EHM The Blue Line

Something odd happened in my Rangers game...

After the first season was done, I was looking for a center so I could move Straka to 2nd line and get someone slightly more productive with better pas/cre for my top line. As usual, I turned to Savard, who chose Blackhawks instead. Bummer. As the free agency craze was dying out, I noticed two rather famous names who were still carrying the FA tag - Brad Richards and Alex Tanguay, who scored 128 and 133 points last season respectively.

I quickly approached both, but neither would even discuss terms. Fair enough, I decide to go another route, so I swung a deal to bring me Demitra. This was in, lessay, early august.

Training camp time, and Brad & Alex are still on the dole. Out of pure fun, I invited Richards to my training camp...and was I amazed when he accepted it. My cap was loaded though, and the fool wanted 12.5m over two years, so I said "no thanks".

Months pass, but neither seem to mind - unemployed life is treating them good I guess. Finally, mid-January, Tanguay cracks and signs a $4m deal with the Flyers until the end of the season. Richards ? Fat chance. I approach him, wondering if he lowered his demands...I found out the bugger now wants $8m until the end of the year. To which I showed him the door (and the finger).

It's early march in my game now, and Richards finally succumbs it seems. He's last seen negotiating something with dead-last Bruins, looking for a quick cash-in before the next FA craze. Good luck to him, I guess...

Did this happen to anyone, that two marquee FA's waste almost a whole season away without a club ? It's somewhat common with me that Jeremy Roenick is collecting unemployment benefits longer than the other 1st season FA's (he's usually available well into September), but he's near 40 and his skills are rapidly declining. Richards and Tanguay are both either in their prime or approaching it, and it strikes me as rather amazing that they would sit out the whole season without a club...

Update : Richards did sign for the Bruins - 2 years (well, more like a year and a month), $2.5m per year. Turns out it's a bargain, but seriously, who can afford to wait until freakin' March ?

This happens regularily and you can hire stars like that for peanuts basically. Good example being Richards for 1.2M a year, Tanguay for 1.2M a year and Gagne for 850k a year. Another problem seems to be top prospects thrown in waivers during the season, seen it happen with Jeff Carter and Mike Richards as well as Phaneuf and Parise.

I believe the problem is that the financial side of the game would still need a bit of tweaking as currently the computer GM's fill up their cap limits and that way are unable to sign the stars, not even their own RFA's, which sometimes means that a guy like Crosby can retire because no one can afford him

I guess all we can do is hope that Riz acknowledges the problem and agrees to make one more patch. Or then that the NHL EHM 2007 will come out soon, with improvements on this side of course.

Ya it does happen all the time. On my most recent game in Januray of the season, Kovalchuk and Heatley were still available, so I brought in Heatley for 2.7 million and Kovalchuk for 1.7 million. Needless to say they gave me the extra offensive pop that my cup run needed.....

I've not seen too much of this, Brad Richards was the best player on the list at the beginning of the season but went in October for 3 or 4 million, at Christmas Anson Carter is the only top two liner UFA available which isn't too bad for realism.

Signing RFAs without the AI matching offers is something I find annoying, and Parise is the best player I've seen on waivers.

I need something like this to break for me, I can't lift the Hawks away from the bottom for anything.

It took me until 2013 to finally hit paydirt with the Hawks. I think I made the playoffs after my 3rd season. Seems to be all about finding the right free agents. The only player i was never willing to trade was Barker, hold onto him as long as you possibly can

Update : no such phenomenon in the 07. offseason...Chris Drury held out longest, and he signed somewhere midway through the training camp.

The forthcoming offseason is gonna be interesting though. Crosby and Ovechkin will be testing the market amongst others, not to mention Hossa and many more.