EHM The Blue Line

So things have been clicking nicely until someone let Tonya Harding into my locker room. Forsberg went down for about a week, and came back just in time to claim his all star team spot.

Sadly, Samsonov went down just before the break. Luckily, the way the schedule worked out he only missed 2 games. Then shortly thereafter he went down again for about 10 days.

Sedin and Balastik both took a trip to the ER shortly there after as well

So I tried to call up Niklas Hagman from the minors to help staunch the bleeding and he promptly got scooped off waivers

So off to the trade block I went. I picked up Fedotenko for a goalie prospect.

Hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me, because he was my just in case someone gets injured guy.

Other than the fact that my division is the strongest in the conference, with the 3 top teams in the division being the 3 best overall in the conference, so that #1 spot means a date with a easier team, while the #4 spot will give us a grudge match with a powerhouse division rival

I'm gonna try and polish off the season, and then apply the patch and start working on my second season, and maybe start toying with the next challenge.

Had two sessions on the train last week so finally got a few games in again.

Not much to tell, my first and second lines have been the same forever with the third and fourth never seeming to work quite right. Axelsson, Maltby and Halpern are still disappointing but Lundqvist has shaped up and secured his place as my starting goaltender for most games.

Major injuries:
LeCavalier and Öhlund were both out for longer periods of time, had a bad overlap where neither of them were on the ice.

Notable trades:
Got rid of Halpern and Grant Marshall to pick up Mikhail Grabovsky.
Signed Sean Venedam.

Trying to get a bit more offensive power on my second line, dropped Peca to third and Roberts to fourth as his physical attributes have become a joke. Will probably try to get rid of Maltby and Roberts at the deadline but I'm not sure what I'm looking for at the moment. Still have a few games to figure it out.

Well, my season has gone quite well so far.

My Columbus team is 4th in the West with 70 points after the 60 game mark. I've only made 1 trade (and waived a couple players who nobody wanted), but I replaced most of the staff (which was terrible). Dave King is the head coach now.

I traded the rights to Ben Wright to Minnesota for Martin Skoula.

Fedorov leads the team in points with 70 points in 60 games (28 G, 42 A). Nash leads the team in goals with 31.

My lines have been:

Nash-Fedorov-Vyborny
Modin-Svitov-Zherdev
Carter-Fritsche-Balastik
Chimera-Brule-Malhotra

Berard-Foote
Westcott-Klesla
Kloucek-Skoula

Conklin (who has actually played well)
Leclaire

Oops. I accidentally posted the stuff for the Columbus Challenge in the Fantasy Draft thread. I was pretty tired yesterday.

Alright Bonus points A have been calculated, and have been awarded as follows:
Bruins72 11
Rubbinio 8
marsac 5
hluraven 5
BBFan417 5
joehelmer 5
timmy_t 3
munky 3
inStaaled 2
Thundercleese 1
Xzandrate 1

Congrats to all that got points

darn... not even one point. That hurts.

2 points....

5 points. My first challenge bonus points.

Hmm, I guess I didn't screw up completely.

Grats on points boys.

Woohoo, 3 points.

First of all: Yay bonus points! Never underestimate beginner's luck.

Ok so I finally got around to finishing season one, here are some thoughts regarding the last set of games.


* Trading for Grabovsky turned out to be a pretty good move, my scouts now see him as having first line potential. He picked up 20 points in 26 games in the regular season and 15 in 22 in the playoffs with an avg. rating of 6.92 and 7.09 respectively. Doesn't really fit into my idea of a physical team but I seem to have made it work.
* Traded Maltby straight up for an injured Henrik Sedin at the deadline. Henrik was an important part of my playoff series centering the second line, getting 12 goals and 8 assists in 22 games with an avg. rating of 8.36.
* LeCavalier and Öhlund were just amazing for me during the playoffs with avg. ratings of 8.95 and 8.55.
* Doug O'Brien who I called up when I had injury troubles is now considered to have 3-4 defenseman potential and replaced Lilja in my default lineup, he managed an avg. rating of 6.72 in both regular season and playoffs.


* Shanahan realized he is old and stopped scoring right after I signed him for a new contract, he started getting assists instead though. Now rated as a third line player he seems kind of overpayed at 4 mil. Guess I'll have to get rid of him if someone will take him.


* Walker is rated as a first line talent and I intended to have him replace Shanahan on the first line. Wait, that's good right? Well it would be if he hadn't broken his leg in the playoffs and is expected to be out for seven months.
* I somehow missed to get rid of Gary Roberts at the deadline and was forced to release him for payroll reasons.
* I broke my powerplay. Horribly. Remember folks, if it's not broken don't try to fix it.

I probably won't be playing any more challenges right now because I have alot of other stuff taking up my free time atm but I hope to play another one sometime in the future.

Batdad kicking self in head. Lost my save game for the F Draft Season 2. Well actually deleted it when started Season 3. Unfortunately...oops did not take any freaking screen shots. So I guess no bonus points (probably had no hope anyway). I can get playoff sched, and most team and indiv stats from history...but no plus minus leaders and no finances at end of year 2 as a shot. Guess I did myself in. Sorry Calv, Minstrel et al.

Oh rubbish, now I found it. I had named it something stupid and never looked. Good I have the shots. Will post them. Sorry

I deleted all my save games when I downloaded unfaking and patched my game.

Then I remembered this.

At least I finished the first season I guess...

Latest deadlines:
60 Games: 20 Dec 2006
82 Games: 20 Jan 2007

Bonus Points B are done and awarded as follows
inStaaled 9
timmy_t 8
hluraven 4
Thundercleese 4
bruins72 4
Rubbinio 4
joehelmer 4
Xzandrate 3
BBFan417 2
marsac 1

inSTAALed, FTW!

Well I changed my mind and finished season two during the holidays.

During the offseason:
Lost Peca, Shanahan, Axelsson and Walker.
Picked up Jagr, two blueline prospects, some draft picks and Holmström.

During the season:
Lost Pratt, picked up Robert Nilsson as a prospect.
Robert Nilsson and Alexander Edler made the starting lineup.
My surprise talent O'Brien from the first season is now expected to become a top two d-man.

Got off to a really bad start but picked up my game as the season went on. Jagr and Betts got injured during my second playoff game and ruined my hopes for a second cup but I'm satisfied with the way I turned the team around anyway.

MVP: Lecavalier, missed four games and ended up one point behind Forsberg and Modano for total points.
LVP: Pettinger, lowest +/- and highest PIM.
Biggest surprise: Martinek, 35 points in 70 games played.

I made two trades all year. One because Williams was overpayed and under-performing for my 3rd line. And the other because it was draft day and I hadn't traded any of my draft picks yet.

http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tradesvx7.jpg

I'll be wrapping up the first fantasy challenge tomorrow, look forward to seeing the winners

Winners are as follows:
1 Rubbinio 68
2 bruins72 45
3 batdad 38
Bonus points will be given out accordingly

Congratulations to all, find out where you came by clicking on the challenge stats link at the top of the page