EHM The Blue Line

Okey, done with the trades and the draft, this is what i managed to do. First off i traded Bergeron and Seidenberg to Rangers for Hayes (The brothers will unite on my 2nd line), Lindberg and Skjei then i sent Eriksson to Sens for Zibanejad. Then i traded Rask and McQuaid to Red Wings for Mrazek and their 1st rounder, to finish it off i sent Chara and Krejci to Canes for Justin Faulk. I'm very happy with what i got this time actually, that hasn't always been the case for me in these challenges, i used to go for too many picks and prospects that have a few years to the NHL, this time i went for NHL-ready guys only, atleast i hope so

Next up was the draft where i had #15, #20 and #26 in the first round, first off i took the HUGE C Logan Brown, my scouts had him at 5 stars (one at 4) and compared him to Eric Staal, with #20 i took D-man Dante Fabbro who was a 5 star mobile defenceman who my scouts called a more talented Raphael Diaz. With #26 i chose "skilled forward" C/LW Clayton Keller, compared to Bryan Little. After that i have no high hopes, if anyone pans out it's a bonus.

Let's see what i can do with this team.

Edit: I also made an additional release on July 1st, i sent Rinaldo away because i despise him.

Edit2: Which screens did i need to take now? only on the trade-screen?

No screens required at this point. You're good to go!

Aight, a (very) preliminary lineup: Mrazek in net with McIntyre/Smith backing him up, want Subban to play as much as possible in AHL.

Morrow-Faulk
Krug-K.Miller __________________The closest D-men to crack the lineup as of now are; Skjei, Trotman and Cross. I will be very patient with Zboril, my scouts and AGM love him though.
Irwin-C.Miller

Marchand-Zibanejad-Pastrnak
Beleskey-Hayes-Hayes __________The forwards closest to cracking the lineup are; Griffith, Blidh and Phillips
Lindberg-Spooner-Connolly
Khoklachev-Kemppainen-Randall

Peter_Doherty wrote:Edit: A crazy thing happened in my game, Arizona won the lottery with both their lottery picks (Rangers missed playoffs) so they got both Chychryn and Matthews

Glad I managed to get them as #1 & #2 in the game.
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I have never played challenge, and I'm afraid to start one. Don't really know the rules and such, so it seems hard to start. And I haven't played EHM in almost two years, so it would surely be a challenge for me.

jhcjobpb wrote:

Peter_Doherty wrote:Edit: A crazy thing happened in my game, Arizona won the lottery with both their lottery picks (Rangers missed playoffs) so they got both Chychryn and Matthews

Glad I managed to get them as #1 & #2 in the game.
_______________________________________

I have never played challenge, and I'm afraid to start one. Don't really know the rules and such, so it seems hard to start. And I haven't played EHM in almost two years, so it would surely be a challenge for me.

Yeah, well done, wrong order though, Chychrun went #1

The rules are easy, just play and ask questions along the way, save alot, especially if there is anything you are unsure about.

Thanks for setting it up Bruins

Those hidden attributes are killing me!

My trades:
Seidenberg to Stars for Julius Honka
Krejci to Islanders for Michael Dal Colle + 1st 2016
Eriksson + McQuaid to Kings for Tyler Toffoli
Chara to Oilers for Darnell Nurse + 3rd 2016
Bergeron + Rask to Coyotes for 2x 1st 2016 + Nick Merkley

Lucky to win draft lottery with Rangers 1st obtained from Coyotes!

My draft:
#1 - Jakob Chychrun - LD
#15 - Olli Juolevi - LD
#18 - Logan Brown - C
#20 - Michael McLeod - C/RW
#23 - Luke Green - RD/LD
#53 - Charles McAvoy - LD
#75 - Filip Forsmark - LW/RW
#76 - Nathan Noel - C
#105 - Chad Krys - LD
#135 - Jaeger White - C
#155 - Konstantin Volkov - G
#165 - Troy Timpano - G
#195 - Simon Krekula - C

I expect to tank heavily for Nolan Patrick during my first season. If we manage to have 0.40 Pct, I will take it as a success.

Defense:
As usual, I stack a lot of talent on D from the beginning. I expect to use Nurse, Honka, Chychrun, Zboril during my first year. All of them will get chance to prove themselves in 3-4 or 5-6 roles. Top pair will be formed by Krug and Morrow this year. As a pairing defenseman to youngsters are prepared Irwin and Miller.

Forwards:
I want to rotate Merkley and Spooner on the first Center. Dal Colle will play second LW for the first season. We will rely on Toffoli & Marchand. Big hopes for Pasta's future too!

Goalies:
Subban & McIntyre, hope they will develop well while working with Bob Essensa. In the future, Vladar should be able to help as well. I let him play one more season in Czech league for now..

Farm:
In my save Providence Bruins ended on the last spot in 2014-15 season, so I want them to get much better - they will be strengthened by players like Forsmark, Heinen, Debrusk, Carlo, Johansson, Grelczyk.. I expect them to reach the playoffs.
However, to make this challenge even more difficult, I decided to NOT take control of my AHL team.

We can release any players anytime right? I have some rookies who might be a bust and I don't want them to stay their entire ELC

Here are my trades...

Trades

My draft...

1st round 15th pick Logan Brown
1st round 16th pick Olli Juolevi
1st round 20th pick Dante Fabbro
2nd round 51st pick Victor Mete
2nd round 53rd pick Jonathan Ang
3rd round 65th pick Jesper Wiberg
3rd round 75th pick Tye Graham
4th round 97th pick Ben Gleason
4th round 105th pick Michael Campoli
4th round 113th pick Ingmar Akesson
5th round 135th pick Trent Fox
6th round 155th pick Daniel Muzito Bagenda
6th round 165th pick Edwin Hedberg
7th round 195th pick William Fallstrom

http://i.imgur.com/ZWv24Ob.png There's my trades and my draft http://i.imgur.com/gGWIaQW.png

You guys are crazy good with those trades

axepig wrote:We can release any players anytime right? I have some rookies who might be a bust and I don't want them to stay their entire ELC

Yup. Go ahead and release them.

I'm assuming we can control Providence still, with no restrictions on that GM (outside of keeping the attributes hidden of course)?

btw. stone169 - your trade for Bergeron got you four assets coming in (three players + one pick), correct me if I am wrong, but I guess it is against the trading rules..

Meanwhile, I fired HC Claude Julien and hired Guy Boucher. Rinaldo was sent to Providence.

Now I am in the beginning of August and I see, that Stars put Nichushkin on the block! Their cap is over 75M/y, so there would be good chance to acquire him for some decent prospect from Providence. Oh that bloody rule about no more moves in the first season... He would fit to Bruins..

Peter_Doherty wrote:Yeah, well done, wrong order though, Chychrun went #1

Yeah. I got Chychrun to go first in a few of my sims also. I have no idea why he goes first though. Matthews is better! Probably the teams drafting are more in need of a D-man..

I'l try to join this challenge, really exciting for that could be my first Challenge

sao.phim wrote:btw. stone169 - your trade for Bergeron got you four assets coming in (three players + one pick), correct me if I am wrong, but I guess it is against the trading rules..

Meanwhile, I fired HC Claude Julien and hired Guy Boucher. Rinaldo was sent to Providence.

Now I am in the beginning of August and I see, that Stars put Nichushkin on the block! Their cap is over 75M/y, so there would be good chance to acquire him for some decent prospect from Providence. Oh that bloody rule about no more moves in the first season... He would fit to Bruins..

I'm not sure how considering they were all signed by Florida.

stone169 wrote:

sao.phim wrote:btw. stone169 - your trade for Bergeron got you four assets coming in (three players + one pick), correct me if I am wrong, but I guess it is against the trading rules..

Meanwhile, I fired HC Claude Julien and hired Guy Boucher. Rinaldo was sent to Providence.

Now I am in the beginning of August and I see, that Stars put Nichushkin on the block! Their cap is over 75M/y, so there would be good chance to acquire him for some decent prospect from Providence. Oh that bloody rule about no more moves in the first season... He would fit to Bruins..

I'm not sure how considering they were all signed by Florida.

Nevermind. I just looked at that rule. Back to the beginning.

Asher413 wrote:I'm assuming we can control Providence still, with no restrictions on that GM (outside of keeping the attributes hidden of course)?

That's correct.

stone169 wrote:

stone169 wrote:

sao.phim wrote:btw. stone169 - your trade for Bergeron got you four assets coming in (three players + one pick), correct me if I am wrong, but I guess it is against the trading rules..

Meanwhile, I fired HC Claude Julien and hired Guy Boucher. Rinaldo was sent to Providence.

Now I am in the beginning of August and I see, that Stars put Nichushkin on the block! Their cap is over 75M/y, so there would be good chance to acquire him for some decent prospect from Providence. Oh that bloody rule about no more moves in the first season... He would fit to Bruins..

I'm not sure how considering they were all signed by Florida.

Nevermind. I just looked at that rule. Back to the beginning.

That's okay. I came up with the rules and I did the same thing! Fortunately, I hadn't saved since making that move.

Okey, so the first quarter is almost done, started out very slow then after some tweaks got the team going more and more, i'm hovering around .500 right now.
My team as of now looks like this: Mrazek plays almost all the games, McIntyre has gotten 3. I'm a bit disappointed with Mrazek so far, maybe i should have gone for Saros instead
Irwin-Faulk, Krug-K.Miller, Morrow-C.Miller. I decided to balance the pairings by splitting up Krug and Faulk and going with "equal" ice time among the pairs, mostly to balance Faulks ice time that got a bit out of hand to start the season. Overall i'm happy with the play of all my D-men, with that said i'm still tweaking their tactics alot.

My lines have mostly looked like this; 1st line - Marchand-Zibanejad-Pastrnak - This line has been up and down, Pastrnak has been great while both Marchand and Zibanejad has struggled, i changed some settings on them and they have both been better as of late, i did swap Zibanejad with Spooner for a few games.
2nd line - Beleskey-K.Hayes-J.Hayes - Has gotten better and better, Kevin Hayes is a beast and is carrying that line hard. Beleskey started slowly but has done great lately, 4+8 in 17 games with no PP-time at all.
3rd line - Lindberg-Spooner-Connolly - They have been OK, Spooner is a big part of my PP while both Lindberg and Connolly plays on the PK.
4th line - Khokhlachev-Kemppainen/Griffith-Griffith/Randell - I'm happy with them, they are doing good stuff with limited ice time. Randell came in when Kemppainen got injured and has played great, not sure who to bench when Kemppainen is back.

Overall it's starting to look good, just need to get my 1st line and Mrazek going and playoffs is in reach.

A quick look at how the prospects are doing: Senyshyn has started the season great in Soo with 10+6 in 21 games, Jakub Zboril has 3+9 and 7 Av R in 21 games, Jake Debrusk 7+11 with 7.35 Av R in 23 games and Dante Fabbro has 2+9 with 7.25 Av R in 17 games. Two guys stand out though and they are doing it in the same team, Logan Brown (11+12, 8.20 Av R) and Clayton Keller (7+16, 7.60 Av R) are having great starts to the season.

Off to the rest of the season

So I'm down to my last trade to make. Shipping out Tuukka Rask. I still need a young goaltender (picked up Calvin Pickard from the Avs already but don't see him as a starter) and I could use another center, ideally a #2 but a #3 is okay. I've got it narrowed down to 2 accepted deals.

Rask to Calgary for Mason MacDonald, Markus Granlund, and the #17 overall pick

or

Rask to Carolina for Alex Nedeljkovic, Riley Sheahan, and the #25 overall pick

Thoughts?

I know the Calgary deal has some extra appeal due to Rask being sent to the other conference. Beyond that... I'm a bit torn.

Nedjelkovic has been very good for me in the past. No experience with MacDonald. Granlund sucks, so Sheahan cannot help but be better right? On the other hand the #17 may be better than the #25. I would go more proven, and more proven to me is Ned in past DBs, but this is a new DB and Mason has been rated fairly highly by IRL scouts/

I have not got a start on this yet, not much time. Simmed day 1 yesterday. LOL.

You striked out on Vasilevskiy, Gibson, Saros etc?

Edit: I would take the Flames deal if it's between those two, Sheahan has always been terrible for me in EHM. I assume you will go with Pickard/Subban?

Yup. I couldn't really get anywhere with Vasilevsky, Saros, or Gibson. Those are guys I probably should have gone after more when I had some of my other assets still available. I tend to get focused on who I want and keep at them without always looking at the big picture (bad GMing!).

I think I'm going to go with the Carolina deal. I don't think there's going to be a huge difference in the draft picks and Nedeljovic performed better last season. I think Sheahan and Granlund are probably a toss up at this point.

So my trades are done!

Trades

Now I can go and look at everyone else's trades! I had been holding off so that I wouldn't be influenced by anyone else's deals.

And here is my draft...

Draft

Surprisingly, Auston Matthews dropped to 5th before he was taken. Too bad I didn't pick until 15.