EHM The Blue Line

Salming wrote:Oh to answer the question. It take me like 8-10 hours to make a full seson in this challange. most time take draft and the damm trade couse we are only allowed to make one so i check all teams several time to get best poosible trade i like.

Do you manage every game? I ussually spent 8 hours for just one recording segment (20-30 games) darn, I'm sloooooow.

McQwak wrote:

Salming wrote:Oh to answer the question. It take me like 8-10 hours to make a full seson in this challange. most time take draft and the damm trade couse we are only allowed to make one so i check all teams several time to get best poosible trade i like.

Do you manage every game? I ussually spent 8 hours for just one recording segment (20-30 games) darn, I'm sloooooow.

yes challange rules force us to manage all games. altough i mostly do em on very fast or something. only reduce speed when i got trouble. When i play flames i just close my eyes and press space 3 times haha. they are strong as hell in my game

just finished seson 5 as SC winners for 3rd time in row. Killed of Atlanta 4-0.

Offseson : waiver souray. he was getting damm slow with accelation of 8 and average speed. as a replacer i signed Marc Staal for 700k in UFA. Now i only need jordan to have 3 Staal brothers in my Oilers. Jordan currenlty play as 1st center in trashers.

I guess i am forced to make a trade to fill a gap in seson 6 to. Sucks not to be able to trade away some of my youth that harvest in AHL AND EHCL. Hemsky is now angry at me and refuse sign new contract. gotta trade him away fast to get some return for him. GRR

Hi!
Just started my very first challenge.. and all I can say, this is though one.
My off-season went just great and all lines was awesome. Biggest suprise was how good Dubnyk played.. of course we won every single training game too.
My main asset was to build 2 scoring line, a defencive line and 4th line to agitating. Team resourcers was just not enough to build that kind of team though - because lack of defence. And poor goaldending doesn't allow bad defence..

When season started I was all hyped to my great team.. truth showed hes faces pretty quickly when Flames beat us 5-1.. after that Dubnyk wasn't that great goalie and only one of my lines played well.
So I decided to put JDD in goal and a miracle happened.. we won our first game of the season! Won another game right after, but then game 6 games losing streak.

I really can't say what's wrong with my tactics.. D-Mens are only ones who is playing poorly. Souray's -8 and 1 point in 10 games is just awful.. Smid is my best dmen atm. Just dont understand what they need.
Definedly picking some good defencive dmens in next season.. who cares about goalie?

Lines are like this when everyone are healthy

Souray-Gilbert-Cogliano-Horcoff-O'Sullivan
Smid-Visnosky-Hemsky-Stone-Penner
Staios-Greeshkov-Moreau-Gagner-Pisani
Comrie-Stortini-Nickerson

I don't find any better places for Comrie and Gagner.. might trade them away when I can.

I'm glad to see you join in, Lazion!

This is definitely a tough challenge. I think your lines could use a little juggling. Comrie is much better suited to one of the top 2 lines. He's been a good point producer for me. In 61 games so far, he's got 74 points. He's wasted on the 4th line. Also, Stone is definitely NOT a 2nd line guy. Even though the scouting report says he's a 2-way forward, I see him as more of a defensive forward, best suited to playing the 3rd or 4th line.

Stone has played well, point per game so far in second line.. in fact he is best scorer in 2nd line.
Instead of Stone I toss Cogliano and Gagner to AHL and try Comrie or Hemsky in first line.. I still need good 2-way player to put peaces together. Sad thing is that there's no such one available. Reddox seems to be suitable to 3rd line.. just to need wait Pisani get healthy. Meanwhile Pouliot can play in 3rd line.

Oh man JDD is injured.. Dubnyk allowed last three games amazing 22 goals.

I've tried Reddox on the 4th line and a little on the 3rd line. He struggles with his morale. I think Batdad's method of juggling guys between the AHL and the team's 4th line might work best.

MAybe--You can add Robert Nilsson to my list of up and down guys too.

Lazion wrote:Stone has played well, point per game so far in second line.. in fact he is best scorer in 2nd line.
Instead of Stone I toss Cogliano and Gagner to AHL and try Comrie or Hemsky in first line.. I still need good 2-way player to put peaces together. Sad thing is that there's no such one available. Reddox seems to be suitable to 3rd line.. just to need wait Pisani get healthy. Meanwhile Pouliot can play in 3rd line.

Oh man JDD is injured.. Dubnyk allowed last three games amazing 22 goals.

That's ONLY 22 goals. Trust me, it's not that bad. I was forced to play Dubnyk as a starter for over half of the season. It can be worse.

Pouliot in the first season was my choice for the 3rd line as well, and he's performance was average at best. Still, I saw no better option for this team.

Ok, I have now played first quarter.
I tried almost allkind of roster changes, but things have only getting worst.
After JDD get healthy we got 3 points from 5 games and we have fallen to latest place of conference.
I try on different variations with Comrie, Hemsky and juggled 1st and 2nd lines.. C&H are really lacking. Souray is still one my worstest dmen.. They'r just simply not fit in my style of stradegies.
I also sent Stone, Cogliano and Gagner to AHL in different times.. they'r just rocketing in AHL and so in Oilers.
I think that the best conclusion for this is to go back to off-season rosters and start the line development all over again.

Our PP is top of the notch.. PK has fallen since roster changes to worstest in whole league.
We score goals well in evenstrength, but allow 4.35 goals per game.. Dybnuk and defence is main reason for that GA.
Horcoff leads goals and points in season.. O'Sullian and Penner are in top 50 points in league.
Souray are ranked #23 in dmens points, but he have only assists.. mostly pity points.
JDD is playing as good as Nabokov, Bryzgalov and Rinne, which is suberb for his level.

Oh well.. how they say? From bottom, up is the only way.

Wow. BRuins try to trade Thomas, noone bites. Bruins waive Thomas--no one bites. Now it is January 1st and guess who the Bruins put on the block?

Nope....Not Thomas. Rask.

batdad wrote:Wow. BRuins try to trade Thomas, noone bites. Bruins waive Thomas--no one bites. Now it is January 1st and guess who the Bruins put on the block?

Nope....Not Thomas. Rask.

If you were able to make a waiver claim when Thomas became available, would you have claimed him? Of course you would have!

Oh no question I would have. I am just shocked that they are now moving Rask, after so long trying to move Thomas. Figured they would just keep going til Thomas was gone.

That would make sense but that kind of thing never seems to happen in the game. The other GMs get stupid.

Jonas Gustavsson is widdling me off by not signing with me as he has won two consecutive "Rookie of the Month" awards, but at the same time Hemsky and Horcoff has won one "Offensive player of the Month" award each.

Just had a pretty eventful second off-season, where we were looking to improve on last year's success. The draft was as expected, very weak, but the real work was to be done post July 1st. Was looking to add two things we felt this team lacked up front. Sized and grit. We felt this team was just to easy to play against, with a soft bottom six.

First was looking for a big strong forward, which outside of Penner, this team really lacks. Looked into many names, Horton, Carter, Perry, both Staal's to name a few. But as one could imagine, they weren't giving them away. Headed over to TB to see if they wanted to shed some salary, in the form of Lecavalier. They just added Havlat, so they didn't mind trading Vinny, but wanted a dman back. Plante played sparingly with me last year as a call-up, which made me feel comfortable moving a defenseman. Signed Grebeshkov as a RFA last year, at around 1.3, so i had to wait a week before trading him. They obviously wanted more, so I added in O'Sullivan, who though he played well this year, is just to small and soft for me.

The trade boiled down to: Grebeshkov and O'Sullivan for Lecavalier

As for UFA's, after looking at the defense corp and being content with it, we went looking to create a grittier bottom six. Originally wanted to grab both Brind'Amour and Rick Rypien to boost the weak bottom six, but Rob didn't want to come for minimum wage. Ended up getting luck, and found the exact player we were looking for in Rob Niedermayer. After not re-signing Nilsson, demoting Brule from 3rd line duties to the AHL, and signing Tyler Seguin to man the 3rd line with Rob, we feel the bottom six should be tougher to play against this year.

And that's my novel for this season.

http://img714.imageshack.us/g/screenshot114.gif/
Which one should i make? I got a several other choices to, but I think these are the best ones. Gagner isn't really in my plans anyway due to his incompatibility with my style of tactics, so I can trade him without any problem.

The Kesler deal brings me a bonus in Raymond who would get a role on my checking line. This deal will stack my team a bit too much, but a plan to open some spots next season.

Richards is exactly the player type I want (well, not his size but you can't get everything). I'm not too fond of letting Pisani go as it will lead to me being almost unable to put up a real checking-line, but it also opens up for a younger player take his place soon.

visualdarkness wrote:http://img714.imageshack.us/g/screenshot114.gif/
Which one should i make? I got a several other choices to, but I think these are the best ones. Gagner isn't really in my plans anyway due to his incompatibility with my style of tactics, so I can trade him without any problem.

The Kesler deal brings me a bonus in Raymond who would get a role on my checking line. This deal will stack my team a bit too much, but a plan to open some spots next season.

Richards is exactly the player type I want (well, not his size but you can't get everything). I'm not too fond of letting Pisani go as it will lead to me being almost unable to put up a real checking-line, but it also opens up for a younger player take his place soon.

richards. u need a center big time

I'm about halfway into season one and the team is really starting to pick up. My PP% is ranked 2nd in the league but strangely Souray has not scored yet. My penalty killing on the other hand is last in the league

visualdarkness wrote:http://img714.imageshack.us/g/screenshot114.gif/
Which one should i make? I got a several other choices to, but I think these are the best ones. Gagner isn't really in my plans anyway due to his incompatibility with my style of tactics, so I can trade him without any problem.

The Kesler deal brings me a bonus in Raymond who would get a role on my checking line. This deal will stack my team a bit too much, but a plan to open some spots next season.

Richards is exactly the player type I want (well, not his size but you can't get everything). I'm not too fond of letting Pisani go as it will lead to me being almost unable to put up a real checking-line, but it also opens up for a younger player take his place soon.

I'd go for Richards too. He's awesome. You get a top line player and a captain.

bruins72 wrote:

visualdarkness wrote:http://img714.imageshack.us/g/screenshot114.gif/
Which one should i make? I got a several other choices to, but I think these are the best ones. Gagner isn't really in my plans anyway due to his incompatibility with my style of tactics, so I can trade him without any problem.

The Kesler deal brings me a bonus in Raymond who would get a role on my checking line. This deal will stack my team a bit too much, but a plan to open some spots next season.

Richards is exactly the player type I want (well, not his size but you can't get everything). I'm not too fond of letting Pisani go as it will lead to me being almost unable to put up a real checking-line, but it also opens up for a younger player take his place soon.

I'd go for Richards too. He's awesome. You get a top line player and a captain.

The problem is, what to do with Horcoff? He has been a great player with good chemistry with Penner and Moreau. I will have to decide if I should switch the place of the lines or maybe keep them as they are with the exception that Richards is centering Mikhnov and Hemsky instead of Comrie.

visualdarkness wrote:

bruins72 wrote: I'd go for Richards too. He's awesome. You get a top line player and a captain.

The problem is, what to do with Horcoff? He has been a great player with good chemistry with Penner and Moreau. I will have to decide if I should switch the place of the lines or maybe keep them as they are with the exception that Richards is centering Mikhnov and Hemsky instead of Comrie.

You could keep Horcoff as your top line center, put Richards as your second and then Richards could also play on the PK (in addition to PP), maybe? Or if you wanted to juggle your lines some, you could put Horcoff on the LW with Richards at C and Penner at RW.

bruins72 wrote:

visualdarkness wrote:

bruins72 wrote: I'd go for Richards too. He's awesome. You get a top line player and a captain.

The problem is, what to do with Horcoff? He has been a great player with good chemistry with Penner and Moreau. I will have to decide if I should switch the place of the lines or maybe keep them as they are with the exception that Richards is centering Mikhnov and Hemsky instead of Comrie.

You could keep Horcoff as your top line center, put Richards as your second and then Richards could also play on the PK (in addition to PP), maybe? Or if you wanted to juggle your lines some, you could put Horcoff on the LW with Richards at C and Penner at RW.

Horcoff isn't perform nearly as good on the LW, so I don't want to do that. I'll put Richards in Comrie's (who isn't performing too well) plays and see how that works out. My third line will be a bit too offensive and soft though...

visualdarkness wrote: Horcoff isn't perform nearly as good on the LW, so I don't want to do that. I'll put Richards in Comrie's (who isn't performing too well) plays and see how that works out. My third line will be a bit too offensive and soft though...

If that makes your 3rd line too soft, you could always go with Richards centering the 3rd line, one of the PP lines, and the PK. If he's playing 3rd line on even strength, he'll have plenty of energy for the special team lines. It might be under-utilizing him though. Who are the wings on the 3rd line?

I posted my 40 game numbers last night. I cannot believe what I am getting out of Horcoff. 70 pts in 40 games. Wow! I am outscoring my d-problems, which because of my tactics are not that big. At least not as bad as others, but for me my defense and PK are not as strong as normal. But my PP is more powerful. Why? VISNOVSKY. He has more goals in half a season (14) than I get from any d-man in a full season ever. Not sure why it is working but for him it is.

He is 4th on my team in goals, 5th in points and 3rd in PPG behind Hemsky and Horcoff. Horcoff has 13 PP goals in 1/2 a season. Again more than I usually get from a player in almost a full season. He also has 35 PP points which is 1/2 his total and again way more than normal for me. In fact, I have had 40 games where my leading point guy has 35 points.

I am happy with how things are going for Roy and Dubnyk as well...

Roy: 3-4-0 2.61 GAA .903 S% and 7.86 rating (he has appeared in 9 games 1 where he was yanked, 1 he replaced Deslauriers)
Dubnyk: 4-0-1 2.27 GAA .917 S% 7.67 rating

But JDD: WOW!

31GP 21-4-4 1.94 GAA .935 S% and 8.81 avg rating.

Scary, and I hope he does not fall down off the map and get injured either.