EHM The Blue Line

At 38 games, and it's time for the everlasting debate: Do I send down the young guys and completely punt on the season (13 points out of 8th at the halfway point isn't promising.)? I'm really not sure... Maata is NHL ready, as is Forsberg, Tierney is a no brainer to go down, Jensen's on the cusp. I would absolutely send them down in a single player game, and ensure we get the 1st pick.

Just curious Batdad, how much actual playing time does it take you to do a season? (I can't use the time it gives me since I leave the game on for days and get to it when I can.)

As for future challenges, I am liking this one a bit more, as it's less complex, but clearly for the players like me its a huge challenge. I know its a balancing act between us mere mortals and the "Unknown/Batdad" class that I'm pretty convinced could take an AHL roster and make the playoffs every year. I do like the homegrown player idea a lot, as well as starting at the end of a season (you don't feel as rushed to figure everything out day one, including your season 2 homegrowns, and you see how those players played in the database.

Demko is season 3 for me. PRobably Markstrom back up. Markstrom is my highest rep player and is now considered a #1 goalie by my scouts. Plus, how do you force out a Conn Smythe winner?

as for playing time for a season? I dunno really. Quite a bit, but after trade deadline things tend to speed up as not so many bloody stupid news items to read. I take my time so much with trades that it slows me down. Other times I speed through, when no trades are allowed. I sometimes in those games do not bother scouting anyone but the draft.

Trust me Asher... sometimes I struggle too. But mainly I struggle when I am not coaching the team at all. Perhaps we should do that for a challenge?

Hey B72? A non coaching challenge?

Like going on vacation? Or just have it where we don't make changes during a game? Please elaborate.

Just having the coach set to be the actual coach we hire, for practices and games. Use his tactics, and line combinations to our own frustration.

I imagine that he means we just set "Coach games yourself" to "NO" in the GM options. I like that idea, makes the game much harder to beat. Would also make it so more people play more seasons, maybe we can have a 38.20 winner

I think I'll use the start of season rosters (or if there is a new update by the time we're ready), sim a few seasons out, and see what we have for teams to dismantle. Then maybe we can give this a try.

Don't do the sim too far from the start of the challenge though, given the fact that we get new updates every 2 weeks on the game I like this idea though, should make it alot harder to actually win the cup, realisticly noone will win the cup in atleast 3 seasons if we blow a team up and are not allowed to coach.

Three seasons is fine, still want to start a challenge with players available for us who are you know...real life players.

Agree that three seasons is probably the best, we are past the 2 stacked drafts by then.

Big game for Klingberg

Start of season 6.

Training camp is over. Had to make a couple of decisions on two rookies. Wasn't sure if I should keep them up or send them down. I decided to send them down and kept one rookie on the roster.

Starting lineups look like this:

Bartschi - Bonino - Jensen
Bittner - Connor - Nemecek
Shinkaruk - Lazar - Virtanen
Karlsson - O'Brien - Korostelev

Chychrun - Siemens
Aho - Lindgren
Sanheim - Collins

Demko
Sawchenko

Sbisa is actually looking pretty good for me right now. In 24 games so far for season 2, he's 1G 15A +7 and a 7.25 average rating. If only he could skate!

And I just made my non-veteran trade for season 2. It looks like Conacher will be staying with the team. I sent out Vey for 21 year old defenseman Scott Savage. Vey was riding the pine for me and I just couldn't get anything out of him. I found Savage as one of the highest rated playing in a scouting search of the ECHL. He started out with the Predators but had been traded to the Flames as part of a package for Hudler. In 19 games for the Colorado Eagles he's got 1G 12A +7 14PIM and a 7.21 average rating. He's kind of a strange case and I think he's going to be a gamble. He's got amazing defensive technical attributes! He's got a 20 in positioning, and 17s in both pokecheck and checking. He's got a couple standout offensive abilities, 16s in passing and stickhandling but the rest are "red" (4s and 5s) and a 9 in deking. He's not physical though. He's 6 feet tall but only 160 lbs, has a 9 strength and 10 hitting. Aggression is 8 and bravery is 11. His speed is only 10 but his acceleration, agility, balance, and stamina are all "green" (14-17). Most of his mental attributes are "brown" (7-11) but he has a 15 determination and a 5 influence. Most of my scouts say he'll be a 5-6 defenseman. He's been compared to both Zach Redmond and Chris Tanev. I'll be happy if he can be a solid bottom pairing guy.

Pre-season done for season 3, Shinkaruk, Tierney, Virtanen and Clendening made the team, they were all in Utica last season. Clendening was amazing during pre-season and will rotate in and out of the lineup to see if he is good enough. Tried to find a trade for Conacher but haven't found one yet, his attributes are slowly going down so i'm looking to trade him, we'll see if i find a good fit. Girgensons is also declining and i don't understand why, he's really frustrating, i might look to trade him aswell. This is how i will start the season, Shinkaruk and Tierney will play on the PP. If Shinkaruk plays as well as he does for batdad then i might even swap Kreider to the RW and play Shinkaruk in my top-6.

Bärtschi-Bonino-Jensen
Kreider-Bjugstad-Conacher
Lowry-Tierney-Virtanen
Shinkaruk-Girgensons-Blomstrand
Kassian, Dorsett. Puljujärvi, McCann and Horvat are knocking on the door but will stay in Utica for now. All my coaches and scouts LOVE Tierney so i will give him more ice-time this season, time to prove yourself kid.

Kylington-Weber
Klefbom-Lindgren
Olsen-Clendening
Tanev(Injured). If anyone underperforms i have Rasmus Andersson in Utica who looks NHL ready, i'll keep him in Utica unless he's needed though.

Demko
Markström

Mason McDonald in Utica.

RIght on cue. Slump is on. Games 45-47

Game 45 Lose to Dallas 4-2
Game 46 Lose to Minnesota 4-3
Game 47 Lose to Washington 6-1

Yep.....here we go. Have to limit this sucker.

bruins72 wrote: And I just made my non-veteran trade for season 2. It looks like Conacher will be staying with the team. I sent out Vey for 21 year old defenseman Scott Savage. Vey was riding the pine for me and I just couldn't get anything out of him. I found Savage as one of the highest rated playing in a scouting search of the ECHL. He started out with the Predators but had been traded to the Flames as part of a package for Hudler. In 19 games for the Colorado Eagles he's got 1G 12A +7 14PIM and a 7.21 average rating. He's kind of a strange case and I think he's going to be a gamble. He's got amazing defensive technical attributes! He's got a 20 in positioning, and 17s in both pokecheck and checking. He's got a couple standout offensive abilities, 16s in passing and stickhandling but the rest are "red" (4s and 5s) and a 9 in deking. He's not physical though. He's 6 feet tall but only 160 lbs, has a 9 strength and 10 hitting. Aggression is 8 and bravery is 11. His speed is only 10 but his acceleration, agility, balance, and stamina are all "green" (14-17). Most of his mental attributes are "brown" (7-11) but he has a 15 determination and a 5 influence. Most of my scouts say he'll be a 5-6 defenseman. He's been compared to both Zach Redmond and Chris Tanev. I'll be happy if he can be a solid bottom pairing guy.

Cool!
I drafted Savage un-ranked as I filtered by good atts and found him. Never heard of him IRL

Savage always shows up in my drafts as a guy the scouts want. Never take him...too light, too many bad attributes. Just never want that. But he could turn out good, I know guys were talking about him in the general threads.

So lost my 4th straight 4-2 to Detoilet.


GOT MAD!!!

Five disciplined players. None complained. THree sent to minors to get their acts back together.

1. Mirco Muller-was -6 in those 4 games, 1 point.
2. Hunter the superman Shinkaruk - -3 in those 4 games averaging 7 minutes per game in them.
3. Nicolas Petan--Played 2 of the 3 and stunk in them both.


Called up

1. Henrik TOmmerenes-1 asisst in first game vs Bruins.
2. Bo Horvat- Set up 2 goals in his third NHL game, playing on 4th line.
3. Ronalds Kenins-he has been up and down alot with me. Played well and killed off 5 penalties.


Final score Vancouver 3 Boston 0

Shinkaruk and Petan got 6 ratings in first game in Utica. Muller got a 5.

Actually I was wrong. That was the other Canuck game I had going I had called Horvat up. This was his first NHL game.

WOW, that's all i have to say about this guy. Playing him with Klefbom (super defensive tactics) so he can go forward a bit more (normal instead of defensive mentality which i usually have for my offensive D-men and join the rush).

That's season 3? Did you bring him over and play him in the AHL first or is this coming right over from Sweden?

Yeah, season 3. I brought him over and he played in Utica season 2, he didn't light it up down there though so i did not expect this at all. I took a gamble and it looks like it's working out big time, +1 or 2 in every attribute since the season started

So he was a real wimp when the season started, and is now just barely a semi wimp?

He was a great skating smooth offensive D-man when the season started, now he's EK65.

Season three is in the books for me, and we saw an improvement again for my Nucks




(For the second season in a row, Montreal plays against TML in playoffs )

Very frustrated with my 3rd set in season 2. Guys can't score, guys can't check. Guys cannot do anything right. I have won more than I have lost in this segment, but the team is really really playing poorly. Giving up way too many goals for my liking and the PP and PK have gone completely away.

Shinkaruk and Vey have hit a BIG WALL. Morin is invisible as always (save for a few games here and there when he goes nuts). Bonino is brutal, and even Trouba who I could count on all the time has had some bad games.

Goalies have been lights out. They have both been making an average of 30 or even 35 saves per game in the last 2 weeks of games. Certainly cannot blame them.

I am sure this will come back. I was thinking I should make a trade of some sort, but I really do not want to. RIde it out and let Bonino walk at the end of the season, as well as Eriksson.

October of season 6 is done. Who is this team and what have they done with my Canucks team?

Finished October 2020 with a 6-4-1 record. Good enough for 8th in the West. Finally gave the fans something to cheer about.

Hopefully they can continue.