EHM The Blue Line

NHL 40
This is not a test. This is 2017/18 season with 40... yes...40 teams for NHL, AHL and ECHL league.

I was inspired with Project NHL 36 by BKarchitect, who done an amazing job that made me want even more. I imagined almost every state with a hockey team and I made it. First I've edited BKarchitect database, but missing player histories made me to use the newest tBl database. I have maintained an 82 game schedule template, for both regular and Olympic years. I managed to create 1:1:1 farm team ratio with doing a lot of relocation so the NHL/AHL/ECHL teams are within the same conference in appropriate league. Moreover I created few extra teams to have SPHL playable! I worked on the project for a whole month, intensively. This is a "fan fiction" but I have tried to be as realistic as possible even when picking team names.

Expansion teams start blank, but feel free to use BKarchitect's expansion draft file to provide teams with players (probably I will try to create extra database with filled rosters for expansion teams)
I also updated the draft prospects a little bit, and some extra players. I did so, because in my opinion, the "-" potential are too randomized and cover too wide range of PA's (even having -7.5 and -8.5 like in Football Manager series would be very helpful here)

Known Bugs:
- Still in a testing phase, waiting for your help

NHL Changes:
Addition of 9 expansion teams (not counting Vegas):
West Conference - Seattle Sasquatch, Portland Beavers, Saskatoon Whitetails, Kansas City Scouts, Houston Aeros, Milwaukee Admirals
East Conference - Quebec Nordiques, Atlanta Thrashers, Cincinnatti Stingers
The result is 20 teams per conference, consisting of 4 divisions based on geographical distinction with 5 teams each for one of them.

The schedule consists of:
- 2 games for each team between themselves (Home and Away game) = that equals 78 games
- Divisional clash: remaining 4 games happen within the division rival (2 rivalaries home, 2 away)

Team reputations, arenas, attendance, etc have all been updated and new rivalries have been entered based on the new divisional layout and expansion teams.


AHL Changes:
A lot of changes happened here. Some teams remained with their original status, but some of them were send down to ECHL. In my database shape, they are now located in the vicinity of their parent farm team. Most of the changes are caused by the concept of closeness between affiliations.
Added teams:
- Birmingham Bulls (from SPHL)
- Fort Wayne Komets (from ECHL)
- Halifax Raiders (new team)
- Jacksonville IceMen (from ECHL)
- Orlando Solar Bears (from ECHL)
- South Carolina Stingrays (from ECHL)
- Abbotsford Heat (relocated from Stockton, brought back from the hiatus)
- Colorado Eagles (from ECHL)
- Oregon Pioneers (new team based in Portland)
- Red Deer Caribous (new team)
- Regina Stags (new team)
- Reno Peregrines (new team)
- Springfield Thunderbirds (relocated from Massachusetts to Missouri - my toughest decision on this relocation)
- Tacoma Sabercats (new team - former WCHL team)
- Victoria Comets (relocated from Utica)
- Wichita Thunder (from ECHL)
- Wisconsin Harvesters (new team based in Madison)

ECHL Changes:
A lot of changes happened here as well. Not many teams were left with their original status after editing AHL, I'm not sure is there any team with its original affiliation. The reason for that is the same - closeness between affiliations. Moreover, I focused my logo decisions on the concept of same name (Devils) or color scheme (Sharks/Barracudas/Thunder)
Added Teams:
- Albany Devils (returned from hiatus previously AHL)
- Baltimore Bandits (new team former AHL team)
- Elmira Jackals (returned from hiatus)
- Maine Mariners (actually, the team is going to play next season, so why not?)
- Mississippi RiverKings (from SPHL)
- Pensacola Ice Flyers (from SPHL)
- Sherbrooke Snowy Owls (new team)
- St. John's IceCaps (returned from hiatus previously AHL)
- Sudbury Gladiators (relocated from Atlanta because of the Thrashers in NHL)
- Syracuse Crunch (send down from AHL)
- Virginia Cyclones (relocated from Cincinnatti because of the Stingers in NHL)
- Alaska Aces (returned from hiatus)
- Albuquerque Vipers (new team)
- Bakersfield Condors (send down from AHL)
- Fargo Freeze (new team)
- Billings Blaze (new team)
- Fort Worth Frostbite (new team)
- Fresno Falcons (returned from hiatus)
- Little Rock Badgers (new team)
- Omaha Lynx (new team)
- Rockford IceHogs (send down from AHL)
- Sacramento Monarchs (relocated from Manchaster to Sacramento)
- Spokane Cougars (new team)
- Stockton Thunder (relocated from Adirondack to Stockton)
- Thunder Bay Prospectors (new team)
Removed Teams:
Norfolk Admirals. Their replacement in the state is in Virginia Cyclones, so I haven't seen any point in having them in game anymore.

SPHL changes:
I was left with 7 teams of 10 after moving Birmingham Bulls to AHL, Pensacola Ice Flyers and Mississippi RiverKings to ECHL. This gave me the possibility to add Louisiana and Kentucky to the map by addition of New Orleans Steamers and Louisville Captains respectively. I have also added Jackson Dolphins to keep the balance in the league.
The players after the changes were send to appropriate team.

Disclaimers:
- I spent a ton of time on adjusting the database, you are welcomed to expand/enhance it, but please inform me about it and credit me for my work.

Credits:
Main:
- BKarchitect !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This guy has done an amazing job with his project, and I want to thank him for inspiring me.
- tBl rosters creator/s for doing an amazing job, which was my starting point after changing my direction of creating the database. I used tBl roster 10.1 to create my database.
Graphics:
- Tyle Rodgers for his concepts of Quebec Nordiques, Houston Aeros, Albuquerque Vipers (co-opted from his Utah concept) and Lousville Captains (co-opted from his Rivermen concept) this guy is an animal if it comes to logo creation. couldn't find his webpage so the link to his NHL Super League http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/967 ... er-league/
- Christian Legault for his concepts of Saskatoon Whitetails and Sherbrook Snowy Owls (co-opted from his Quebec Nordiques concept). http://legaultdesigns.blogspot.com
- Sparky Chewbarky for his concept of Portland Beavers (co-opted from his Ontario concept) http://boards.sportslogos.net/profile/3 ... chewbarky/
- Chris Reimer for his concept of Seattle Sasquatch https://dribbble.com/chrisreimer
- Andy Hall for his concept of Cincinnatti Stingers https://www.behance.net/tsbcreative
- Kenion Harvey for his concept of Kansas City Scouts found here: http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/113 ... urrection/
- Dakota Perock for my favourite concept on the list Wisconsin Harvester https://www.behance.net/DPerock
- Matthew Ware & Justin Cox for their cooperational work on Halifax Raiders https://www.behance.net/matware https://www.behance.net/JustinCoxDesign
- Troy Birmingham for his concept of Red Deer Caribous (co-opted from his Clarenville logo re-done) http://tbcreative.ca/
- Isaac Palestino for his concept of Reno Peregrines (co-opted from his Las Vegas concept) https://www.behance.net/JetProArt
- Christopher Smith aka BURZUM for his concept of Birmingham Bulls (co-opted from his USL IceBulls concept) https://burzum.deviantart.com/
- Aguirre28 for his Pioneers logo concept which I have found here http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/critiqu ... neers-logo
- Patrick Finney for his concept of Thunder Bay Prospectors http://www.pfinney.com
- Matthew Doyle for his concept of Omaha Lynx (co-opted from his Helsinki concept) https://dribbble.com/matthewdoyle
- Sportsworth for his/her concept of Baltimore Bandits https://sportsworth.deviantart.com/gallery/
- Chris Knudson for his concept of Fort Worth Frostbite https://nutson.deviantart.com
- SK for his badger logo concept which I have found here https://www.designcrowd.com/design/1672856
- Dylan Nowak for his concept of Jackson Dolphins based on his sketches at sportslogos.net https://www.behance.net/DylanNowak
- Paul Jacob Scowden for his concept of New Orleans Steamers (NBA originally) http://pjscow.blogspot.com/
- The other new logos/identities in the expansion are all either existing / defunct / touched-up versions of actual logos.

DOWNLOAD DATABASE HERE:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/r1qr6yzctnfs ... 4X3Va?dl=0

DOWNLOAD LOGOS HERE:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p0ywvmrt7icah ... s.rar?dl=0
Logos include NHL/AHL/ECHL/SPHL logos (Huge/Large/Small) I use in my game.

Here is the affiliations section.
1. Anaheim Ducks - San Diego Gulls - Bakersfield Condors
2. Arizona Coyotes - Tucson Roadrunners - Fresno Falcons
3. Atlanta Thrashers - South Carolina Stingrays - Greenville Swamp Rabbits
4. Buffalo Sabers - Rochester Americans - Syracuse Crunch
5. Boston Bruins - Providence Bruins - Maine Mariners
6. Calgary Flames - Abbotsford Heat - Billings Blaze
7. Carolina Hurricanes - Charlotte Checkers - Virginia Cyclones
8. Chicago Blackhawks - Chicago Wolves - Omaha Lynx
9. Cincinnati Stingers - Fort Wayne Komets - Indy Fuel
10. Colorado Avalanche - Colorado Eagles - Albuquerque Vipers
11. Columbus BlueJackets - Cleveland Monsters - Toledo Walleye
12. Dallas Stars - Texas Stars - Allen Americans
13. Detroit Red Wings - Grand Rapid Griffins - Kalamazoo Wings
14. Edmonton Oilers - Red Deer Caribous - Rapid City Rush
15. Florida Panthers - Orlando Solar Bears - Florida Everblades
16. Houston Aeros - San Antonio Rampage - Fort Worth Frostbite
17. Kansas City Scouts - Wichita Thunder - Tulsa Oilers
18. Los Angeles Kings - Ontario Reign - Sacramento Monarchs
19. Milwaukee Admirals - Wisconsin Harvesters - Rockford Icehogs
20. Minnesota Wild - Iowa Wild - Quad City Mallards
21. Montreal Canadiens - Laval Rocket - St. John’s IceCaps
22. Nashville Predators - Birmingham Bulls - Missisipi RiverKings
23. New Jersey Devils - Binghamton Devils - Albany Devils
24. New York Islanders - Bridgeport Soundtigers - Worcester Railers
25. New York Rangers - Hartford WolfPack - Elmira Jackals
26. Ottawa Senators - Belleville Senators - Sudbury Gladiators
27. Philadelphia Flyers - Leigh Valley Phantoms - Reading Royals
28. Pittsburgh Penguins - Wilke Barre/Scranton Penguins - Wheeling Nailers
29. Portland Beavers - Oregon Pioneers - Idaho Steelheads
30. Quebec Nordiques - Halifax Raiders - Sudbury Snowy Owls
31. San Jose Sharks - San Jose Barracudas - Stockton Thunder
32. Saskatoon Whitetails - Regina Stags - Fargo Force
33. Seattle Sasquatch - Tacoma Sabercats - Spokane Cougars
34. St. Louis Blues - Springfield Thunderbirds - Little Rock Badgers
35. Tampa Bay Lightning - Jacksonville Icemen - Pensacola IceFlyers
36. Toronto Maple Leafs - Toronto Marlies - Brampton Beast
37. Vancouver Canucks - Victoria Comets - Alaska Aces
38. Vegas Golden Knights - Reno Peregrines - Utah Grizzlies
39. Washington Capitals - Hershey Bears - Baltimore Bandits
40. Winnipeg Jets - Manitoba Moose - Thunder Bay Prospectors

Teams map:

Interactive version here:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mi ... 000001&z=3

Looks promising keep going!

Hartford Whalers, instead of some non-NHL teams. Just a suggestion.

CJ wrote:Hartford Whalers, instead of some non-NHL teams. Just a suggestion.

Thought about it, especially, there were many good logos inspired by original whalers logo like Connecticut Whalers logo, but to be honest I don't think Hartford will return. In my project I tried to balance all the leagues, that's why some teams were moved to hiatus, while other reloacted to western part of the USA.

Here are all new teams with the logos I've found on different concept projects and used all credits will be added to the authors when I organise some time for doing it. Unfortunatelly my drawing skills are to poor to do them personally, so I just do some editing in gimp.

Beside NHL, AHL, ECHL I've reorganized and added teams to SPHL which was a good source of teams to ECHL before and probably it will be in the future as well.
You can see how it looks on the map:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Xn_2K ... sp=sharing

I will link the logos when I will supply all the credits and I would be very pleased if you find any mistakes and inform me about them so I could fix them. I personally found few but they were very minor like arena name which was changed from the version of database I used.

There is only one true Wisconsin hockey team, and they are the Wisconsin Moo Cows! (I realize nobody will get that, and I'm ok with that).

Has anyone looked into what effect having so many teams at NHL, AAA, and AA levels does to the player pool/database? I'd imagine some league or leagues suffer *massively* further down the pipeline, no? I'm especially thinking leagues like the DEL, SHL, SM-liiga, NLA, etc, would see their caliber drop dramatically.

Nice work though. I'm going to be curious to try this and experiment.

BKarchitect wrote:Looks promising keep going!

Here are the logos for the new teams
https://www.dropbox.com/s/09iaydxyhyhqb ... a.rar?dl=0

I'm working on the project graphics right now. I would like to create hockey rinks for all added teams, but I need your help. What companies logos should be on hockey rinks in Atlanta, Cincinnatti, Houston, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Portland, Quebec, Saskatoon and Seattle (in this case I used OVG and AEG who are working on the KeyArena renovation and two biggest companies in Washington State - Starbucks and Amazon)?
Here is the screenshot of the Seattle Sasquatch rink I have already made:

One thing I'm noticing right away is that the salary floor is going to be an issue with a lot of teams.

I mean, obviously the expansion ones of course, but then also teams like Arizona and Carolina are struggling as well after losing players to waivers to fill out the empty expansion club rosters. I mean, every team seems to have lost guys (and often the higher-priced bad contract ones) because the competition to fill out rosters is so fierce. But Arizona in particular is starting the season well below the floor now and I'm not sure they can easily get back above it. Losing Bolland's contract was devastating to their cap. Had he gone through to the AHL they would have retained most of the cap hit ($4.5m of the $5.5m), but instead now it's all gone and they sit at $45.7m, and there's nobody left to sign because the bajillion expansion teams have completely drained the FA pool. They lost one or two other lower-priced players I believe.

Right now the empty expansion teams are all between $20m and $30m cap hit, which you'd expect having started empty. The absolute top spenders are only in the $72m range of a $75m cap. A team like DET that is usually right up against the cap is only at $68 because Ericsson and someone else's terrible contracts were snapped up off waivers right away (and Ericsson had like 8 competing claims on him judging by his Info page at the time).

The trade market is also deeeeaaaddd because not only are NHL teams not able to make questionable UFA signings (because the expansion teams went to town on them) and therefore the existing NHL teams don't have financial/cap issues to worry about anymore... but also then the run of waiver claims did further damage to team cap hits in that regard.

It looks like for at least 2 or 3 seasons it's going to be very ugly financially around the league. I'm not sure if there are enough high-salaried players to support so many cap hits. Guess we'll see...

Primis wrote:One thing I'm noticing right away is that the salary floor is going to be an issue with a lot of teams.

I mean, obviously the expansion ones of course, but then also teams like Arizona and Carolina are struggling as well after losing players to waivers to fill out the empty expansion club rosters. I mean, every team seems to have lost guys (and often the higher-priced bad contract ones) because the competition to fill out rosters is so fierce. But Arizona in particular is starting the season well below the floor now and I'm not sure they can easily get back above it. Losing Bolland's contract was devastating to their cap. Had he gone through to the AHL they would have retained most of the cap hit ($4.5m of the $5.5m), but instead now it's all gone and they sit at $45.7m, and there's nobody left to sign because the bajillion expansion teams have completely drained the FA pool. They lost one or two other lower-priced players I believe.

Right now the empty expansion teams are all between $20m and $30m cap hit, which you'd expect having started empty. The absolute top spenders are only in the $72m range of a $75m cap. A team like DET that is usually right up against the cap is only at $68 because Ericsson and someone else's terrible contracts were snapped up off waivers right away (and Ericsson had like 8 competing claims on him judging by his Info page at the time).

The trade market is also deeeeaaaddd because not only are NHL teams not able to make questionable UFA signings (because the expansion teams went to town on them) and therefore the existing NHL teams don't have financial/cap issues to worry about anymore... but also then the run of waiver claims did further damage to team cap hits in that regard.

It looks like for at least 2 or 3 seasons it's going to be very ugly financially around the league. I'm not sure if there are enough high-salaried players to support so many cap hits. Guess we'll see...

Thanks for your feedback!
I've noticed the same. To make it more reliable I've decided to lower the salary floor to 30mil and this is what I'm going to do in the next update. The FA pool in my save is as well drained from NHL level players, although I used the biggest database possible. I've scanned through ehm assisstant and there are only 3 players with CA above 100 and one of them is 40years old Iginla.
I've also scanned the expansion teams squads and here are results of expansion teams with players of 100CA and above
Beavers:9
Scouts:11
Stingers:9
Nordiques:13
Thrashers:13
Whitetails:14
Aeros:10
Admirals:13
Sasquatch:37 (my team)
The only reliable solution to that is filling the teams with the expansion players. I'm going to use BKarchitect excel file and provide 20 players for each team on every position. This can give an opportunity to the expansion teams to be a real threat and losing 6 players won't make the losing team to lose too much potential.

nashmc wrote:Thanks for your feedback!
I've noticed the same. To make it more reliable I've decided to lower the salary floor to 30mil and this is what I'm going to do in the next update

That might be a bit much. $40m might be better. It should still be a struggle for the expansion teams, but asking them to get to what, $53m for the floor is just an awful lot. By the time you get through one season and then get to UFA's again, those new teams should be adding more salary again and be able to get up into the $30m's pretty easily, with $40m not far off. $50m is a whole different story though given all the new teams to distribute talent to.

The NHLPA would be thrilled if the NHL added so many teams but kept the current floor/cap structure because a lot of lesser players would be getting PAID serious coin to make it work.

nashmc wrote:The only reliable solution to that is filling the teams with the expansion players. I'm going to use BKarchitect excel file and provide 20 players for each team on every position. This can give an opportunity to the expansion teams to be a real threat and losing 6 players won't make the losing team to lose too much potential.

I'm really wondering if there's enough talent in the DB to support 40 NHL orgs. And that's not a DB problem, the talent just might not be there period.

I'm playing a save as Atlanta right now though to see. I want to know what the landscape is in 3 or 4 seasons. I've also been running into some bug (Overall standings screen is whakced the heck out) and what to see if playoffs work without a hitch and whatnot.

Primis wrote:I'm playing a save as Atlanta right now though to see. I want to know what the landscape is in 3 or 4 seasons. I've also been running into some bug (Overall standings screen is whakced the heck out) and what to see if playoffs work without a hitch and whatnot.

Recently I was surprised with that too, I think it might be caused by the rules of classification, instead of Division Winners I picked top 3 teams of division. Probably, this might be the solution.

Here is a excel sheet to provide an expansion draft.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2x0b4ap1xjvp ... .xlsx?dl=0

nashmc wrote:Here is a excel sheet to provide an expansion draft.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2x0b4ap1xjvp ... .xlsx?dl=0

I can't get this one to work. Are you sure this one is working properly?


Edit: Nevermind.

92joehal wrote:
I can't get this one to work. Are you sure this one is working properly?


Edit: Nevermind.

Here is a file that can be added through ehm editor and adds 20 players for each expansion team, making a nice starting point. The rules were little bit different than in NHL 36 as teams could protect 2 goalies, 6 defenders and 10 forwards. Every player 36 years old had to be protected. Vegas Golden Knights' players weren't included in the player pool. Every team lost 6 players. First I picked 6 best picks from every team, but with my previous excel sheet you can provide your own picks.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mmlpwp2eqr85k ... .xlsx?dl=0

You guys are amazing!!

i throwed the idea when the 36DB came out , glad someone did it !

based on wich Db? any update soon?

Columbus GA needs a echl team

I made the playoffs a 32 team tornament, therefore adding a 5th round. In the east, the playoff bar was still 91 points, but the bar in the west was just 44 points. The expansion teams sat nicely in the bottom.

Thanks for your responses, I gave up on this project because of no replies but will return back to it soon after the end of the semester (I'm a teacher at school) and update the game for the newest database.

Orlando,Charlotte,Portland,OKC as NHL Team maybe?

What do you think about the reactivating the project? I've received a nice pm two days ago from someone interested in the doing a franchise, maybe I should update for the newest season? Hopefully BKArchitect won't mind If I use his awesome 7.4 version with 36 teams

Yes to it.

Guess who's back?
Alpha version is in the link below. If you want to help me with running test, please do it! Made an expansion draft and I have spreadsheets for doing your own, but will post it when I am sure, that the game is playable.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kw8h5zdajjy6 ... nUc8a?dl=0
If you start testing just give me a hint.
Big up!

When trying to create a League with it get a 1.41 League error and only changed Midwest name with Northcentral and Southwest with Midwest. Hvae not added any Teams but would like to add Orlando and OKC.

I’ll post the new version pretty soon, I’m still testing that one. The error comes out in UK League any other league works fine. I’m still working on some minor issues and I’m adding new players and creating some cut-outs for any important players to create a mega facepack downloadable via torrent if Archibalduk agrees on that.