EHM The Blue Line

It actually pained me to trade Patrice Bergeron. Even though it's just a game, it just didn't feel right trading him away.


So I finished my pre-season. A few things became clear.

1. Spooner is not good enough. His skill set says he should be playing on one of my offense focused lines. He's just not skilled enough to really do the job at the NHL level. He'll have to do for this season but I'll have to get rid of him for the next season.

2. Pickard and Subban are going to have to split the starts. Neither really stood out as clearly better than the other in the preseason. I was leaning towards Pickard but he had an abysmal game in the last of the preseason.

3. My defense and wingers are looking pretty good. Seth Jones missed some of our pre-season due to playing in the World Cup but once he returned to the team he was a stud. Joe Morrow looked really good too. Krug was a little disappointing. I'll have to tweak his tactics. Nurse, K. Miller, and Irwin performed as expected.

4. Kuznetsov is a stud. He'll be carrying my offense with some help from Pasta.

Yeah, i figured that Spooner was not going to cut it so i went after two Cs in the trades, Spooner is doing a good job on my 3rd line though, also plays on the PP. What's surprising for me about Spooner is that he's described as a two-way forward for me, thought he was a pure skill guy?

I gave Matt Irwin a good look but he's playing himself off this team, i'll give Cross a chance next, otherwise i'll bring one of the kids up.

One happy surprise for me is that Colin Miller is doing well, over 7 Av R and +2.

Because of recent injuries to Spooner and Sheahan, I've had to call up a couple of centers (Zac Phillips and Seth Griffith).

Griffith has impressed enough that he's still up and I'm sitting out one of my other centers (Khokhlachev to be exact).

So, right as my schedule got tight with some back to backs first McIntyre then Mrazek gets 10 day injuries, so i bring up Subban and give him a spin, he wins his first 3 starts and posts a .932 SV%, since Mrazek has been underwhelming (hovering around .900) i'll keep Subban up at the big club and rotate them for the rest of the season.

Nice challenge Traded away Chara, Eriksson, Rask, Krejci, Seidenberg and Bergeron for (combined) 3 1st picks, 1 2nd pick and 5 3rd picks. Plus Oliver Kylington and rights to Cukste (sharks)

Board and fans absolutely furious

Ouch, you might have a rough couple of seasons if you only traded for picks

After first 9 games.

+++ First line. Khoklachev - Matthews - Toffoli
Khoklachev - 10 goals ; 3 assists ; +10
Matthews - 3 goals ; 10 assists ; +10
Toffoli - 5 goals ; 4 assists ; +11

+++ Tommy Cross. What a shock. He was playing about 13TOI but he has nine assists after nine games and +9!

-- Both goaltenders.

-- Ryan Spooner, now he is on 4th line already and Griffith is in second line between Marchand and Pastrnak.

Bruins have 9 points after 9 games, so 0.500%. But I hope that it will be better.

My lines for 10 game:
Khoklachev - Matthews - Toffoli
Marchand - Griffith - Pastrňák
Beleskey - Kemppainen - Hayes
Connolly - Spooner - Randell

Zbořil - Morrow
Krug - Trotman
Cross - Miller

Mrázek
Subban

Had Spooner come back from injury and he's been lights out as my #1 center.

Still tinkering with my PP lines though. Special teams is killing me.

Satyr wrote:Nice challenge Traded away Chara, Eriksson, Rask, Krejci, Seidenberg and Bergeron for (combined) 3 1st picks, 1 2nd pick and 5 3rd picks. Plus Oliver Kylington and rights to Cukste (sharks)

Board and fans absolutely furious

Do you have a save from before the trade for Cukste's right? You're not allowed to trade for player rights in the challenges. Only draft picks and contracted players.

How is Zboril doing with the big club, Rono? I decided to start him in Providence and maybe try him out next season.

I've got Griffith playing 4th line RW. He's doing about as expected for a 4th line guy. Spooner is centering my 3rd line and my 2nd PP unit. Sheahan is 2nd line and PK. Maybe I'll swap Spooner and Griffith after a bit?

I started Griffith as my 4RW aswell but Randell has outperformed him so he's my healthy scratch for now. I'm also interested in how Zboril is doing, i sent him back to juniors where he's playing 25 minutes per night and is doing great.

My Rangers-trade looks to pan out great, Kevin Hayes is a beast, Lindberg is a solid two-way 3LW who PKs and Skjei is the top defenceman in Providence and will likely challenge for that 6D spot next season.

Guys, Zboril is playing 27minuted per night and is doing solid, bud he could be still better. Most of his time he's playing with Joe Morrow, who is great to offense but bad to deffense...

Zboril stats after 18 games: 1 goal; 10 assists; -4; 12PIM
He plays in all situations (including PP, PK and 4v4).

Yes, Zboril is my number one Dman already.

WOW! I didn't think he'd be anywhere even close to being ready yet.

I was a bit surprised by the season preview rankings. Buffalo was actually ranked #1! Of course, I wasn't surprised to see us ranked #30.

So I can just throw out a good deal of what I thought I learned in the preseason. We're struggling to score. We've only played 6 games so far but it's looking grim. After 3 games I sat Spooner and put Griffith in his place. Griffith has done marginally better. I brought up Ferlin to play 4th line RW and he's been solid. Three straight games with 7 ratings. No points but he's not hurting us. He's throwing some hits too. Oh and Nurse is playing much better in the regular season than he did in the pre-season. He's got 4 points in 6 games, tied for 1st in points on our team.

Arizona were ranked #1 for me, getting both Matthews and Chychrun obviously helped

Beleskey is a positive surprise for me, he's doing great on my crash the net line with the Hayes brothers.

Well, being trade the things i love but where i'm worst

I am doing terribly! This is bad.

I was doing good, suddenly i got the January losing streak, 5 and counting.

Forward wrote:Well, being trade the things i love but where i'm worst

Those were not cheap trades.

Started the season and....Marchand out, Belesky out, Kemppainen out all on IR

I forgot to sign Jeremy Smith so I'm stuck using Vladar - McIntyre with Subban in the AHL. They really aren't doing that well. In 9 games I've already lost 3 1 goal games (none went OT) and I'm 2-7-0. I may be rushing some rookies on the team here like Shenyshyn and Crouse but they're both over 7 AvR so I think I'll keep them here for now

bruins72 wrote: Do you have a save from before the trade for Cukste's right? You're not allowed to trade for player rights in the challenges. Only draft picks and contracted players.

I saved before the draft... I'll restart

Trades

Pretty happy with that. Larkin should be a top 6 center for almost 15 years, with Ducliar (togheter with Pastrnák) top 6 RW should be set for a number of years, Murphy will be on the top D-pairing for 10+ years and Mrazek should be good enough until one of my draft picks' ready.
In other news, Chára has since, due to cap reasons, been traded to Arizona to team up with the three guys I already sent there and Krejcí was traded to Bolts, also for cap reasons (They have also re-signed Stamkos, so good luck with cap to them).

Draft

Feels like a very good draft for us. First four and the 6th picks (LD, G, LW, LD and C) are all, after a couple of looks from my 20 JPA scout, 5 stars and Visuri (C) is at 4.

Lines

Starting off like this. Since I'm a modern man (HA!) there's not much room for the Conollys, Kemppainens, Hayes' of this world. I want to play offensive and I want all my lines to produce.

Let's see how it goes.

Oh, yeah. Matthews went to the Devils as the 5th pick. Who would've thought.

I chose to collect picks and hope for the best...

Trades
Just offered them to all teams and picked the best deal available. Not the greatest idea, I admit. In Malcolm Subban we trust

Draft
Lots of players to choose from, I relied on the suggestions once round three started. Ended up with some decent guys.

Squad
Morrow is still generating some interest, but I have to keep some quality. Training Camp is coming, let's see who can hold a spot...

Satyr - That Bergeron deal brings your 4 pieces, maximum allowed is 3.