EHM The Blue Line

So what exactly is your strategy? Maybe it can be corrected.

Playing in my 7th season in charge of the Bruins. Just got the three-peat, fourth in six seasons for the Cup.
Getting a lot of players signing lower than FA price which is good.

RyanSmythe wrote:So Midway through my 15th season and i find that it still unfortunately is to easy to build a dynasty.
I've even implemented only resigning RFA's and 1 UFA, no FA pickups, No 1st round picks. Does anyone have any tips to make it more difficult.

Have you tried using the hidden attributes function?

RyanSmythe wrote:So Midway through my 15th season and i find that it still unfortunately is to easy to build a dynasty.


I've even implemented only resigning RFA's and 1 UFA, no FA pickups, No 1st round picks. Does anyone have any tips to make it more difficult.

So u had 70 wins in your 1st season with Stars roster... such a waste of time loading the game after every lose isnt it?

ohlund wrote:

RyanSmythe wrote:So Midway through my 15th season and i find that it still unfortunately is to easy to build a dynasty.


I've even implemented only resigning RFA's and 1 UFA, no FA pickups, No 1st round picks. Does anyone have any tips to make it more difficult.

So u had 70 wins in your 1st season with Stars roster... such a waste of time loading the game after every lose isnt it?

Huh?
Also I would hesitate to call it the Stars Roster. I had Benn and Seguin Obviously and Klingberg and Ekman-Larsson as my top pair, and apparently I had Price in net.
Also traded Spezza for Thornton and Had Eriksson and Hanzal apparently
From the trades I made
I didn't have
Lehtonen
Enroth
Hemsky
Honka
Dickinson
Eaves
Daley
Garbutt
Oleksiak
Spezza
Janmark
Shore
Johns
Moen
Horcoff
Peverley
Jordie Benn
Jokipakka
Lindell

It would be a stretch to call it the Stars "roster". It wasn't until after year 4 or 5, that I started limiting myself to make it more challenging.

After 6 months on the game playing in the NHL has got pretty old tbh.

The first 3 seasons were fun, I was the Flyers and tried to carry out Ron Hextall's real life plans for the team going forward (ie build from within, don't trade away prospects etc), though obviously my personal bias would play into that... this all happened ~3-4 months ago so mainly working of memory, but here is a summary:

1st year:

Sacked Berube, hired Guy Boucher as coach, him and Torts were the only good ones available, and he has a more offensive outlook on the game.
Got Chris Pryor to be my assistant GM. (I like having guys with good scouting ability as assistant so I can easier gauge player ability on roster.
Hired Joel Otto as an assistant coach.
1st Blockbuster trade... Emery, Rinaldo, 2015 2nd and a 2016 5th to Chicago for Kruger and Raanta. Just wanted Kruger really for 4C, and to get a slightly better backup, and get rid of Rinaldo.
Got rid of Vinny by making available and saying not needed, got a 3rd from San Jose for him.
Started atrociously, like 1-6-0. But tweaked tactics (I was using the ones I had success with on 2007) and started to get better, scoring a lot but conceding a lot too! Giroux and Voracek had like ~45 points each through 40 games but Mason while having a ~7.6 rating was under .900 sv%!
D sucked so badly I decided I would spend some assets for an immediate fix... so traded Umberger, 2016 1st & 2016 2nd for Erik Johnson, traded Grossmann for a 3rd and picked up Kimmo off waivers just after the deadline.
Snuck into the playoffs in 8th (I believe) and lost in the 2nd round to the Rags after beating the Pens in first. (realistic.)
Voracek won Art Ross by tiebreak with 93 points, Giroux 4th with 88. Johnson's aquisition helped boost Masons sv% to end the year at .911 sv%. Couturier, Simmonds and Schenn all scraped 50 points, Raffl got 65 riding shotgun with G & V.

In offseason:

Signed Andrei Loktionov.
Traded Schultz for picks near the draft (4th and a 5th.)
Traded Flyers 1st (21st overall) and Luke Schenn for San Jose 1st (16th overall) and San Jose 2016 3rd.

Drafted J. Roy and Svechnikov with the 16th and 24th picks. Got Forsbacka-Karlsson in the 3rd, Vande Sompel in the 4th.
UFA came up and Duclair and Zykov were available as he went unsigned! Snapped up both. Also picked up Kristian Näkyvä from Lulea...

2nd year:

Darren Helm was waived... picked him up and have a Bellemare -- Kruger -- Helm 4th line... which turned out awesome.
Signed Willie Mitchell on a 1yr, cheap deal.
Sam Morin made the team as #4.

went into season with:

Raffl -- Giroux -- Voracek
Schenn -- Couturier -- Simmonds
Loktionov -- Laughton -- Read
Bellemare -- Kruger -- Helm
VandeVelde

MacDonald -- E. Johnson
Morin -- Streit
MDZ -- Gudas
Mitchell

Mason
Raanta

Signed Bergenheim for 1.2mill a month into season... and traded Loktionov and a 4th for a 2nd, as he sucked!
The Maple Leafs did not sign Andreas Johnson well, so picked him up. Him, Cousins, Duclair and Zykov made the AHL look like a holiday camp.

2nd year was pretty fun. East was so close that on the last day of the season I could have finished 1st-7th! Caps, Pens, Rags and me all within a point on the last day.

Came 4th in the conference, 2nd in division, and played the Penguins 1st round... swept them again! Then beat the Rags in 7 games.
Then got swept by the Lighting in the conf finals.

Giroux won Art Ross with 91 points.
Jake got 72 in 75. Bit down from 1st year.
Simmer & Schenn both got 25 goals and over 50 points.
Couturier got 49 points.
Raffl got 46 points. 20 point drop from unsustainable 1st season!
Laughton got 35. Him, Bergenheim & Read all over 30 points.
4th line of Bellemare-Kruger-Helm was awesome. Helm got 13 goals.
Morin played 77 games, 15 points, +15.
Gostisbehere came up as AMac broke his leg after ~50 games. Ghost got 12 points in last ~30 games.

Traded Andreas Johnson in offseason (who I picked up as an unsigned prospect, and a 3rd to Anaheim for their 1st. He had came up in the playoffs for an injured Simmer and got 6 in 10... but my scouts say he is a 3rd liner at best.)

Drafted Travis Barron & Clayton Keller with my 1st's. Stole William Fallstrom in the 2nd. Had 9 draft picks... took 8 forwards!

Resigned Couts 4 years $4m.
Resigned B. Schenn 4 years $4.5m
Resigned Helm 2 years $2.2m.
Let Bergenheim & Raanta walk.

Jake refused to sign... went UFA but then signed 4 years $8.275m.
Raffl refused to sign... went UFA but then signed 3 years $3m.

Picked up Hamhuis 2yrs $4m AAV.

Traded Streit for a 2017 3rd. (logjam on D)
Traded Cousins for a 2017 3rd. (good enough to be NHLer but quite deep at C.)

3rd season:

Team going into year was:

Raffl -- Giroux -- Voracek
Schenn -- Couturier -- Simmonds
Zykov -- Laughton -- Read
Bellemare -- Kruger -- Helm

MacDonald -- E. Johnson
Gostisbehere -- Hamhuis
Morin -- Del Zotto

Mason
Stolarz

Team did really well in 3rd year. Lost to Anaheim 4-2 in the 2017 Cup Final.
Giroux 83 in 82. 3rd in Hart.
Voracek ~75 points.
Couturier & Schenn both got ~65 points.
Simmonds & Raffl both got ~55-60 points.
Laughton & Zykov both got ~40 points. Zykov hit 23 goals and won the Calder.
Read is done now, just started to suck badly.
Leier-Kruger-Helm finished year as 4th. Played well.
Johnson got 45 points. Is a low end #1.
Morin got 35 points. He was a #3 already.
Gostisbehere got 42 points. Suspect D but offensive gem. One of the best skaters in the NHL.
AMac just solid top 4 guy.
Hamhuis started the year great and fell away.
MDZ got 25 points. Could be playing more but not better than any other D.
Mason 2nd in Conn Smythe. .917 sv%.
Stolarz .908 sv%. 30 games played.
Sanheim made his NHL debut in the playoffs when Hamhuis & Hagg went down.

Svechnikov was QMJHL player of the year and got ~95 points in 60 games on one of the worst teams. He could well end up on Girouxs LW by the end of the season.
Parks was 2nd best AHL forward to Lindblom, but Lindblom needs more seasoning.
Sanheim started slow in the AHL but finished with 45 points and was rated better than MDZ by the end of the season.
Hagg had a good AHL season and is 1st call-up. He is good enough for the NHL but I think he will be traded next year as Roy is a righty and almost as good at 2 years younger. AMac or Burns will give way... depends how they play.
Jeremy Roy is now in the AHL. He was the best Q d last year and is just slightly worse than Hagg.
Clayton Keller and Travis Barron (my two high end forward prospects, both 2016 1st rounders) are both in the CHL and doing nicely. Both likely end up 2nd liners.

Traded Hamhuis at the draft for Gabriel Carlsson (good D prospect) and a 4th round pick.
Drafted 2 Dmen in the 1st. One from the Q with Dallas's pick (15th). One from Sweden with my own 29th pick. Both BPA... (I think both re-gens)
Straight after the draft I traded 2 of my forward prospects (both project to be 3rd liners) and the 2018 2nd for Olle Eriksson Ek, he went 12th in the 2017 draft and the only position I needed prospect wise was goalie. Effectively meant I got 3 first round guys in the 2017 draft.
Traded Read for Noah Juulsen (projects as a #5, is 20 now) and a guy drafted in the 2017 3rd round. (plays LW and LD, from Sweden)
Signed Brent Burns for 3 years at $4m. He is 32 but a slight upgrade on Hamhuis and younger.

4th season:

Lineup going into 2017-18:

Raffl -- Giroux -- Voracek
Schenn -- Couturier -- Simmonds
Svechnikov -- Laughton -- Zykov
Leier -- Kruger -- Helm
Parks

Morin -- Johnson
Gostisbehere -- Burns
Sanheim -- MacDonald

Mason
Stolarz

I don't know why but around this point I had no passion for keeping going with the game even though the team was in a great position... so while I have advanced maybe 2 months on it since ~2 months ago real time (~3rd in conference) don't spend too much time on it!

Since then though started a game with Winnipeg that I could just not get into (their prospects not as good as in real life seemingly, Flyers pool developed twice as well) and without top-end guys like G & V, and younger good players like Schenn & Couturier on the roster I felt no real affinity for them.

Started a game with Vancouver instead and got them to conference finals, major trades were picking up Klefbom and Rackell early on in prospect for prospect deals (Horvat involved) and later in year trading Lack and getting Markstrom in as backup... but he outplayed Miller so figured I would get rid of Miller (got close to nothing in return but helped cap!). Rackell rode shotgun with the Sedin's and was a 50 point guy, and Klefbom slotted in well. Lost in conference finals... but did not feel too invigorated to carry on game for some reason.

So started a game with IF Björklöven in the Swedish Allsvenskan to give myself a challenge, good team in the past with some history. Probably my favourite game up to now... set myself a rule where I can only sign Nordic players to make it more interesting. Got promoted first season and mid table 1st year in SHL (some shrewd signings mainly off the back of scouting) and 2nd year started to contend...

only problem is that player wage budget in Allsvenskan was ~800k euros... and only went up to ~930k euros in season 2 and 3!

So had to think a lot about team construction, decided to build around goalie (Christian Engstrand, got him from EBEL and he is awesome for me, paying him ~85k a year!) solid defensive forwards (Kim Karlsson, Daniel Brodin, Tobias Forsberg, Kristian Forsberg, Martin Gronberg, David Aslin & Anton Hedman, most as FAs and cheap tranfers) & dynamic defensemen (spent most of my budget on Linus Hulstrom!) as these guys can be had cheaper than all round D and offensive forwards, and you can keep them cheap!

Got Christoffer Torngren, Anton Bengtsson, Mastomaki and Viktor Ohman on cheap deals for some young offensive talent.

Signed kid D man Dennis Linder (I think a re-gen) who is 6'7 from a 3rd div club, and he blossomed into a monster after a season of J20.

Start of 3rd SHL season spent a lot of my accrued transfer budget on Pär Lindholm (for some solidity down the middle, and some more two way play instead of pure D!)

Also picked up Philip Holm, Niclas Lundgren and Eric Martinsson to solidify the defense. Also picked up Ricard Blidstrand for a solid bottom pairing guy. Arvid Lundberg was all I could afford to fill out D!

Picked up Richard Mutze as backup, cheap and surprisingly good for a guy who in real life is in 2nd div! Though ofc he is young so must have developed very well on game aged ~20-22.

Had to let Anton Hedman go as asking for ~90k, and I could afford ~70k.

Team looks like this going into 4th season:

Aslin -- Lindholm -- Torngren
Karlsson -- Ohman -- xxxxxx (may promote a kid, or try and sign a guy as placeholder)
Gronberg -- Bengstsson -- Brodin
K.Forsberg -- Mastomaki -- T.Forsberg

Holm -- Hultstrom
Lundgren -- Linder (20yr old regen, 7th round draft as overager)
Lundberg -- Martinsson
Blidstrand -- Backstrom (18yr old regen, drafted 6th overall)

Engstrand
Mutze

Brodin, Karlsson, Hultstrom and Engstrand get games for Sweden. Brodin and Hulstrom play virtually every game, Engstrand usually backup or 3rd goalie, Karlsson has played ~3 games in last 2 seasons... he is also the only player left on roster I started in Allsvenskan with.

Definitely the most fun game I have played since original EHM (I had an epic game with Modo where Mattias Wennerberg became pretty much the greatest SHL player of all-time!) and my budget was increased to 1.3m euro for 4th season... so have ~350k to spend on more wages, though think ~200k of that will go to signing promising youth players (I also try and only get prospects from North of Stockholm to make it slightly more realistic...) to properly establish J20 and J18 teams... as due to tight budget they have suffered and only have ~5 actual prospects... and only ~2 have chance to be good SHLers. (Backstrom and a winger who went 2nd round in draft)

To those that say the game is easy, here's a tip: don't go into the game trying to turn over your roster. Play it out with what you have, try and develop your prospects, and limit your free agent signings. It's really not that realistic to trade so many players before a season starts. I'm not trying to judge how others play, but for me, it's more fun to be successful with drafts and development than exploiting the trade AI

Another option would be trading your over 30 players for a younger team and working from there like the recent challenges.

Not been that prolific a player but I always start out (EHM/Football Manager/FIFA/NHL15) with the starting roster and rarely make signings till late in the season (January transfer-window in football/trade deadline for hockey).

I always like the challenge of using the starting roster and seeing if I can improve/match how the team is doing in real-life.

RyanSmythe wrote:

ohlund wrote:

RyanSmythe wrote:So Midway through my 15th season and i find that it still unfortunately is to easy to build a dynasty.


I've even implemented only resigning RFA's and 1 UFA, no FA pickups, No 1st round picks. Does anyone have any tips to make it more difficult.

So u had 70 wins in your 1st season with Stars roster... such a waste of time loading the game after every lose isnt it?

Huh?
Also I would hesitate to call it the Stars Roster. I had Benn and Seguin Obviously and Klingberg and Ekman-Larsson as my top pair, and apparently I had Price in net.
Also traded Spezza for Thornton and Had Eriksson and Hanzal apparently
From the trades I made
I didn't have
Lehtonen
Enroth
Hemsky
Honka
Dickinson
Eaves
Daley
Garbutt
Oleksiak
Spezza
Janmark
Shore
Johns
Moen
Horcoff
Peverley
Jordie Benn
Jokipakka
Lindell

It would be a stretch to call it the Stars "roster". It wasn't until after year 4 or 5, that I started limiting myself to make it more challenging.

I think that's exactly the point. IRL, it's unlikely that Price or OEL would be available in a potential trade. When people trade for Sid, Ovechkin, and on and on, it takes the challenge out. If you had started out with the Stars roster itself and done well to win over and over, maybe I could see you complaining about the ease of building a dynasty. If I were you, try building a dynasty with a bad team or a mediocre team with cap issues.

I play as the Montreal Canadiens. I've noticed through the years I've been playing (in-game years), there has been so many american goalies coming into the draft, but like really well rated american goalies. To draft a good canadian goalie (good potential) has been very rare for me. There's maybe been a small handful come through.

chonnyman wrote:I play as the Montreal Canadiens. I've noticed through the years I've been playing (in-game years), there has been so many american goalies coming into the draft, but like really well rated american goalies. To draft a good canadian goalie (good potential) has been very rare for me. There's maybe been a small handful come through.

Like real life, then
Canada does not produce really good goalies any longer

Still playing as the Devils. and my team is so crazy.. managed to make some crazy players on free transfer and cheap trades

Heres an SS to show it https://gyazo.com/876502b6c63b3c01d6b931b84ce5c177

About to start a game with the Senators.

Starting one with flames, got some work to do will keep you guys updated

Prowl wrote: I think that's exactly the point. IRL, it's unlikely that Price or OEL would be available in a potential trade. When people trade for Sid, Ovechkin, and on and on, it takes the challenge out. If you had started out with the Stars roster itself and done well to win over and over, maybe I could see you complaining about the ease of building a dynasty. If I were you, try building a dynasty with a bad team or a mediocre team with cap issues.

Considering trading is a legitimate way to build up a roster, the point is still valid. And it's not as if I still trade for players, I have a constant influx of Prospects through the draft, and am still going strong.
My current Roster features only John Klingberg on defense, who is unfortunately a 7th D-man at this point in his career(although he's injured)
The Rest of my Blue-Line is 2nd round picks or later.( 3=2nd(#60oa), 1=3rd(#74), 1=3rd(#88), 1=4th(#92), 1=5th(Klingberg)
My forwards Feature Seguin(2nd C), Nichushkin(2nd RW), Radek Faksa(4th LW) and a waiver claimed Tavares(4th C) the Rest are drafted prospects.

I will say the "hidden" attributes buried in the Pref menu(thanks whoever pointed that out) has helped make it more difficult, Fog of War just wasn't enough, but it's really hard to miss on Prospects in the first 3 rounds.
Short of Limiting yourself to 4th and later round picks, it would be pretty hard to put a mediocre roster out, and i've found that it easy to get usable roster players if you stick to the American Colleges in later rounds, which I don't know if is by design, but I can't think of to many 4th rounders that haven't played in the 30-40 game range or more, for me.
I have the #1-3 goal scorers in the league on my team,
4 of the top 5 Point scorers, #1-4, #8 and #12 in defensemen scoring are all on my team. the #1-2 goalies in both GAA and S%
in 47 games I've scored 273, and given up 57. The point is just as valid with a 2nd and later round "regen" roster or how ever it works in EA

And I will lose 1 of Nichushkin or Seguin this year, due to my 1 UFA rule, as well as Tavares but no big loss there, he really should be eating a HS and will likely retire anyway.

Had just started my 2nd season with the Flames and was sacked after a defeat took me to 5-5-4.

I'd gone from board hoping I'd do a bit better to board in absolute fury along with fans when I traded a 1st, 1st and 2nd only the next 5 seasons for Hossa and Saad. My team was way low on salary cap and had naff wingers beyond Jonny G and Foligno. Had just brought up Bennett.

So, going to start again.

My problem is still how much free reign to give Bob Hartley, I don't think as GM I should be doing the tactics or even picking the lines really but you need something to do huh.

Quick Question,
Does everyone use Fog of War? I can't decide if I want it on or off, so i guess let me know if its used a lot.

Yes, always. That's what scouts are for! ... well, part of their job, at least.

No fun in seeing all players attributes.. I always have Fog of War.

Just started a season in the EPIHL (English Premier League) with my home-town team MK Lightning.

Played one friendly so far, 3-1 win vs Solihull Barons. Looking forward to getting into the game and working with the 8.0a rosters.

Aim to start a Hull and Manchester Storm game as well.

I was playing a 7.4c db save for about 1 month now. Took it slow with the Jets, played 90% of the games in the season, got into the playoffs and reached the conference finals. Improved the team a lot to get to that point.

I stopped during the draft in 2015 as the new rosters appeared. Poor quality of players in the draft aside from a select few and i'm not sure how much will they develop. With the old games even if you picked 25-26th you got some decent talent that was at leas going to be a 2nd liner. Goalies also are a big mess. I was looking at Samsonov which was the best in all the scouts opinion and his attributes are a disaster. Even in the minors , how much can he develop ?! I understand a draft may be weak in goalies but can't we get 1-2 decent ones ?

With the 7.4c the most improvement i saw was in Ehlers which was the best in the minors and took a truck load of awards. He really looked like an very improved player when i got him after the end of the season. The AHL guys, even though St' John had a good season didn't see that much improvement. Did anyone else see this ?

Now with the new database i will have to start over, at least i gained an year, the other game started in 2014. I took a look at the team and the new players , it will be hard work to revamp the roster again. Sadly even the 8.0a Ehlers doesn't look anything like the improved 7.4c Ehlers i was going to play in 2015

Anyone else started with the Jets with the new database ? Any insights ?

Sorry for the long post, i was just looking to get a season at least under the belt to be able to share some warranted opinions about the game. Curious how the new db will change the game.

Started with the latest DB with Pittsburgh. No real changes, only picked up Paarjarvi from Waivers.

Perron - Crosby - Kessel
Kunith - Malkin - Sprong/Hornqvist

Went from 14-0-0 to 20-2-2 and now 32-2-2 with the BarrageTactic

Kessel out for 5 months, Fleury missed a month, Fehr is about to be match ready and Dupuis also out. The strangest part? Maatta hasn't missed a second

With the new rosters coming out, and with the NHL season underway...I got the urge to come back and play this game! So as usual I fire up a new Florida Panthers save. Decided not to change anything really and see how far I can get this team. My last save with Nashville I decided to be a pure GM, will be having more control this time around so will be interesting to see how it will go.

So far I've played 7 games and our record is 6-0-1 as it stands. Decided to put out a PP tactic that looks more like Panthers IRL and it seems to work pretty well so far. Unfortunatly though Jagr has not got going with only 2p. My current lines/roster:

Huberdeau - Barkov - Jagr
Jokinen - Bjugstad - Smith
Pirri - Bolland - Trocheck
Howden/Thornton - MacKenzie - Brickley

Campbell - Ekblad
Kulikov - Gudbranson
Mitchell - Petrovic/Kampfer

Luongo/Montoya