EHM The Blue Line

Heatley, Esposito, Trent Hunter
Brunette, Stastny, Matt Cooke
Saprykin, Hamil, Asham
Hanman, Tavaras, Cody Burki

Betts and Chris Durand are spares

Thats my lineup right now. Not that they get time on ice that way, Tavaras typically gets the most minutes, Stastny usually gets the least, and he was a 92 point getter last year on front line with Cheechoo and Heatly. Both Hunter and Cooke have had a few weeks on injuries each (not at same time) and moving up Stastny, Hamil and Tavaras seemed to work well, and in fact better than when they are in the lineup. I'm tempted to get rid of both hunter and cooke and just get some 3rd and 4th line talent instead. Both have played 14 games (out of 23 in total) Hunter has 20 points, Cooke has 14. Hunter is 5th in points for my team currently.

Both Esposito and Hamil are at least accomplished in all forward positions, so they can play wherever really. I like my left wing setup.

Heatley (96), Stastny (92), Cheechoo (91)
Brunette (48), Brind'Amour (51), Hunter (70)
Saprykin (52), Esposito (46), Cooke (51)
Hagman (32), Hamil (25), McCormick (15)

Betts (19) & Asham (22) are extras.

That was my lineup last season that got me the cup. Numbers in brackets are points that season.

So what would you do to make this work better? My preference is to keep my young players, but I'm open to suggestions.

I'm using the original database as well.

Nobody has any ideas?

I'm putting off playing until I can figure out what I should do. So help would be preferable, Solitaire gets boring after playing it for hours.

The biggest problem is youy don't have a good center.

Tavares is probably too young. You lost Brind'Amour and Chechoo and i don't see any good replacement. Trade away Hamill and Esposito for Brad Richards or another good creative center like Gomez as long as they are young. Put Tavares on the second line center position and let him play Powerplay, too.

And don't forget to use only the good tactics!

I'd say Stastny is a good enough center, but not a great set up overall imo, I'd like a LW better than Brunette next to Tavares in second line.

Rougesang wrote:I'd say Stastny is a good enough center, but not a great set up overall imo, I'd like a LW better than Brunette next to Tavares in second line.

Who would you consider to be a good replacement for Brunette?

selne wrote:The biggest problem is youy don't have a good center.

Tavares is probably too young. You lost Brind'Amour and Chechoo and i don't see any good replacement. Trade away Hamill and Esposito for Brad Richards or another good creative center like Gomez as long as they are young. Put Tavares on the second line center position and let him play Powerplay, too.

And don't forget to use only the good tactics!

Brind'Amour was old so I wanted to get rid of him before he retired, and Cheechoo played horrible for me during the playoffs, so I pretty much benched him and won the cup without him. With all the young players I had coming up I just decided to get rid of him. Stastny, Esposito, Hamil and Tavaras are decent players and I'd rather keep them and build them up. Plus I did a lot of wheeling and dealing to get the draft picks to get them.

However that still leaves me with the problem of how best to use them. Rougesang suggestion of a LW is interesting as I thought Brunette has been decent for me so far. So I'm stumped on how to work it out. Hunter and Cooke are good players but my young players need ice time to improve and they are just not going to get enough with them in my lineup. I don't think anyway, which is why I'm asking the question.

Afinogenov is probably pretty easy to get, and he is def a good player in EHM. He probably can use his speed and stickhandling to get tavares a open lane to score.

Tank821990 wrote:Afinogenov is probably pretty easy to get, and he is def a good player in EHM. He probably can use his speed and stickhandling to get tavares a open lane to score.

Detroit has him and they are not letting him go. lol

I tried grabbing Semin fron the Caps, and I can probably get him if I give them a good enough deal. Would he make a good fit with Tavaras?

OK, this is what I did, tell me if I messed up.

Heatly, Esposito, Hunter
Semin, Stastny, Tavaras
Saprykin, Hamil, Asham
Hagman, Betts, Steen

Cody Burki and Chris Durand are backups.

I traded Brunette for Steen and decend defence prospect, and I got Semin for Cooke plus a 2nd round draft.

In 20 games Semin got 25 points and Tavaras is doing well on right wing too. Stastny is doing rubbish for some reason. So I may get rid of him next season as I picked up Malkin (he is on 4 month IR) for a draft pick and my backup goalie.

So did I mess up or did I do ok?

Looks good to me. I like the stastny and tavares and semin line. darn i wish malking would get injured so i could grab him lmao. Maybe switch stastny and esposito. maybe stastny will play better with heatly

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Afinogenov
Sedin twins-Gaborik

OR

Kovalchuk-Datsyuk-Afinogenov
Sedin twins-gaborik

Problem is the second choice leaves not alot of cap room. The first one is better with cap, and zetterberg and datsyuk prefer eachother. My only thing is they are both centers soooo zetterberg can play LW but idk if it would get his full game out of him. What you think?

Tank821990 wrote:Looks good to me. I like the stastny and tavares and semin line. darn i wish malking would get injured so i could grab him lmao. Maybe switch stastny and esposito. maybe stastny will play better with heatly

Actually the Penguins put him up just before he got injured, and I was making a deal for him, which got rejected, and then when I went to make a better deal I noticed he was now injured. A 4 month injury. So I waited awhile to see what would happen and about a month later I made a different offer, which was accepted. I just donno what I'm going to do with him when he is healthy. lol

Yeah, I'll move Stastny up a line and see how he does. However my coach isn't giving him a lot of icetime anyway, even on second line. He gets 12-14 minutes a game, sometimes less than the 3rd and 4th line centres. I do have them set to use current lines, so I donno why he doesn't get the ice time.

But I'll try putting him on 1st line and see what happens.

Personally I like the second one, cause is every one of my game Kovalchuk has been really really good.

Find other ways to trim for cap space. Bring up some youth players or trade for some cheap 3rd and 4th liners.

Just my uninformed thoughts.

That's a pretty expensive lineup. Do you really want to keep them all in your team? If you have a Kovalchuk in your team you don't need a Gaborik any more. Use both Zets and Dats as your centers and give them some big bodys on the wings if you want to win.

Looks like this:

1. Kovalchuk - Datsyuk - Tootoo

2. Hollweg - Zetterberg - Bobby Ryan

Kovalchuk and Ryan will score many goals.

I wouldn't strip it as much as Selne would, however I'd get rid of Gaborik and see if I could put someone else in his spot such as a young and up and coming player. Btw I'd go with the second lineup and or possibly bring in Zetterberg and deal the Sedin twins and bring in another winger as well.

I made a mistake in explaining here. This is who i would draft. If i got kovy and datsyuk no zetterberg. If i get datsyuk and zetterberg then no kovy. Either way i can still get gabby

Are you by chance playing a fantasy draft game?

Yeah sorry. I did not explain well enough. On the odd chance i can get malkin, Datsyuk, Zetterberg haha.

More depth on the 3rd and 4th lines.

You realistically can't have 6 all-stars in the top 6.

Pick Kovalchuk is going to put 60 goals + every season But you'll need to have someone good enough to get the pass on is stick. Datsyuk is good but not enough for me. Jeff Carter is outstanding if you develop him well, he had a good chemistry with Kovalchuk.

From here on out, if you want to ask for other users advice on what to do with your team/roster/lines, use this thread. It seems like this is a common subject that comes up, especially with newer users, so rather than everyone starting their own thread, put them all in here.

Any new threads asking for advice on what to do with your team will be locked!

MOD NOTE: Merged both Qikdraw and Tank's lineup help threads into this one. - B72

I'm skipping the intro thread and hopping right into my problem. Just returning to the game after a few years away.

Took over the oilers and I'm just starting season three - 15 games in. We've finished just under .500 the past two seasons, or 11th and 13th.
I'm playing it cheap so I've dumped some people and now lost Horcoff (wanted $6 mil) at the beginning of the season but signed Drury and Pominville as FA's, and just traded a 4th round pick for Alex. Picard.

My trouble is Schremp and Hemsky haven't and aren't producing. I'm sure it's their lines.

Picard/Drury/Hemsky
Cogliano/Schremp/Pomminville
Reddox/Pouliot/Stafford (picked-up late previous season)

Anyone have success with Hemsky or Schremp or should I wait until landing that scoring center in FA or try for a big trade.

Thanks

I am not sure if this helps you at all dvsman, but in my oilers game Rob Schremp very quickly developed into my first line center. I know it varies quite a bit between games... but Hemsky has generally turned out to be a fantastic winger in my games. In my Leaf game, however.... Schremp was terrible, and the Oilers waived him and he never got another contract.

It looks to me like you are fairly week up the Left side, Cogliano can develop fairly nicely (from my experiences anyhow).

I really don't like Drury much (in EHM, IRL i think he's a great player).
I would suggest sticking with it... let your team develop a bit. Make sure your coaches all suit the style of your team, and your team is in line with the sort of players your coaches work well with. Draft well, and good luck

Hi all,

There might be a tutorial for this somewhere but I can't seem to find it. My team is playing terrible defense. We're allowing 2 more shots per game than the 2nd last team. Is there a guide that describes the best ratings to look for in defense? I have been focusing mostly on Checking and Hitting, but am thinking I should start looking more into Positioning, and Speed. Are there others? I'm also wondering if it could be a tactical issue. My defense is:

Vaananen - Foote
Vernace - Hannon
Liles - Clark

We also have one of the worst PK's in the league and am wonderign what types of attributes I should look for in defensive forwards? I looked at the Oilers team (who is leading the league is lowest shots allowed) and it seems they have alot of defensemen with high stamina and strength. I lack quite a bit in those area with the exception of Hannan.

Thanks for the help!

adamcm wrote:Hi all,

There might be a tutorial for this somewhere but I can't seem to find it. My team is playing terrible defense. We're allowing 2 more shots per game than the 2nd last team. Is there a guide that describes the best ratings to look for in defense? I have been focusing mostly on Checking and Hitting, but am thinking I should start looking more into Positioning, and Speed. Are there others? I'm also wondering if it could be a tactical issue. My defense is:

Vaananen - Foote
Vernace - Hannon
Liles - Clark

We also have one of the worst PK's in the league and am wonderign what types of attributes I should look for in defensive forwards? I looked at the Oilers team (who is leading the league is lowest shots allowed) and it seems they have alot of defensemen with high stamina and strength. I lack quite a bit in those area with the exception of Hannan.

Thanks for the help!

Some good attributes to look for in a defenseman are, Pokecheck, Hitting, Cheking, Positioning, Bravery, Anticipation and all physicals are a plus. If you're looking for a more offensive D-man, add in, Passing, Creativity and shots.