EHM The Blue Line

So you trademarked your official announcements now?

Yes, if it's not an Official Announcementâ„¢ it's just not an Official announcement, it's just you standard run of the mill announcement...

My opening night lines for 2006-07:

Kozlov - Koivu - Kovalev
Holmstrom - Langkow - Ryder
Chipchura - Bulis - Murray
Plekanec - Higgins - Perzhogin

Markov - Morris
Backman - Rivet
Komisarek - Walker

Theodore - Sauve

After the deadline of 1st May to get your first 20 games in you will then be 3 weeks to get the next 40 games in that means:

The first 60 games must be recorded by the 22nd May for you to qualify for 2nd Bonuses

Sweet, I'm covered than


Not that I wouldn't have finished on time, but I like not having deadlines

Here is what I have managed to do in the first 20 games

Traded Carter Davids for Peter Bondra
Traded Carey Price, Niklas Sundström, Can 4th for Jagr (I have never had Jagr before and have to see what the fuss is all about )
Traded Craig Rivet and Kositsyn for Jeff Jillson

Could prob have gotten Jagr och Jillson for a bit less but I needed to slash salary a bit.

I have played with Offensive with finesse as a tactic and only tinkerd a little bit with the settings. I need to tinker a bit more with the boxplay because it sucks

So the lines have basicly been:

Zednik-Bonk-Jagr
Plekanec-Ribero-Kovalev
Bulis-Koivu-Ryder
Dagenais-Murray-Bondra

Souray-Dandenault
Markov-Jillson
Bouillon-Komisarek

I've started great but I usually do that and crash around mid-december.

I got a lot of RW:s now and will try and find some LW to shake the team up when I start losing...

As Minstrel just misses out on more public humiliation... my connection has been down all day and I went to GLR to see how people were doing with their getting their first sets in and realized I hadn't actually posted mine yet Yah, I'm sure you guys would have never let me live that one down

Anyhow, not in a 'story' mood right now, but will do soon. It's an interesting team and some trades after the first set have really solidified my team which I'm pretty psyched about. So there should be a big jump at least in my special teams which are the worst I've ever recorded!!

Minstrel wrote: As Minstrel just misses out on more public humiliation... my connection has been down all day and I went to GLR to see how people were doing with their getting their first sets in and realized I hadn't actually posted mine yet Yah, I'm sure you guys would have never let me live that one down

haha! too true

when is the deadline for games 21-40?

BlackCats101 wrote:

Minstrel wrote: As Minstrel just misses out on more public humiliation... my connection has been down all day and I went to GLR to see how people were doing with their getting their first sets in and realized I hadn't actually posted mine yet Yah, I'm sure you guys would have never let me live that one down

when is the deadline for games 21-40?

sorry people have already answered that for me-ignore my stupid question

When I started this challenge two days ago, I was hoping there would be a little more time to build the team. But because the first deadline was announced to be today, I did a few quick decisions - and quick decisions are rarely the best ones.

First I signed a young d-man Andre Benoit from free agency (Hamilton Bulldogs). Then I traded Bulis and 2nd round pick for Gratton and a 3rd rounder from Florida. Then I made fans and board furious by trading Kovalev and rights of Carey Price to LA for Sean Avery, Tim Gleason and a 4th round pick. Well, I just needed to get rid of that old and expensive guy... And with my next move I was back in business - I gave up rights to Guillaume Latendresse and got Jonathan Cheechoo and rights of Alexander Korolyuk from Sharks. Cheechoo was a good one, and Korolyuk would be too, but he just snubs to me, no matter how good contracts I offer. Got to get rid of him too...
Then I got someone called Tomas Linhart from free agency. I can't remember, how. Well, I should take a break every sixth hour, I know, but there's so little time and so much to do. Then I got Mike Leclerc from Coyotes for that LA 4th rounder. And Mathieu Garon for 7th round pick from LA.
From the beginning I've been trying to sell Mark Streit and Raitis Ivanans, but no-one wanted them. Not even from waivers. But when I waived Huet, Blues took him. And later Avery was claimed by NYI, and that was a shame, I would have liked to keep him... But when I got Shean Donovan for 5th rounder from Flames and Eric Cole for 1st and 6th rounders and rights of Mikhail Grabovsky from 'Canes, it was Avery who got to go.

There's my moves by now. There is one or two no-goods, two or three good ones and a few what's-the-point -moves. I've also got certain unbalance in my roster which should be fixed, but right now making trades is very difficult.

Gratton is the best of players-in so far, but one has to remember that Cole has been with us only two weeks. Cheechoo hasn't been what I expected (yet) and Leclerc was the biggest disappointment (he is in Hamilton now, no-one wanted him even from waivers...). I'm satisfied with Gleason and pretty much with Donovan too. Garon is #2 goalie and has played few games.

For some reason games have been painful, most of the wins are by one goal, instead of few of the losses, which have come with really ugly numbers. Team hasn't found it's way to play yet.

That's about it.

Bonus Points A have been calculated and the following has been awarded:

• E5150_ca 17
• Systemfel 12
• Orca 8
• timmy_t 7
• Minstrel 2
• Bruins72 2
• kuulapaa 1
• BlackCats 1

Yes!!! Two points!

I didn't get any bonus points

bruins72 wrote:I checked my news for the day and saw that New Jersey had put Scott Gomez up on waivers.

And one day I check my news and someone's bought me Heatley, McCabe and Crosby for a Christmas present. That'll be the day...

Minstrel wrote:Okay, upon my first look I can say that I will be trading the entire team basically. Has this team ever had a conditioning coach that knows what the words "cardio" and "endurance" means? It's pathetic...

And I weren't kiddin either! The defense is especially weak and the roster is full of players with very low stamina ratings which is one of my pet peeves in the game. I'm looking for 17s at least and I've got mainly 13s. As I said did this team never have a conditioning coach before?

August Deals:

7th rounder to FLA for rights to Tenkrat who then refused to join the team; if you don't want to play second line on an NHL team, no skin off my back... maybe next year.

Ryder, Komisarek and Koivu to PHO for David Tanabe (second pairing offensive d-man), Mike Johnson (2nd line wing) and Mike Ricci (center of checking line) plus PHO's 3rd rounder in '06. This is about as close to "one stop shopping" as you can get and I'm very happy with it; a solid pick a good underrated young offensive d-man again an underrated second line winger with excellent all-around skills and Ricci who is a team leader and horse on defense which my team relies heavily upon.

1st and 2nd rounders to CAR for Eric Cole. No doubt an overpay but on this team it was important for me to bring in someone without weakening or just "trading apples for apples" on the current team. Getting a first liner of Cole's stature without sending out a Koivu or Kovalev to do it was a key as it greatly raised the team's overall talent level.

In a fairly drawn out back and forth negotiation I finally dealt Markov (overpaid/underskilled imho), rights to Aubin and our 5th and 6th picks to WAS for Boyd Gordon (future center of checking line would start year in AHL) and Matt Pettinger (wing on checking line). Both have really solid upsides and are excellent defensively. I believe in them from my Caps Challenge team that won the Cup

The Preds denied they were looking to deal Sullivan so I of course made an offfer brought in the scoring and speed for Bonk, Yann Denis and rights to D'Agostini. No complaints there as Sully lead the team for the whole first set while Kovalev was out injured.

As I need the defense prospect more I traded Carey Price to PIT when they made Ryan Whitney available; I also got the Pens 3rd rounder so I'm very happy with that deal.

Send Begin to NJ for Brylin who will be my first line center.

Veteran defense brought in from the flames in the form of Bret Hedican for the bargain basement price of a 4th round pick. Excellent.

Another deal I love; sent rights to Latendresse to Carolina for Matt Cullen (2nd line center), Frank Kaberle (3-4 d man with experience) and another 3rd rounder. Cullen is a great player who contributes far above his stats or salary and getting a third and a solid #3 dman to replace Markov's spot basically for just a prospect? Yeah I'll do that deal any day

Bulis, Plekanec and a 3rd to FLA for Gelinas (completes my checking line) and Gratton who will play 3rd line center... for the price that's more than I thought I could get for two guys that wouldn't have made it off my bench... again increases in stamina and better fits for my team with both players.

Dagenais and Rivet to CAR who had a mess of 4th rounders sitting about gathering dust I said "I'll take three please" and gave them Dagenais and Rivet as compensation to clear some space on my roster.

One of those fourths went right back out the door along with Zednik to bring in Balastik from CMB; I had him targeted again as 2nd line RW. Playing with Cole on my Carolina team he won the Calder scoring 47 goals! Eventually though due to deals and who could be sent down and who couldn't he's tearing up the AHL at a 2pt+ per game pace as I just don't have a slot for him right now

Rights to Rene Vydarent and a 3rd from the Markov deal to CHI for Calder as first or second line playmaking winger, can also cover for injuries on defensive lines if necessary. Has done very well fo me.

Mid October:

Not satisfied with some role players mainly on my defense and checking lines and dealing with injuries started looking around again:

Rights to Chipchura and Linhart to Avalanche for future stud offensive d-man JM Liles. Never been able to pry him away before

Rights to Urquhart to Flames for Byron Ritchie for backup on checking line duty.

Corey Locke to COL because I am pro not Antti Laaksonen :-P has been great as third/fourth line winger.

Perezhogin who was on the bubble with my team, and the two 3rd I got from the Sharks and Phoenix for excellent young checker Mark Smith and top prospect Steve Bernier. Fantastic!

Ricci to Flyers for Michal Handzus; these last three were right around the 18th to 20th game but I can say they really stabilized my team.

Theodore who I've tried to deal for many other goalies of similar calibre with less paycheck has been up and down... at one point he posted back to back shutouts then allowed 4, 5 and 5 again in two losses and a tie in the next three.

Kovalev went out for 2 weeks and that led to shuffling of lines and nobody really "clicked" nobody is playing that well really which is why I initiated the second wave of deals.

Been playing:

Cole-Handzus-Kovalev
Calder - Cullen - Sullivan
Gratton - Brylin - Johnson
Pettinger - Smith - Laaksonen

Souray - Tanabe
Liles - Hedican
Kaberle - Bouilion

Still looking to strengthen my D and bring in some younger prospects to develop and play in the AHL. My special teams play has been brutal Am looking to deal Brylin as he's now third line center and a mismatch for the job; I plan to move Gratton over to Center and deal for a LW with good d/offense mix to round out that 3rd line.

My board says even though we are playing well and th ebudget is good they still hate me because the fans hate me and have lost interest in the team. I guess it could be my trading two team captains that did it (Koivu and Ricci) but it had to be done and we exit this set in much better shape than we entered it.

Leaders Were:

Sully with 10g, 19p and +15
Cullen with 12a
Cole 45 PIM

Calv wrote:Bonus Points A have been calculated and the following has been awarded:

• E5150_ca 17
• Systemfel 12
• Orca 8
• timmy_t 7
• Minstrel 2
• Bruins72 2
• kuulapaa 1
• BlackCats 1

kuulapaa wrote:

bruins72 wrote:I checked my news for the day and saw that New Jersey had put Scott Gomez up on waivers.

And one day I check my news and someone's bought me Heatley, McCabe and Crosby for a Christmas present. That'll be the day...

Ha, funny.

Seriously. The NJ Devils were over budget and over the cap. They had to cut salary somehow. They put Gomez on waivers because he was making $4.5M per season. That's a lot of money.

They used to deal Madden right off; but seems they just waited a year this time to remedy their budget

Minstrel wrote:They used to deal Madden right off; but seems they just waited a year this time to remedy their budget

I miss those days :'(

I used to see them waive Madden all the time but they stopped doing that after one of the game updates. I got the chance to take him though. I always played the Bruins and their salary was too high as it was.

In my current game, the Devils are struggling. They've got a few big names (such as UFA signing Nicklas Lidstrom) that are making tons of money ($6.5M per season for Elias) but the team isn't strong enough top to bottom. They do have some young talent (Parise, Zajac, and Bergfors) fighting for icetime though.

Hey guys, sorry it's taken so long but I have finished my season with the Canadiens.
I recently went back to school full time after 11 years as a police officer and my finals are this week and next week, so I am swamped.

I am working on the write ups for 41-60, 61-82, and the playoffs, and will get them up as soon as possible.

Good luck to everyone else still plugging away at it! You can pm me for help/advice anytime.

Well my team especially my brutal special teams play increased significantly in this stretch as I scored 13 more goals and allowed 3 less than my 1-20 set. My PP is +4% and my PK is +9% from last set. At one point in this set we won 10 in a row

A lot of that stability has come from my deal for Handzus right before the last set. He and Cullen both continue to be excellent! I also brought in Witt from the Caps and he made an instant impact on our play; the guy can seemingly be in two places at once while playing D and he's even been scoring quite a few points on the 2nd PP line

Leaders are same as last set:

Sully now with 25g, 46p and +25
Cullen with 27a
Cole 76 PIM (though Witt is closing fast heh)

So the other thing I'd mentioned was that I was looking to deal Brylin since he's no match for 3rd line center. I sent him and a 4th to Carolina for Niklas Nordgren who has done very well as 3rd line alt-checking line winger

With that deal it made it unnecessary to retain Gelinas given his age and salary but other teams certainly didn't feel that way as I had a lot of what I'd call overpaying offers. I took the Pittsburg deal since it involved me freeing a spot on my NHL roster. They gave me their 2nd rounder and Michal Sivek who I'll trade eventually I guess but I didn't want to try and counter and lose the 2nd rounder

I'd also mentioned I was looking around for another good prospect or two; well I got that one done too. I dealt Benoit and Dandenault to the Preds for Milan Michalek and Jordin Tootoo. Both are currently terrorizing the AHL on my league leading Hamilton squad.

My Witt deal was Garthy Murray and Mikhail Grabovsky for Witt and a 4th rounder. More than I wanted to pay really but the guy has been worth his weight in gold for my team since arriving so I can't complain really

I'm considering dealing Kaberle for a better option on D.

Theodore still drives me crazy with his inconsistency but there just isn't any reasonable deal out there so I and bear it...

I've yet to find a decent 1s and second line combo... very frustrating! Sullivan is awesome, he scores no matter who I play him with and Calder does well with most anyone too I just haven't gotten anyone to really click with Cole who's been horrible or Kovalev who only scores on the PP it seems... so I after juggling both back and forth I've stuck them both together on 2nd line with Cullen at center leaving Sullivan Handzus Calder as my first line. They played thier first few games together well but then didn't score for two so who knows.

Games 41-60 started well enough but we ended the segment on a 5 game losing streak.

I made several trades:

Mark Streit, Alex Perezhogin, and rights to Alex Dulac-Lemelin to Nashville for Adam Hall. (I needed a 3rd line RW)
Rights to Christopher Heino-Lindberg to Carolina for Mike Commodore. (I picked up a good d-man and got rid of another player with a hyphenated last name)
Yann Danis to the Carolina for Glen Wesley. (Another good d-man, I don’t plan on playing him very much since his conditioning was bad in my Carolina challenge game)

And, last trade at the deadline:

Jose Theodore and his multi-million dollar salary to Los Angeles for Jason LaBarbera. (I just couldn’t stand his inconsistency)

Here are the lines I used for the segment:

Cole-Rolston-Sullivan
Ovechkin-Bonk-Zednik
Bell-Ribeiro-Hall
Simon-Halpern-Sundstrom

Kaberle-Zidlicky
Phaneuf-Dandenault
Hale-Suchy

LaBarbera-Huet (I play whoever has better morale and condition)

I have Sundstrom, Wesley, and Commodore as spares, and Eric Messier and Scott Nichol are at Hamilton.

Alexander Ovechkin is tearing it up on the 2nd line with 29 points in 26 games.

I would recommend acquiring Steve Sullivan if you have the means. He is not cheap, but he rules!

I know I should've written here earlier and even many times, but I desperately tried to get my team playing well and spent all my time in it. And also because I have to write in foreign language and it takes so much more time and thinking I preferred playing the game.

But it didn't help. My start to season #1 wasn't very good, and what is worse, the season didn't get any better when it got older. I made a lot of trades and deals, but I won't make a detailed report of all of them. Here are the most important trades of my MTL 3.1 (the first ones I reported earlier):
with BUF Jonathan Cheechoo <-> Taylor Pyatt, 4th rnd pick 2006 (NAS)
with ANA Sheldon Souray <-> Bruno St. Jacques, 4th rnd pick 2006 (BUF)
with NYR Andrei Kostitsyn, rights to Alexander Korolyuk <-> Brad Bombardir, 3rd rnd & 5th rnd pick 2006 (NYR)
with CAR Mike LeClerc, Mark Streit <-> Aaron Ward, 4th rnd pick 2006 (CLB)
with CLB Garth Murray, 4th rnd picks 2006 (CLB, BUF) <-> Radoslav Suchy
with WSH 5th rnd pick (NYR), 4th rnd pick (MTL) <-> Graham Mink
with PHI Francis Bouillon <-> Michal Handzus
and in 28th Jan I fired Claude Julien. In 1st Feb I hired Norwegian Geir Thore Myhre for a new Head Coach.

All those D-men I acquired in a month, between the middle of December and the middle of January. First I thought I (once again) got carried away in trying to get better defence, but suddenly I got 3-4 starting D-men injured and I didn't have any extra defenders.

What's the most important is though the fact that I didn't get my team play well. Whatever I tried, they didn't improve. They even got worse after they sucked. So sometimes in the winter (in the middle of February, I guess) I stopped trying so hard and started to focus on the season #2. And that doesn't mean giving up or doing stupid trades, I just stopped trying to win every game and began to mix the team and tried to see, who's got to go after the season. Maybe because of that (or the change of Head Coach), the last quarter of the season was the second best after the first one. And when you have seen the stats of my first quarter, you know by now that my season was no success by any means. Habs ended up to Conference #14 with 74 points and team's best point scorer was Chris Gratton with 60 (19+41) points.

This is the poor story of my poor season. The 3.2 will be better - I really am looking forward to it, because I think my team looks a lot better now. To be continued in thread MTL 3.2 (hopefully sooner and more accurately).

60 games -22nd may? hmmm