EHM The Blue Line

There's no confirm/reject for signing RFAs, I learned that one the hard way in one of my Red Wings games.

That's ok Batdad, I'll go on playing according to the trade and roster restrictions wether I'm officially in it or not since I think they make the game alot more interesting. I realize it's no official recording or verification but I've written about my core roster and trades for the first two seasons in my newly started blog if that helps you come to a decision.

I probably won't be starting season three today so just let me know if I'm in the challenge and, if so, if there's anything you need me to post before I start training camp.

Hmm... maybe I should start working on my team again, but all my energy is focused on updating the database right now.
Im spending about 8hrs/day on it (Really!)... most of them at work though... hehe

Would be nice to see what Tavares can do on my 2nd line, but I guess he'll have to wait a while longer.

Yeah, unfortunately, Marsac is right there batdad...I've got no option to withdraw my offer for Malkin. He accepts and the draft picks go bye-bye.

I'm surprised that A) there isn't a way to cancel an offer for an RFA and B) that we mods didn't think about offer sheets when coming up with these rules. I think there should be a provision added for the next Challenge.

I've got Tavares tearing up juniors right now. I'll probably bring him to my Blackhawks team in another year or two.

We'll definitely have to discuss offer sheets for future challenges. I don't know if I'm really in favor of them but we'll have to discuss the pros and cons of it.

Glad you like the new challenge rules, marsac. I think they spice things up too. It brings new life to the game.

Yeah offer sheet challenge rules will have to be chatted about for sure. Anyway, CatchUp...Did you get Malkin or did the Pens match? Or do you know yet?

Oh, and again like with B72 et al...La punition de CatchUp pour est un idiotic manoeuver. Just a punition

Now my question is...why are all these people mucking up the rules so easily? Especially you mod types? Ugh.

Does anyone know of a team actually matching in EHM?

Yeah has happened to me 3 times with 1 player in 3 different games. Andrew Ladd.

The Pens did not match. I have Malkin in a Hawks uni. However, I also no longer have said draft picks. I'll have to get back into the game to see exactly which picks they are, but I'll let you know tonight (going to the Giants game). I also must now get back under the TBL cap - probably by trading Matt Cooke.

Bring on the penalty. To be honest, I think it should be fairly harsh. While we are all doing this for fun, I feel my penalty should be such that I have NO shot at winning for the next couple of Challenge seasons at least.

I have to admit, it was pretty boneheaded to assume I would be able to withdraw the offer sheet and not save before hand.

I feel my penalty should be such that I have NO shot at winning for the next couple of Challenge seasons at least.

You have no chance, with or without a penalty. But yeah, we will come up with something for you to go "AIYEEEEEEEE" about.

lol batdad, catchup speaking of harsh I think batdad was right there with your chances of winning the challenge.

as far as it goes it probably should be pretty harsh, I can't speak for the other 2. However, I know without Toivonen I wouldn't have done nearly as well as I did. My other options would have been Price and Montoya/Esche. Price while he is good, just wouldn't have been able to carry the team. Esche was brutal, and Montoya isn't ready yet but if I didn't have Price and Toivonen would be on the big team. Anyways that aside, how are you guys doing depthwise? It may be my constant trading of prospects I don't like for picks and only keeping guys that I like but I'm a tough spot here. I almost have too much depth. I will be forced with trading away Arkhipov and maybe Boogie (I know I know) and running 4 scoring lines just so I can do this. I've already got Bickel, Bolland, Blunden on the team. I will have to do something when Vrbata comes off injured reserve. Toews was a point a game when I called him up to fill in for Heatley.

I've got some serious depth going! I've tried not to trade "real" prospects unless I had to. If I felt that they were never going to be regular NHLers on my team, I would trade them if I needed to. Sometimes I might trade a guy if I feel he's not going to develop into the role I want him in. While doing this, I also try to keep my AHL affiliate stocked. We're only allowed 2 UFA signings per season, so the only real way to do this is by drafting players and developing them. Sometimes I'll trade for a prospect to keep in my system too. Overall, I'd say I develop my talent and have good depth.

This is my Norfolk lineup. The date (MM/DD/YY) the player was acquired is in parenthesis along with how (OG=on team at game start but signed on date indicated, DR=draft, TR=trade, FA=free agent, and AHL=ahl contract).

Esposito (6/22/09 FA) - McGrath (7/6/08 TR) - Carcillo (1/9/07 TR)
Kaspar (11/1/07 TR) - Toews (6/26/07 OG) - Comeau (6/30/09 TR)
Marvin (7/5/09 TR) - Fraser (OG) - Aliu (9/27/08 TR)
Sergeant (7-10-08 AHL) - Clune (11/15/06 TR) - Sindel (6/7/07 OG)

Staal (7/5/07 TR) - Hendrikx (8/4/07 FA)
Kindl (7/6/08 TR) - Grant (5/9/09 DR)
Blanshan (7/11/08 AHL) - Shutron (7-11-07 OG)

Price (11/4/06 TR) - Spratt (10/12/09 AHL)

Okay, looking at this, I've actually traded for a good deal of my Norfolk roster. Still... it's currently 2/24/10 in my game. Most of those guys have been on that team for quite a while and several are still homegrown eligible. I've also got several players currently on my roster that spent time on my Norfolk roster...

Barker - 06-07 thru 08-09
Syvret - 06-07 thru 08-09
Letang - 07-8 thru 08-09
Bolland - 06-07 thru 07-08
O'Marra - 07-08 thru 08-09
Blunden - 06-07
Brouwer - 06-07 thru 07-08

So you see I've relied on my organizational depth!

Bonus points A have been awarded as follows:
laskey 16 11
rookier 8
Lidas 7
Phreak 6
Danny 4
thunderbug 3
batdad 2
bruins72 2
bigargon 1
CatchUp 1

next deadline is 25th November

laskey 16 has been removed from the challenge so he will not be getting any bonus points.

Arggggh 3rd year in a row i get eliminated in western conference finals. twice by the flames

Ouch! Any idea why you can't go deeper?

On my side, i just finished the regular season in season 3, with the President's Trophy. Flames are eliminated, so i don't have to worry about Kipper in the playoffs But round 1 will be against Dallas and Turco, the only goalie who managed to shut us out this season But their papies (Zubov and Modano) are very slow in their skating right now, so the likes of Hossa and Malkin should look to make inroads there!

Someday i'll continue my blog... Someday... All is written down on the paper, it's just that i can't stop playing the game to blog actually... Sorry for those who're waiting to read my long and annoying blog updates

Good luck with Dallas, my first year they stopped me in the western conference finals so I unleashed boogey on them. The second year they got lucky and didn't have to face my wrath. I haven't had any real experience with Kipper that I can remember.

Dallas doesn't impress me. It's just Turco The Turco-Price battle in goal scares me, as Price is still a rookie (with a 37-12-2 record nonetheless )

bonus points B have been awarded as follows:
rookier 11
batdad 9
Phreak 7
Lidas 4
Danny 3
thunderbug 3
CatchUp 2
bigargon 1
corinthian 1
Shadd666 1


The final deadline will be 1st December

Probably won't have time to end season 3 by 1st december Or maybe, if i don't sleep...

It's less than a week between 60 games deadline and end of season+playoffs deadline

I have a very busy weekend so it'll probably be tuesday before I can do any points calculations so I'll extend the deadline to then.

Then i'll be in time! I should end on sunday or monday, so tuesday's fine for me

I just posted my stats for the 20 game mark of my 5th season. On the main front office page, it shows my average payroll being $40M, exactly the TBL budget for that season. When I go into finances, it shows me as being $30k over that. I just realized this when I was posting my stats, so I didn't have a chance to try and rectify it. Anyhow, I understand if there needs to be some sort of a penalty.

Speaking of budget... it really gets hard to hang on to players as the game goes on. I've had to let so many players go because they made too much for the role they played on the team. Plus, there are so many stat players that no team can really afford to sign when they become UFAs. They end up playing in Europe or not at all for most of a season before finally signing at a huge discount. Crazy! And then you've got players that stay as RFA's because their team can't afford their demands. In 2010, Malkin is still Penguins property but he's currently playing in Russia.

yeah that how i nittimaki for 1m and change. he asked for too much , played in finland then i got him cheap. In the 7th year almost every (computer) team is struggling with the cap so it is getting harder to make decent trades.