EHM The Blue Line

In the second year of a HC Slavia Praha dynasty, but the leagues has a twist. It's half Czech and half Slovak. I also started with a fantasy draft.

I won the playoffs in my first season, beating Zlin in 5, Sparta in 7 and Znojmesti Orli in 7

Here's my team at the mid way point in my second season

Miroslav Hlinka - Petr Leska - Jan Caloun
Roman Erat - Jiri Dopita - Lukas Havel
Jaroslav Svoboda - Vladimir Ruzicka - Vaclav Skuhravy
Ivan Padelek - Pavel Kasparik - Petr Sachl

Lukas Zib - Radim Tesarik
Miloslav Guren - Jakub Cutta
Martin Cech - Zdenek Kutlak
Ales Kretinsky - Petr Kubos

Jan Lasak
Radim Ludvik

This team is in 2nd place after 33 games, with 22 Regulation wins, 2 overtime wins, 8 losses in regulation and 2 overtime losses, and has scored a league high 120 goals, and conceded 84.

I've invested heavily in my youth system, with around 30 or so juniors in my system, including Dominik Furch, Jaroslav Janus and also what looks to be Arturs Irbe's regen

Ontario Hockey League - London Knights

Only going to have to or three godd years because all my draft picks are gone since i tradeed them for taylor hall and tyler seguin im in firstttt with a record of 23-2-1. Taylor has 46 points and seguin had 39.

Just finished the season. I ended 50-12-6. Won the league Hall finished second in scoring, Seguin finished third. They would ahve won if it wasnt for injuries and the world juniors.

DJP19 wrote:Ontario Hockey League - London Knights

Only going to have to or three godd years because all my draft picks are gone since i tradeed them for taylor hall and tyler seguin im in firstttt with a record of 23-2-1. Taylor has 46 points and seguin had 39.

Sorry, but what is the fun in that?

It's very fun to finally win, since I've never experienced victory in the NHL

I just finished my first season with the Sens. I picked up Riley Cote off of waivers early in the season for some added toughness. I set Cote to be encouraged to fight and then I forgot about it. In 79 games with the Sens Riley Cote has amassed 986 PIMs with 56 fighting majors.

Talk about your messed up stats.

stone169 wrote:I just finished my first season with the Sens. I picked up Riley Cote off of waivers early in the season for some added toughness. I set Cote to be encouraged to fight and then I forgot about it. In 79 games with the Sens Riley Cote has amassed 986 PIMs with 56 fighting majors.

Talk about your messed up stats.

And real NHL-record in one season is something between 460-520. What'a record

I'm curious is anyone else feels the way I do about the game and plays similarly to how I play:

Usually sim the game past the first two-to-three seasons and wait until either the 2009 or 2010 draft to play (strong draft classes). I then take over one of the bottom feeder teams in the league, which is usually the Leafs, Thrashers, Blue Jackets, or Wild. I then liquidate any overpaid, underachieving, or aging talent for whatever draft picks I can acquire leaving myself with a tight core of players.

I then complete the draft focusing only on players that have at least 12s for both determination and work rate, and only draft players in the first or second round who have at least 12 for anticipation. The following years I sign free agents to compliment my team and try to avoid any star players that come up like Luongo, Miller, Thornton, etc. focusing on players that I view as journeyman throughout the league and who I could see taking the payday (less loyal players). I also try to infuse my team with a bit of age, making sure I have a few prior cup winners 33+ on the team.

My end goal is to always have at least 3/4 of my team drafted by me with the other spots being filled by veteran rentals (1-2 years TOPS). I dislike players with low determination or work rate, and rarely take them unless they're the standout of the 4th + round, they usually spend time dominating the AHL is all. I avoid trading for other teams' star young players that they drafted at all costs.

The hardest part for me is drafting quality goaltenders with solid mental attributes and I tend to float around the league grabbing most goalies as free agents. The one goalie I really wanted was drafted one spot ahead of me which choked me up pretty good.

Also, I run three offensive lines (the 3rd line being a very defensively responsible line), the 4th being pure defense players (ex. Ortmeyer). When a player I drafted begins his career in the NHL I always start him on the third line, the next year if he was 7.00 above or greater than .5 PPG, I move him to the second, and then so on (unless my first liners are stars).

Currently, the save I'm on right now, my team looks like the following (draft rounds, not player names).

1st RD-1st RD-3rd RD
2nd RD-2nd RD-Rental
Rental-1st RD-4th RD
Rental-3rd RD-5th RD

1st RD-2nd RD
4th RD-Rental
2nd RD-2nd RD

Goalie
Goalie


Forgot to mention, now that the NHL is full of long term contracts 10-12 years for example, I've started doing it as well. For standout, star players that I would like to see with my team for the entire time, I offer them FAIR 10 year contracts (ex 10 years at 4.5 million per year); I get a good cap hit for some amazing plays, but I dont feel like I cheated the system too badly. I also don't do it to every player. Usually 2-3 forwards, 1-2 Dmen, 1 Goalie. The rest I take them as they come and that's how I still have spots open for new players.

The first season is complete. It begins the second season.



Statistics incl. Playoffs:

Most Points: 76 Alexander Perezhogin
Most Goals: 37 Alexander Perezhogin
Most Assist: 49 Sergei Zinovjev


rooster 07/08




Also in the squad:

Oleg Tverdovsky
Andrei Kuteikin
Konstantin Kasyanchuk
Alexandr Yunkov
Ilya Zubov


players out:



players in:

further transfers:

players in:

Dimitri Pätzold
Egor Podomatsky

future player out:

Mathieu Dandenault (Red Wings)

Normally, I've been cheating on EHM by editting all the scouts and coaches to have 20 in everything, as well as editing players to be as good as they really are and such.

Last night i tried playing the Red Wings, but i wouldn't 'cheat' AS much. So i retired Lidstrom and gave myself Kovalchuk to replicate what I want the Wings to do by the end of this real NHL season, and editted Babcock and the coaches along with Hakan Andersson. Those were the only things i did. I set the coach to do all the practices as well, but for tactics i used the default neutral zone trap setup except i editted a few things. This was with Lidas 2.0 btw.

Roster:

Kovalchuk - Datsyuk - Franzen
Cleary - Zetterberg - Bertuzzi
Leino - Filppula - Eaves
Abdelkader - Helm - Miller

Bouwmeester - Rafalski
Kronwall - Stuart
Meech - Ericsson

Howard
Osgood

I ended up getting Bouwmeester at the trade deadline by trading away some junk, and got rid of un-needed players like Draper. I started the season ranging around the 8-12th spot. But the team started taking off 2 weeks before trade deadline, and after i got Bouwmeester the team ended up 2nd in the conference. I eventually won the Stanley Cup, beating Pittsburgh (lol) and going 16-1.

I'll most likely trade away Filppula because it's not worth having a 3mil third line center that is nowhere close to being as good as he is in real life.

I'm at the beginning of my 5th season now with Tampa Bay Lightning. (Lidas 2,1)
1st year I missed the playoffs.... 2nd, 3rd and 4th year I lost in the 1st round of the playoffs.. Not very good
My defence has been very poor and has been my weakness... But Hedman is looking better and better and I think he will have great year.

And this season I traded away some players for good draft picks so I can rebuild my team... In the draft I got Forsberg regen, Messier regen and a Czech regen that I think is Jagr
I also picked up Keith from free agents.

Kovalchuk - Lecavalier - St. Louis
Cooke - Hörnqvist - "Foppa regen"
Eaves - "Messier regen" - "Jagr regen"
Helm - Primeau - Ortmeyer

Hedman - Ehrhoff
Keith - Niskanen
Öhlund - "Regen"

Luongo
Niittymäki

I will probably not win the cup this year, but give my regens a few years and the cup will be mine! My goal is to win the cup in 3 years

So for me it is time for something completely different. I have gone back to TBL DB 1.5 (stable old db with the juniors in juniors from the original db etc. Guys like Patrick Kane not drafted)

However..I have started as a rec player, and am the GM of a random EIPHL league team---turned out to be Romford Raiders.

I am also playing without using real names.

I will be working here and building up my stats--must spend at least 2 seasons with any team I choose to move to, and I MUST win a championship before I can move on to a new team and league.

By the time I make it to a league I know something about...the teams will be so different from what they are now, it will be very difficult to tell who is who in real life for most players. Some stars will stand out yes, but for the most part it will be different.

This is something I have always talked about doing, and now finally am going to give it a go.

I will be using my standard tactics to see how they work in each area and league.

batdad wrote:So for me it is time for something completely different. I have gone back to TBL DB 1.5 (stable old db with the juniors in juniors from the original db etc. Guys like Patrick Kane not drafted)

However..I have started as a rec player, and am the GM of a random EIPHL league team---turned out to be Romford Raiders.

I am also playing without using real names.

I will be working here and building up my stats--must spend at least 2 seasons with any team I choose to move to, and I MUST win a championship before I can move on to a new team and league.

By the time I make it to a league I know something about...the teams will be so different from what they are now, it will be very difficult to tell who is who in real life for most players. Some stars will stand out yes, but for the most part it will be different.

This is something I have always talked about doing, and now finally am going to give it a go.

I will be using my standard tactics to see how they work in each area and league.

seems like an awesome idea! I would try it, but im not that patient and that would take forever. Ypu should make a blog or something so people can follow this hopefully long journey.

Nah..not that patient, and it takes too much time. Notes will be made here occasionally..

batdad wrote:Nah..not that patient, and it takes too much time. Notes will be made here occasionally..

yah that sounds good

After a couple month-long games to try to learn how everything worked I decided to start a career unemployed and see how it went. This is how my EHM-'07 career is going so far. All this is with the original DB etc (game version is what I bought and downloaded from SI December 2009-ish).

I started unemployed and took over the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies in late August 2006 after the trading window closed. It was not a strong team but had Jean-Philippe Levasseur in goal and captain Ivan Vishnevsky on the blueline. The main problem was depth as the previous manager had neglected to sign any of the draftees before they went elsewhere for the year.

First thig I did was bring in a new staff except for some holdovers as scouts and trainers. Except for the new Head Coach there have been a few other turnovers in a season and half but here is the current management and coaching staff after 16 months or so (it is now November 2007)...

Asst GM: Dave McLain
Head Coach (although I do most of this myself): Leon Laine
Asst Coaches: Axel Boman, Dwayne Holmgren, George Longo, Mark Morrison, Arne Sandstrom

The first half-season (Fall 2006) I signed up all the draftees to begin playing for me the next season, and I grabbed a couple 20-year-old free agents to fill out a few slots on my top lines and beef up the rather shallow roster (there were games where because of injuries I was playing the emergency players the game gives you - which is just how shallow it was). This also meant I was only using three forward lines and two defensive lines for this part of the year which was wearing everyone down fast. The best of the free agents who played for me during this time was Danick Bouchard.

In the holiday trading window halfway thru that first 2006-2007 season I was by far the most active manager. I probably ruined the team chemistry of my .500-ish team and I think I gave away too many 3-4 round-ish draft choices but managed to piece together enough players to fill the lines out. Big trades got me Francis Pare, Claude Giroux, David Kveton, Peter-James Corsi, Pascal Boutin, Francois Bouchard.

Second half of that first season, Spring 2007, the team did very well, topping the QMJHL overall near the end and making the top 10 CHL ratings. But they tailed off a bit going into the playoffs, month-long injuries to Pare and Danick Bouchard hurt, and finished a strong 2nd in the division.

Beat Val d'Or in the first round of the playoffs, including an exhausting triple-overtime win on the road, and drew a Shawnigan team I expected to beat for the second round. Took a 2-0 games lead but then I started having trouble with the personal tactics settings and it showed in the team performance and the wheels came off the bus as they dropped the series and were eliminated.

I was much less active in the Summer 2007 off-season trading window. Big acquisitions seem to have been Lucas Del Vecchio and Patrice Girouard. But I had a pretty decent draft and got Andre Tardiff in the 1st round and Andy Arsenault in the 2nd round as immediate impact players. Plus I got to start playing Alex Poitras who had been drafted high by the previous administration but had not been signed until I took over so missed the previous season.

Then award-winning Levasseur, long-term captain Vishnevsky and star Kveton all signed NHL contracts and (apparently) left the team that Summer. So I grabbed Tim MacPhee as a 20-year-old free-agent goalie and hoped for the best. I had to drop some rights to players to meet the reserve list numbers so I foolishly dropped Levasseur thinking I would never see him again anyway. Next week Kveton and Vishnevsky were returned to me as loaners and I presume Levasseur would have been also but now plays in some NHL team's farm system instead. D'Oh!

All that said I am now in November 2007 with a very strong and deep roster. Right now there are 37 players at the club, all of whom I am comfortable playing, with 13 more sent down to the Lachine Maroons in Que Jr AAA. My team record is 17-3-0 so far in 2007-2008 and it is a strong first-place team with a 5-pt lead in the overall standings and sitting atop the CHL rankings to boot.

Here are the lines I have been playing although I have capable alternates that can step in as needed when someone is injured or not in condition to play.

Y.Riendeau(A) - F.Pare - D.Kveton
F.Bouchard - H.Carpentier - F.Lanctot-Marcotte
A.Poitras - P.Corsi - C.Giroux
J.Berube - M.Tousignant - A.Tardiff

P.Boutin - I.Vishnevsky(C)
A.Arsenault - A.Lamontagne
L.Del Vecchio(A) - P.Girouard

T.MacPhee
S.Cesar

Riendeau and Bouchard are the extra attackers. I use a 4th forward on one of the points of each of my power play units and a 3rd defender as one of the forwards on each of my PK units. The only trouble with this is I have to track when a penalty lands a defender in the box and make a temporary switch to avoid double-shifting anyone.

I use equal everything for line usage with 20-second shifts and a bunch of unit tactics. No more personal tactics after the playoff debacle.

After 20 games so far this season Bouchard is the goals leader, Vishnevsky the assists, points and takeaways leader, but honestly the points have been spread through the team pretty well. Boutin is the +/- and hits leader while Arsenault is the blocked shots leader. Riendeau has the most shots on goal while Lamontagne has put in the most time in the sin bin.

Targets for the upcoming winter trade window are 17-18 year-olds especially a good goalie prospect and maybe a right wing. Mostly with an eye for the coming years rather than this year. I should have some depth I can trade that is not cracking the lineup (some of them played a lot of ice minutes for me in the previous season though) and I might even try to pick up some more draft choices.

GAME DESIGN NOTES ON EHM OVERALL:
1. The personal tactics thing was a big nightmare. I was setting tactics for players on special teams and the game would mix them up with even-strength settings for some players. So I do not use this feature anymore.
2. Wish I had known the mechanism for how you got NHL loaners in Jrs. Levasseur was going have great 2nd season for me.
3. The AI does not pick very good PK guys when one of your PK'ers gets a penalty. Would be nice if you could set a list with a couple players for it to choose from kind of like the extra attackers. I think this #3 item is the main thing I see so far that would beneft the game.
4. Have seen many times where a player sits behind the net for several minutes while nothing happens exscept maybe a few line changes. Finally the last time this happened was a real laugher - 12 minutes left in the 3rd period and the guy did this for entire rest of the game with no line changes for either side and hardly anyone moving. But that is the far extreme case as mostly I have only seen this for a couple minutes at a time.

Enjoying immensely!

At #4: The solution is rather easy Irish! I found out that it's just the 2d engine that is buggy, so all you have to do is change the highlights setting to "no highlights" and change back.

IrishBouzouki wrote: GAME DESIGN NOTES ON EHM OVERALL:
1. The personal tactics thing was a big nightmare. I was setting tactics for players on special teams and the game would mix them up with even-strength settings for some players. So I do not use this feature anymore.

I always use personal tactics. My suggestion is to go into your Tactics screen, then along the left-hand side you will see "Set Lines", "Tactics", "View Units", and "Personal Tactics". Go to "Personal Tactics" and set up each player with the personal tactics you would like them to use. Check the Even Strength Tactics thread for some good info on that. Then once you've set each players primary personal tactics, click on "Team Tactics". Under "Advanced Options" you'll see "Use Unit Tactics". Check that box. Now those 4 options on the left-hand side will say "Set Lines", "Team Tactics", "Unit Tactics", and "Personal Tactics". Click on "Unit Tactics". This will allow you to set your tactics for each line. Go to your Power Play (5vs4) 1 line. Now when you click on each player on that line in this screen, you can set their personal tactics for just the power player. Do the same for Power Play (5vs4) 2. These tactics should carry over to your 5vs3 PP tactics but if you wanted them to be different you could then change them there too. This same approach work when you want to set your personal tactics for the PK as well.

Honestly, you shouldn't abandon personal tactics. They're a huge difference-maker in this game.

bruins72 wrote:

IrishBouzouki wrote:The personal tactics thing was a big nightmare. I was setting tactics for players on special teams and the game would mix them up with even-strength settings for some players. So I do not use this feature anymore.

...go into your Tactics screen, then along the left-hand side you will see "Set Lines", "Tactics", "View Units", and "Personal Tactics". Go to "Personal Tactics" and set up each player with the personal tactics you would like them to use. Check the Even Strength Tactics thread for some good info on that. Then once you've set each players primary personal tactics, click on "Team Tactics". Under "Advanced Options" you'll see "Use Unit Tactics". Check that box. Now those 4 options on the left-hand side will say "Set Lines", "Team Tactics", "Unit Tactics", and "Personal Tactics". Click on "Unit Tactics". This will allow you to set your tactics for each line. Go to your Power Play (5vs4) 1 line. Now when you click on each player on that line in this screen, you can set their personal tactics for just the power player. Do the same for Power Play (5vs4) 2. These tactics should carry over to your 5vs3 PP tactics but if you wanted them to be different you could then change them there too. This same approach work when you want to set your personal tactics for the PK as well. Honestly, you shouldn't abandon personal tactics. They're a huge difference-maker in this game.

Yes I did all that! And during a game I would notice things a bit awry so I looked and it had switched things around so some guys, not all, were back-checking very hard on the power play and easy on penalty-killing for instance. So I repaired it then a few games later it happened again, repaired, again, repaired, again. So I decided not to use them anymore.

I wish I could reliably edit a text file for it anyway... easier than clicking through all that for each player. But still I would do it if the PC did not keep messing it up and messing up my team play in the process.

Maybe there is a patch I do not have or something. But anyhow I am okay using just unit tactics for now. The personal tactics were just being used to tweak players who needed to be more careful passing or in their shot selection (plus the pass/shoot preference) or who on each line would especially try to back-check or who would especially try to chase the puck etc. A good tweak if it was working for me but 75-80% of what I need is in the unit tactics anyhow. Maybe I will revisit it later.

** Hey I have another one for you...

I have been after Kevin Constantine to be my head coach ever since I first took over. He shows up under the "filter likely candidates" but I have offered him a $100k+ contract with $200k+ signing bonus about 10 times over the past 16 months and he shows absolutely no interest.

Any idea what I can do to lure him to be a Jrs head coach for me? Maybe he thinks I too much of a shmuck to work for?

Maybe I should start a blog on here for the team?

IrishBouzouki wrote: ** Hey I have another one for you...

I have been after Kevin Constantine to be my head coach ever since I first took over. He shows up under the "filter likely candidates" but I have offered him a $100k+ contract with $200k+ signing bonus about 10 times over the past 16 months and he shows absolutely no interest.

Any idea what I can do to lure him to be a Jrs head coach for me? Maybe he thinks I too much of a shmuck to work for?

Maybe I should start a blog on here for the team?

It's not going to happen. He wants to be the GM of the team. You're using the original database, right? I'm pretty sure I remember him being the Head Coach/GM of a junior team and I could never lure him over to being my head coach.

visualdarkness wrote:At #4: The solution is rather easy Irish! I found out that it's just the 2d engine that is buggy, so all you have to do is change the highlights setting to "no highlights" and change back.

I am sure that is it... but part of the fun is watching the games (I play some at fast forward but most at very fast, so I can keep track of needed adjustments in-game, and during the playoffs I slow them down to just fast and sit back and enjoy it). Most of the time I do not mind as it is only a couple minutes of hiding behind the net - just that once gave me quite a chuckle.

Ah, wait, I see, make the change then it breaks the dude out of it? Yeah, I will remember that one if I see it happen that badly again. Thanks.

IrishBouzouki wrote:

visualdarkness wrote:At #4: The solution is rather easy Irish! I found out that it's just the 2d engine that is buggy, so all you have to do is change the highlights setting to "no highlights" and change back.

I am sure that is it... but part of the fun is watching the games (I play some at fast forward but most at very fast, so I can keep track of needed adjustments in-game, and during the playoffs I slow them down to just fast and sit back and enjoy it). Most of the time I do not mind as it is only a couple minutes of hiding behind the net - just that once gave me quite a chuckle.

Ah, wait, I see, make the change then it breaks the dude out of it? Yeah, I will remember that one if I see it happen that badly again. Thanks.

Exactly! You just have to change the setting over that event, the rest of the game will work properly. I had the games stuck that way I don't know how many times and the trick works everytime!

decided to make my version of the pens

rules: only trade alot first seson, then once a year
databe : lidas 2,1 full database with all leauges running in background

pens 2007

Erik Cole - Sidney Crosby -Evgeni Malkin
Jordan Staal -Eric Staal- Loui Eriksson
Matt Cooke- Brian sutherby- Aaron Asham
extra : ortmeyer

Pitkänen-Bouwmeester
Marc Staal-Duncan Keith
MCkee-Boynton

Fleury-Johnson

to note :
3 staal brothers in team
traded away all picks and prospects for jack johnson, gilbert brule, Cody Hodgson and LA and MIN 1sts 07

Zappa wrote:I'm at the beginning of my 5th season now with Tampa Bay Lightning. (Lidas 2,1)
1st year I missed the playoffs.... 2nd, 3rd and 4th year I lost in the 1st round of the playoffs.. Not very good
My defence has been very poor and has been my weakness... But Hedman is looking better and better and I think he will have great year.

And this season I traded away some players for good draft picks so I can rebuild my team... In the draft I got Forsberg regen, Messier regen and a Czech regen that I think is Jagr
I also picked up Keith from free agents.

Kovalchuk - Lecavalier - St. Louis
Cooke - Hörnqvist - "Foppa regen"
Eaves - "Messier regen" - "Jagr regen"
Helm - Primeau - Ortmeyer

Hedman - Ehrhoff
Keith - Niskanen
Öhlund - "Regen"

Luongo
Niittymäki

I will probably not win the cup this year, but give my regens a few years and the cup will be mine! My goal is to win the cup in 3 years

A little update:

I'm in 2012/2013 now.. I haven't had any great success with my team yet... Key players like Öhlund, Luongo, Lecavalier are declining a bit now, but my regens are looking great now and I have added a few players to my squad.. This is how my team looks atm:


Kovalchuk - Lecavalier - "regen"
Morrow - "regen" - "regen"
J. Jokinen - "regen" - Eaves
Helm - Betts - Ortmeyer

Hedman - Bouwmeester
Öhlund - Keith
"regen" - Foster

Luongo
Niittymäki

I have 3 very good regens. Messier, Forsberg and Jagr (I think it's Jagr). They are all looking great now. Last season they all had over 75 points... Hopefully they will be even better this season.. Kovalchuk, Bouwmeester and Lecavalier are getting older and maybe declining a bit, but they're still my best players and they will be my key to success.