EHM The Blue Line

The GM I added for my AHL affiliate was offered the job of Boston Bruins GM. Why can the computer never manage my Bruins well? Also, I remember one career where I started in the WHL and eventually got hired by an AHL team. I kept applying for NHL jobs but they're never hire me. Now I'm running an AHL team and not trying to get hired and I'm getting unsolicited offers. Go figure!

I'm finally able to start playing this challenge after being away from my home for a month. I just finished training camp and I still have a few exhibition games left before the season starts.
Here are the lines that I will start with:

Tkachuk-Toews-Selänne
Doan-Ruutu-Steen
Battaglia-Påhlsson-Mair
Hilbert-Talbot-Orr

Pitkänen-Numminen
Ference-Wisniewski
Keith-Montador

Bäckström
Mason

In my game both Selänne and Tkachuk will retire after the first season, or atleast that what their profile says. After reading your stories about this challenge I come to the impression that most of you guys have them retiring until after season 2. So my question is that is there someone else who has the same situation or am I just the unlucky one?

No, you're fine - it says that (I assume because they've already been set to retire in the DB), but only Numminen retires at the end of Season 1

I am surprised so very few managers used Smid in their Jets roster. He was actually one of better players on my team, having 30+ points and avg rating under 8.00 in Season 1.

bruins72 wrote:The GM I added for my AHL affiliate was offered the job of Boston Bruins GM. Why can the computer never manage my Bruins well? Also, I remember one career where I started in the WHL and eventually got hired by an AHL team. I kept applying for NHL jobs but they're never hire me. Now I'm running an AHL team and not trying to get hired and I'm getting unsolicited offers. Go figure!

Nice... I am with you on the Bruins - my jaw dropped as they were leading the Northeast halfway through the 1st season... only to end up in 13th place I don't understand it...

gibson41 wrote:I am surprised so very few managers used Smid in their Jets roster. He was actually one of better players on my team, having 30+ points and avg rating under 8.00 in Season 1.

Hmmm... seems you are definitely in the minority - how many games did he get? Who'd you replace? In retrospect, he may have been ready - he's now top 3 on the Jets...

I wasn't too thrilled with Wisniewski - he seemed to not fit into a role very well... although looking at his regular season he did ok... oh - 2 game misconducts in the playoffs - I like edge, but that's ridiculous! Anyway...

Looks like I'm going to have a battle between Battaglia, Hilbert, Mair and Devereoux (who in retrospect I maybe shouldn't have signed) for 2 roster spots and the 13th forward... maybe 1 of the first 3 can be packaged to get a young goalie... I think Battaglia's the best, but the enforcer role HAS to be filled, esp. with only 2 physical D not named Pitkanen... and Hilbert earned the shot by potting 18 goals and 35+ points last season...

eternium85 wrote:I'm finally able to start playing this challenge after being away from my home for a month. I just finished training camp and I still have a few exhibition games left before the season starts.
Here are the lines that I will start with:

Tkachuk-Toews-Selänne
Doan-Ruutu-Steen
Battaglia-Påhlsson-Mair
Hilbert-Talbot-Orr

Pitkänen-Numminen
Ference-Wisniewski
Keith-Montador

Bäckström
Mason

In my game both Selänne and Tkachuk will retire after the first season, or atleast that what their profile says. After reading your stories about this challenge I come to the impression that most of you guys have them retiring until after season 2. So my question is that is there someone else who has the same situation or am I just the unlucky one?

If you read the post announcing the challenge you will see that the retirement situation has been addressed. You get the "Ret" next to Numminen, Tkachuk, and Selanne and it says that they're retiring after the season. This is because each of these players has had their retirement dates set in the custom DB. Numminen retires after the first season. Selanne retires after the second season. Tkachuk retires after the third season. Each one of them also has a No-Trade clause in their contract and and their contracts should run the rest of their careers. So what this means is that you will lose one of them each of the first three seasons and you can't trade them away to get a replacement. You lose those assets when they retire.

gibson41 wrote:I am surprised so very few managers used Smid in their Jets roster. He was actually one of better players on my team, having 30+ points and avg rating under 8.00 in Season 1.

I know for me it was a numbers game. If he played on my NHL roster in Season 1, another defenseman would have to sit or pass through waivers. I figured that at his age he'd benefit from some development time in the AHL. I still haven't found a spot for him in season 2 though.

Work has been insanely busy this week so I haven't had the chance to play my challenge team since last week. I've got to get back on it. There's only a month left until the deadline and I haven't even finished season 2.

bruins72 wrote:

gibson41 wrote:I am surprised so very few managers used Smid in their Jets roster. He was actually one of better players on my team, having 30+ points and avg rating under 8.00 in Season 1.

I know for me it was a numbers game. If he played on my NHL roster in Season 1, another defenseman would have to sit or pass through waivers. I figured that at his age he'd benefit from some development time in the AHL. I still haven't found a spot for him in season 2 though.

Work has been insanely busy this week so I haven't had the chance to play my challenge team since last week. I've got to get back on it. There's only a month left until the deadline and I haven't even finished season 2.

Well I already mentioned that Montador was my #7 and since like half of the season 1 I played with 7 Ds and only 11 forwards.

I am kinda busy too...my new guitar arrived just yesterday, and you can imagine how that turned out. I think manager Mr. Timura is gonna retire after Season 2. Well, I hope I will find time to finish at least the rest of the season... New guitar + senior schol year ahead is a dangerous combo.

OUCH! After finally getting my team back on track by acquiring Derek Roy, we lose Shane Doan for 2 months with a broken arm. It's February 1st, so in two months time we'll be gearing up for the playoffs. At least we'll have him back for that. Until then, Bobby Ryan is getting some serious ice time with the Jets.

bruins72 wrote:
If you read the post announcing the challenge you will see that the retirement situation has been addressed. You get the "Ret" next to Numminen, Tkachuk, and Selanne and it says that they're retiring after the season. This is because each of these players has had their retirement dates set in the custom DB. Numminen retires after the first season. Selanne retires after the second season. Tkachuk retires after the third season. Each one of them also has a No-Trade clause in their contract and and their contracts should run the rest of their careers. So what this means is that you will lose one of them each of the first three seasons and you can't trade them away to get a replacement. You lose those assets when they retire.

Ok, thanks for this. I guess I should have read it more carefully.

I'm back at work again so it's time to join this challenge I guess.

I decided to not use the tactics that were successful for my Predators from the start of this challenge. I don't think this team has the combination of grit and skill required (yet) to run three offensive lines which are all capable of playing both the skill tactics and the physical tactics I used at the end of the last challenge.

I'm going with heavy personal instructions for starters and running two offensive and two defensive lines which all have their offensive zone systems set to overload slot. In my eyes only Toews and Påhlsson are decent at playing C in that system so I have Ruutu and Mair playing out of their natural positions on the other two lines.

Here's the current lineup:

G
Bäckström
Mason

D
Keith-Wisniewski
Pitkänen-Numminen
Ference-Montador

I would have prefered Smid over Ference but his stamina rating is an abysmal 10 so I'm hoping he can improve that with a season in the AHL.

F
Tkachuk-Toews-Selänne
Doan-Ruutu-Ryan
Talbot-Påhlsson-Steen
Battaglia-Mair-Parker

My biggest issue right now is the PK which is sitting below 80% and costing us games.

We've had some trouble with injuries as well with Tkachuk (7 games), Selänne (2 games) and Påhlsson (10 games) all out of the lineup for a while. The upside is that Hilbert has had a chance to play 15 games putting up 12 points and a +3 rating, I'm considering dropping Ryan to the AHL and switching Doan to RW to open up a regular spot.

On the other hand Numminen is not working out at all for me, he has a team-worst -10 rating which is a bit surprising considering the success others seem to have had with him.

Glad to see you getting in on this one, Marsac!

You're right about this team not being equipped with the right combination of skill and grit to start. You've got skill players and you've got grit players but you don't have too many gritty skill players. They're a much different team than the Predators!

Those are interesting line combos. I can't say I used anything too similar to that. I'm interested to see how it works out for you.

Finally, a season that I can be proud of 71 games 48-43-91 and earned my 2nd 20 in Creativity! Calv, I do have a question. How did my player (Joubert) go from having 81 PIMs in March to only 30 in May? Did Colin Campbell reduce some major penalties and misconducts to only minors or nothing at all?

Ummm... wrong thread, Laker!

Sorry if I missed it in the challenge announcing post but - what is the timing of this challenge? When will it end? I worry I'm progressing too slow, so just to make plan for upcoming weeks Thanks.
btw: where are the results of challenge 13 (Predators)? Is it decided/calculated already?

Sorry, I got all excited and put it in the wrong thread.

McQwak wrote:Sorry if I missed it in the challenge announcing post but - what is the timing of this challenge? When will it end? I worry I'm progressing too slow, so just to make plan for upcoming weeks Thanks.
btw: where are the results of challenge 13 (Predators)? Is it decided/calculated already?

It's right at the top of the challenge forum in the Challenge Info box. The challenge ends on September 27th. Don't worry about going slow. I think a lot of us are. It's a busy time of year for many people and it's usually one of TBL's slowest periods. I'm figuring I'll be lucky to get 3 seasons in. 4 might be a stretch for me.

bruins72 wrote:

McQwak wrote:Sorry if I missed it in the challenge announcing post but - what is the timing of this challenge? When will it end? I worry I'm progressing too slow, so just to make plan for upcoming weeks Thanks.
btw: where are the results of challenge 13 (Predators)? Is it decided/calculated already?

It's right at the top of the challenge forum in the Challenge Info box. The challenge ends on September 27th. Don't worry about going slow. I think a lot of us are. It's a busy time of year for many people and it's usually one of TBL's slowest periods. I'm figuring I'll be lucky to get 3 seasons in. 4 might be a stretch for me.

I don't think I will complete even good-looking season 2. School is starting tomorrow, and I try to play guitar as much as possible in the free time, so you know...don't really feeling like playing it now...but I'll def will start a new campaign once the new Lidas is out.

I hear ya guys - I'm going to finish my first season up and then hang the Jets up I think. We'll see...

I'm really looking forward to Challenge 15 too!

So I'm just entering 2nd season playoffs from 4th place in the western conference. But why I'm writing this here is that Sami Pahlsson recieved rating of 10 in 32 consecutive games! I couldn't believe it even after 10 or 15 games, and finally he made it to 32 total. Now he recieved 9, so the streak is intercepted. I wonder how well he will continue
Due to Selanne's 3-months injury I moved Pahlsson from 3rd line center to 2nd line and after he went hot there I promoted him to 1st line center. There he's stayed till now.

32 consecutive 10 ratings? That's amazing! I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. I've had some success with Pahlsson but that's ridiculous!

bruins72 wrote:32 consecutive 10 ratings? That's amazing! I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. I've had some success with Pahlsson but that's ridiculous!

Holy Moly.

See it here. Unfortunatelly, the game log history stores only 15 latest games and I don't have older save than this. The streak was snapped by '8', not by '9' as I wrote before.

Previous some 50-60 matches he recieved rating between 7-8. And last 30 games he boomed and recieved 10

You've got him logging some serious ice time there, don't you? Those are high minutes even for a defenseman! I don't think Chara plays that many minutes and he's a workhorse.

Yes, that's fact. In that time, I oveloaded him due to his form. He played 1st center in every game situation.
Although he didn't produce so much points, he was rated that high because he won around 80-90% faceoffs and had many hits.
Now I'm in conference finals and he is back to his numbers - including the ice time.