EHM The Blue Line

Philip Rolfe wrote:Milan Jurcina, who'd have thunk it?

I tend to use Jurcina as trade bait. I guess it goes to show that with some development and some patience, he can grow into a solid performer

What DB are you running?

Now that's some rock n'roll baby!

From an average Suomi Division team to a Mestis league winner, and additionally a promotion to SM-Liga! Woho! A whole new chapter starts now, this is gonna be a hard year, a losing year, but hopefully I won't relegate back down. It's time to start building THE best European club.

See, that's why I enjoyed managing Forssa in the Suomi Division. It's satisfying to bring a hockey team up the ranks into the top league

archibalduk wrote:See, that's why I enjoyed managing Forssa in the Suomi Division. It's satisfying to bring a hockey team up the ranks into the top league

Archi, how did you fight with budget? I mean, did you have any problems or just let it be, 'cos I was kinda...over it in my last season...and I mean it. It was impossible to stay within the budget when the players always sign for huge money, while they would sign at different club for much lower salary. I think this is one of few things that makes it 'challangeable'.

And for the image of how much was I in fact over the budget... $492.000-> $910.000

I think my Forssa game was with EHM 2005. I started in the Suomi-Sarja and gained promotion in my first season. From what I remember, I lost one or two of my star players at the end of the season because I didn't have enough money for their increased wage demands when I was renewing their contracts. I managed to bring in one or two players and finished just above the relegation places. At the end of the second season, I again brought in just one or two players. I think I finished near the middle of the league, just in the bottom half.

I found it difficult with budgets, too. It did get a little easier in the third season, having established my team in the Mestis. But it was very difficult to keep players when it came to renewing their contracts. It was also fairly hard to bring in players of Mestis quality within my wage budget. I think I actually started the first season with the original rosters over my budget. I brought things down a little but I don't think I ever had them under budget. But I guess that's the price of success. I'd risk relegation back to the Suomi-Sarja if I cut my roster down to budget.

A rather surprising start to my first season with Hermes in SM-Liga.



Fans gotta love that and the board too. I just hope they don't take it as 'Okay, seems like $580K budget is enough, let's raise our bonuses instead.'

I'd taken Hunters Provoo from lowest rank (they appeared with one player only in Suomi Division) to SM-League in four years. Just before my first season started, I moved teams, but Hunters Porvoo is one of the best Finnish teams for the last six seasons now. They even won a title and a Continential Cup once. That really surprised me, since according to my expiriences, human managers tend to overperform in such occasions, while AI managers then ruin everything

For instance, at the moement (in 2020) both Assät and SaiPa are playing in Suomi Division, while Färjestadt just bounced back from Swedish 3rd division to Alskaveksan (spelling), replacing HV71, who got relegated to third tear.

Anyway, I've saved team Brynäs from the similar situation (they were battling for relegation in second swedish league), won the Allskaveksan in first attempt and lost to Frolunda in SEL finals in second season.

I attemp to establish myself as second best team in Sweden for another year or so, because Frolunda is just too strong at the moment. They have Anze Kopitar, Josef Vasicek and another top (basicly NHL) level player in their first line and they are practicly unbeatable for me at the moment. Btw., in case of Anze Kopitar - I've seen it for the first time in my game, that a player rejected an offer from NHL to play in Europe. When his Kings contract was up, he spent a year without playing hockey, then moved to Frolunda and after his first season in Frolunda, he got offers from various european and NHL teams - I was sure he was getting back to NHL, but he accepted Frolundas offer and stayed in Europe.

Icos wrote:the Allskaveksan

Hehe

My team is the Sudbury Wolves in the OHL. Having played 2 days of actual game time, I am still only 3/4 through my first season(I play slow). My team is exceeding all expectations, and on course for the division and conference title (If Brampton stop winning at any point!!). It helps having Benoit Pouliot, Nick Foligno and Adam McQuaid on my team. I only hope I don't lose my enthusiasm for the team when my favourite players'(see above) junior eligibility runs out.

Has anybody else enjoyed seasons in the OHL??

im in season 2029/2030 with edmonton oilers, ive got a team full of draft picks from earlier years, and im in another rebuilding process so im aiming for the playoofs and 40 games into the 29/30 season im 8th.
Its a shame there are no real prodigys like crosby or ovechkin any more they are all just pretty average players averaging less than a point per game in OHL/WHL/QMJHL.

ive also nearly reached 6 days of game time lol

I recently started a new game with the Edmonton Oilers, and I have been trying to mould my team a bit. So here's my blockbuster trades so far.

Sheldon Souray to Ottawa for Dany Heatley.
Jaret Stoll to Detroit for Hendrik Zetterberg.
Marty Reasoner to Florida for Nathan Horton (I don't understand this one AT ALL)

Now if I can just draft a good defenceman with one of my 3 1st round picks this year (i think that's doable...) I should be set to dominate the league for a little while.
That and I need to replace my aging goalie!

This really didn't need it's own new thread, so I moved it to the thread where people discuss their team. In the future, please avoid creating new threads when an existing one will suffice. Thanks! - B72

I had just expirienced one of the biggest surprises in world of hockey. Norwegian team Valerenga won European Championship Cup in 2021, after they beat team Lada Togliatti in finals 2-1. Valerenga, who won UPC-Ligaen six times in last 13 years (every single year they played in the finals), got their chance to play at ECC, after national team Norway climbed to 8th place on International Rankings (last year Switzerland was eight).

Valerenga was drawn in group B of ECC, with Slovakian champion Žilina and Czech powerhouse Sparta Prague. As a clear favourite of the group, team Sparta failed to beat both Žilina (2-4) and Valerenga (1-1). On the last day of preliminary round, Valerenga surprised everyone and reached the finals, after they beat team Žilina 2-1.
Meanwhile, Lada won both their games in Group A, against Swedish champ Frölunda and Finnish team TPS.

Russian powerhouse had a player budged of 1,3M EUR, while Norwegian minnows Valerenga had more than 10 times smaller budged of 117k EUR. Interesting enough, goalie of team Lada, 37-years old veteran Vasili Koshechkin, earns 268k EUR per month - more than twice as much as the whole Valerenga team. But Norwegians prooved, that money doesn't guarantee you trophies. They beat Lada 2-1 (although being outshot 20-30) and at least for a year climbed on the top of Europe!

My Canes team is still rolling ok. Made a recent deal to get Sutherby,Fehr, Morrison from the Caps for Grahme, Salamelian (averaging over a point a game), and some picks. Fehr started slow, but then I moved him onto my 2nd line with Brindy and Williams and he won Offensive player of the week. My team isn't as dominant as last seasons, but I think it's more well rounded. My 3rd and 4th lines are better defensively than last season and should make line matching a little more effective. Sutherby/Betts/Weinhandl are my shutdown line and are pretty effective.

Staal is currently on pace for over 100 points and his linemates Ladd and Vrbata are both looking to be around 90ish if they stay healthy. Eminger has come on as a stud defenseman and is now being compared to Scott Niedermyer.

Well I just bought this game and started with my favorite team the Islanders. I traded some of my players for picks.
Here is my lineup:
Fowards
Cole-Langkow-Hejduk
Sturm-Scatchard-Tambellini
Clowe-Hamil-Daigle
Joensuu-Sillinger-Radulov
Defense
Witt-Sutton
Campoli-Keith
Gervais-Lilja
Goalies
DiPietro
Backstrom

Well im in 2008-2009 season and my team keeps losing so i got fired 15 games in the season.

I got the idea from some poster, not sure if it was on this forum but anyway. The basic idea is I pick a team and procede as if it is an expansion one. Teams protect roster players, i pick rubbish from them and go on to tank the season BUT...well you already know what a shock hit me just a few games into the season. The only thing I changed when I got rid of St.Louis Blues and created my team was to boost their market share and attendace ratings which I highly doubt can influence the play of my team. Now it totally sucks since instead of a little challenge I got GOGOSTANLEYCUPCHAMP EZ MODE

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So, totally ruined the idea i had. Got some fun at first..but that's just ridicilous. I guess it's time to return to my DB or finally try the 78' DB. Or maybe I can try the same but not changing any team ratings...

m0fownz0r wrote:Or maybe I can try the same but not changing any team ratings...

That could be it. Looks almost like a weird bug of some sorts...

I'm in my 09-10 season with the oilers. After a heartbreaking loss in the finals to the Penguins, we regrouped and got the team firing again on all cylinders. Hopefully stays that way with little to no injuries. Heres the lineup:

Smyth-Horcoff-Hemsky
Mikhnow-Schremp-Sykora
Moreau-Colliton-Ryan
Vigilante-Zhukov-Lupul

Phaneuf-Smith
Tallinder-Klesla
Kronwall-Smid

Nabokov-Ramo

Calgary had cap problems when they did not sign Phaneuf, so I offered him piles of money and they could not match. 3 draft picks is a small price to pay for him, considering he's locked in for 5 seasons.

My biggest surprise on the team is Mikhnov. This season he looks to be on the way to 100+ points. Biggest disappointment is still Lupul, this is his contract year and after I give him a qualifying offer Lupul is getting a one way ticket to the east coast.

Its December of 09 and our record stands at 25-8-3.

Icos wrote:the Allskaveksan

It is the Allsvenskan!

EDIT: I didn't noticed this until now, 2 months later, talk about a inactive summer for me.

I just started another unemployed career, and became GM of the Solihull Barons of the EPIHL. They were quite the challenge as they only started with 6 'real' players (all the others were grey). In our first season we weren't given much of chance at all. The season preview has us placing second last. We surprised everyone by finishing 4th in the regualr season, but in the playoffs didn't do so well. We were last in group play.

Our second season we were once again ranked second last, and we did struggle early on, but were able to pull off a 7th place finish, however once again finished last in group play.

For our third season we've had a huge overhaul of the roster, we're gearing up for training camp so we'll see how this season turns out.

I must admit it's hard to find decent players at this level especially since we cannot have ANY Non-EU players and only 4 forigen players. There is a loophole in that rule though...if there is a Canadaian or American player that is also listed as being from an EU country you can sign them.

WOOO!!!

An update on my Barons career, as I said we had a huge overhaul and it paid off. We went into the season with a 4th place prediction (a nice upgrade over the next to last predicitions we had the previous two seasons) We finished second in the league 5 points back from 1st.

Going into group play I was confident, we had the Bees, Lightning and Phantoms but it was a tough group to play in, we managed to come in first in the group with 8 points (the second place team also 8 and the 3rd place had 7...that's how tight it was)

The Semi Final was against the Wildcats which we won easily 4-1. The other semi-final pitted the Bees against the Regular Season Champions Wightlink Raiders. I didn't really have a favorite as both teams had my number during the season. THe Bees won 4-3 after a shootout.

So the Finals came Bees vs. Barons, the first two periods were scoreless, I was on the edge of my seat, then with 12 minutes to go in the 3rd Craig Wilson scored his only goal of the playoffs. 10 minutes later Tait added an empty netter and the celebration was on. The Solihul Barons are 2008-2009 English Premier Ice Hockey League Champions for the first time in their history!

Well, I've finally managed a huge rebuild with the Maple Leafs (and didn't they need it!) and missed the playoffs two straight seasons. Finally righted the ship and won the Cup two seasons in a row. Joe Thornton was a great FA signing as was Alexei Mikhnov and Chris Pronger. A trade for Zach Parise (my team might be the largest in size even with the little guy) and an easy pickup of Rick DiPietro from the Islanders makes the core of my team.
Last season, even my AHL Marlies won their league title so a great season all around. The Marlies have started this season 26-0-3 which I think is unreal, so after accumulating a bunch of draft picks and prospects it looks like this franchise has definitely turned around.
No Art Ross winners yet, but two Calder's (Aleksei Emelin and Mikhnov), Thornton has won consecutive Conn Smythe's, Rick Martin has won consecutive Jack Adam's, DiPietro has won 2 Vezina's, Mats Sundin (retired) and Ossi Vanaanen have both won Plus/Minus awards and Thornton has even won an All-Star Game MVP (whoop-de-doo).
This season not as great of a start for the Leafs (20-10-3) but I'm trying to reload with some young talent to replace the valuable Scott Hartnell (sob!) and see how things look at the trade deadline.
Having a blast.

6th season with Wild has just ended.
We won President's Trophy third time, but we losed to Kings in first round.
Latest seasons was huge to Wild cos we won 3 Stanley's straight.

Thornton has been huge in my team. He had won 3 Art Ross, 3 Conn Smythe, 2 Hart Memorial, 4 Lester, 2 Plus Minus and 24 Offensive Player of the Month nominations straight. And in his best season he notched 101 assists.
Also Gaborik has won Hart Memorial, Lady Byng and 5 Maurice's and in every season he has scored over 60 goals. In his best season he ratched 72 goals.
I also have pretty decent youngsters cos Tavares, S.Belle and N.Martine has won Calders.

Now for the next season I made biggest rebuild than ever.. 5 new players + rookies.
I also give off Pronger, Niedermayer and Skoula in free agency because of their high salaries. 17M

Lines are like this (points in last season)
M.Michalek (SJ 83) - J.Thornton (150) - M.Gaborik (137)
B.Pouliot (99) - J.Tavares (75) - J.Pominville (MTL 32)
O.Sundh (PIT 19 - J.O'Brien (22) - G.Latendresse (MTL 61)
T.Fedoruk (6) / E.Kane (rookie) - R.Nash (rookie) - A.Boldyrev (regen rookie)

B.Burns (27) - M.Commodore (LA 15)
S.Belle (25) - A.Pietrangelo (rookie)
N.Martine (10) - K.Medvec (rookie)

R.Miller (91,2%) - J.Harding (89,6%)

I have offensive team once again, so Miller and Harding have hard times in net.
Latendresse maded huge points last season in Montreal, but I try to sit him in defencive third line, where's also O'Brien who posses 1-2 line potential.
I'am pretty proud of my first line, which is now better than ever. Maybe Thornton finally score over 110 asssists?

Lars30 wrote:Vanaanen

Väänänen!

I had to correct this. Horrible.

Just started a new season with Lidas's roster update and taking into account some of the tweaks. I decided to go for the Flames. And lost Phaneuf for 7 months with a torn ACL thingie This is going to be a very long season