL record for most consecutive Cup wins, having previously shared the record with the Canadiens at 5.

Statistically speaking, when you outshoot a team by that much, and the average save % over the whole series favors you. Losing 3 of the 7 games is so unlikely you probably couldn't replicate it if given 1000 seasons. But Tampa has been BS this entire season. Their team was setup for a cup 2 years ago, but we swept them in the finals, this lead to them having to dump some players to cap manage. As always the AI chose to dump their goalie, cause who needs a goalie to win the cup anyways? This should (and did) see them stop being a playoff team. Until mid-way through the following season where their players suddenly started scoring unreal amounts of points (for the AI, that is). This continued in this season, and even more so in the playoffs. For some reason the game has just decided that Tampa should win a cup. Even though they don't have the team to do so without some pretty blatant Ice-tilt. But it seems they failed even with the tremendous amounts of BS transpiring to make this series as "close" as it was.

Tampa managed to get Goalied by Montreal this year's playoff so there was no excitement to be had. Well none of that kind at least. Swept the Blue Jackets in the final despite poor Bob putting up at least 40 saves in all 4 games. That's gotta be rough.

Currently the longest running dynasty in NHL history, I'm retiring the save either when we hit the near impossible 100% win rate season, 25 total cups or we lose a cup. I'm almost thinking the 25 cups might happen first at this rate to be honest...But we're still 17 cups off it>.<

Blake Wheeler is apparently not feeling the whole "decline and retire" thing all that much, and it's killing my cap management since he won't take a pay cut while playing at this level.

I can offer him a position as Assistant GM or coach at this point. But he's asking for 10.5M $ wage there too, so I'm thinking I'll let him go to Free Agency and hopefully his wage demands will update to something slightly less insane.

His illustrious career thus far:


and his heir as captain Nikolaj Ehlers is probably going to go down as the most dominant player of this generation (McDavid and Matthews aren't even close):


We had 18 games in the playoffs due to Carter Hart going "nah, don't wanna win" in game one of the playoffs putting up a .875 and me putting in our backup in game 4 when we were up 3-0 in the series against the Canucks, just to rest Hart. Our backup repaid my "trust" with a solid .800, thanks!


And as a final act of spite the Blue Jackets figured it would be cool to injure our 3 time Selkie winner in game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals, that's twice in two years someone's fractured his arm:(

The story of how we got him is a bit funny. Now that I think about it. We traded <insert aging overpaid player> to the Hurricanes for their 1st round pick in that year's draft. The thing was I traded for the pick to target another swede fitting a similar mold that was supposed to go in the mid 20s. So I figured the Hurricanes, who were 1 spot outside the playoffs, had an early enough pick that I could safely pick that guy up. Imagine my surprise when my 1% draft lottery pick won the 2nd overall pick. Then that player ends up being a generational defensive forward capable of putting up 60+ points with no PP time to boot. So I won the best player in that year's draft while also winning the cup. And all I lost was a player I needed to trade away for cap management. Jackpot!

Oh, and our 3 times in a row Norris Trophy winner Timothy Liljegren finally managed to break the 70 point barrier. It's so tough to do with how little dmen score goals in EHM.

Unless something very unexpected happens (like my crazy russian rookie starting to steal Timothy's Norris' Trophies) he will probably surpass Orr for the record long before he retires.

Other noteworthy events from the season include Carter Hart having 10 shutouts, including a 285 minutes and 6 seconds long shutout streak from Dec 28th to Jan 9th. Pierre-Luc Dubois having more than 1 assist per game (83 in 82 games). Owen Tippett being 4 goals away from a 50 goal season despite being out 1 month with an injury, missing 15 games and being completely cold for another ~10 after coming back. Essentially scoring 46 goals in 57 games. Spencer Knight also set a new alltime low for save% by staying below .800 until the 2nd half of the season and having only two games above .900 in the entire season. And being pulled more times than I care to count. Here's the wall of shame for our goalies this season (aka. all our losses):

Spoiler: Click to reveal

after seeing how awful he is you might wonder why I still use him. First reason being I can't trade for players in this save. One of the rules I implemented. I can only trade for draft picks and must draft all players I intend to play. Second, he's currently considered the 3rd best prospect in the NHL. And apart from his abysmal 5 Recovery and Anticipation there is just no reason he should be this bad. He's also got 17+ consistency based on his scout report, and he's better than AI backup goalies with .890-.900 in every measurable way (other than his performance).

#57 wrote:Trying to rebuild the Islanders to a respectable squad. Had some trouble in 2016-17 finishing 6th worst in the league. Traded Tavares to Leafs for Rielly, 8th overall pick and other prospects. Wanted to rebuild from the net out so thats why I got John Gibson (for Beauvillier and more) as well as Rielly. Definitely improved the team for 2017-18 but still not doing as well right now (Christmas time). Looking to maybe package Strome and some prospects to upgrade my first line.

John Gibson - JF Berube

Gibson looks to be my starter for a while and Sorokin is coming up as a backup. Huge potential. Berube sucks, can't wait to get rid of him.

Nick Leddy- Travis Hamonic
Morgan Rielly - Ryan Pulock
Thomas Hickey- Calvin DeHaan
*Stuart Percy

I feel like my D is really solid and still young. Rielly and Leddy are playing very well. Pulock has huge potential. Hamonic is okay. DeHaan/Hickey are good for 3rd pairing duties. Don't have much coming up in the pipeline though I think.

Anders Lee - Joe Thornton - Ryan Strome
Evander Kane - Mat Barzal - Josh Bailey
Boone Jenner - Brock Nelson - Cal Clutterbuck
Scott Hartnell - Casey Cizikas - Jiri Tlusty
*Alan Quine

Offense is good but like I said looking to upgrade. Thornton can't skate so I think it is one of the reason why my team isnt winnin as much as it should. Could probably play him on the 4th line and 1st PP instead. I like my depth and I have a ton of prospect coming up includin Vilardi, Bellows, Dal Colle, HoSang, Grundstrom and Lias Pettersson.

I ended up really figuring this thing out and posted three 130+ pts seasons in a row with the Islanders after missing the playoffs in 2016-17 and 2017-18.

In 2018-19 I reached the finals against the Sharks but lost in 7 games. 2019-20 I took my revenge and beat the Sharks in 4. Then in 2020-21 I beat the Jets in 5 games.

The main things I did to dominate the league was 1) get a good goalie 2) upgrade the defence 3) get a good coach 4) get some speedy players 5)play around with the tactics and find something that works for you

My line-up at the start of 2021-22 looks like this;

JT Miller - Mat Barzal - Ryan Strome
Joe Colborne - Gabe Vilardi - Josh Bailey
Carl Hagelin - Mattias Janmark - Carl Grundstrom (Swedish mafia)
Adam Lowry - Curtis Leschyshyn - Bryan Rust

Nick Leddy - Morgan Rielly
Ryan Murray - Lev Starikov (decent youngster, has 20 speed and is 6'7 lol)
Brendan Smith - Calvin De Haan

John Gibson - Juuse Saros

So as you can see not even that amazing of a roster just solid depth all-around, good checking players and lots of speed. Gibson is top-5 among goaltenders so that's really important. D is really good actually had Hamonic in Starikov's place before so that was a very solid top-4 for me. Up front it has been clicking well, Miller, Bailey, Strome and Barzal in particular have all had huge seasons, hovering around a point per game the last 3 years overall.

I did some very accrute trading, not hesitating to deal away older guys (Hamonic, Jenner, Nelson) for draft picks and then replacing them with UFAs. I feel like there are a lot of good UFAs every year and you can get some decent ones for your 2nd or 3rd line for 2.5M or 3.0M which is pretty good. The result is I have accumulated a lot of draft picks and seem to have some very good youngsters coming up in the next seasons.

I also did not hesitate to let go some free agents for nothing when they were asking too much money i.e. Lee and Kane. Gotta keep the salaries in check. Also have not hesitated to bury older guys, like Thornton when his speed came down he spent the whole year in Bridgeport (I think he registered 100+ pts) same thing with Grabovski and Hartnell. Winning was too important to have these guys in my line-up.

BTW how do you guys post print screens? When I push prtsc on my keyboard it doesnt work when I'm in the game...

Well, when the game can't beat you. At least it can arbitrarily steal your players' Trophies. Got robbed of both Norris and Calder this year, or am I being biased?
You decide:
Norris went to Doughty over Liljegren

Doughty did have Liljegren beat by a hair on hits/takeaways/shotblocks. But not by enough that it should overshadow 20 freaking points, less PIM and STILL a better +/- rating.

And Dorofeyev got the Calder over Kayumov

I can certainly see some merit to Dorofeyev getting it (if the game over-values goals etc.), though circumstances (age, experience, position) makes Kayumov's feat much more impressive in my eyes.

In less depressing BS news, although equally BS. We drafted a woman 49th overall in this year's draft:

I changed the flag on "Edith" to "female" but the game still refers to her as "him". Just amazing...

Pierre-Luc Dubois was put in the 2nd All-Star team as Center despite winning the Pearson, the Art Ross and the +/-. Dubois had more assists than Schwartz (who was 1st All-Star C) had points on the season. That's some Grade A BS...again. Dubois also had an AvR of 8.17 to Schwartz 8.13, Schwartz did have 3 more goals however. Oh and just to make things even better. Schwartz has played as a LW for the past 6 seasons. But the game doesn't check where someone plays. Just what their primary role is in the db. *golfclap*

#57 wrote:BTW how do you guys post print screens? When I push prtsc on my keyboard it doesnt work when I'm in the game...

I play in Windowed fullscreen, then screenshotting works just fine. I run a dual-monitor setup so I have to trim it in Photoshop before uploading to imgur though:/

#57 wrote:
BTW how do you guys post print screens? When I push prtsc on my keyboard it doesnt work when I'm in the game...

Alt + Print Screen works for me