EHM The Blue Line

First season is now history. In end of season I pushed panic button too late and we placed 10th in conference. At least Chicago won Calder Cup.
Draft didn't go that well what I planned during season.. I picked Adam Larsson (7th overall), A.Malinak, V.Rask, V.Öhberg and three late boomers, so there's few more of swedish guys in the system.
From UFA I signed Ortmeyer and Marchant to help in PK and completed trade Peverley <-> Girardi.. so just new 3-4 liners in team. I'm not sure about that Girardi trade.. somehow I feel screwed.

Lazion wrote:First season is now history. In end of season I pushed panic button too late and we placed 10th in conference. At least Chicago won Calder Cup.
Draft didn't go that well what I planned during season.. I picked Adam Larsson (7th overall), A.Malinak, V.Rask, V.Öhberg and three late boomers, so there's few more of swedish guys in the system.
From UFA I signed Ortmeyer and Marchant to help in PK and completed trade Peverley <-> Girardi.. so just new 3-4 liners in team. I'm not sure about that Girardi trade.. somehow I feel screwed.

Peverley did nothing for me and I wound up letting him walk. $1.3m for a spare forward was too much.

Now I need to figure out what to do with Oduya, $3.3m for a 3rd pair D is too much as well. And he didn't impress whatsoever.

Looking to trade Antropov though, he is in his last year of his contract and his stats declined this year so im guessing its all downhill from here. Don't see me resigning him after his contract so better off trying to get something for him. Problem is I don't really have someone to step in, so after an impressive 2nd season (2nd in league and 1 win away from cup finals) we might be taking a step back.

Oh the joys of this game

SO looks like my best options are


Antro for Parise

or

Antro for Jack Johnson

Have the option of Kane to the Caps for Green but not sure I want to send Kane to the same conference plus I dont really need/want another offensive Dman, I need defensive dmen. Manson is on the decline, Pav is not yet ready and no chance of signing a good goalie for under $2m and nobody will trade any.

Any tips on PK? I'm 20 games in and have the worst in the league.

Ended up waiving Sopel and Meyer at the start of the season, they're simply not good enough. Doing pretty well on the offense, Ladd with 17+19 in 22 games leading the chart for Thrashers, 3rd in the league in points.

Season one over. We made the playoffs, but lost in the first round in seven games to the Buffalo Sabres (who in turn lost to future Stanley Cup winners Washington Capitals in the Conference Finals). I must say I'm rather satisfied with the team performance. Given some luck, we could have done even better.

Pleasant surprises? Chris Thorburn, for sure. He went 22G 20A 42P AvR 8.07 in the regular season, and added two points in the playoffs with AvR 8.14, playing on third line RW. I love this guy. Scores, checks, hits, fights. Signed for two more seasons. Who else? Ben Eager. For the majority played on the fourth line, but I'm thinking of bumping him up to the third next season. Fredrik Modin was a lot better than expected, and I signed him for one more season. First line of Ladd – Antropov – Bergfors was awesome, with Antropov and Bergfors netting 40-goal seasons.

Disappointments? Defense as a whole, maybe apart from Bogosian and Fugly. Enström is simply too mistake-prone, and Hainsey, Sopel and Oduya all had their AvR below 7.00. Sopel, to give him credit, stepped up a little bit in the playoffs, and that earned him 1-year extension. I also expected more from Peverley, though he managed to score 46 points in the course of the season.

End of season awards: Antropov came third for Art Ross, second for Hart, second for Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, won the Lester B. Pearson Award, and made the NHL First All-Star team at centre. Yay. Bergfors was voted 2nd for Calder and 3rd for Lady Byng. Chris Mason was third-placed for Vezina. Not bad.

Chicago did better and won the Calder Cup by sweeping Rochester 4-0 in the finals.

Now to post the screenshots, the draft and the offseason madness.

Círyatan wrote:Season one over. We made the playoffs, but lost in the first round in seven games to the Buffalo Sabres (who in turn lost to future Stanley Cup winners Washington Capitals in the Conference Finals). I must say I'm rather satisfied with the team performance. Given some luck, we could have done even better.

Pleasant surprises? Chris Thorburn, for sure. He went 22G 20A 42P AvR 8.07 in the regular season, and added two points in the playoffs with AvR 8.14, playing on third line RW. I love this guy. Scores, checks, hits, fights. Signed for two more seasons. Who else? Ben Eager. For the majority played on the fourth line, but I'm thinking of bumping him up to the third next season. Fredrik Modin was a lot better than expected, and I signed him for one more season. First line of Ladd – Antropov – Bergfors was awesome, with Antropov and Bergfors netting 40-goal seasons.

Disappointments? Defense as a whole, maybe apart from Bogosian and Fugly. Enström is simply too mistake-prone, and Hainsey, Sopel and Oduya all had their AvR below 7.00. Sopel, to give him credit, stepped up a little bit in the playoffs, and that earned him 1-year extension. I also expected more from Peverley, though he managed to score 46 points in the course of the season.

End of season awards: Antropov came third for Art Ross, second for Hart, second for Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, won the Lester B. Pearson Award, and made the NHL First All-Star team at centre. Yay. Bergfors was voted 2nd for Calder and 3rd for Lady Byng. Chris Mason was third-placed for Vezina. Not bad.

Chicago did better and won the Calder Cup by sweeping Rochester 4-0 in the finals.

Now to post the screenshots, the draft and the offseason madness.

Yup Thorburn has been great but aware, he will ask for close to 2mil for his next contract.

Defense is the big problem of the team. Bogo and Bfug really broke out in my second season but the team really lacks a 1/2 dman. Upside for Bogo is not that, but he will be a solid 3/4. Hainsey was good but getting old.

I wanted to really get a franchise goalie to help steal games cuz you wont steal any with this D. But that doesn't look likely so its an upgrade on D i will look for, someone to bail out Enstrom.

jaateloauto wrote:

bruins72 wrote:The salary cap is $59.9M. I'm guessing what you're seeing in people's stats at around $46M is what they're spending on contracts currently. Those are two totally different things. If the NHL Salary Cap is not $59.9M in your game, you're using the wrong DB and will need to start over.

Quite puzzled by this comment. The salary cap in Lidas 3.0 is at $59.6M, not at $59.9M.

As I said in a later post, I was just quoting another user because I hadn't checked the exact figure. I knew it was $59M, I just didn't know what was after the decimal.

blueshirtnParis wrote:SO looks like my best options are


Antro for Parise

or

Antro for Jack Johnson

Have the option of Kane to the Caps for Green but not sure I want to send Kane to the same conference plus I dont really need/want another offensive Dman, I need defensive dmen. Manson is on the decline, Pav is not yet ready and no chance of signing a good goalie for under $2m and nobody will trade any.

I'd have to go with Parise.

I was having quite a nice first season, 26-16-3 after 45 games. Now Mason is out 4 months with an UCL tear. 3-5-0 with Pavelec in net so far, so either going to miss the playoffs or get swept probably.

bruins72 wrote:

blueshirtnParis wrote:SO looks like my best options are


Antro for Parise

or

Antro for Jack Johnson

Have the option of Kane to the Caps for Green but not sure I want to send Kane to the same conference plus I dont really need/want another offensive Dman, I need defensive dmen. Manson is on the decline, Pav is not yet ready and no chance of signing a good goalie for under $2m and nobody will trade any.

I'd have to go with Parise.

Parise is clearly the way to go. It's not like Thrashers don't have enough soft d-men

jaateloauto wrote:

bruins72 wrote:

blueshirtnParis wrote:SO looks like my best options are


Antro for Parise

or

Antro for Jack Johnson

Have the option of Kane to the Caps for Green but not sure I want to send Kane to the same conference plus I dont really need/want another offensive Dman, I need defensive dmen. Manson is on the decline, Pav is not yet ready and no chance of signing a good goalie for under $2m and nobody will trade any.

I'd have to go with Parise.

Parise is clearly the way to go. It's not like Thrashers don't have enough soft d-men

lol, well they said they would do it the deal for Parise but then negotiated for Kane. I went with Johnson. RD is a prob on this team and it can free up Byfug to play week in the event of an injury.

i just dont know what to do with Oduya, $3.3m for a 5/6 AvR 6.79 is a lot considering how I almost went bankrupt last season.

Bah Mason retired in June 2008; Of course right after I made my one trade. fool!!!

bruins72 wrote:

thunderbug wrote:I've noticed this is one challenge where you have to be very good on the PK, because of the team you have. You're going to take a lot of penalties and so in order to combat that you need to be able to handle the PK.

So you're saying that if Batdad comes along and joins the challenge, he's going to dominate?

From way back in this thread...I won't be joining. I have no time at all right now. I have not even looked at the board for about a month until today. And that is only for a few minutes. So...no fear boys. But dang...Penalties! Fights! I love em. Wish I was able to play.

batdad wrote: From way back in this thread...I won't be joining. I have no time at all right now. I have not even looked at the board for about a month until today. And that is only for a few minutes. So...no fear boys. But dang...Penalties! Fights! I love em. Wish I was able to play.

Ugh! That's a shame. We'll be lacking a considerable amount of trash talk in this challenge.

I had a nice run in the first season. 49 wins got me to the playoffs, even though Pavelec played the majority of the games in net with .877 sv% because Mason being out 4 months due to injury. Antropov was second in the league in scoring, losing to Ovechkin by a point, while Ladd had 62 goals, second to only Kovalchuk who had 64.

Playoffs started off nicely, Tampa Bay fell in 5 games. The second round against the Devils we were down 2-0 early. After the second game we got Mason back and won the following 4 to advance to conference finals. There we fell as the Capitals swept us in four games, us having all kinds of injury problems with Oduya, Little and Kane. To top it off Antropov got a two game suspension to finish off the sweep.

Still, it was overall a good season, with youngsters getting better I think we can top that off next season. Oh and Bergfors won the rookie scoring race with 100 points, don't know how the awards go yet. Lots of positives about the team. The staff has been great, there's a lot young talent in place and some great players like Antropov who had 9.17 average rating on the season. Having Mason injured was a bummer and him being 35 I might need to look at getting goalie soon. Pavelec just doesn't seem to be all that talented. Typical to my teams has always been the lack of focus on defense which resulted in giving up 4th most goals and having the 29th best penalty kill. Some of that can be blamed on Pavelec but defense needs improving as well.

Just finished the first season and I am heading into the draft. I really enjoyed that challenge so far, even though I didn't manage to get to the playoffs. It was a tough fight for a playoff spot until 5 games before the end of the regular season when I decided to get a high draft pick. Mannino, who was even playing awfully in Chicago did the rest - I got the 5th pick, that's good enough to get a decent 1st rounder I guess. We finished 25th overall and 14th in he Eastern Conference with 75 points. The Devils won the Stanley Cup against Detroit, after finishing off the Caps in the Conference Finals.

I could continiously improve in most areas and think that the 2nd season will be much more successful. The main concern during the season was to burry the chances we created. We fired the 2nd most shots at goal (35.8 /game) but had the worst shooting percentage with 8.74 % of the entire league. We also allowed the highest number of goals (301) and got surprised by a lot of Shorties (14), about 10 of them happened in the first quarter of the season. Our PP was ok (16 %), the pk indeed not (80.2%).

++++ Positive aspects of season 1:

Antropov 46G - 50A - 96P - 401 SOG - 534 Checks - 9.25 AVG
Nigel Dawes was big surprise: 32 G 41 A +11 and 7.44 AVG
Bergfors with 30 G and 91 P 7.78 AVG
Bryan Little was playing impressive on the point of PP1 (instead of Enström): 66 P
Byfuglien (who was paired with Oduya after trying just everything else) 13 G 40 P - 7.99 AVG
although many goals were his fault, because of his huge lack of speed.
3rd checking line overall (Boulton - Thorburn - Eager) - the main reason for opponent's injuries ...
Kane and Bogosian: decent play form the youngsters. Bogo with 34P 7.5 AVG - Kane 22 G 59 P 7.38AVG

--- negative aspects/total deceptions:

Peverley played 52 games, only as 19th forward - so he filled in pretty everywhere. 16P -8 and 6.52 AVG are just awful
Enström: he had 30 P, but created a lot of turnovers - it wasn't fun watching him. 7.12 AVG and a -9 rating, playing on PP2 most of the time and was paired with Bogosian.
Hainsey: He was the biggest deception overall, it doesn't matter with whom I let him play, how do I set his personal tactics - he simply sucks for me, 9 P in 82 games -8 rating and 6.85 AVG - therefor he earns 4.5 M !?!?


Goalies:

I decided to go with Mason and MacIntyre after preseason. MacIntyre was a pretty convincing backup. I am not really surprised by their performance, it's much more the defense's fault than their's. A lot of breakaways were rolling at them, especially during the first 30-40 games, afterwards they got much better as the whole team did. A proof of Mason's skill was the WC in June: He got the starting job, playing 8 games and posting an impressive 0.947 Sv% + 1.13 GAA, helping team Canada to win the WC.

However his stats don't look as good for Atlanta:
in 62 games he went 25-29-4 with a 0.891 Sv% and allowing 3.37 GAA - 7.77 rating
MacIntyre: 25 games 8-9-3 0.884 and 3.64 GAA - 7.52 rating

Pavelec was down in Chigago dominating the AHL: in 60 games he aquired 50 wins and posted a 0.928 Sv%, allowing only 1.79 GAA, additionaly he helped Chigago to lift the Calder Cup with 16 wins in 22 games and a 0.916 Sv% during the playoffs. I hope that he will develop into a Mason like goalie.

Upcoming:

I will get the best what I can get at the draft, no matter what position. Possibly a Center or left defender in the first round.
Regarding the upcoming trade, I think I will try to get either a Center as a lot of you did, or what I personally like more, a really good Sniper, who is capable of burrying all our chances (Hossa, Heatley, such a type of player - we will see who is available).

I also have a few guys who don't want to sign with me anymore and are becoming RFAs. If that problem occures that they get UFAs, may I sign them without counting as UFA signing? I made all the screenshots, just in case I am allowed to?

Flying_Buffalo26 wrote: --- negative aspects/total deceptions:

Hainsey: He was the biggest deception overall, it doesn't matter with whom I let him play, how do I set his personal tactics - he simply sucks for me, 9 P in 82 games -8 rating and 6.85 AVG - therefor he earns 4.5 M !?!?

To me it was clear that Hainsey isn't NHL material, I waived him at the start of the season. I played Kulda, Zubarev, even Valabik over Hainsey, Meyer and Sopel who are just terrible.

Flying_Buffalo26 wrote:I also have a few guys who don't want to sign with me anymore and are becoming RFAs. If that problem occures that they get UFAs, may I sign them without counting as UFA signing? I made all the screenshots, just in case I am allowed to?

Why make it so difficult? Just make them all a qualifying offer so they're all RFA.

There have been a number of instances, jaateloauto, of teams losing rights to qualified RFAs. A possible glitch. As I mentioned before, it happened to me personally during the Avalanche Challenge, though with nobody of great significance. Mercier or Dupuis? Maybe it was Jones. Don't remember now and it doesn't matter. But I definitely wouldn't want to see a guy like Bergfors walk.

jaateloauto wrote:

Flying_Buffalo26 wrote: --- negative aspects/total deceptions:

Hainsey: He was the biggest deception overall, it doesn't matter with whom I let him play, how do I set his personal tactics - he simply sucks for me, 9 P in 82 games -8 rating and 6.85 AVG - therefor he earns 4.5 M !?!?

To me it was clear that Hainsey isn't NHL material, I waived him at the start of the season. I played Kulda, Zubarev, even Valabik over Hainsey, Meyer and Sopel who are just terrible.

Wow, I did not have a problem with him at all.

Second season he had 3g 18a 21p 29+/-, 180 Hits, 38 GA, 10 TA, 103 SB

jaateloauto wrote:

Flying_Buffalo26 wrote:I also have a few guys who don't want to sign with me anymore and are becoming RFAs. If that problem occures that they get UFAs, may I sign them without counting as UFA signing? I made all the screenshots, just in case I am allowed to?

Why make it so difficult? Just make them all a qualifying offer so they're all RFA.

Of course I made the qualifying offer, but as you may not know there is a well known bug occuring with -as i know - all the Lidas DB's so far released:
Some players who are going to become RFAs (qualifying offer done) get UFAs on 2nd or 3rd of June.

Luckily it was no problem this time, I could resign Boulton, Meyer and Stewart before losing their rights.


I just made my trade and my UFA siginig as well....

Kane for Parise (although I was really tempted to trade Kane for Vanek, but this team needs a new/2nd Center)
+ I picked up Pascal Leclaire from the UFA list, who will split up time with Mason until one of them is convincing enough to get hold of the starting job in net. Pavelec down to Chicago for another season....

The draft brought in a few interesting prospects: I picked Landeskog with pick #5 (he was ranked 15th) and Tyler Biggs with #35 (ranked 21st), a promising russian Center and 2 probably decent Dmen - at least better than this money-burning-machine called "Hainsey", that's for sure!

Well with Mason retired, no goalies on the trade market and $2m not enough to sign a good goalie, I think I am screwed this season. Pavalec is horrible. Every game his gives up a goal withing the first three shots and in most games they score 2 goals before 10 shots.

Is there a hidden stat for being asleep during the first 10min of a game?

So, we're after the draft and into the offseason. The draft was somehow weird.

We had the 15th overall selection and picked Brandon Saad from the Saginaw Spirit, a big-bodied winger described by the scouts as a better though slower Wojtek Wolski. I think if he becomes that he'll be a good fit for this team.

In the second round I wanted to pick a defenseman, but there wasn't a lot left to choose from. In the end with the 45th pick we drafted Pierre Durepos, a 19-year-old from the Saint John Sea Dogs, who our scouts project to be a future 1-2 defenseman. To be honest, I'll be really happy if he manages to make it into our top 4, but there really wasn't anyone better available at this point.

At 75th we went with Brett Ritchie from the Sarnia Sting, described as a future second-liner in the mould of Shane Doan. If he proves he can do it, that can really turn out to be an amazing pick.

With the 105th selection we chose LW MacKenzie Royer from the Moose Jaw Warriors, who our scouts described as a future Alex Burrows. Curiously enough, their projections turned to "poor man's Alex Burrows" the second I drafted the guy. Trust no-one.

In the fifth round I opted for a centre and ended up choosing enforcer Charles Inglis from the Red Deer Rebels, a potential second-line winger, according to our scouts at least. While I seriously doubt that, I'll be happy if in the future he can successfully centre our fourth line.

With the 165th overall pick we took a Lethbridge Hurricane Alexander Kuvayev, a centre with nice attributes and judged to be another version of Nik Antropov. Much to my surprise, the scouts' ratings fell from "future second liner" to "future fourth liner" right after I pulled the trigger. I'm seriously considering firing some of those guys. Anyway, he looks a decent pick for a sixth-rounder.

To finish the draft we chose another blueliner, Nathan Chiarlitti from the Sarnia Sting (and no, I haven't played the Sting Challenge, so you guys tell me if Ritchie and Chiarlitti are good picks). He went undrafted the previous year, though he is described as a solid defender similar to Ian White. Sounds good enough to me.

blueshirtnParis wrote:Well with Mason retired, no goalies on the trade market and $2m not enough to sign a good goalie, I think I am screwed this season. Pavalec is horrible. Every game his gives up a goal withing the first three shots and in most games they score 2 goals before 10 shots.

Is there a hidden stat for being asleep during the first 10min of a game?

I don't think that any particualar stat determines if goalie gets problems early in the the game, but I do think that some goalies are simply bad no matter what their attributes look like... Pavelec was as bad for me in te preseason heading into the second season. I managed to sign Pascal Leclaire for 1.4 M from UFAs and I am pretty happy with his performance. I could also recommend you to try MacIntyre in net, who was pretty ok for me in the 1st season - had about a 0.89 Sv %, which is not too shabby regarding his attributes and scout reports.
Maybe you could even use the swedish goalie prospect (don't remember his name), but I guess you already started the season and can't sign any more prospects?

Honestly, try MacIntyre, he did very well for me!

blueshirtnParis wrote:

jaateloauto wrote:

Flying_Buffalo26 wrote: --- negative aspects/total deceptions:

Hainsey: He was the biggest deception overall, it doesn't matter with whom I let him play, how do I set his personal tactics - he simply sucks for me, 9 P in 82 games -8 rating and 6.85 AVG - therefor he earns 4.5 M !?!?

To me it was clear that Hainsey isn't NHL material, I waived him at the start of the season. I played Kulda, Zubarev, even Valabik over Hainsey, Meyer and Sopel who are just terrible.

Wow, I did not have a problem with him at all.

Second season he had 3g 18a 21p 29+/-, 180 Hits, 38 GA, 10 TA, 103 SB

Same I'm in my third season right now and Hainsey has been one my best defenseman. Playing on the Second D Paring with Bogosian. in 66GP he has 5G 17A 22P +22, 44PIM, 80hits, 5 TA, 56SB. Not much offensively, but he has been the most consistant defenseman other than Bogosian.

In 69GP Bogosian has 4G, 27A, 31, +23, 173 hits, 36GA, 33TA, 114SB.

They have been a big reason why my team is 7-3-0 in our last 10 games.

Flying_Buffalo26 wrote:

blueshirtnParis wrote:Well with Mason retired, no goalies on the trade market and $2m not enough to sign a good goalie, I think I am screwed this season. Pavalec is horrible. Every game his gives up a goal withing the first three shots and in most games they score 2 goals before 10 shots.

Is there a hidden stat for being asleep during the first 10min of a game?

I don't think that any particualar stat determines if goalie gets problems early in the the game, but I do think that some goalies are simply bad no matter what their attributes look like... Pavelec was as bad for me in te preseason heading into the second season. I managed to sign Pascal Leclaire for 1.4 M from UFAs and I am pretty happy with his performance. I could also recommend you to try MacIntyre in net, who was pretty ok for me in the 1st season - had about a 0.89 Sv %, which is not too shabby regarding his attributes and scout reports.
Maybe you could even use the swedish goalie prospect (don't remember his name), but I guess you already started the season and can't sign any more prospects?

Honestly, try MacIntyre, he did very well for me!

Been trying MqcIntyre off and on and he seems not better, maybe worse. Pavelec has decent potential but he is not there yet and since I was only 5 wins from cup glory last season I wanted to make another run...but no way I do that with either of them in net.

I wish there were 2 trades...maybe one during off season to address team needs and one during the season to deal with unexpected occurrences.

But I guess there is a reason the powers that be went with 1 trade only.