EHM The Blue Line

Hey everyone

New to the boards and hockey in general. I've been a FM gamer since about 2012 so I know my way around SI games a bit. Recently they added a reputation star rating to world leagues as a comparison of quality (EPL 4.5 stars vs MLS 2.5 stars). I don't think anything like that exists in EHM, correct? If so, could anyone give me a quick run-down on what the best leagues are in order? I don't trust my computer to run all the leagues.

From my understanding the best leagues from top to bottom in EHM/real life are
NHL
KHL
CHL
..
..
?

Am I correct so far? Obviously this could be a subjective answer, but I'd be curious to hear some opinions. Thanks in advance!

Welcome to The Blue Line!

It's highly subjective, but the top ones are something roughly like this:

NHL
AHL / KHL
SHL
NLA / Liiga

At the lower end:

ECHL
Norwegian Elite / Danish Elite / EIHL
Suomi Division
Czech 1st Division
EPIHL

Welcome Noah. There isn't a correct answer for these the lower we get in the leagues. The highest are NHL, KHL (Russia & Europe), SHL (Sweden), Liiga (Finland), AHL (America), NLA (Switzerland) etc.

CHL as you suggested isn't really that high in order.

IMO it depends on your "perspective" too...

I think in NA the KHL can be considered lower than the Sweden/Finland in terms of developing NHL talent (i.e. NA teams are more likely to be concerned about a prospects development in Russia...I've seen things like coaching, ice time and style of play being the areas of concern). The NCAA isn't mentioned above but giving the percentage of NHLers that have spent time in the NCAA "from a developing NHL talent perspective" the NCAA would likely be as high or higher than any European/Russian League (as would the AHL)

But if you're a top pro player and don't want to play in the NHL, without any doubt the #2 League is the KHL

If you're a young player starting out (teenagers), and want to play in the NHL, Major Junior (WHL/OHL/QMJHL) is usually considered the top steppingstone to being drafted by an NHL team

There's also "from a GM's perspective" (I'm not sure what EHM is like, but IRL I don't think success in Europe/Russia has a lot of value in NA in most cases)

In EHM07, the database values were:

NHL - 20
Swedish - 14
Russian Superleague - 13
Czech Extraliga - 13
Finnish SM-League - 13
DEL - 12
AHL - 12
Slovakian - 11
ECHL - 10
Swedish Allsvenskan - 9
Austrian - 9
Canadian Juniors - 9
CHL - 8
UHL - 8
Norweigan - 7
Danish - 7
Finnish Mestis - 7
Slovenian Elite - 6
Interliga - 6
British Elite - 6
Finnish Suomi - 5
Interliga 2 - 3
English Premier - 3

Obviously the KHL will be higher than the old Russian Superleague and some others may have been amended since as well, 8 years is a long time so it will be far from current, but give an idea.

From 7.3 rosters:



OBS: There are more, I removed "divisions" that are part of leagues and also only posted ranked 8 and above.