EHM The Blue Line

Well... I've finished the season and went on to win the Stanley Cup!

The tinkering I did around the trade deadline seemed to have paid off. I had certain players that weren't really performing well anymore and I was able to work a couple deals, tweaking the roster until I got the guys I wanted. Unfortunately, I had to give up a young player I would've liked to have held onto but you have to give quality to get it.

Here's a look at my trades. I wasn't going to post them until I was done because I thought a couple of them were pretty darn good trades. A couple of them I'm upset with myself for making now. Weiss was annoying me because he just didn't seem to be performing like I thought he could. In retrospect, I should've been able to get much more in return for him. That's okay though. That trade lead to the trade that got me the Sedin twins. I've never played as the Canuck and I've never bothered to go after those two but I'm sold on them now! They were great down the stretch for me and really stepped it up in the playoffs. I had two killer scoring lines and a third line that could chip in some too. I benched my 4th line for most of the last segment of games and just about all of the playoffs. I tended to fare better with just 3 lines. Here are the lines I used at the end of the season and in the playoffs. Sometimes I would switch D Sedin and Kopitar up.

I should be looking good moving forward if I decide to play a second season. I've only got 3 players on my roster who are 30 years old or over (the oldest being 31). Most of my guys are in their mid-20's. I also like the mental attributes of my team. Only 2 players have a Teamwork rating of less than 14... and they don't get to play very often. Nobody is below 10 in Determination or Workrate. These guys have good character. The downside of all the trading I have done is that I've only got a couple decent prospects in the system. Shea Weber and Nick Parrish are the only guys on my farm team that are really worth anything or have a legit chance of playing in the NHL. I've got 3 young goaltenders that I'm kind of up in the air about... Dan LaCosta, Ryan Munce, and Jonathan Bernier. None of them really knock my socks off. Oh yeah, I've still got Derek Nelson (Jack Johnson) playing in the NCAA. I've have some decent picks in the early stages of the draft though. I've got 3 1st rounders, 2 2nd rounders, and 1 3rd rounder. I traded all the rest.

Well, I'm going to see what I get in the draft. I don't know if I'll continue on to a second season. I've been thinking about playing as either the Blackhawks or Sabres for a while now. Then again, I've thought about playing as the Bruins again, but doing things differently. Maybe it would be smarter to wait and start a new season once the patch comes out? Any idea if there is going to be any updates to the roster (trades or whatever)?

WOW! You got the twins. Amazing. I have tried 3 times to get em, and never can. Of course never wanted to give anything up....

But hey...Looking at your stats you got them mixed up. Henrik never has more goals than assists. And certainly never has more goals than Daniel.

bruins72 wrote:Well... I've finished the season and went on to win the Stanley Cup!

You are The Man.

Thanks on behalf of everyone else for posting your trades and lines and always doing such a good job detailing what you've done and why; I always think that's the best part of the Challenges for people participating, just seeing what other people do with their teams.

Minstrel wrote:

bruins72 wrote:Well... I've finished the season and went on to win the Stanley Cup!

You are The Man.

Thanks on behalf of everyone else for posting your trades and lines and always doing such a good job detailing what you've done and why; I always think that's the best part of the Challenges for people participating, just seeing what other people do with their teams.

Thanks, Minty! Actually, I've slacked a little on the detail in the last couple challenges (at least compared to past challenges). I didn't have as much free time at work the last few months to write up as much detail on everything. I do agree with you on the challenges though. My favorite part is always see what other people do with their teams. It's so interesting because everyone starts with the same exact ingredients but there are so many direction you can go with them. Some folks here like to build defensive teams that can shut down the opposition (like the NJ Devils in real life for so many years) while other (like me this time around) will go for an offensive dynamo. Another great thing about these challenges is that you play teams you might never give a shot otherwise. I also like having the chance to play with prospects that I've never been able to pry away when playing another team. I've always been interested in trying guys like Frolov and Kopitar but never able to get them in a trade. I've also got a couple new favorites (Derek Roy and Chris Clark) that I'm interested in adding to future teams I play.

batdad wrote:WOW! You got the twins. Amazing. I have tried 3 times to get em, and never can. Of course never wanted to give anything up....

But hey...Looking at your stats you got them mixed up. Henrik never has more goals than assists. And certainly never has more goals than Daniel.

LOL! Yeah, I don't know what happened there. I know I really wanted Henrik (badly) for his playmaking ability. I didn't like what my 2nd line center that I had before him was doing. He was great with both passing and creativity. I'm guessing a lot of his goals were due to defensemen shooting from the point and then Henrik getting the rebound. I tried a few different line configurations before settling on the one I showed. That line really seemed to work though. There were playoff games that they really carried the team.

As for trading for them, I wasn't really looking to get them but Vancouver came calling and wanted Bobby Ryan. I figured "What the heck!" and said I wanted them and a first rounder for Ryan and some other parts. I was quite pleasantly surprised when they accepted. I was mostly just hoping to get a 2nd line center but getting both of them allowed me to deal aways David Vborny. I really liked him in the Columbus challenge but he didn't do quite as well for me on the Kings. Once I put the twins with Michalek... things really started clicking. I think Michalek was being pulled down by his old linemates. I'd put him up with Vinny and Kopitar for a stretch and he'd do well but then Frolov would suffer. Then I'd switch back and Frolov would be great again but Michalek would suffer. Getting the twins really solved that whole problem.

Combo post

The Challenges really are great for expanding your knowledge of players and the game world; lots of fun having more options to go with for certain roles etc. I like having the young players as well which is fun.

What you're talking about with finding the right combo for the Twins with Michalek is like waht we were talking about in the chemistry thread; sometimes it just takes one move for things to click in and you can just feel it the second it does.

Minstrel wrote:Combo post

The Challenges really are great for expanding your knowledge of players and the game world; lots of fun having more options to go with for certain roles etc. I like having the young players as well which is fun.

What you're talking about with finding the right combo for the Twins with Michalek is like waht we were talking about in the chemistry thread; sometimes it just takes one move for things to click in and you can just feel it the second it does.

Yeah, I almost always go with younger players. Usually they don't cost as much and they've got the potential to get better. I usually don't hang onto players over 30 for long.

Chemistry is exactly it! I remember the old freeware EHM had a "click" number for each player. It was a hidden attribute and it helped decide which players worked best together. I don't think we have that same thing now. In these new version of EHM I think it's an actual intangible.

Just posted the first deadline, 21st February. Make sure you're ready!

Here's my team:

Salary: 34 825 000

Goalies:
Mathieu Garon
Vesa Toskala

Defense:
Kevin Dallman
Jamie Heward
Brad Stuart
Oleg Tverdovsky
Ossi Vaananen
Ben Clymer
Lubomir Visnovsky
Mike Weaver

Forwards:
Mike Cammalleri
Alexander Frolov
Konstantin Pushkarev
Sean Avery
Craig Conroy
Anze Kopitar
Patrick Marleau
Dainius Zubrus
Dustin Brown
Jaromir Jagr
Tom Kostopoulos
Patrick O'Sullivan
Brian Willsie

Players out:
Dan Cloutier
Rob Blake
Tim Jackman
Mattias Norstrom
Lauri Tukonen
Aaron Miller
Brent Sopel
Alyn McCauley
Scott Thornton
Rights to Derek Nelson
Rights to Ryan Miskovic

Players in:
Patrick Marleau
Vesa Toskala
Dainius Zubrus
Ben Clymer
Brad Stuart
Jaromir Jagr
Jamie Heward
Ossi Vaananen

So I also just wrapped on my season. I won the Cup in 4 games over the Panthers (?!) The Kings roster got demolished over the course of the season and I feel I made some really significant upgrades. One in particiular I'm really hot to trot about.

Here are the final standings for my season: LA KINGS Challenge Standings

Here's a look at my playoff results: LA KINGS Challenge Playoffs

And now on to the most interesting aspect of my season - my trades. I tore the Kings apart...well, I'll just let you look...
CHECK THE OR - Don't read further without at least scanning this please! I'm super proud of myself for some of the deals I pulled off...and dang am I looking forward to my 2nd season!

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So obviously right away, I was stoked to unload Blake's age and SALARY and get not not just Marleau(Art Ross, Conn Smythe, Hart Trophy, Lester Pearson Award), but Hannan as well. I wasn't really surprised that I got Nitty for so little, as he's always available for practically nothing (won the Vezina!) The trade that carried me through most of the season was the deal for Kotalik. He played incredibly with Marleau and Frolov on the top line...Which made him just enough bait to land me HEATLEY around the deadline! Tverdovsky was bascially playing only on my PP, so getting Preissing back for him was a nice bonus as well. Plus, I wasn't going to use Mr.Derek Nelson (his attributes were )

Also, after the season was over and Craig had his Cup ring, I dealt Conroy and some picks to BOS for Boyes! Awesome deal, IMO. I then traded all my picks (almost!) to VAN for the #1 overall in the 2007 draft, which I used on Espo.

So now my problem (if you can call it that) is that I have too many awesome, young top line, forwards. Of this crop, someone has to go: *=untouchable

Heatley LW/RW*
Marleau C*
Frolov LW/RW
O'Sullivan RW/C
Kopitar C/RW
Boyes RW/C
Ryan RW
Esposito C/LW*

I'm thinking a double threat of Heatley-Marleau-Frolov and Espo-Kopitar-O'Sullivan might be tasty. But really, the possibilities are endless, and I won't get into listing all my crazy line ideas here.

That's too many top line RW/C's and not enough spaces. I guess I could make a dominating 4th scoring line!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting into my 2nd season. I'm excited to see what Heatley will do on my top line for a full season! Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Hi there!

I haven't been around for a while, but now I'm trying to join in Challenge 7. I have already played some ten games out of the first 20, so I believe I can make it before the deadline.

I'm not going to tell anything of my team yet, but I have to say I am surprised, how well the team has been playing!

See ya!

Unfortunately, due to some technical problems and very busy days in work I wasn't able to get the first twenty games played in time. So, I'll continue to play the Challenge myself, just to see how I can get them play and compare my scores with yours. Have good games, maybe I'll join you some other time!

Bonus points have ben calculated as follows:
bruins72 17
Krieger99 10
munky 7
CatchUp 6
gollum65 4

A little later than planned due to the downtime the bonus points b have now been calculated as follows:
bruins72 15
munky 15
CatchUp 9
gollum65 3

Yowza, B72 is schooling the rest of us so far.

The young team is the way to go!

I'll be finishing this challenge on monday, I've gone home this weekend so I've got limited net access, and with the whole hacking recently going on I've had to delay finishing it until then

Well after a hectic few weeks I've finished off the 7.1 challenge finally!
Congrats to bruins72 who just ousted CatchUp for the 7.1 crown!

WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!

That was a close race, CatchUp. Great work.

I think I'm itching for another challenge. I never bothered with the second season of this challenge (maybe I should have?), lost interest in my Bruins blog team (the blogging took so much work for each segment I posted), abandoned my mercenary GM career (went from Vancouver of the WHL, to Worcester of the AHL but couldn't crack the NHL because they kept hiring and firing the same guys), and a few other careers I played for less than a season. I'm currently playing around with a Blackhawks team. I've got too short of an attention span. I think a good challenge would get me refocused. Any idea what the outlook is on the next one?

I'm gonna pm Devils on a rough ETA on the TBL:DB I'll see what he says

Sounds good! No one wants to rush him but if he's still a couple months away from finishing, we might as well run another challenge on the old faked DB. We've gotten a lot of new users since the last one and it would be good for everyone to get a shot at running a challenge team.

Keep up the great work, Calv!

that's the plan!