EHM The Blue Line

Which leagues you have selected ?

All but Canadien and British leagues.

I did win the series against S-Kiekko 4-0, but my game crashed three weeks later, just a few days prior to autosave (*reminder to set the autosave option to a weekly basis*) Luckly I decided to wait until May 1st to start building the team for next season, so I didn't lose much 'work'. I will now just go on holiday until the date of crash, I hope the outcome repeats...

Icos wrote:All but Canadien and British leagues.

I did win the series against S-Kiekko 4-0, but my game crashed three weeks later, just a few days prior to autosave (*reminder to set the autosave option to a weekly basis*) Luckly I decided to wait until May 1st to start building the team for next season, so I didn't lose much 'work'. I will now just go on holiday until the date of crash, I hope the outcome repeats...

I have almost all but british ones, and it took long when siming day, I have strong computer (for ehm standards). I will try with new save and won't select CHL leagues maybe they are the reason for slower game

I'd say it's more about the detail level and database size. I use large database and Quick simming for all competitions except the one I'm managing in. It takes about 10s in season and 5s in off season to sim one day.

Oh, and I also don't have Asian league loaded - normally though, I would have chosen every league, but since in seven years of playing EHM 07, I never had any desires to manage in Canadian or British leagues, I decided not to load them this time.

Hey all, I'm pretty new to EHM and have been out of the NHL hockey loop for about 10 years so have no clue about the players and certainly know nothing about the youth.

I went for a challenge with the Panthers in the NHL and quickly went through season 1 and did alright. I made the playoffs with 44 wins with Luongo netting 40 of those. Brad Boyes led my team with 91 points. I was quickly eliminated from the playoffs in round one with the Habs tossing me out in 5 games. Jagr retired on me and I dumped some of the older players not pulling their weight to try and start a youth movement. Not sure how my draft went since like I said, I don't know the youth at all but snagged Nicolas Roy in the first round at pick 18 but the rest of my draft seems pretty poor.

Early in season 2 I signed a couple veteran D-men for some depth but no big names. It's been a struggle as I yo-yo'd between 4th and 8th place most of the season and managed to slip into the playoffs again as the 7 seed. Boyes led my team in points again but only with 66 this time while some of the big name youngsters like Ekblad and Bjugstad really disappointed. I had to bring up 23 year old Rocco Grimaldi early on due to injuries and he had a fantastic season tying for the team lead in goals with 27 and netting 52 points. Luongo had a sub-par season as my team had 17 OT/SO losses. SEVENTEEN!! Somehow I knock off the Islanders in round one and now get the Penguins in round 2. Should be a slaughter as they are one of the favorites to win the Cup.

I really need toughness and defense as my PK was second worst in the conference. This off season is going to be really important and I can't wait to see what happens.

Schlitz wrote: I really need toughness and defense as my PK was second worst in the conference. This off season is going to be really important and I can't wait to see what happens.

Even though it was mentioned in another thread, that building a defensive line doesn't seem to work, I still think it's imperative that a team has solid defensive forwards, if only for the PK.

I myself have started an ECHL game. Haven't played ECHL since EHM 07. Took over the Alaska Aces, as I know nothing of any of the teams, and Alaska seems the most exotic and hockey country to me. My team seems to be built for quantity rather than quality. Going to have to see who I keep, and who I get rid off for some budget room, and possibly new signings.

The ECHL is quite fun to play. Because you are limited to only 18 players dressed and 20 on the roster, you're constantly fiddling with your lines and overall roster. Who to keep and who to release. I've never traded as much as I'm doing now. There's really no room for benching, because you can't afford to throw anyone off the line-up if you have an injury. And you really need to have some defensive players to give your top forwards a rest on PK. Good fun. Something different.

After struggling all season with tons of injuries and an inconsistent team I've been able to win the Stanley Cup! I barely finished 8th in the west with a couple of games left to the season and the team went unbeatable in the playoffs with a record of 16-5! I beat the super Ducks who finished with 131 pts in...4 games. Then went 4-3, 4-1, 4-1 in my other series.

In my players, Varlamov stood out the most with impressive stats. He finished 16-5, 1.62 GAA, .940% and 8.48 of perf average.

The playoffs went so well with the weird regular season I got that I wonder if it's normal.

I started my game from the finnish 3rd highest league, trying to coach this team with long traditions back to glory. The previous record of most cup wins was 6, so I took it upon me to break that record. Now I have accomplished that with the team's future secured for about 3-5 years with very good prospects and good finances, which means I need to find an another project. Maybe jump behind the wheel of a Liiga team if someone gets fired next season. Shame that I can't get promoted to liiga anymore from Mestis.

Well I finished off season two with the Panthers in the NHL and squeaked into the playoffs again as the 7th seed with 40 wins. Somehow I make it to the second round and lose to Pittsburgh in 7. Quite an accomplishment really considering I barely made it above the salary FLOOR.

Then in the offseason I was looking for some toughness with that being my weak spot and my best defenseman (Campbell) decides to retire after just signing on for an extra two years. Great. I check the FA list and seer Yandle out there for 8.5mil but then spy Stamkos as well. Checking some more I find Matt Bartkowski for relatively cheap to help me on D so I can go for Stamkos. He's being stubborn though asking for 11mil so I go after some better checking wingers and snag Peter Mueller and Mikkel Bodker. Salaries are getting high all of a sudden so I have to let Montoya go but have Jake Allen as a replacement anyway. Dropping some more fringe players helps and then after some more time, Stamkos finally drops his demands down to 9.5 mil. The board will only allow me to pay him just over 8mil per season so I offer a 5 year deal with a 1.2mil signing bonus and he takes it! Now I'm over the cap by a bit and made a separate save file in case I decide the Steven Stamkos experiment isn't working out and I can go back to being a cheapskate.

However, I started out 5-0 and now I'm sitting in first place at 11-4 with these lines:

Huberdeau-Stamkos-Boyes
Jokinen-Bjugstad-Grimaldi *** Grimaldi was second for Calder last season with 27 goals so I'm trying to get him more ice time***
Kopecky-Barkov-Bodker
Trochek-Pirri-Mueller ***Mueller swaps with Grimaldi from time to time***


Huberdeau is second in the league in goals and points and Stamkos is tenth after missing two games due to injury. My defenseman Gudbranson is second in the league in assists with 14 and I have only one player with a negative +/- (he's only played three games).
Luongo has been a bit hit and miss and over the last two games but finally got his GAA below 3.00 ---- my PK is killing me at 76.7%

Money is going to be an issue as I'll most likely have to let a couple players go after this season, but I'm really curious if going offensive will lead to a Cup run.

So I decided to go with Toronto Maple Leafs this time around. Fully expected to not make the playoffs in year one and get a nice draft pick. Things did not go as planned. I should say, I wasn't trying to tank but I also wasn't trying to make the playoffs. After the new year it looked like we were well and truly out of the race. 10p behind and not playing too good. Right there and then some of my better, underachiving players, decided it was time to play better. On the final day of the season we snatched a wild card spot. Obviously we lost 2-4 in the 1st round to Columbus.

I was offloading players left and right for picks and decent enough young players during jan/feb last season. Kept offloading during the off season and have a much thinner but oh so greater team. Funny though, start of the season was terrible (1-5-0), then we started to play better and are currently in 7th spot. My team this season:

Stamkos - Bozak - Nylander
van Riemsdyk - Kadri - Spaling
Komarov - Glendening - Pánik
Winnik - Frose/Danault - Randell/Arcobello

Rielly - Gardiner
Marincin - Tanev
Hunwick - Corrado/Ruhwedel

Reimer/Talbot

Nylander took about 8 games before he started to click on that line. But now he is really tearing it up together with Stamkos. 3rd line is actually playing really good, player of the year last season, Komarov, is actually one of the best player on my team so far this season as well.

I am just in half season in 2020 (EDM GM) and my team look like:

Ovechkin - McDavid - Tarasenko
Stamkos - McLeod - Puljujärvi
Lemieux - W. Nylander - Christenssen
A. Nylander - Brown - Draisailt

Juolevi - Pietrangelo
Klefbom - Gendron
Reinhart - Miettinen

Hogberg - Brossoit

*Gendron = 1st round pick in 2018
*Miettinen = 1st round pick in 2019
*Christenssen = 2nd round pick in 2016

I've been playing as Modo for two seasons as you might have seen in the Career Stories & Blogs section of this forum. Now I'm put in a tough spot because on one hand I want to keep playing as my favourite team and keep my blog, but on the other hand I want to try my hand on NHL management some day too, guess I'll have to think this one over for a while

kempelito wrote:I've been playing as Modo for two seasons as you might have seen in the Career Stories & Blogs section of this forum. Now I'm put in a tough spot because on one hand I want to keep playing as my favourite team and keep my blog, but on the other hand I want to try my hand on NHL management some day too, guess I'll have to think this one over for a while

That's pretty cool to get an offer like that. I honestly didn't know that could happen in EHM but then again, I don't know a lot of things about it. I bought it, DLd some league packs and installed them and went to work in the NHL. I think I may start a second game with some european/scandinavian league or ECHL to go alongside my Panthers franchise.

To continue off my posts from above, my Steven Stamkos experiment is going great! I know I'll be in trouble next season trying to resign a lot of big names but for now, I went from 40 wins in 2015-2016 and barely making the playoffs to first place in the conference and second overall with a record of 35-15-6 so far. Stamkos leads the league in goals and points and +/- and I have 5 players in the top 8 of +/-
Huberdeau was fifth in goals and points but got knocked out for a couple weeks as the injury bug seems to be making its rounds.

Oddly enough I am second to last in PP% and dead last in PK% even though I am second in GF and fifth in GA. Gotta find some special teams strategies cuz mine ain't working. lol

kempelito, if you still have goals to achieve with Modo, stick with it. If you got an offer from NHL now, you will get it later in the career as well. I did similar mistake while managing Suomi Sarja team and move to Mestis after two years. I never enjoyed it as much and I have hard time to play it now.

On the other hand, if you feel it to be 'fair', you can always save the game, try the NHL and if you didn't like it, go back to your Modo career.

It's strange to see a reference to "transfer funds" in regards to an NHL job (in 40 years of following hockey I don't recall transfer funds ever being mentioned in regards to an NHL team)

Some very interesting posting in this thread, very inspiring.
I’m new in this community and now in my second year with the Rangers, after a successful first year with bringing the Cup back to NY.
I will share my firt steps with you and give a short (more or less) review about this year, the following offseason and the start of year one after the cup. Would be glad to hear some opinions and hints from you about roster, trades, prospects etc.

Here we go:
First I skipped through this forum and the guides a lot before I started my career, reading everything about tactics and all the settings. After setting up all my lines, the tactics and training schedule my first task was to improve my roster.
• Shipped out T. Glass to Boston for Maxime Talbot (exp. 2016)
• Marc Staal was send to Detroit for Jakub Kindl and rights to Christopher Ehn (When always complaining about how Staal and Glass are used, it has to be the first move ).
Kindl was supposed to be No. 7 and Maxime Talbot winged on my 3rd and the PK.

On the season opener my team looked like this:
Kreider - Brassard - Nash
Miller - Stepan - Zuccarello
Stalberg - Moore - Talbot
Lindberg - Hayes - Fast
McDonagh - Girardi
Yandle - McIlrath
Boyle - Klein
Etem and Kindl scratched

Season started good despite I needed to find the right tactics and lines. Adjusted a lot, maybe too much at times. Kindl wasn’t playing well, Boyle missed two weeks and I called up Skiej for a couple of games and he got some 3rd pair minutes. Anyways I was pleased with the results. Not very consistent but successful. Gave away Etem for a 3rd rounder, and signed Carl Klingberg for cost controlled depth. After 2/3 the Rangers looked down from the 3rd place in the Eastern, chasing the Caps and Bolts. Rick Nash was 3rd in goals, Stepan and Brassard got 25+ Assists, Lundqvist made usual Lundqvist things. Only the special teams struggled the whole time. PP 17.something% and PK around 80%. Tried 2 different systems and gave them 1-2 month to develop, but no improvement. Changed the players bit , but not that much.

Since Season went well and the trade deadline was near I concentrated to get my team ready for a deep playoff run. Took the opportunity to get rid of Girardi.
• Picked Alexi Emelin on Waivers
• Got Dustin Byfuglien and a pick (3rd or 4th) for Girardi, Ryan Graves and rights to Aleksi Saarela
• Acquired Mike Hoffman (Senators) for J. Kindl, rights to B. Halverson and R. Mantha
• Took Jordie Benn and a pick (3rd or 4th) from Stars for Dan Boyle (exp. 2016) and rights to D. Bernhardt

So my roster for the playoffs looked like this:
Kreider - Brassard - Nash
Miller - Stepan - Zuccarello
Hoffman - Moore - Talbot
Stalberg - Hayes - Fast
McD - Byfuglien
Yandle - Klein
Emelin - Boyle
McIlrath and Klingberg scratched

Ended Season on 3rd in Eastern and in first round of the playoffs I met with:
Penguins
Won series with 4:1. Good overall team effort, Crosby and Malkin couldn’t get their game going.

Second round:
Capitals
Went through with a 4:2. Ovechkin was a thread, but couldn’t dictate the play as feared, since the Caps were 3-1-1 against me in the regular season. A downer was the injury of Kevin Hayes in game 6. He missed 2 weeks. Also I wasn’t quite satisfied with Emelin so McIlrath got his shot halfway through the series. Also called up Skiej again.

ECF:
Lightning
Close series, after 2:2 I won Game 5 and 6 with a one goal margin and got myself a ticket to the finals. A glorious moment for the new manager and a proof that the Rangers still are amongst the best in the league. But the joy was tempered by the injuries of J.T. Miller for a week and Dan Boyle for three.

SCF:
Ducks
Number one seed in the Western and fall to them 2-0-1 in the regular season. Started with a home win but then lost next three games, nothing really seemed to work. For Game 5 I juggled the lines around again, and it was a sign of fortune that Miller and Hayes came back. Miller played wing on the 2nd line, Hayes centered the 4th line again, winged by Fast and also Hoffman, who was deployed there (also put on PP). And 4th line turned this whole thing around. Hoffmann with 4G +1A, Fast 1G+ 3A, Hayes 1G+3A in next three Games and in the end the Stanley Cup Parade could take place on Broadway again!
After a short period of rest, the preparations for the next season started. Some contracts needed extensions (Kreider, Miller, McIlrath, Yandle, Hayes), re-signed Benn and Megna (AHL) and some vacant positions wanted to be filled. Find an overview below. Got some 2nd and 3rd Picks that aren’t listed (can I see them somewhere?).


Roster now looks like this:




After 19 games it looks very good overall, 15-2-2, Kreider and Hoffman scoring, Buchnevich leads Rookies in G and P. Only Nash isn’t contributing very much, yet. PP and PK is just awful (13.0% and 77.1%) and no improvement in sight, although I try everything… Also Derek Grant, who I hoped could fill the 4th line center spot, wasn’t good at all, so I called up Megna, who is running the 4th line now. And it works good so far.

Also I signed a Prospect from KHL (see below) and since I drafted some potential promising Prospects I took over the Hartford Wolf Pack in the AHL to have better control over them the next years. Filled up the roster with UFA players and claimed a solid Goalie (Bachmann) from waivers to back up Skapski, my top prospect in net.


At the moment I’m looking for a right top two defenseman, that has good shot attributes and which salary is around 3.000.000$, like Ryan Ellis e.g. Wish me luck.
What do you think?

Hey zuuuuuuuuc... didn't take you long to bring home the cup at all! A fast start sure looks promising for a repeat as well. I nearly went for Kreider in my current season with the Panthers but I got lucky with nabbing Stamkos instead. I'm not very familiar with the players though so I can't give much input on your roster.

My own Steven Stamkos experiment as I call it, turned out to be pure gold.
I started out the season very strong but the Stars were the top team in the NHL nearly all season long...until I caught them with around 15 games to go. They were tops on the West but lost out to the Kings in the conference finals. My Panthers however...

In just my third season I managed to dominate the entire league. Knocking off all the top teams along the way, the Panthers finished 51-17-14 for 116 points, tops in the league. A rash of many but thankfully mostly short injuries in the second half of the season had me wondering what was going to happen. Stamkos missed just 4 games, Huberdeau missed 8, Ekblad missed 12, and even Luongo got knocked out of action a few times. Thankfully my backup is Jake Allen who I picked up in my first season and is good enough to be a starter.
Stamkos ended up leading the league in goals and points going 53-48-101 with Huberdeau third in goals and tying for fifth in points with 40-36-76.
Jake Allen went 20-8-9 with a 2.28 GAA and 0.920 S% and three shutouts
Luongo went 26-8-4 with a 2.46 GAA and a 0.915 S% but just one shutout

One of the bigger disappointments was Rocco Grimaldi who scored 27 goals last season as a rookie but only managed 13 this season. But then the playoffs came...

Round 1: Islanders --- not too tough and win 4-2 with two OT games
Round 2: Canadiens --- they knocked off the #2 seed defending champ Lightning in round one but I dispatch them in 5 games, including 4 OT contests. Could easily have gone the other way against this #6 seed.
Round 3: Devils --- Again, win 4-2 with 2 OT contests. Started out 0-2 but then won 4 in a row to clinch the Finals berth.
FINALS: Kings --- These guys finished second in the West and knocked out the first place Stars in the conference finals. Shockingly enough, I win the series 4-1 with no OT games at all.

In my 22 playoff games Stamkos went 13-18-31 with Huberdeau complimenting him with 10-17-27
Luongo managed a tremendous 2.03 GAA with Jake Allen backing him up with a mind-blowing 1.81 GAA

Oh and the disappointing Rocco Grimaldi? He just saved his best for the post season with 12 goals after only netting 13 in the regular season.

So in just my third season I steamrolled my way to being Stanley Cup Champions! A repeat could be in order since all my big name players are still under contract with only some 4th liners/depth players probably on the way out. Several very mediocre prospects are also going out the door so there will be lots of importance on the draft and free agency to keep some solid depth in the mix.

Been a while since I posted but here is an update. I'm on season 2022-2023 with the Bruins. The team started out with me wanting to build a team around Filip Forsberg who I traded to the team in season 1 (15-16) as well as keeping some of my favorite bruins players like Bergeron, Chara, Eriksson and Marchand. Won the regular season 2019 and 2020, won the Stanley Cup 2021.

By now most of the original Bruins roster is gone, only T.Rask, T.Krug, J.Zboril and P.Bergeron are left. Chara retired and I had to drop Eriksson and Marchand when they became too old and expensive , both are currently playing in SHL and doing decently there. Bergeron is acting weird, 2 years ago he had his first bad season then he bounced back and had a great season and now he his having a really bad one again, guess that's what happens at 37. Anyway I'm gonna keep him until he retires in the Bruins jersey.

Current season is going well with me and the Bruins being #1 in the standings with two really great lines where all 6 forwards have 50+ points in 70 games. I have some pretty good prospect forwards as well but my defense will need an upgrade in the future, biggest worry for next season is staying under the salary cap since a lot of contracts end this year and my young stars probably want big pay rises to stay with me.

And now for the best part, images:
http://imgur.com/a/lx0ye

Toronto Maple Leafs 2016/17

I think this was the fastest I have ever won a Stanley Cup title in the game. What a season we had! Winning the President's Trophy on the last day of the season, 1p ahead of the Capitals who we then eliminated in the Eastern finals in 7 games! We then managed to beat the Blues in the finals in another hard fought 7 game series.

Stamkos was kept pretty quiet in the 1st round where we swept the Rangers (then 4-1 Boston), 3rd/4th lines were great...only to be a liability in the following 3 series. Thankfully my top 6 stepped up and Stamkos, Nylander, van Riemsdyk all took command. Key injury ahead of game 5 to Nylander saw Kapanen called up, having only played 4 games in the regular season and no points. He ended up with 2p in 3 games and helped us win the cup at a difficult time. My playoff team:

Stamkos - Bozak - Nylander/Kapanen
van Riemsdyk - Kadri - Spaling
Komarov - Glendening - Higgins ---> Higgins a deadline pickup
Danault - Cizikas/Frose - Arcobello/Pánik ---> Cizikas a deadline pickup

Rielly - Gardiner/Tanev
Marinicin - Tanev/Ruhwedel
Hunwick - Corrado/Ruhwedel/Cowen

Reimer/Talbot

Thomaxius wrote:..which means I need to find an another project

The "another project" ended up being leksand in Swe-2. My first goal was to win the allsvenskan and possibly fight for promotion, as the team undoubtedly had the highest player budget and had been 2nd last season. I completely rehauled the staff and created an extensive scouting network, which helped me find a few players from abroad. I also brought in my goalie from Koovee, and a few other players.

The season went better than I thought, and I won the promotion playoff 4-0. But now I had a real challenge in my hands - competing in the SHL.

I decided to rely on a tactic which needs a lot of speed and is based on counter-attacks, so I went out to get some fast players.
I ended up having a team where there wasn't a single player with less than green speed and accelration, and thought I'd at least fight against relegation with that team. Well, I won the whole thing (33-9 in season standings), breaking a few SHL records in the process (goals for, team wins, team points..) with a play off record of maybe just 3 losses.

It seems that fast players are a bit OP in this game, lol.

Hey guys, so I bought the game a few days ago and its the first game out of the row I have played. I already have 31h of gameplay and I think its a really good game and its quite hard compared to the football manager I used to play (the one from EA). After a few short tryouts I startet with Arizona and sadly got fired after like 20 games in the 3rd season. I made a rebuild and in the 3rd season they expected me to get to the playoffs which is fine, however at the time I was 9th I think so its understandable. I always let the coach do the tactics because I feel like its more realistic and its probably for more advanced players as I still have to learn a lot about the game. It's almost a year now since I got fired but I cant get a position as GM. I'm German and my reputation is automatic so I dont expect to get on a different NHL team, however I cant even get an ECHL job or a job in a German league. Is it normal that I have to wait that long?

In addition to that I wanted to say thanks for the database. It seems like a very nice forum and I really appreciate the work you've put into the different files here!


EDIT: Thanks for the answer and sry for posting in the wrong thread.^^

Daeni10 wrote:It's almost a year now since I got fired but I cant get a position as GM. I'm German and my reputation is automatic so I dont expect to get on a different NHL team, however I cant even get an ECHL job or a job in a German league. Is it normal that I have to wait that long?

Welcome to the club ... we have this thread going regarding unemployment, and quite a few of us seem to be having a lot of difficulty.

Just finished my first season of a new Sheffield Steelers save.

I didn't make any signings and I didnt sell or release anyone.

We came runner up in the regular season to Braehead.
We were also knocked out in the first round of the play offs by Dundee
Also lost in the quater finals of the challenge cup after getting knocked out by Edinburgh
But we did get through to the quarter finals of the CHL

Top scorer for the team was Tyler Mosienko with 54 points from 62 games.

After my unexpected Stanley Cup victory it's now time to start season number fourth.

Most of the team is stayed the same. I added 3 players to the team during the summer and did a trade right before the start of the season. I finally been able to get rid of Grigorenko when J-G Pageau got put on the block by Vcr GM. I did not had a particular interest in Pageau but some of his attributes and his performance average were better than Grigo. Too bad his value was so low now I was hoping to get more for him. There's only my assistance manager who was still thinking he was an "untouchable player".

My biggest move came from the free agency when I signed Kyle Turris for 3 years at 4.5 M$. I'm very happy to finally have a decent second line center. This is something that was missing from season one IMO. Next addition is Greg Moore who got scooted in the ECHL last year. He has good defensive attributes and I was looking for someone like that to help on the PK. Last addition is Luke Green, my first rounder in 2016, who got a constant growth since I drafted him. I'm trying him with the team for a couple of games to see if he can handle the NHL and if not, I'm going to send him down. He took the spot of Gormley who got a pretty disappointing training camp.

I forgot to say that at last year trade deadline I got DeKeyser for Zadorov and a 4 stars defensemen prospect. I added a pick to that too but I'm forgetting which one it was. Maybe a second rounder.

So the lines now look like this:

Landeskog-Duchene-MacKinnon
Nantel-Turris-Rantanen
Winnik-Spaling-Moore
Rendulic-Pageau-Williams

Holden-Barrie
DeKeyser-Johnson
Bigras-Green
Gormley

Varlamov
Pickard