First and foremost, if attributes are known to you, they are what they are. It's not like in Fm15 where you can have a range of attributes, like passing 12-16 or something like that. If the player has 11 checking, he's got 11 checking and that's the truth.
But of course, under neath those attributes are a whole different range of attributes the staff might know of that will be hidden for you (unless you use the editor or something like that).
I'm taking these from a previous EHM guide for 2007, but most of it should hold up for this version.
Hidden Physical Attributes
Fighting - Well this one kinda makes sense, right? How good is your player at dropping the gloves and his adversary? An enforcer who can't fight is like a condom in the Vatican, pretty much useless.
Injury proneness - Also self-explanatory. Being IP will mean they'll get injured quicker, and there's a bigger chance of the injury being a bad one. If the proneness is high enough, it will affect their attributes and might end careers prematurely or leave them as a husk of their former selves.
Natural Fitness - Pretty big attribute. This entails how much your player will be able to keep himself at the highest level of fitness. This doesn't just mean that they get tired slower, this also means that injuries will affect them less and they'll recover faster, it will mean the difference of being able to have intense practices without tiring, or medium ones and still getting tired. It will finally affect the playing career of this player, players with very high natural fitness will be able to stave off the cliff for much longer than someone with a very low one. Think Miro Satan, think Wayne Gretzky, think Brendan Shanahan and Mario Lemieux... Players who have high Nat-Fit can keep going well into their 30's where some great players drop off the moment they turn 30.
Hidden Technical Attributes
Agitation - How well is your player at getting others off their game? Depending on the player role this can make someone a pest, or just great at mindgames and smacktalking. High agitation players simply have some sort of factor that will make opposite players get annoyed by them. A disciplined agitator can do a lot of good for your team, and a lot of bad for the other team as he can goad people into fights, penalties, or just put them off their game and make them less good at what makes them good.
Versatility - Again a very obvious one. How versatile is your player. High versatility means players will be able to play non-natural positions at a better skill level than someone with low versatility, and it will also mean that when you tell them to learn a position their position attribute will increase faster. If this is low enough they won't ever be able to learn a new position.
Hidden Mental Attributes
Consistency - Obviously how consistent a player will be when playing the game. A very inconsistent player can have wildly varying performances, and if it's bad enough he might never truly play to his attributes. So one day his 19 passing and anticipation means he'll pass like Gretzky, the other day nothing will work and he's just a burden on the team. As you might realize, a highly consistent player will have more games where he plays at his actual abilities, and he'll be closer to his abilities... There's one way to know it in game, often your coach will tell it during a coach report, and scouts will often see it too and it will show up as a blurb in the scouting report.
Decisions - What use does someones shooting ability have when he can't make a good decision on the ice? Maybe he decides a wristshot from all the way up the blueline, maybe he'll try to deke into the crease with a 6ft5 250lbs defender already waiting for him. Obviously enough the ability to make smart decisions can make or break a smart player and a downright stupid one. And like Consistency before, the higher the attribute is the more often he makes good decisions, and the higher it is the smarter his decisions will be. Along with Anticipation, it's the ''Gretzky'' attribute. Should be able to spot it in scout reports.
Dirtiness - This is also a no brainer of course, a dirty player will do dirty stuff from planting elbows on his opponents to slashing them with his stick. Even enforces shouldn't be dirty because it leads to needless fouls, unless you like injuring your opponent...
Important Games - Does your player thrive or melt under the pressure of an important game? Like all the other attributes this has a range between 1-20, and anything below 10 means he'll become less effective in important games (he's a choker), and anything above 10 means he'll thrive under the pressure of the bright lights. Basically if you have a star player who cannot thrive when the chips are down, you're gonna have trouble when it matters. They can still perform, sure, but the chances will always be there that the pressure gets to him and misses that important overtime game-winner in game 7.
Pass Tendency - This should make sense too. Some players are naturally more inclined to shoot the puck rather than pass it off, some players are more inclined to pass it off than shoot the puck. Combined with other attributes like decisions will matter whether his tendency is a boon or a weakness. A great passer who'se a shoot-first guy would give just as much issues as a great shooter who passes it off every good chance he gets.
Personality Traits
Adaptibility - How well is this player able to cope in new surroundings. This matters for foreign players coming into the league to play in a nation they don't know. If this is low, players will take longer to really get settled in their new enviroments and sometimes their performances may suffer. If this is very low they might get homesick and will want to leave the team to go back home or somewhere closer to home. In current hockey it's basically the KHL attribute where many Russians don't want to move to the USA.
Ambition - This one includes a whole lot of things. First and foremost, how much does the player want to win. Highly ambitious players have winner mentalities and they'll have severe issues being stuck on a tanking team and will more quickly become displeased with the team. Same goes for how they react to their assigned lines, ambitious players want to play first line and will quickly throw a tantrum if they're ending up on the third line when they feel they have the skill to play higher... Lastly it also matters how ambitious the player is to become the best they can be, players with low ambition will be lazier and more content on staying the same rather than push themselves (and everyone around them) to be better. It's a double edged sword, high ambition in a high-ambition winning enviroment will mean a highly motivated player who is pushing themselves to the limit. Finally it will also matter greatly in contract negotiations, highly ambitious players want to earn as much money as possible where unambitious players might be inclined with a smaller sum.
Pressure - A more general version of the important matches attribute. This entails everything from off-the-ice to on-the-ice performance, a scoring winger who hasn't scored a goal in 10 games will react differently compared to their pressure stat. Maybe they will be driven to break that slump, or perhaps they fall even deeper into the slump due to not being able to face the pressure from coaching, players, fans, and staff.
Loyalty - Is a player a mercenary going to any team that offers him a nice spot and a big wad of cash, or is he more inclined to stay put and build a life in the city he's playing at. Loyalty will have little to no effect on their on-ice performance, but can make quite a difference in the checkbook. Say you have an ambitious player who isn't very loyal, he'll shop himself out the moment his contract is running up and he'll find the highest bidder and go to that team. Then you have an unambitious loyal player, he prefers to just stay put and will possibly even accept a lower deal than he's worth to make that happen.
Professionalism - Easily the most important attribute in the entire game, personality wise. Players who are known as ''Model Pro's'' will do everything better from playing the game to training themselves and keeping themselves and others to a high standard. On the FM boards (which EHM is based off) a longtime user did an experiment with this attribute, where he made identical 16 year olds and only changed the pro attribute. He quickly saw that players with low professionalism had much slower development, made less ''favourite personell'', where more prone to negative situations, and finally suffered in their on-ice-performance. The opposite was true with the test player he gave maximum professionalism, that player reached his peak quicker and retained it for longer, they made more friends, had less to no bad situations, and had better on-ice performance... If this is low enough, some players might not even reach their potential, so it's important to draft players who at the very least are NOT known for being unprofessional. Either no blurb, or a positive one, else you're better off looking for someone who might be less great but will actually have the ability to carry himself as good as possible.
Sportsmanship - The polar opposite to dirtiness, but you can still have a dirty sportsman. Basically how respectful your player is towards everyone around him from opposition to referee to coaches to teammates. Needless to say will cut down on penalties and will have him contend for Byng Trophies.
Temperament - Hot blood will boil over more quickly. This has nothing to do with being dirty or a sportsman, but all to do with how short their fuse is. If you have a star player who can lose his temperament in highly volatile players he might end up doing something stupid like getting drawn into a penalty, or end up fighting despite not being a fighter. It's quite useful to have level headed players who don't get riled up easily, especially in a sport like Hockey.
And finally there's the most important hidden attributes of them all...
Current ability - How good is your player right now, does his skills make him a great player or a bad one. Really not a lot to say about.
Potential ability - How much potential does your player have. If he has high Potential Ability he'll be the next Crosby or Toews, again it's self-explanatory...
Where you as a manager have 27 attributes you can see, your scouts and coaches see quite a few more and will base their assessments off of all those attributes rather than the ones you can see. It's the main reason why the scouting report is one of the most important pieces of information you can get, because it'll tell you about the hidden attributes a player has. Is a player a professional, is he prone to injuries, does he get under the skin of his opponent, can he slug it out in a fight, is he ambitious, and so on...
Of course, final disclaimer. All this doesn't mean your better player is worse just because your staff says so, sometimes the AI looks at certain things and makes a judgement based on it. Sometimes that better player is just better, he'll play better, and they're just full of Adam Oates. EHM has those players sometimes... Sometimes a player panned as a ''solid player'' can end up shooting lights out despite coaches telling you he shouldn't be on the roster...
So always keep an open mind about every player, and I personally would always take all the information given to me and go with the gut-check that feels right.
Some information taken from a thread Bruins made in 2009, but most of it still rings true in EHM:EA.
http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... php?t=4920
