EHM The Blue Line

I've hacked through the first 20 games with this crew- this team is built almost the exact opposite from what I like so this is really a challenge for me. Fleury was poor the first 5 or so games, so we lost them all. Shipachyov has garned a cool 17 minor penalties, and Schmidt is a -8. Good news is Wahlstrom (my 1st pick) has stuck with the team, and will at least make it to 39 games.

Here are the lines I ran with most of the first quarter: (I run even shifts, and tend to match lines at home)

Eakin-Karlsson-Neal
Bellemare-Linberg-Wahlstrom
Haula-Shipachyov-Perron
Marchessault-Nosek-Smith

Theodore-Schmidt
Garrison-Miller
Merrill-Engelland

Fleury
Subban

20 games done for me as well. 8-11-1 record. Marvelously heading straight for another top 5 pick in the 2019 draft. I miss William Karlsson sooooo dearly

My lines are :
Perron-Shipachyov-Smith
Marchessault-Haula-Tuch
Leipsic-Eakin-Pirri
Bellemare-Lindberg-Clarkson

Garrison-Theodore
Schmidt-Miller
Merrill-Engelland

Fleury
Subban

James Neal is currently injured. He'd probably be on the top 2 lines otherwise. I'll see if someone in the AHL can come help this team...or I tank and get a great draft pick and hope for the best for the second season....mhm

At least, Walhstrom, Glass and Suzuki are tearing it in the junior!

Grentroz wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:18 am At least, Walhstrom, Glass and Suzuki are tearing it in the junior!

Glass and Suzuki seem to be really strong prospects. I'm just starting season 2 and they're the #1 and #2 centers in the AHL. Ben Jones seems like he'll be a solid 3/4C as well. I have him in the ECHL right now but only because the AHL team is shared with St. Louis so Robert Thomas is the #3C and I don't feel like manually managing the minor league teams. Also quite hopeful about Branstrom, he had an excellent season 1 in the AHL and I bet he'll probably end up in the NHL before long.

S2 starting OK, 4-2-1 after 7 games. Gostisbehere and Byron are fitting their roles (2RD, 3LW) perfectly and my defense is much better running Theodore-Dahlin / Schmidt-Ghost. Just had something happen I've never seen before, I want Maxim Zhukov to be getting AHL playing time so I sent Dansk to the ECHL, and Dansk decided to go AWOL and isn't playing. I've never seen that before, but it's an interesting thing and tbh it makes sense that a 25 year old goalie with great stats in the AHL would be upset about an ECHL demotion.

I still think goaltending is going to be an issue, Fleury is OK but he's definitely the weakest link of the team. I'm thinking hard about what to do there since we only get one trade and I'm not sure I want to use two seasons worth of trades on trading for a new goalie and then dumping Fleury. Hopefully I can grab Shestyorkin/Saros/Demko/Oettinger/Hart or something and run a 1A/1B, could always try to trade Fleury for a 2nd at some point if I need to free up cap space.

Season 2 done didn't have the best of starts recovered to 6th in Conference before getting all the way to the Stanley Cup final ended up winning it all

Has Neal started to rapidly decline for you guys? I'm 40 games into my second season and Neal's attributes have really fallen off: Neal attributes.

Wristshot has fallen from 18 or 19 down to 16 and his passing and other attributes have fallen off too. Just surprised to see that happen at only 32, looks like I'll need to dump him as my trade for S3, he's up to Superb reputation now so I should be able to get something decent for him. He's still doing fine points wise on the top line with Shipachyov and Smith but it could be a bit of an issue if he keeps declining so quickly.

I also just realized I didn't sign any Physios at the start of the challenge, so that's probably not helping.

He's declining pretty quick for me too in 3rd season.

Yeah I extended him to 5X5M at the start of the challenge. I was really hoping he'd stay pretty stable until season 4 but it's already starting to look bad in season 2. Hopefully Perron and Shipachyov don't decline at this rate too, they're both about the same age and I have them signed long term at 4.3M and 6.3M as my 1C and 2RW. I think if it's just Neal who falls off a cliff I can just keep him as a third liner and not worry too much but if three of my top six forwards decline at a combined 15.6M that could become an issue.

I'm considering trying to trade Neal in the offseason, he's still been great on my top line but I wonder if his Superb reputation means I could get something valuable back for him. I guess I could also just keep him and shift Marchessault and Byron up the lineup at LW since I have tons of cap space. With this team it's easy to get all your core players locked up and the only important player not signed long term is Dahlin.

I got him on the same contract but I'am well below the salary cap so not a problem for me.

40 games of the first season done...I might win this season if we look at the standings upside down...
18-18-4 to put me in 7th in the West
Nothing much to report, except Theodore decided to take a 2-weeks vacation for the 41-60 games stretch. Not cool. I also extended many contracts that would've expired by the end of the season.

Getting into the end of season 2 now, 1st place in the west and hopefully primed for a long playoff run. Shipachyov keeps having anterior knee pain injuries over and over and missing games (only 39 of 63 game played) which is a bit scary. Suzuki has been great as a fill-in in a top 9 role (32P in 41GP), but with Karlsson as my only real experienced top 6 C without health question marks I wanted to get some depth and insurance at C at the deadline. I traded a 2nd for Mikko Koivu to be a defensive 3C and handle top unit PK duties, and he can play in the top 6 if I run into injury trouble. I extended him for a year too so I'm set for a defensive C next year and I don't need to throw tons of money to keep Haula (although I think I probably will on a 1 year deal since I have nothing else to spend it on).

Currently running:

Neal-Suzuki (Shipachyov)-Smith
Marchessault-Karlsson-Perron
Byron-Koivu-Tuch
Carrier-Haula-Pulkkinen

Theodore-Dahlin
Schmidt-Gostisbehere
Merrill-Miller

waiver claims are never allowed right?

Salming wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 4:24 pm waiver claims are never allowed right?

That's a good question. In the old ruleset you used to be able to claim one player from waivers instead of signing any UFAs, but the most recent ruleset doesn't include that rule. I would probably lean towards not doing it without clarification from admins.

It could be a good strategy, in a lot of saves I find the Ducks waive Kesler so for a team with tons of cap space like Vegas that would be far more valuable than anyone you could sign at 3M.

Salming wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 4:24 pm waiver claims are never allowed right?

Correct. Make sure you read the stickied rules thread, not the modifications thread. (Rule 7.5): 7.5 Instead choosing one of the UFA signing tiers, you may sign one player from waivers at any point during the year and without restriction as to annual salary. If you take this approach, you will not be able to sign any UFAs during that season.

Asher413 wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:00 pm

Salming wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 4:24 pm waiver claims are never allowed right?

Correct. Make sure you read the stickied rules thread, not the modifications thread. (Rule 7.5): 7.5 Instead choosing one of the UFA signing tiers, you may sign one player from waivers at any point during the year and without restriction as to annual salary. If you take this approach, you will not be able to sign any UFAs during that season.

I'm confused, he asked if waivers were never allowed and you said correct, but the rule cited says we can. I probably will still just sign a UFA instead but I just want to make sure I understand the rule properly.

Messed up in posting my salary for the first quarter. I posted my Total Player Salaries. My Averaged Club Salary is $52 mil.

OldGregg wrote: Tue Jun 12, 2018 4:15 pm

Asher413 wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:00 pm

Salming wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 4:24 pm waiver claims are never allowed right?

Correct. Make sure you read the stickied rules thread, not the modifications thread. (Rule 7.5): 7.5 Instead choosing one of the UFA signing tiers, you may sign one player from waivers at any point during the year and without restriction as to annual salary. If you take this approach, you will not be able to sign any UFAs during that season.

I'm confused, he asked if waivers were never allowed and you said correct, but the rule cited says we can. I probably will still just sign a UFA instead but I just want to make sure I understand the rule properly.

I see- that's on me.

One waiver claim is allowed instead of UFA signings for the season. I misunderstood the question! Sorry about that.

Well, I just finished a very interesting 2019 offseason:

The last day of the 2018-19 season, we were one point behind Phoenix for the last playoff spot in the Pacific. We were up by a goal going into the third of the last game... and gave up two in the last 8 minutes to finish ONE POINT out of the playoffs. My biggest goal going into the offseason was right handed defensemen and defensive forwards.

Draft:
[spoiler] Round 1-8: Alex Turcotte C (will play wing for me while young). With the 8th pick, my top four staff all disagreed on who to take. I really wanted the right handed d-man, but I couldn't buy Case McCarthy's mental stats (I'm already starting to worry I picked wrong.) Turcotte has some unbelievable attributes, and giant holes in his game (zero defensive skills, stamina of 8). He'll be a great scoring LW for me if he doesn't learn the defense to play in the middle. Starting the season in Chicago, but could be called up this season easily.

Round 2-39: Patrick Moynihan, C/RW Scouts say he's injury prone and a long way from being ready. He also doesn't understand what the words "defensive zone" mean, but put up 41 goals in 60 games in the USHL. Going to Boston College will also help me wait until he's ready.

Round 2-41: Cam Rowe, G I know I have to plan for the future (or I thought I did) in net, so I felt like I had to jump here. Four goalies went before that didn't really impress me, so I had to jump on the 'best' left. In hindsight I jumped too high here, but hey, there's always at least one mistake a draft right? He'll spend (hopefully) all 4 years at Minnesota to develop.

Round 2-42: Drae Gardiner, RD Well, here's the RD 'solution'. Very offensive, no defense yet. (But an offensive defensman with only 22 points is weird.) Since the draft the scout reports are getting better, so hopefully he's a diamond in the rough. He'll stay in the WHL until he either booms or is old enough for Chicago.

Round 3-70: Christopher Innis, RD. Nothing like throwing good money after bad- after not feeling hot on Gardiner and feeling good about my forward prospects, went back to the D well. Injury prone and poor comparables. Poor mentals, poor offense, but right handed! Week stats in the Q, so there's small hope here.

Round 3-85: Thomas Pelletier, RD. Third time is a charm? Inury prone, poor attributes, nice mental makeup and the scouts think he's borderline... we'll see.

Round 4-101: Anthony Poulin, C Fast with great mental attributes, 19 years old. Was cut from his Q team, so has a season in purgatory (the CCHL?)
Scouts are split on him, but of course my two best said he was 'good' right before the draft.

Round 5-132: Kristaps Zile, LD/RD 21 year old Latvian that I meant to sign right away... but had a contract for another season in Europe. Scouts don't believe in him, and he was meant to be a stopgap... who may be a year too late. I didn't do a good job paying attention to details at this point.

Round 5-150: Dustin Manz, C 19 year old defensive forward- one of the guys who will play right away to fill a hole. The scouts don't think he'll grow, but a cheap 4th liner is always nice to have.

Round 6-163: Kirill Polokhov, LW/RD Another 20 year old (Kazakh) that I wanted right away... but couldn't. Ready for fourth line and roster flexiblity when he comes to America, but that will be the ceiling.

Round 7-194: Cameron Burke, C Another stopgap, 20 year old defensive center. He'll start the season in Chicago and hopefully will be ready should a PK guy go down in Vegas. Zero potential. [/spoiler]

Free agency:
[spoiler]Player 'lost': Oscar Lindberg
Trades: William Carrier for Casey Cizikas- I needed that defensive forward, and Carrier just wasn't special. This gave me another PK guy which was a weak point last season.
Bellemare for a 2nd rounder. Old enough to trade, so-so and opens up a roster spot. Regretted this later in the offseason...
Free agent signing: This was an adventure. 'Won' the bidding on a few players- Hjalmarsson, a 5/6 right handed d-man, a 4th liner and Paul Byron. I really really wanted Tyler Myers. So I delayed all those signings a week... Hjalmarsson came up first, and declined his signing. Still no Myers decision. Then Byron came up again. Decided to take the one I had on the line instead of roll the dice (good thing too, Myers signed for more than the 3 million I could offer him). Byron's versatility will help a very tight roster situation, and I finally have a PK set of forwards I feel good about.
[/spoiler]

Pre-season adventure:
So I'm cruising along doing normal camp stuff (trying to waiver Clarkson every 30 days hoping for a taker on his TERRIBLE contract of course), and run into a problem at the end of camp- the offseason cap rules bite me in the butt looking at my top 23 salaries, not just those I'm carrying. So I'm stuck where I can't cancel my preseason game and MUST waive folks to get under the cap. For better or for worse, none of the guys I waive (including Garrison) get picked up, but still quite a scare.
I also get a stroke of amazing luck- Clarkson gets hurt in the last pre-season game! He's now on IR! (solving ALL my cap issues).

[spoiler]Lines for the start of the season:
Smith-Cizikas-Perron
Haula-Byron-Suzuki
Neal-Shipachyov-Wahlstrom
Eakin-Karlsson-Glass
Marchessault-Manz

Garrison-Merrill
Schmidt-Mineyev
Theodore-Miller

Fleury
Subban[/spoiler]

Just finished my first season. Finished second in the conference with these lines:



VERY frustrated to get knocked out in the 2nd round vs SJ. Not because I got knocked out, but because I had just finished the 4th OT of game seven, and went into my roster to lower the tempo of my units, came back out and saw the the game had reverted to SJ winning in the first OT.

My off season trade was going to be to try and offload Neal, but he got injured for 7 months in late February, so that's off the table. Looking forward to season 2 and bringing up a couple of prospects.

Zavier wrote: Fri Jun 22, 2018 12:42 amImage

Intresting with brännström as a starter. How did he do? improved any?

Is it allowed to sign free agents who plays in europe?
Couse they join in june, as I understand it transfer is open 1july -15july and after october to deadline.

Salming wrote: Sun Jun 24, 2018 6:52 am Is it allowed to sign free agents who plays in europe?
Couse they join in june, as I understand it transfer is open 1july -15july and after october to deadline.

7.2 UFAs may only be signed between 1 July and 31 August, inclusive. If the player is from Europe and will not transfer during the UFA signing period, take a screenshot of the news item where they accept the contract. Keep this screenshot on your computer (no need to post it) in case the signing is called into question.

Salming wrote: Sat Jun 23, 2018 1:07 pm

Zavier wrote: Fri Jun 22, 2018 12:42 amImage

Intresting with brännström as a starter. How did he do? improved any?

I really like him. He started out as my 6th/7th defenseman and definitely improved over the season. By the end of the year I was considering moving him up to the 2nd pair. Both his offensive and defensive stats aren't as good as I would like, but his speed game fits well with the style I like to play. If I didn't base my strategy on a rushing speed game I don't think I would have had him in my lineup yet.

I'm slowly chugging along as a mid-pack team in season 2- it's been running slow due to personal issues (Completely dead laptop battery + 2 and 5 year olds = very little EHM time)

How is it going for those of you still moving along? Any shocks in your saves? Any dissapointments?

Just finished season two (finally have a working computer again!)

Another dissapointing finish- after spending most of the season in the show, we hit a 6 game slump in March, and couldn't climb back in. I was feeling too confident when we were in the show and didn't want to risk any waiver losses, or call up the young guns, so there was no solution near the end.

Highlights: Wahlstrom- 36 goals in his sophomore season, 14th in the league. Neal- 69 points, really a win that he didn't get old. Chicago- they simply OWNED the AHL regular season, and will be the #1 overall seed. Zhukov- My vote for AHL goaltender of the year. His 8 games in the NHL were also great. He'll be ready (I hope) if and when Fleury starts to show age.

Middlelights: Suzuki with 55 points in his rookie year was a help down the middle.

Lowlights: Backup goalie- Subban went 4-10-1, 87.1%. (Fleury and Zhukov were 36-26-5). I'm regretting a bit saving Zhukov when that could've meant the playoffs. 4 guys were worse than -30.


Here's to a decent draft!

My 2020 Draft:

For me at least, this was a very dissapointing set of choices. I feel like the 1st round options were really 2nd rounders, 2nd rounders 4th rounders... and ugly after that.

#1-13 Quinton Byfield- C Kingston, 6'6", 202 lbs. He the 'best' on the board when I was up. Ranked #4 overall. One scout thinks he's a more talented Malkin ( ), but most think he's around Sean Monahan. Zero defensive ability right now, so-so mentals, and AHL level offensive skills right now. Only 53 pts in the OHL, 6.03 rating, so I'm resigned that he'll be a bust already.

#2-44 Braden Schneider- RD Edmonton, 6'2", 198 lbs. Compared to Tanev and Slavin. Called everything from Marginal to excellent by the scouts, and current skills are a WHL level for sure. Yes, that's my 2nd pick...

#2-51 Oskar Magnusson- C/RW Malmo U18, 5'11", 169 lbs. Compared to Rask, Koivvu and Zajac. Mostly Marginal feedback from scouts, a couple of excellents. I'll be happy if he gets a cup of tea in his career.

#3-75 Wiktor Nilsson- RW/C Erie, 5'11", 167 lbs. Injury prone, 3rd line at best.

#3-77 Dimitry Nikonov- C/LW Chaika (MHL), 6'4", 183 lbs, "A poor man's Paul Carey" and a defensive forward with 5 in pokecheck and positioning...

#4-106 Axel Bergkvist- RD/LD Leksand U20, 5'9" 196 lbs. That's all I have to say about that.

#5-137 Tobias Bjornfot- LD/RD Djurgarden U18, 6'1", 200 lbs. At this point I'm down to the best ratings on someone 19 and under.

#6- Julius Cvengros- RW/LW Slovan Jrs

#7 - 199 Rinaldo Studer C- 5'9" 163- How much do I believe in this draft? Here is the highest AvR 18 year old on the board. That's the logic.