EHM The Blue Line

This game is going to make me scream. I just can't figure it out. I've been posting on the official boards, but those are next to useless. This seems less active, but you guys seem more knowledgable, so maybe you can help me out. Forgive me, this will be a long post.

1. My power play is awful. True to life, the ottawa senators can't buy a power play goal. I'm bottom 5 with about 14%. My first PP line is usually;
Heatley - Spezza - Alfredsson
Redden - Corvo

I used to give up shorties all over the place, so my defensemen are pretty conservative. Redden is very defensive, hard backchecking, and doesn't join the rush. Heatley and Alfredsson are my shooters, as well as Corvo, Spezza is the playmaker. I've experimented with putting Alfie on the point, and 5 forwards (a la Buffalo). I've played with my tactics and sliders, doesn't seem to make any difference.

Its expecially frustrating, because I played one season with the Blues. On my PP, I have very similar types of players, but every Ottawa player is better (attribute-wise). In that St. Louis season, I led the league with a 29% conversion rate. I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong.

2. My team in general is never very good. Usually place from 6th - 10th in the conference. Completely overhauling my lineup doesn't seem to make any difference. I've restarted the Sens literally over a dozen times over the past month. Usually, I'm ranked either first or second in the league when the season starts. My lineup in my current game is;

Heatley - Spezza - Alfredsson
Sturm - Handzus - Collins
Moreau - Scatchard - Clark
Kinasewich - Kelly - Vermette

Redden - Van Ryn
Vaananen - Meszaros
Volchenkov/Jokela - Corvo

Niittymaki
Emery

I match lines, to try to get my 3rd line to shutdown the opponents top, but it doesn't do much. Even at home, when I get the last change, I rarely get my matchups on the ice properly, and I'm not sure why. Are there any major holes you notice in my roster?

3. I have a really difficult time getting into the offensive zone. My players seem to pick up the puck, advance to the blue line, and kinda mill around in the neutral zone. The skate and pass around, until one player slowly crosses the line, and promptly uses the puck.
Also, breakout passes never seem to work. My guys never take a pass at speed. They stop/slow down to take the puck, giving the opponents defense more than enough time to get into postion.
I alos have lots, and lots, and lots of bad passes. Simple passes that are just completely off the mark.
And my players don't seem to understand what "dump and chase" is. You're supposed to dump it in, and have forecheckers going in hard to try to get control, while having men on the points in case someone tries to clear it off the boards. My forecheckers stop/slow down before entering the offensive zone, and don't bother trying to keep the puck in.

4. I'm not really sure what each tactic does. I know boardplay/grouped is more for physical/grinders. But I don't really know what situation positional, free flowing, crisscross, and wings cross is for. What type of players are each of these suited for? As it is now, I'm just kind of randomly combing these for my finesse-ish lines, hoping for results. I've read the guide here, and its great for getting a general idea of what eqach tactic does, but i'm still not too sure how to use them.

I'll probably have more questions, but can't think of them right now. I just really want to play with Ottawa. I can be successful with every other team I use, but can't seem to make this team work. And its going to make me scream, because not being able to play with my favourite team kinda ruins the game for me...

Well first of all welcome to TBL! Good to have you here and yeah there's more actual discussion and less screaming here than the SI Boards in general

As for your post... yeah, I know the feeling. I think we all do probably... it can bee a tremendously frustrating game sometimes just because there are so many factors that go into what makes a team successful or not successful. Even more frustrating above that there's a lot that goes on that could make a good team a great one or a good team an unsuccesful one once you start changing things. We even have a smiley for it: so before you get to our advanced version I'm sure we can help you out!

We know you have the talent to have a quality team and you obviously know enough about hockey that you just have to succesfully make some tweaks; it can be something minor sometimes or maybe you're missing something. I wanted to welcome you and say I'll look at your post a bit more carefully later tonight and try to help you out with some specifics

Thanks a lot buddy .

I know exactly what I want my players to do, I just don't know how to tell them to do it .

Sometimes I think it would be easier to actually be a coach/gm so I can yell and scream at my players in person.

Speed kills. If you're top two lines have good speed set them to play uptempo.
I have mixed feelings about Nittimaki otherwise your lineup looks solid.

Good luck turning things around

Heatley, Spezza and Alfredsson just started tearing it up. Unfortunately, just a few games ago, both Sturm and Alfredsson got hurt and are out for three months. I slipped a bit, not scoring nearly as many goals, so I brought in Brunette and Regehr to try to staunch the bleeding.

Luckily, both Sturm and Alfredsson should be back about mid April, so hopefully they should be ready for when the playoffs start.

I'm getting frickin' steamrolled by Buffalo every time I play them .

Positional is a very basic style in which the wingers and center stick to their 'traditional' positions on the ice. Crisscross and wings cross are useful for high skill/speed players, allowing them to use their wheels and their smarts to skate circles around the defense. I have my offensive lines set with freeflow breakouts, crossing in the neutral zone and triangular in the attacking zone. This gives your skill guys a chance to 'improvise' more with the puck, in my experience anyhow, and great players make things happen when they're given the chance. Also make sure you set your forecheck and defensive zone systems according to the intention of the lines.

If you're having trouble making passes, make sure the best passer on each line is set to pass while the others are set to shoot (it's not a sin to have two passers, either). Play with individual tactics if you see a particular player making bad passes and make sure he's passing safely or very safely.

Are you running the latest patch? Line matching was an issue that's since been addressed, so if you're on the old version that's probably why. If you're on the new version and your lines aren't matching up make sure distribution is set to equal and that you have your line matching set properly. This part confused me at first, so maybe you're having the same problem: your line is the first one (4v1 means your fourth line against their first line), so make sure you have it set according to whichever line is your checking line.

I assume that that's Sean Collins on your second line there. I picked him up early in my GM 'career' for some cheap offense and he did pretty much nothing for me. Even on my top line with Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay he was a bust. Some guys don't have what it takes mentally to be big-time players, and there are rumours of 'hidden attributes' like chemistry that, if a player lacks, will make him suck. If I were you I'd find someone more reliable than Collins, unless, of course, he's been effective for you.

Hope this helps a little (well I hope it helps a lot, but I'm a realist).

Thanks for the help.

I've noticed also that attibrutes don't necessarily correlate to production. I usually pick up Collins, Balastik and/or Kinasewich. They couldn't defend against a midget player, but their offensive attibrutes are up there with the all stars. Every once in a while, they'll get 3 goals and 5 points in a game, but usually do nothing. Kinasewich played all 82 games, Collins played almost 70, but neither of them broke 30 points.

I'm gonna keep playing with my tactics, but it seemed like my top line exploded after Christmas when I set everything to positional. I'm not really sure .

I just finished my first season, getting rolled in 6 by the flyers in the second round. I think I'm in a better position going into the second season though. Specifically my second line should be better. Brunette and Collins were useless....

When you make changes to your tactics and/or lineup, give it time to see how it runs. Players will have to adapt themselves to their new linemates or to the new tactics, so let run 10 or 20 games before making new changes. Else, your team will never work well.

If you have some difficulties with the tactics, we have a tactics guide in our download section that can help you Other parts of the game will be covered later on (there's only Archibalduk and i who work on this project, with some appreciated help from Minstrel, and we're a bit occupied)

And, as you noticed, TBL users are always here to help people, so feel free to ask in our forums

By the way, welcome to TBL! I hope you'll enjoy being one of us