EHM The Blue Line

Finally got my laptop back yesterday with a dead battery... Thankfully I had a spare from a misorder from a few months back. Hope I never have to send anything to those guys (InfoCare) for repairs again.

Just got done transfering the EHM save files so I should be able to pick up the pace in the challenge. Most of my sparetime is spent with Heavy Rain (amazing experience for anyone with a PS3 but probably more appreciated by gamers who are past the standard 12-25 demographic) right now though so maybe it won't make that much of a difference.

I scrambled my lines a bit recently when the team seemed to have slowed down, right now I'm playing with this setup (and I'm back to Normal forward usage):

Lehtonen
Deslauriers

Souray-Visnovsky
Grebeshkov-Gilbert
Strudwick-Plante

Penner-Hemsky-Horcoff
O'Sullivan-Gagner-Pisani
Moreau-Stone-Stortini
Mikhnov-Potulny-Brule

We won our last four games and are currently at the head of the conference so it seems to have worked. PP is even worse than before though, very annoying.

FINALLY had a chance to finish the first season.
With about 10 games left there was no motivation to succeed to a large extent, so I called up a few players from the AHL who had been doing alright on what was a horrible team (have yet to take the time to set the team up, and let it run under AI control for the most part, although when draft picks and european signings become more necessary/important this year I will change that). Anyways, no one stood out so they all went back down with a few games left. Dubnyk won a couple near the end for me, after having an absolutely awful season, then JD got blown out against the Flames in the last game of the season and ended with a 4 rating after being pulled in the second. Dubnyk also blew and got a 5, so a 9-3 loss was a fitting way to close out the season.

I have never had an interest in Oilers players or using the Oilers during previous play, but I am very surprised and happy with Horcoff. He played 66 games (due to injury), going 37-59-96, +31, AvR 9.17.
All things considered, I am actually pretty happy with the offensive output of the team, as I was 3rd in the conference and was 4 goals behind the leader (2nd place team in conference).
- Hemsky: 45-54-99
- Comrie: 43-39-82 (in 79 games)
- O'Sullivan: 16-57-73
- Penner: 19-37-56 (in 69 games)
- Cogliano: 38-42-80

So, top 2 lines were pretty effective offensively, and had a +13 rating combined, with huge discrepancies between low and high (Horcoff +31, Penner, O'Sullivan -31 combined).

4 Defensemen had higher point totals than the rest of my forwards after the second line regulars, all of whom are minus players.
I think I should have tried 3 offensive lines more often than I did, I will have to change things up a bit for a more effective bottom 6 next season.

Top 7 Defensemen (included are Staios and Strudwick, each for parts of the season):
- Combined for 138 points, with Gilbert nabbing the most and Visnovsky the only one in double digit goals (11).
- All were minus players except Grebeshkov with a modest +5.
- Offensively, satisfied again, defensively of course, not so much.

Deslaurier: 77 Games, 25W-42L-8T 4.02 GAA .879 Sv% 7.51AvR
Dubnyk: 12 Games: 2W-4L-1T 5.34 GAA .819 Sv% 6.17 AvR

Needless to say, very disappointed in goal, but clearly my tactics weren't good enough, so I don't blame it fully on the goalies, although I have never seen so many 3-6 rating'd games by goaltenders throughout a season, so they did cost me a bunch of games.

Time to analyze the roster, see who we can sign from Europe, and look towards the draft.
I need a goalie. Maybe some grit offensively and defensively. And a working farm team.

Time to see who wins the Cup and draft lottery.

don't worry about the draft, unless you get one of the top three spots the first year (or the top spot the next year) the rest is chaff. The first two drafts in this DB are total ass. Four years after being drafted, Hall has scored 20 goals in my game, no one else is doing anything. Once you hit the regens at least you have something to draft, but by that point you should be winning anyway.

tksolway wrote:don't worry about the draft, unless you get one of the top three spots the first year (or the top spot the next year) the rest is chaff. The first two drafts in this DB are total ass. Four years after being drafted, Hall has scored 20 goals in my game, no one else is doing anything. Once you hit the regens at least you have something to draft, but by that point you should be winning anyway.

That is so wrong.
You must be really terrible at developing players if you haven't had any success beyond the top three picks in the draft. The first draft is not bad. It is where it should be. Some stars, but mostly projects. Like a real draft. It is the regen-drafts that are unrealistic

tksolway wrote:don't worry about the draft, unless you get one of the top three spots the first year (or the top spot the next year) the rest is chaff. The first two drafts in this DB are total ass. Four years after being drafted, Hall has scored 20 goals in my game, no one else is doing anything. Once you hit the regens at least you have something to draft, but by that point you should be winning anyway.

agree. 11 seson into the game only 2 players from the entire draft belongs to an NHL rooster in my game. Fowler and Hall. The rest are in AHL europe or are retired.

Manimal wrote:

tksolway wrote:don't worry about the draft, unless you get one of the top three spots the first year (or the top spot the next year) the rest is chaff. The first two drafts in this DB are total ass. Four years after being drafted, Hall has scored 20 goals in my game, no one else is doing anything. Once you hit the regens at least you have something to draft, but by that point you should be winning anyway.

That is so wrong.
You must be really terrible at developing players if you haven't had any success beyond the top three picks in the draft. The first draft is not bad. It is where it should be. Some stars, but mostly projects. Like a real draft. It is the regen-drafts that are unrealistic

Well the first draft (2007) is really realistic as you say Manimal, I think there were about 40 players that could play an important role in NHL, although for sure not all of them 1st liners or real star players but maybe solid 3rd liners or 2nd line additions....
I must agree that the 2008 draft is terrible, especially if you don't have - let's say - picks 1-10. The rest are just naff players that possibly are able to have a good AHL career or in some cases suit into a defensive, physical line....

The 2010 draft for example is full of possible star players, even a few 4th round picks can be developed into a star-player, that's not realistic at all, but I won't complain

40 players?

in my game 2 made it to NHL.

Guess its all gotta do with editors or luck.

From my 2nd draft only 2 players have passed 100 points in 300 NHL games. Adam Larson and Landeskog. Altough a handfull plays in NHL in the 3rd lines.

Compairing those 2 drafts to the 2010 one is huge. The 9-10 draft produced almost 15 1-2line players each year in my game and about 10-20more roleplayers and keepers. thats like 70 players compaired to 4-5 in the first 2 draft to the follwing 3rd and 4th. And that comparation is not fair couse the later players have not had same time to devolp (up to 4years less).

The game starts to get fun for me when my picks from the 3-4-5rounds of 2009-2011 draft starting to force its way to my toplines and i gotta replace my favorite players with younger and more hungry ones.

The 09 and 10 drafts are obviously overstocked, but that is because we have a backlogged regens running into those drafts. none of those drafts are realistic, however, my original point was that the first two drafts are virtually worthless. I picked 10th in the first draft, and my first rounder will eventually make my team, however he is the only one, and I would expect a top ten pick to be a "good" player, this one will be a 5-6 defenseman. Its not like I haven't been developing him well, as when I look back on this draft, Hall and Fowler are the only ones playing in the NHL (and Fowler is 6-7 on his team). Kiril Kabanov is playing on his teams 3rd line, and that is it for all the players in the first round.

tksolway wrote:don't worry about the draft, unless you get one of the top three spots the first year (or the top spot the next year) the rest is chaff. The first two drafts in this DB are total ass. Four years after being drafted, Hall has scored 20 goals in my game, no one else is doing anything. Once you hit the regens at least you have something to draft, but by that point you should be winning anyway.

'

That's just wrong like Manimal said. I thought of it too, that the first two draft looked like a reallty weak drafts, but atleast my Assistant GM thinks that some of them hve the chance to play in the NHL level. Even the 3th and 4th rounders in the 2007 draft seem to be alright, they should be atleast 3-4 liners. And even the 2008 draftees seem to be like they could be NHL quality, I mean the 1 to 4 rounders. Or maybe I'm just too optimistic. I just like to develop my prospects top have a chance in my team.

After 6 games third season my team is unconstintant.
In training camp Conklin was lame, JDD was horrible and Bjurling+Bengstberg (late pick from 07 draft) was rather good.
Even though those swedish fellas showed promises I decided to go with Conklin. Last season Conklin was really on fire, but now he can't stop even a beachball. JDD and swedish.. they let in almost every shot.
Defence had played good what comes to AvR. Expect B.Jackman and Smid. Smid has played mostly in 4th line, but Jackman is doing big hazards in defence. Grebeshkov has -5.. suprisingly he have 1+5 points made. I think I'w bench Jackman for few games and call Petry up who played well in training camp. Hannan and Gilbert are currently my best dmens.
In forward lines I'm disapointed everyone else except Havlat and Penner. Stone has falled to 4th forward line and Pouliot is in waivers.
Like I said before that I'm gonna press panic button after 10 games - I will press it now.
Team is scoring goals good, but we allow way too many shots in our goal and goalies can't stop that many shoots.
PP is best in league and PK is 19th.. Thats big upgrade from last season, when our PP didn't work at all. Our PK was bit better.
Last game againts Vancouver was promising as we shooted 40 shots and Vancouver 20. We hardly won that game 4-3.

One of my main problem is that I can't give more time on ice for youngsters. Riley Nash is ready to be 2nd liner, Hartikainen would be great addon to my 3rd line and several other players could claim spot from roster. They will get more playtime in next season when I let go 5 or more players, but I think thats too late for them development.

Ok, so after I finished season two, I unfortunately managed to overwrite my player stats screenshot from that season, while making all the screenshots. I didn't notice this before I was uploading the images after July 1st, and by then, I couldn't view all the player stats from season two anymore. I'm wondering how much of a problem it is that I don't have this screenshot, and if there maybe is way to view the player stats from the previous season after July 1st?! If needed, I could provide screenshots of the team leaders in goals, assists, points +/- and PIM. If someone in charge could tell me what to do, it would be great. For now, I'll just continue playing, as I'm sure this won't rule me out of the challenge.

I just finished my season 2 playoffs. First round we beat the Ducks in 5. Next round we beat the Flames (who have always been tough against us) in 5 games as well. Then we swept the Blue Jackets to win the Western Conference title and move on to the Stanley Cup Finals. In the Finals we faced the Pittsburgh Penguins. They're always going to be hard to play against. The series went to 7 games. In Game 7 the Pens carried a 1-0 lead into the 3rd period. And then added another goal about 9 minutes into the 3rd. They had been bombarding Toskala but he was finally coming up HUGE for us (he faced 52 shots in the game). That's when our offense finally woke up. Pisani scored about 10 seconds after Pittsburgh's second goal. Then a few minutes later, Visnovsky scored to even it up. Finally, with about 2 1/2 minutes to go, Cogliano scored what would be the game winner! We won the Stanley Cup!

I'm going to try to get through to July 1st so I can post my stats and screens today. Hopefully I'll be able to find a few gems in the draft.

Congrats, bruins72. That's a thrilling playoffs

Fortunatelly, I don't have time enough to play these weeks. Hopefully in the end of the month

Awards time!

Horcoff: Art Ross, Hart 2nd place, Pearson 2nd place, Plus-Minus, 2nd All-Star
O'Sullivan: Conn Smythe
Cogliano: Conn Smythe 3rd place
Ethan Moreau: Selke
Visnovsky: Norris
Hemsky: Lady Byng, Rocket Richard 3rd place
Souray: First All-Star
Renney: Adams


We had two 50 goal-scorers this season. Hemsky and Cogliano both had 52. We had 5 players score 100 points or more (Horcoff, Hemsky, Penner, O'Sullivan, and Cogliano).

Looking back at my trade for the season...

We sent Liam Reddox and Steve Staios to the Red Wings for Justin Abdelkader and Jonathan Ericsson on July 1st (because we were over the Cap, we got instant trades).

Reddox was released from the Red Wings shortly after the trade and then signed a 2 year (league minimum, 2-way) deal with the Blues. He spent the season with Grand Rapids of the AHL. In 80 games he had 22 points, -2, and 34 PIM. This was obviously no loss for us.

Staios turned 37 years old shortly after the trade. He still played and seemed to like the veterans on the Red Wings. He played 63 games this season and had 10 points, -1, and 80 PIM. This is almost identical to his production last season with us except that he played 80 games with the Oilers in the first season. His contract expires in July. I wonder if someone will pick him up again or if he'll finally retire.

Abdelkader played all 82 games for us this season. He had 12 goals, 20 assists, -9, and 61 PIM. His average rating was 7.22. In the playoffs he seemed to step up his game. In 21 playoff games he had 9 goals and 5 assists, +8, and 16 PIM. His average rating jumped to 7.57 in the playoffs. In the regular season he played some 4th line but was mostly on the 3rd. In the playoffs, he was totally a 3rd line guy. My scouts compare him to a poor man's Tuomo Ruutu. I like to think of him as Ethan Moreau lite or hopefully Ethan Moreau 2.0. Moreau is 35 and I'm not sure how much more I'll get out of him. Abdelkader seems to bring a similar type of game but doesn't hit as hard and isn't as good at checking. I'm hoping he'll develop further though.

Ericsson also played all 82 games for us this season. He had 3 goals, 21 assists, +3, and 39 PIM with a 7.11 average rating. His game didn't change too drastically in the playoffs. He had 4 goals, 3 assists, -1, and 18 PIM with a 7.33 average rating. He spent most of the season on the 3rd defensive pairing and the top PK unit. He also had a very small amount of PP time when there were injuries. My head scout says he's a 5-6 defenseman that compares to a poor man's Mike Van Ryn but with a bigger frame. If he were a better skater, I think I'd get better results out of him. Still, he's a decent 5-6 defenseman. Good depth player.

Now to try and get to the draft!

Haven't played since the game crashed and I forgot to save. I had a 5 game win streak and was too angry with myself to play again for a while.

Now I'm back on track!

Oh, once again the "who-should-I-trade-for-trouble"...

So I did my 2nd draft. Not a lot of real talent there but I picked up some depth. I got a lot of big physical forwards, a couple defensemen, and one small over-ager with some speed.

Rd 1 30th Barclay Goodrow RW 6'4" 213 lbs 18 years old CAN
3rd line potential, like Jamie Langenbrunner with a bigger frame.

Rd 2 60th Brett Ritchie RW 6'4" 189 lbs 17 years old CAN
3rd line potential, like Nathan Horton with a slower stride.

Rd 3 90th Daniel Ruzicka LD/RD 6' 198 lbs 18 years old CZE
5-6 potential, like Dan Hamhuis

Rd 4 115th Carter Sandlak LW 6'2" 187 lbs 18 years old CAN
3rd line potential, like a more talented version of Shawn Thornton

Rd 4 120th Michael Schumacher LW 6'4" 200 lbs 17 years old SWE
4th line potential, like Brad Winchester

Rd 5 150th Nikolai Lukyanchikov LD/RD 6' 191 lbs 22 years old RUS
5-6 potential, like a poor man's Matt Greene with a smaller frame.

Rd 6 180th Mark McNeill C 6' 187 lbs 18 years old CAN
4th line potential, like Chris Gratton with a smaller frame

Rd 7 210th Pierrick Martel C 5'9" 176 lbs 19 years old CAN
3rd line potential, like Colin Fraser

We both drafted Sandlak and Ritchie, although I drafted both in later rounds than you did. Lets see if we can get them to the big league!

Ritchie was ranked ranked 49th, so I was happy to get him at 60th. Sandlak was ranked 61st and I drafted him at 115th. I think I got lucky there too. Were they ranked similarly in your game? If so, you got really lucky that they fell into your lap later in the draft.

I just got my expectations from the board. So after winning the Stanley Cup they just expect me to improve the team. LOL!

I'll search for a save after the final ranking and check!

You should be able to do it without looking for an old save. If you go to the draft screen (World -> Drafts -> NHL Entry Draft) you can use the arrows (next to the "Filters" button) to go back and review old drafts. You can find their ranking in there.

Ritchie was drafted 77th but ranked 53rd.
I was wrong about Sandlak though as I drafted him before you did, drafted 107th and ranked 149th.
It looks like I was lucky with their rankings.


Oh, why didn't I think of checking it in "drafts" as you say? All the studying today has molten my brain to some unusable sludge...

Interesting. That's one of the cool things about random potential. The same players could turn out to be career AHLers in my game and solid 3rd liners in your game (or vice-versa).

I'm with you, the game would be much more boring without the random PA. Now I really want to make these two players to NHLers just to beat you.

That would be awesome! I'll be lucky to get 2 more seasons in the books in the next month though. Once the challenge winds down, I'll be working on the new one. I'm curious to see how those guy turn out though.

So it's July 15th 2008 and I didn't make any trades. I'll wait until trading opens back up in mid-October. I also haven't signed any UFAs. I think I'll wait and make a waiver claim.

I signed Brind'Amour and Cory Murphy just as rentals for the season to let my prospect mature one more year. Pääjärvi is up on the 1-2 lines this season.

No trade done yet and I can't come up with one that fills my needs. I want an elite PK defenceman or/and a two rooster players for one trade to free one spot up.