EHM The Blue Line

So far, after firing Julien as you saw, I appointed Ryan McGill as head coach. I got my assistants to name their roster selections, as I do not know enough about a lot of the Canadien players to make a fair judgement. One thing I was sure that I wanted to do was to get rid of Radek Bonk. I know that he may have been scoring more recently in real life, but I still think that there are better out there, and I am determined to find them. I ambitiously(!) tried to get hold of Crosby, Ovechkin, Svatos, Tanguay and a few others in exchange for Bonk and a first rounder but of course all these were rejected. I did however acquire a decent looking UFA by the name of Keegan McAvoy, who I expect will get some ice time this season. I may well try and trade Theodore for Lundqvist if I can. Huet is injured to start with isn't he?
I have arranged some additional exhibition games in order to fine-tune tactics. If I bring some new players in (especially at right-wing) I'll be happy.

I decided to add a GM (the Finn Tom Vereminnen) so that I could take charge of the Bulldogs AHL team where necessary.

You have 2 great RW's to start with: Alex Kovalev and Michael Ryder.
Did you trade them?

I am on opening night for the season.

I'll post pictures of some stuff after dinner

Lineups before first game.

Trades I made up to this point.

I also signed John Vigilante and hired and fired some staff

I hope these pictures don't stretch the page...

Pictures auto-resize now to not stretch the margins but given the amount of reads the Challenge threads get you should post your screenshots as links to save people on loading times. Nice looking skin btw

My strategy going into this challenge is 'build a roster of players I like that will still be able to beat Minstrel.

So far my first line is Cole - Koivu - Jagr.


The Canadiens have become a house of ill repute when it comes to draft picks.

Mr. Slash and Burn is back!! Anyone left on the farm or did you just decide to close down your affiliates until next year?

Best of luck with your new strategy... but don't be tooo confident in it's eventual success

Well..you see... I share a farm team with Edmonton...so I figured I'd be a nice guy and let their prospects get alot of ice time.

Can someone explain to me why Canadiens have so many worthless players?

I'm like packageing about 4 guys for 2 or 3 guys I like.

Minstrel wrote:Pictures auto-resize now to not stretch the margins but given the amount of reads the Challenge threads get you should post your screenshots as links to save people on loading times. Nice looking skin btw

Will do

One you release the Hurricanes version of Chromeleon, I'm all over it

Since I posted those pictures I'm 1-1-1, although the loss was thanks to Eric Lindros knocking Sheldon Souray and Saku Koivu out of the game with his knee to knee garbage.

They came back to play Anaheim for the win, so it's all good

I figured I'd give a rundown of the deals I've made, maybe it will shed some light on how I drove the team into the ground so quick.

Aug. 7:
Signed Billie Bourne - scout
Signed Randy Peterson - scout
Signed Steve Richmond - scout
Signed Russ Mahoney - scout
Signed Juha-Pekka Jorvinan - scout
Fired Elmer Benning - scout
Fired Dave Mayville - scout
Fired William Berglund - scout
Fired Vaughn Karpan - scout
I upgraded my scouting staff, each guy I added had at least an 18 in both judging ability and judging potential.

Aug. 9
Signed Guy Carbonneau - assistant coach
Signed W Mikhail Grabovsky from Dynamo, assigned him to Hamilton

Aug. 11
Traded rights to Martti Jarventie to Boston for W Pat Leahy - Jarventie is getting a bit old for a 'prospect' and he refused to leave Europe, basically making him useless to me.
Released rights to W Johan Witehall - who? Yeah.

Aug. 29
Traded rights to Rene Vydarney to Toronto for '06 3rd rounder - Vydarney is a promising prospect, but he wouldn't leave Europe.

Sept. 8
Traded Pierre Dagenais and the 2006 7th rounder to St. Louis for D Christian Backman - I just don't like Dagenais, and Backman is an upgrade over my depth defensemen.

Sept. 29
Traded D Mike Komisarek to Nashville for Vernon Fiddler, Jerrod Smithson, Darren Haydar and Nashville's 2006 4th rounder. - pretty good haul for a guy who would be a healthy scratch most nights for me. Fiddler will play a regular shift, Smithson and Haydar will get called up occasionally.

Opening Night Lineup
Zednik - Koivu - Kovalev
Plekanec - Bulis - Ryder
Begin - Bonk - Sundstrom
Leahy - Ribiero - Fiddler

Souray - Dandenault
Markov - Rivet
Bouillion - Backman

Theodore

Sept. 6
Claimed W Aaron Downey off waivers from St. Louis - Every team needs a goon.

E5150_ca would have a team of Jagr's if he could:

Jagr gets the puck at the point and passes to Jagr near the half boards. Jagr sees Jagr creeping up from behind the net and passes to Jagr in the slot. Jagr takes the one timer and it's tipped by Jagr for the go ahead goal, Jagr's 167th of the season!

Or, Forsberg and Gagne hit the blueline, it's a two on one. Jagr is the only man back. He plays the middle but Forsberg dishes a beautiful saucer pass to Gagne who redirects it towards the net. Oh, Gagne was robbed by Jagr who went post to post and just got the left pad out there!



I'm just teasing you. I have my favorites too. Every new game I get Corey Perry and Anthony Stewart. Then I am set at RW for 10 years.

I'm not even that big a fan of Jagr, hes just so darn easy to get in this game I can't resist.

Finished training camp, heres my rosters.


Cole-Koivu-Jagr
Jason Williams - Riberio - Ryder
Wilm - Fischer - Dagenais
Begin - Bulis - Sundstrom

Souray - Dandeault
Markov - Warrener
Boullion - Komisarek
CAPTAIN OF TEAM SWITERZLAND: Mark Streit. I mean jeez, if he can captain a team that can beat Team Canada, hes gotta be good. Infact, I might make him my captain.


Theodore - Some Hu guy. I'm sure hes nothing special.



In no way is that my final roster, I'm gonna move a few D and I dunno... some other guys I don't like. Just looking to get some guys I like.


I also have 2 1st round picks in the up-coming draft, and about 7 million dollars in cap room to work with.



And people wonder why I prefer to play online.

I just made a relatively big deal. I traded the rights to Carey Price, who isn't likely to see the ice in the run of this challenge, and a 5th rounder to Colorado for D Ossi Vannanen and a 4th rounder.

Vannanen steps right onto the top defensive pairing, and I move up in the draft.

munky wrote:I just made a relatively big deal. I traded the rights to Carey Price, who isn't likely to see the ice in the run of this challenge, and a 5th rounder to Colorado for D Ossi Vannanen and a 4th rounder.

Vannanen steps right onto the top defensive pairing, and I move up in the draft.

Not to burst your bubble or anything, but I traded Carey Price right up for Jagr.

E5150_ca wrote:

munky wrote:I just made a relatively big deal. I traded the rights to Carey Price, who isn't likely to see the ice in the run of this challenge, and a 5th rounder to Colorado for D Ossi Vannanen and a 4th rounder.

Vannanen steps right onto the top defensive pairing, and I move up in the draft.

Not to burst your bubble or anything, but I traded Carey Price right up for Jagr.

Maybe I don't want Jagr.

I've just wrapped up my first 20 games, so I figure I should put a little update up here.

I made another deal, right at the end of the preseason. I sent Corey Locke and Tomas Plekanec to the Wild for Brian Rolston. Rolston has the kind of skating ability that I'm looking for.

I went into the season with my lineup looking like this.

Zednik - Koivu - Kovalev
Veilleux - Ribeiro - Ryder
Bulis - Brylin - Rolston
Perezhogin - Begin - Sundstrom

Souray - Suchy
Hale - Zyuzin
Markov - Dandenault

Theodore - Huet

This lineup absolutely killed during the preseason, especially Kovalev. He averaged almost 3 points a game. Of course, as usual, things levelled out once the regular season started. In the positional rankings going into the season, Theodore was rated as the league's 5th best goaltender. None of my other players ranked in the top 10's. We started out very strong, winning our first 5 games. Most of our games were very close though, usually decided by a goal or two. Many games went to OT. For a while there we were the #1 team in the Eastern Conference but we had a bad run where we went 5-4-1 in the last 10 games. This dropped us to 2nd in the Northeast Division and 4th in the Eastern Conference... even though our point total is the second best in the conference.

I was only able to pull off one more deal during this stretch. A couple of days before the end of this segment, I sent the rights to Juraj Mikus to the Islanders for Sean Bergenheim. I'm going to keep him on my farm team for now. If I can pull off some more deal, I'd like to work him onto my roster.

I'd still like to deal away Bulis and Sundstrom. They each make $1M a season and don't really play enough to earn it, IMO. I'm also thinking of dealing away Ryder. He's too slow for my plan of having all speedy skaters on this team. Same goes for Souray. He's too slow and his condition is always dropping after games. I'd also like to deal away Theodore for a comparable goaltender that costs less. We'll see what happens.

I'm 9 games in and 4-4-1, which is alot better than I expected. For some reason it seems we can play until the third period just fine, but than we have to give up 2 or 3 goal leads.

Cole - Koivu - Kovalev is tearing it up big time, though.

I'm gonna do this challenge!

Some trades I've made...

Bulis was traded to the Rangers straight up for Jed Ortmeyer. He'd be perfect for my third unit. Defenseman Rivet was sent to Calgary along with a four-star prospect. I got Rhett Warrener in return. Then I traded Bonk to the Wild in exchange for Brian Rolston. He's one of my standard aquitions.

I was also looking to get rid of Souray. I offered him to almost every team, but no-one wanted him (shocker). Yet I was very determined to dump him. So I aquired Willie Mitchell from the Wild (a much cheaper replacement for Souray). To get Mitchell I gave up two three-star prospects and a mid-round draft pick.

Finally I found a new home for Souray. He was headed to North Carolina to play for the 'Canes. In return I got a much needed second line left winger in Ray Whitney.

Shaking the defense even more, I sent Markov to the Flames (along with a four-star prospect) in exchange for Jordan Leopold. I was very happy with that trade. Now I figured I needed to get another top-four d-man. I quickly found my man in Florida. Komisarek was used to get Sean Hill.

Finishing up the defense, I got Tomas Kloucek from Atlanta. To get him I sent them Boullion and a four-star prospect.

After getting Rolston, there was no room for Ribeiro. So I sent him, Zednik, a four-star prospect and an early draft pick to Carolina. The return was winger Erik Cole as well as a third-round pick.

So this is my line-up heading towards opening night:

Cole - Koivu - Kovalev
Whitney - Rolston - Ryder
Sundström - Begin - Ortmeyer
Plekanec - Stock - Dagenais

Leopold - Warrener
Mitchell - Hill
Kloucek - Dandenault

I'm looking to send of Dandy as soon as his trade value's gone up. Stock was signed to a $950k two-way deal.

Cole - Koivu - Kovalev is my first line too.

They play good together

I decided on my final line-up and played my first 5 games.


Cole - Koivu - Jagr
Williams - Riberio - Ryder
Isbister - Fischer - Daignais
Wilm - Boyes - Sundstrom

Sourary - Dandault
Markov - Warrener
Boullion - Komisarek


Won the first 5 games, scoring 24 goals, and allowing 10.

Boyes center's the 2nd PP unit and has 2g and 2a.

Jagr leads the team with 8 points.

inSTAALed wrote:Cole - Koivu - Kovalev is my first line too.

They play good together

They sure do. That line has everything!

Well, I'm off to a flying start. For the first 10 I've gone 8-1-1!

Looking to land the Devils' David Hale, but they won't budge just yet, I'll se what I can do...

I'm either 5-5-1 or 5-6-1, now.

Something has to change