A couple tactical questions

[Sucker Punch]

1. How do you utilize the "shooting" slider? Every option has pros and cons. Do you set a good shooter to barrage to get a lot of shots? Or selective the make each shot count? On the flip side, for lousy shooters, do you set them to barrage because each shot will be naff and more shots = more chances? Or do you make them selective to improve the quality of any shot he gets?

2. I always match lines, and have a dedicated 3rd checking line to match against their top line. It worked well in 05, but here, not so much. I usually set every forward to very defensive, hard backchecking, dumping the puck a lot, and not joining the rush. It seems to be the best setup for a straight defensive tactic, but there are downsides.

They rarely score. This makes their +/- abysmal, even though they are playing pretty good defense. Also, the best defense is puck possession, but this tactic ensures that the other team controls the puck most of the time when they're on the ice. No scoring = very low rating, which often = very low morale. So they're play suffers because they're not scoring.

How do you guys set up a checking line?

[Thundercleese]

Shooting depends more on the goalie you're facing than the shooters you have. A great goalie with strong recovery and rebound control will stop a barrage all night long. If players are just flinging pucks from bad angles and hoping for a rebound as they might with weaker goalies, you'll never score. Shooters need to be more selective against top goalies.

Is your line distribution set to equal? If you're on normal distribution your coach will send out the top lines first, even if line distribution is active (you can use both together to try to get your top line against their weakest line). Otherwise, playing at home always helps you get the matchups you want. It can be tough to get your checkers against their scorers on the road....the patch was supposed to address this but apparently it hasn't worked so well for some people while it's worked great for others.

The rating thing is something I think needs to be adjusted--if a defensive player plays his game well and keeps the other team's top guys from scoring, then he's had a very effective night but the ratings don't show this. To try to keep their ratings up I usually have them on PK lines with scorers. I score a lot of shorthanded goals with Iginla playing on the PK and this brings up the offensive output of the checker he's playing with as well.

[Habslife]

I think shooting depends on your tactic in the offensive zone, the goalie and your players.If you set Overload slot as a offensive tactic you should use a heavy shooting tactic, works well for me. If you have some very good slapshoters make them shoot from the point and maybe put shot aiming low...in rl goal' pads gives you good rebounds!

For the checkers line, make sure they have good speed, so when they pokecheck the puck carrier they can have good opportunies on the offensive side too.

[Shadd666]

thundercleese: i absolutely agree with you on the ratings thing... They where representative and well-balanced in EHM05, but it's not really the case in EHM07

sucker punch: for the shoots, it depends on some factors (well mentionned by thundercleese and habslife) and also on how you 'feel' the team... As for anything about the tactics, there's no hard-and-fast rule, so you have to try... If it works, stand with it. Else, try another way. If nothing works, then the problem comes from the players and/or the coaching staff (or from you...)

And it's normal that you're checking line doesn't score a lot... After all, they are not here for that But the issue on their average rating and so on their moral is annoying, that's true...