EHM The Blue Line

Ah! That Cliche.

My farm team is actually doing very well in the second season. They were horrible in the first season and I think I was close to getting fired there. 22 games into season 2, they're 1st in their division and 6th in the league. Rinne is their goalie and he does much better in the AHL. I've got a few defensemen down there that are producing points. Klein and Ramholdt are two of them and one of the guys I drafted, Kolomitas, is another. Pihlstrom, Hornqvist, and Jessiman are a great top line but Thuresson and Thang aren't far behind them in points. Geoffrion and O'Reilly are just doing okay.

I'm getting tired of seeing Radulov on my depth chart.

I want to release rights, but I would really like to trade him.

You've got to sign him first though. And then once you sign him, you've got to keep him for a year.

Yeah, but the board will not allow a contract worthy of such an ass

I know.

I tried to get him on my team but now that I've acquired Kesler, I don't really need him. I've got the 2nd line RW spot filled. I guess if I ever traded a center and wanted to move Kesler over, I could try signing Radulov once more. For the most part, he's out of my plans now.

I am now in last place with lots of injuries and no way to improve my team.

The trade restrictions on this challenge are really awful.

I was just offered Ryan Craig for Wade Belak, and had to decline. GRRR.

It's all about proper planning and learning to get the best out of what you have.

Planning???

LOL.

I have 8 starters out with injuries.

Arnott, Dumont, Hamhock, Ortmeyer, Glazachev, Hornquist are all hurt.

Bonk is out for 2 weeks and Koistinen is always hurt.

I waived Ellis.

He is just awful.

Varlamov is kicking arse.

I got Cliche scoring now, whoa!

I just gotta say i offered radulov contract at least 20 times first year before i gave up.

Haha Pittsburgh just put Dan Ellis on the trading block! The NHL preview has me finishing 26th but I am hoping to push for the playoffs.

Our play collapsed in the last quarter of season #1 and we didn't make it into the playoffs. In the playoffs there were full Canadian finals in the Western Conference, where the Canucks encountered the Flames. Flames swept 'Nucks 4-0 and ended up winning the Stanley Cup by defeating the Penguins in the finals by 4-2.

I have had some problems in off-season. First problem was that the Entry Draft was awful. Where were all the good prospects? Tavares wasn't picked first, Senators who had the first pick wanted to have Ryan Ellis. Tavares went next, he was picked by the 'Yotes. Our first pick was 11th and we took Matt Duchene. Rest of our picks were #35 Cass Mappin, #41 Cole Penner, #61 Zachary Stebner, #71 Toni Rajala, #99 Tyler Schmidt, #101 Brett Theberge, #110 Vladimir Roth, #131 Andrej Kudrna, #142 Marek Benda, #161 Richard Manley, #191 David Kolomatis and #198 Simon Bertilsson.

In May and June we signed few of our own prospects. First we signed Matt Ellison and Denis Platonov, then Denis Kulyash, Roman Josi, Viktor Sjödin and Grigori Shafigulin and after Entry Draft David Kolomatis, Colin Wilson and Cass Mappin. Josi and Sjödin will join us next summer. We didn't give new contracts to Radek Bonk, Triston Grant, Scott Nichol, Cal O'Reilly, Kelsey Wilson, Ryan Maki and Tim Ramholt. With Ryan Jones there happened an occupational accident, I thought he would remain as a RFA as I had offered him an contract big enough. But then they just noticed me that Preds have lost his rights and he was gone. That's a pity as we don't have enough LWs in our roster.

I've always thought that it should be possible to see the amount of money you have offered to a player or a staff member. But now with these rules I think it would be very important feature as there are different limits of wage for good players in Tier 2 and 3. As I started offering players I wasn't sure am I going with Tier 2 or 3. Now, if I end up going with T3 I just hope I haven't offered anyone over the 1M limit. Actually the risk is not very big, because it seems I can't sign up any of the players I would have wanted or needed, only the filling players are willing to sign with us. So I may have to go and hope there will be at least one superb player in waivers this season.

The goalie problem was the one thing I was able to solve - I hope. I made a trade with Capitals, they got Dan Ellis, Jonathon Blum and Chet Pickard and we got Jose Theodore. Let's see what he can do. I've told him that if after 20 games his SV% isn't over 0.900 and he doesn't have at least two shutouts I will cut his -

hair.

Actually, you're allowed to offer $1.5M to your Tier 3 "good" players. In tier 2 you can offer the 1 "good" player only up to $1M. So I think you're okay as long as you don't sign a "very good" player.

Grrr not a good start to season one in my challenge game. About ten minutes into the first regular season game vs Chicago and Dan Ellis got injured. 5-2 up and we end up losing in a shootout.

bruins72 wrote:Actually, you're allowed to offer $1.5M to your Tier 3 "good" players. In tier 2 you can offer the 1 "good" player only up to $1M. So I think you're okay as long as you don't sign a "very good" player.

Okay, I messed things up. Anyhoo, I knew there is a problem somewhere, I just wasn't able to say where or what it is. But I still would be happier if I could see what I have offered to all those folks when they are considering it. I'm too lazy to start keeping it all on little notes on my front office desk (kitchen table).

Maybe add a player note when you make the offer? That way you don't have to keep scraps of paper laying around.

Gotta Love this game!!

Ottawa's GM Murray fires their head coach one March morning...

Ottawa's Chairman fires GM Murray that afternoon LOL

In other news, it looks as though the Nashville franchise has won the Tavares sweepstakes with an organizational disintegration so complete that their AHL affiliate is ALSO last in the league. The only post-season action in the entire organization will be in Cincinatti of the ECHL.

Rough season... gotta try to save my wife's job in Milwaukee, LOL

Dam this makes me so frustrated....I win 10-3 one game..then the next game I lose 6-0 at home

I lose so many goals by 1 goal which is incredibly frustrating, but on the positive side last season I was getting smashed, so I know I'm making improvements. So I'm thinking it will take me another season or 2 to get this team to where I want it to be, and in the meantime I'll get games into Hedman and develop him.

I have a few nice pieces to my team now, but still need a few more which I will address at the end of season 2/start of season 3.

How is Hugh Jessiman doing for you guys? I started him on the 4th line, then bumped him to the 3rd then the 2nd and now I just promoted him to my top line and he had 4 points! He has played 45 games and had 33 points and is a +3 on a bottom team! He is developing really nicely.

I'm working on my first set of games, and I really feel "challenged." I may need a couple of seasons to turn this ship around...

I was forced to start season #2 without assigning any UFAs, because I couldn't get anyone good enough. I was really worried about the lack of depth in our roster and it seems I wasn't worried without a cause. Now, 11 games in regular season we are 2-6-3 and 14th in the Conference. There hasn't been one single game we could've been playing our best players, someone is always injured - and not just someone but Arnott, de Vries, Theodore, Koistinen. Having two or three players more wouldn't be so bad at all...

But what happened in July and August? We tried to get Esche, but because the trade we proposed to Capitals was accepted we didn't need him. Other players of rep "Very good" we offered deals to were Paul Mara, Erik Cole, Adrian Aucoin, Rhett Warrener, Mark Bell, Ossi Väänänen and Dmitri Kalinin. Any of them didn't accept our offer. Instead we could've gotten players such as Stephane Yelle. I would've liked to have him as the second guy but I wasn't ready to make a deal with him as my #1 signing of summer '07. And now I just sit and wait if someone would toss something useful away.

There's also another one of the allowed trades to be done yet. We would need depth asap, but it would be much wiser to make the trade when some other team is in need of it. Maybe I make some inquiries to see what there is in the air right now.

All and all, we are in a deep trouble, maybe deeper than in any of my older challenges. Now I just have to try and solve it. That or get sacked.

What comes to the players, Pihlström started the season very strongly but it lasted just some two or three games. Theodore has his ups and downs (too many downs) and Kulyash seems to be the best of the new guys. And for sjsharkz, Jessiman has been in Milwaukee for the first ten games of the season. I just called him up intending to give him a try. I hope he'll take his chance.

In game #12 against the Blues Legwand went down for about three months. Arnott is still out after his last injury and so is de Vries. Where's the revenge button!

Jessiman has been shuffled between second and third line LW with some 2nd unit PP time. He's averaging about a point or so every other game.

kuulapaa wrote: The goalie problem was the one thing I was able to solve - I hope. I made a trade with Capitals, they got Dan Ellis, Jonathon Blum and Chet Pickard and we got Jose Theodore. Let's see what he can do.

Jose Three-or-more?! For that package you could have gotten someone better, I think