EHM The Blue Line

Draft 2000
1 nr7 Rene Bourque
7 nr187 Dimitri Vlasenkov
With Cleveland full of talents and Ahl players I decided to move most of my picks for future drafts. Rene Bourque impressed my scouts and is a powerforward with a projection of a 1st liner like Glen Murray. Vlasenkov had good skills for a 7th rounder so kept that pick.


Trades
Jean-Pierre Dumont, Samuel Påhlsson to flames for
-Valeri Bure

Drew Bannister, David Wilkie, Langkow, Karl Dykhuis to various teams for
-low draft picks

Draft day, 6.24.00 Sent many picks(2,3,4ths) from 00 draft for future drafts picks (2,3,4ths), my rooster in AHL was full and was not happy with the lower picks in the 00 draft.

Kyle McLaren, Dmitri Afanasenkov to Predators for
-Kimmo Timonen

Sean Avery , 4th Round Pick in 2001 to Canucks for
-Jason Strudwick

Vitali Yachmenev to Penguins for
-Daniel Briere

Trade analyze: Tucker and Renberg aren’t real snipers and I needed one. Valrei Bure is fast good shooter and amazing mentals. Timmonen deal I couldn’t resist, preds wanted Mclaren for a bunch of junk players and rights, I countered the offer with give timmonen for bolts mclaren. They declined the offer and I added a young winger and they accepted. Timmonen will be a good mentor for Campbell and help my PP from 1PP while Boyle gets moved down to 2PP. Strudwick is an excellent defensive dmen who will play 5-6dmen and PK, Avery is good prospect and it sucked to let him go but I need help with my 75%ish PK. Henrik Sedin made 123p in Cleveland and as reward got moved up from with comrie and replace langkow as 2C. Briere is more ready for NHL and can play backup for Sedin/comrie, and when Bure arrived the need for Yachmenevs speed on the 2nd line wing was not needed. Basically I have 5NHL ready players(tucker,peca,renberg,bure,briere) in top9 forwards and 2 rookies (sedin,comrie) and the overpayd zamuner (4m!)


Start of season 3
Lines:
Tucker-Peca-Renberg
Comrie-Sedin-Bure
Subbotin-Brown-Briere
Zamuner – all over 

Timmonen-Campbell
Lydman-Boyle
Studwick-Kubina

Thomas-Ranford

In preseason Henrik sedin has improved a lot (many +1s) and brad Richards to. Brad has been moved to Cleveland to replace sedin as 1C.

Prospects:
Prospect ranking: (by 20,20 AGM)
1. Brian Campbell, D
2. Brad Richards, C
3. Henrik Sedin, C
4. Ilya Bryzigalov, G
5. Mike Comrie, C/LW
6 Niklas Bäckström G
7 Rene Bourque RW

Season 3 2000-2001 ” Flippin the coins”
Season
Bolts led by high scorer Valeri Bure (39g) managed to make 50 wins in regular season and finished 6th. In January “iron mike” Mike Keenan was hired as head coach. He forced my young team to work hard and improved team play alot compared to previous year. Iron Mikes hard hands made rookie players Campbell(46P) and Sedin(49P) play well. Brian Campbell won the Calder trophy as newcomer of the year and Henrik Sedin was runners-up calder. Kimmo Timmonen made 56p (16g,40a) and looks like he wanna be the nr1 defender in the organisation.

Playoff
After the season Tim thomas got injured in training and the 22 year old keeper Luongo (8wins in 14) played he’s first playoff on shaky legs. Bolts managed to knock out Toronto and Montreal before reaching the conference finals and senators. Against Senators in the conference finals it was even games but bolts kids couldn’t handle the pressure from the veterans in Ottawa and lost 4-2. Bolts still won 10 playoff games in season 3 of the challenge wish is considered a huge success and a sign that the general manager is doing the right things. With the Sedin brothers united next year bolts will surely do better.

Trades
Michael Peca, Mike Comrie to Islanders for
-Roberto Luongo
In November, beginning of season 3 I got a call from Luongo agent that he was intrested in joining the bolts. He was not satisfied in New York and wanted a move the sunny florida. After a long long long negotiation we gave up bolts 25 year old center and an 19year old winger for the star keeper. Bolts overpayd to get Luongo but how many 23 year old potential star keepers is it in the league? Tim Thomas remained in the net while Luongo got sent down to Cleveland to develop without pressure to perform.

Dmitri Subbotin to Coyotes for
-Two 4th Round Picks

Jimmie olvestad, Niklas Backstrom to Senators for
-Ivan Rachunek

Flipping some picks 2001 for future picks (2,3,4ths)

Jan Marek , Ivan Rachunek to Canucks for
-Dave Scatchard
I was not too happy to move Ivan rachunek who played good during his 19 games in bolts, but we needed a fast defensive forward and scatchard was the only one we could get and the price had to be paid. With peca gone and only young centers no one could play in PK. Two possible 2nd line forwarsds for a 3liner is extremly high but dave fills a role no one in rooster can play and I had many young wingers (malone,franzen,bourque) and Marek played very bad on 3rd line when I gave him the chance.

Daniel Briere, Ilya Bryzgalov to Wild for
-Daniel Sedin
Okie, wow!!! After the playoff before the draft in team needs Wild made adverts they need a keeper. I offered them Tim Thomas who they didn’t want but replied they wanted Bryz. Bryz had made a good season loaned out to jacksonwille and increased a lot in attributes. Daniel Briere had played as my first center after Peca moved. Briere made 78p in 78 games and started as 3rd RW and moved to 1C during the season. However with Richards making an SUPER season in Cleveland and Sedin performing as expected I didn’t need Briere. Same with Bryz as Thomas and Luongo was both young and under contract. Reuniting the brothers was important for bolts and for them. Together they will make a Swedish line with the countrymen Renberg.

Bill Ranford retires after the season.


Draft
1 nr 24 Chris Higgins LW
6 nr174 Johan Lindström C
7 nr204 Juha Pitkämen

Chris Higgins looks like a good goalscoring leftwinger. Bolts picked him up mainly as a very long term replacer for Tucker on 2LW. Tucker signed a new contract in the beginning as in now impossible to trade away because all other managers think he’s overpaid


Player devolpment & prospects

Brad Richards shined in Cleveland 110p (42g,68a, 8,26avr).He will be called up next year to center the 2nd line and play with the teams scoring king Bure. Luongo has increased +2 in almost all keeper attributes after 53wins of 58 in Cleveland. Luongo looks ready for NHL and is now ranked in team rankings by AGM over Thomas.

Season 4 2001-2002 ” the lightning bolt strike”
Season
Bolts finished 2nd with 54 wins in NHL just one point after MTL. Powerplay jumped from 18% to almost 23% after some fine tuning of the tactics and Daniel sedins arrival. The tandem between Luongo and Thomas in the net seems to be very fruitful and I have a hard time picking keeper for the games. Both top lines produce tones of points and goals and win games for the bolts. Richards seems to click well with Bure and so is the sedin brothers. The odd persons in the top lines are renberg and tucker. Renberg getting older and always over perform, hes veteran presence is gold worth for the sedin brothers. Tucker is the oddman out who almost always produce least points but he brings some grit and agressivness wish creates spaces for Bure.
With the Halpern trade bolts finaly have good PK players in strudwick-kubina-scatchard-halpern.

Lines
D.Sedin-H.Sedin-Renberg
Tucker-Richards-Bure
Franzen-Scatchard-Radivonovic
Zamuner-Halpern-Brown

Timonen-Campbell
Lydman-Boyele
Strudwick-Kubina

Luongo-Thomas

Stats:
Valeri Bure 89p 43g 46a “amazing torpedo shooter”
Brad Richards 87p 31g 56a “87p in first full season is very good, can he take the 1c spot?”
Henrik Sedin 85p 37g 48a “with he’s brother on the wing he improved from 49p last season”
Mikael Renberg 75p 34g 41a “talking Swedish on the ice made a 14 shooter score 34 ?”
Daniel Sedin 69p 33g 36a “in wild he did 41p and almost doubled he’s scoring”
Brian Campbell 53p 11g 42a “4p more then vinny this year, but brian is dmen and vinny is center”
Kimmo Timmonen 51p 9g 42a “ only player on rooster to reduce points 56->51p”
Toni Lydman 42p 6g 36a “ 42p for a 6th round pick dmen!!!!”
Luongo played 47 and Thomas 35,
Very happy with this lineup. Only thing I want to improve Tuckers ability low offence and Kubina lack of speed.


Playoff
1st round against CAR, win with 4-2. Tight series with two 3-2 wins where luongo was bombarded but hold the numbers down.

2nd round againt NJ. This serie deserves an own page but I keep it short. Luongo got injuried in training and Thomas stepped up for main keeper role. Thomas had a tight duel with Brodeur. Lost first 3 games with 3-4 ot,2-4,3-4ot. Luongo reports back at 90% status and asks for a chance to make a comeback in series.
Game 4 Mikael Renberg steps up and scores and Luongo playes great, win 3-2
Game 5 shots 28-23, Luongo make a shootout and broudour gets changed for backup. Bolts win 5-0.
Game 6 do or die. Bolts pressure devils and 2-2 at full time, Henrik Sedin settles it with an overtime goal
Game 7 3-3 after fulltime and great play by Brodeur and Luongo. 1 min in the overtime Zamuner scores first time he tuches puck in the game. Zamuner played 01:38 total icetime in the game and got rewarded the gold star the goal.

Conference final: a full healthy squad MTL got swepped with 4-0, 1st line dominates habs defence.

Stanley cup final: 4-2,2-0,1-2,3-2ot,4-3ot after 5 tight games bolts win the CUP!! Luongo vs Roy ended up in advantage for the rookie. A star keeper was born and showed he’s value for the team.

Stats: (22playoff games)
Luongo 14wins of 16. 1.49gaa, save 0.932 avr 7.88
Brad Richards 23p 7g 16a
Henrik Sedin 22p 8g 14a
Daniel Sedin 23p 10g 13a

Awards
Luongo was runners up vezina trophy, Jennings trophy winner, 3rd for roger grozier award, Conn smyth winner, 2nd all star team.

Trades
2001 picks for 2002 picks, to continue the rolling, while my players from 99 draft fills the AHL spots. (2,3,4ths)

Ryan Malone to Canucks for
-Martin Erat , Jan Marek

Jan Marek to Sharks for
-Jeff Halpern

Marek was moved around to get halpern.

Draft 2002
1 nr30 Hans Lenardon
2 nr55 Tomas Fleichman
2 nr56 Patrick Thoressen
4 nr115 Dimitri Arsenault
4 nr118 Kristan Skirko
4 nr120 Gne Converse
5 nr150 Mikko Turunen
6 nr180 Alexei Chemikov
7 nr210 David Nedorost

Lenardon and Fleichman are centers with 2C as potential and Thoressen is a winger with good mentals. I don’t expect much from these picks. Rick nash, kesler,vanek,bouwmeester, steen where picked in the top and no good prospect fall to 30th.

Player devolpment & prospects
Brad Richards and Campbell are both improving rapidly, most attributes is +1 but a few are +2 since last year. Daniel Sedin is improving in the offensive attributes and increased from 16 to 18 in wristshot.

Congrats on the cup win kennec! Just had the same wonderfull thing happen to me, though it took me 6 seasons, but I'm not complaining.

105p season and a Stanley Cup! One thing I have witnessed now is that some players seem born to be cup players. During the final stretch of the regular season I brought up Bourque as Peverley got injured. He didn't play well at all and I was actually thinking to myself he could become tradebait in the off season. I decided to give him one more shot and moved him onto the 1st line with Richards and Renberg...he started to produce, slowly but surly. Come playoff time though, he was a beast with 19p in 22GP, slowed down a bit in the final 2 games. Another star in the playoffs was defenseman Andrew Hutchinson (18p in 22GP) and Duncan Keith, at times, dominated and has taken some big steps in his development over the season. Richards the obvious star man of the season as well as the playoffs. This was my playoff lines:

Bourque - Richards - Renberg
Lecavalier - Peverley - Heatley/Havlat
Drury - Halpern - Daigle
Zamuner - Pahlsson/Kesler - Nazarov

Keith - Robidas
Suter - Mara/Strudwick
Henry - Hutchinson

Fernandez

Despite the fantasic-ness of a cup win, we got hit by Drury getting gready. The man wants to get paid big it seems. Rejected my offer of 2,8M/y and he doesn't think we can give him what he wants. Wish he would have told me by the deadline, I would have dumped him right then and there...now he will walk it looks like. We do have ton of cap space, but it would feel stupid playing a 3rd liner more then my best top 6 players.

Season 5 2002-2003 ” the lightning bolt strike”

Reg. Season
Zamuner left the team before the season, can’t pay him 4m anymore. Sedins and a bunch of players got new contracts.
Bolts finished 1st in NHL with 59 wins. The team scored 309 goals and is the highest scoring team in NHL. Together with top notch keepers the team is now a SC challenger.

Lines
D.Sedin-H.Sedin-Renberg
Zetterberg-Richards-Bure
Tucker-Jokinen-Scatchard
Franzen-Halpern-Brown

Timonen-Campbell
Visnovsky-Boyele
Strudwick-Bieksa

Luongo-Thomas

Stats:
Valeri Bure 89p 47g 42a “89p again”
Brad Richards 76p 32g 44a “need to grow more”
Henrik Sedin 83p 25g 58a “can he reach 60a season?”
Daniel Sedin 81p 37g 44a “soon 40 goal season on the sniper”
Luongo played 50 and Thomas 32


Playoff
1st round 4-0 against Buffalo, scored 20 conceded 5. Bure scored 6 in 4 games. Was not even close.
2nd round against 4-1 against Florida
Conference final: 4-0 Ottawa, outclasses sens with a 8-4 win and a 5-2 in the playoff…
Stanley cup final: 4-0 win against Calgary. Closer games 3-2,4-2.5-3, 3-1. Giguere in flames held the numbers down with 9-10 ratings in the games. Bolts win SC again!
Overall team felt very stable in the playoff, with Zetterberg I got two lines who can score. Before it was more sedins on first line or Bure on 2nd line. Luongo has grown a lot since last playoff and is a rock in the net.

Stats: (17playoff games)
Luongo 16wins of 16. 1.80gaa, save 0.923 avr 7.44
Valery Bure 29p 12g,17a

Awards
Valery Bure won maurice rocket trophy with 47 goals, won conn smyth
Luongo, runner up vezina again, Jennings, roger crozier,
Henrik Zetterberg. Runners up Selke
Mike Keenan won jack adams for 2nd time
Henrik Sedin won +- award with +57
Daniel Sedin ranner up +- award with +55

Trades
Martin Erat , Martin Cibak to BUF for
-Niklas Kronwall
Needed an 7th dmen as backup

Pavel Kubina, Craig Andersson to SJ for
-Kevin Bieksa
An upgrade in defence where the slow Kubina get replaced by the much faster Bieksa, SJ gets a future starting keeper as extra.

Toni Lydman to SJ for
-Lubomir Visnovsky
Visnovsky won calder trophy and made rookie season with 50p under he’s belt, Lydman had better hitting and defensive attributes but I felt that Lubomir would add more to the team in form of flair, creativity, blueline shooting and better reading of the game.

Rene Bourque to islanders for
-Henrik Zetterberg.
After winning the cup last year we felt that we didn’t had replacer for top6 forwards and that tucker wasn’nt the same level as the other 5. This trade was a key trade to solve “tucker” problem I had 4 seasons. Tucker get moved down to 3rd line where he can play without pressure and highly paid primadonas and be happy with 40p seasons. Zetterberg take slot at 2LW and brings lots of skills reading of the game to the 2nd line with Richards and Bure. Rene Bourque is an amazing talent but bolts needed a ready player now.

Branko Radijovic and a 2nd pick for
- Olli Jokinen
Branko made 48p in 27 games in AHL but only 16p in 67 games in NHL. With the Zetterberg trade the possibility for him to get icetime on 2nd line went away as tucker is 1st for that spot. So basicly this trade was a 3rd line right winger with potential for a underperforming 2nd line center. Olli Jokkinen been underperforming but got good all around for a 3rd line winger. With olli and Zetterberg my 3rd line was finally put together tucker-jokinen-scatchard and same time improved 2nd line while I gave away to young promising wingers. Bur better for my team to have more ready players then destroy young players AVR on 3rd line.

Draft day, moved picks around to get high 2nd picks to get some more talent for AHL. Basically moved 2 low 2nds or future 2nd for high 2nds.

After draft:
Chris Higgins to sharks for
-Joe Pavelski and a 2nd pick
After Zetterberg joined (age 22) there is no possibility that Higgins would get a chance at left wing (sedin1, zetterberg2,tucker3). And on the right wing Renberg is 31 years and will need a replacer soon. Pavelsky is natural right winger with about same potential as Higgins, Higgins got more speed but less technical. Pavaelsky comes from 17p season at sharks in 77 games and Higgins comes from a 117p season in Cleveland.

Draft 2003
1 nr30 Ryan Callahan C
2 nr31 Jaroslav Halak G
2 nr32 Matt Carle D
2 nr40 Teddy Purcell LW
2 nr41 Phil Newman LW
3 nr77 Andrei Kostisyn RW
3 nr80 Eero Kilpännen G
3 nr86 August Likens LW
4 nr92 Jordan Schremp RW

Callahan is a defensive center with a lot of upside, he will never reach higher lines but I hope he can claim a 3rd line spot and PK play in 3-4 years. Halak,Carle,Purcell was brought in to grow in the organisation and maybe use as tradebates or 3-4 liners.


Player devolpment
Luongo looks amazing with 19s and 20s in all keeper stats. Since arrival he has increased from 15/16s to 19/20s. Daniel Sedin continues to develop and have now several 18s. Brian Campbell looks like a star player and surpassed timmonen in rankings, skills and stats.

saberhagen83 wrote:Congrats on the cup win kennec! Just had the same wonderfull thing happen to me, though it took me 6 seasons, but I'm not complaining.

105p season and a Stanley Cup! One thing I have witnessed now is that some players seem born to be cup players. During the final stretch of the regular season I brought up Bourque as Peverley got injured. He didn't play well at all and I was actually thinking to myself he could become tradebait in the off season. I decided to give him one more shot and moved him onto the 1st line with Richards and Renberg...he started to produce, slowly but surly. Come playoff time though, he was a beast with 19p in 22GP, slowed down a bit in the final 2 games. Another star in the playoffs was defenseman Andrew Hutchinson (18p in 22GP) and Duncan Keith, at times, dominated and has taken some big steps in his development over the season. Richards the obvious star man of the season as well as the playoffs. This was my playoff lines:

Bourque - Richards - Renberg
Lecavalier - Peverley - Heatley/Havlat
Drury - Halpern - Daigle
Zamuner - Pahlsson/Kesler - Nazarov

Keith - Robidas
Suter - Mara/Strudwick
Henry - Hutchinson

Fernandez

Despite the fantasic-ness of a cup win, we got hit by Drury getting gready. The man wants to get paid big it seems. Rejected my offer of 2,8M/y and he doesn't think we can give him what he wants. Wish he would have told me by the deadline, I would have dumped him right then and there...now he will walk it looks like. We do have ton of cap space, but it would feel stupid playing a 3rd liner more then my best top 6 players.

Congratz on the win. Intresting we got completly different defence force. i been eyeing Mara and he looks solid and i regret moving him away as Thomas is only my backup keeper i got for him.
Funny that you wrote about Bourque, i prolly just traded him away while yours was SC winner mayby i hadnt traded him if i had read your post before! I hope Zetterberg wont fail me

How does your prospect list look like and wich of them do you expect to make the team next years?

kennec wrote:How does your prospect list look like and wich of them do you expect to make the team next years?

I hate to admit it, but my prospect pool is so thin. Basically all my good prospects are up playing for the Lightning right now, guys like Suter, Keith and Bourque seems to have taken up their spots on the team already. I'm hoping Craig Anderson can come up next season, he is looking quite good in AHL but still lacking in his recovery. Alexei Semenov is on the top of my prospect list. He has gotten a few looks already but never done well for me. Will probably give him a new chance next season to prove himself. Finally Ryan Kesler, imho, is my biggest prospect. But I feel he may not be ready for the NHL full time next season yet.

Just struck a deal with Colorado to bring Alex Tanguay in exchange for Mikael Renberg and 3rd. Love Renberg, but at 32 I expect him to start dropping soon and having a star guy in Tanguay cannot be a bad thing...I hope. He wanted to get traded out of Colorado....I say welcome to Tampa son. Though we still have to tie him up to a new deal...looks like we can but he will be the highest earner by far. Well untill Richards contract is up, likely he will get even more I think.

saberhagen83 wrote: I hate to admit it, but my prospect pool is so thin. Basically all my good prospects are up playing for the Lightning right now, guys like Suter, Keith and Bourque seems to have taken up their spots on the team already. I'm hoping Craig Anderson can come up next season, he is looking quite good in AHL but still lacking in his recovery. Alexei Semenov is on the top of my prospect list. He has gotten a few looks already but never done well for me. Will probably give him a new chance next season to prove himself. Finally Ryan Kesler, imho, is my biggest prospect. But I feel he may not be ready for the NHL full time next season yet.

Just struck a deal with Colorado to bring Alex Tanguay in exchange for Mikael Renberg and 3rd. Love Renberg, but at 32 I expect him to start dropping soon and having a star guy in Tanguay cannot be a bad thing...I hope. He wanted to get traded out of Colorado....I say welcome to Tampa son. Though we still have to tie him up to a new deal...looks like we can but he will be the highest earner by far. Well until Richards contract is up, likely he will get even more I think.

Ye i do the same with my prospects, either they reach the NHL team or they get shipped off with some existing player as a + for an upgrade or hole in the rooster. Kesler doesnt sound bad, he looks promising in my game and i wouldn't mind have him waiting for a spot

My prospect list are
1. Halak Young keeper, Next year i will play him in AHL
2. Kronwall , hes 21 and late bloomer, coaches say i should play him more at right level but he got no spot, hes my nr7dmen
3. Purcell , young winger
4. Ryan Callahan, defensive forward to be, tons of potential, he will not make many points but he will help me on 3-4 line and PK, and those players are hard to get

And i have 19 year old Joe Pavelski, hes not on prospect list couse sharks decided to play him as 18 years old on wings of their 3/4 lines and give him NHL games and poor AVR. I will play him in AHL next season to start hes development again with some nice ratings and high morale.

I also been looking to see what i can get for Renberg, in my game hes contract runs out this season (s.6) and he wants 3,9m 4years, not sure i wanna give him that. He can get the overpaid status and then hes impossible to trade away. I had that happen to Bure,Tucker,Ranford, Boyle. Tanguay sounds amazing for Renberg, Congratz for amazing trade, hes one of the best wingers in the game.

Start of Season 6
2003-2004 ” boom or bust”

Trade in summer 2003

Henrik Zetterberg to flyers for
-Simon Gagne and a 2nd pick.
Gagne was unhappy and target of many clubs. They are same age and gagne in last year of a 1,2m contract.Gagne realy never made it to 1st line and made 150p in 300 games in Philly dress but they always playd him 2nd line with not so good players. Reson for bolts to do this is that gagne is more offensive player with better shooting and deflections and is true LW. He will play with richards line. Zetterberg only playd 35 games(24p) in bolts but will have a excellent future in flyers, they realy need a 2nd line C.

Lines oct 2003
D.Sedin-H.Sedin-Renberg
Gagne-Richards-Bure
Tucker-Jokinen-Scatchard
Franzen-Halpern-Vlasenkov

Timonen-Campbell
Visnovsky-Boyele
Strudwick-Bieksa

Luongo-Thomas

contracts:
Gagne signed a new 4year 1,2m contract with stanely cup champs.
Tucker and Renberg are upcoming UFA and asks for outrageous contracts and i will need to address this issue somehow during the season, trade or resign? , well see....

Whew, finally back to season 4 after the rollback (spent more time on my db)

Since I was less focused (time-wise) on the challenge, I had a lot more patience trying to find deals. Season 3 went worse for me both in TB and in CLE (which appeared to have resulted in less development for my players... bummer).) Ended up with the #2 pick, still went with Ilya (now did that draft twice, both times Rinne went one pick before me...).

With the more agressive trading, pretty much the same guys went out, I just fought harder to get the best deals. The 'steal' (IMO) was Lecavalier and Afanasenkov to COL for Marek and Drury. I just can't get Vinny to work in this save... then the Avs get 10 more points in the same 40 games than I could.
Nazarov and a 4th to TOR for Madden (need defense)
Langkow to MIN for a 5th (just happy to get rid of him for something...
Mara and a 5th to BUF for McKee
3rd to NYI for Boucher which was just a week before this one fell in my lap...
Grier anda 5th to MTL for Fichaud (thought he'd be the starter until something sprung free)
So then Boucher to PHI for Eaton
Eaton to PIT for Scuderi and a 6th

Then, in September, the trade I've been waiting for springs free. Fichaud and a 2nd for kiprusoff. And he's young enough!

So, going into season 4 (and praying we are ready to turn the corner, but not holding my breath. Every line has two guys who list each other as favorites, so hopefully that works):

Zamuner-Richards-Marek
Brunette-Pahlsson-Renberg
Sedin-Peca-Richer
Madden-Drury-Dumont
Cross-Kubina
Scuderi-Lydman
McKee-Streit
Kiprusoff
Aubin

Here's to (hopefully) playoff contention!

Asher413 wrote:
Zamuner-Richards-Marek
Brunette-Pahlsson-Renberg
Sedin-Peca-Richer
Madden-Drury-Dumont
Cross-Kubina
Scuderi-Lydman
McKee-Streit
Kiprusoff
Aubin

Here's to (hopefully) playoff contention!

where is tucker? why peca on 3rd line and pålsson 2nd? Samuel devolped good?

Started off very good in season 7. But it's a bit of an odd season so far. Drury stopped being greedy in the end and we managed to re-sign the guy...and now he is putting up goals like never before! Pahlsson has gone off a cliff and is playing his worst for me ever so far, no one to replace the guy though and overpaid means no trade possible. I decided to upgrade my defense with Tallinder by sending Havlat and a 2nd to Sabres. Havlat has dropped a bit and didn't play well and lost his top 6 spot to Bourque now. Tallinder has done well so far, but right now I wish I would have done something to that 4th C. Then again, I can't find a single decent defensive C that would fit in a bottom 6 role. All good defensive players are top 6 guys and I can't afford guys like that. My PK is horrible as a result as well.

saberhagen83 wrote:Started off very good in season 7. But it's a bit of an odd season so far. Drury stopped being greedy in the end and we managed to re-sign the guy...and now he is putting up goals like never before! Pahlsson has gone off a cliff and is playing his worst for me ever so far, no one to replace the guy though and overpaid means no trade possible. I decided to upgrade my defense with Tallinder by sending Havlat and a 2nd to Sabres. Havlat has dropped a bit and didn't play well and lost his top 6 spot to Bourque now. Tallinder has done well so far, but right now I wish I would have done something to that 4th C. Then again, I can't find a single decent defensive C that would fit in a bottom 6 role. All good defensive players are top 6 guys and I can't afford guys like that. My PK is horrible as a result as well.

I have same problems with bottom 6 forwards. I overpaid like crazy to get Antropov from Maple leafs, hes not defensive but superbig and fast for 3rd line center. With dave scatchard and halpen i got decent 3 , but extremly hard get them defensive linemayes for line3/4. I had Jokinen there for 2 seson but he always got 666-7-66 and bad morale.

I got the following on my shortlist for def forwards season 6-7:
Chris Neil
Jimmie Ölvestad (regret i moved him)
Branden Morrow ( super expensive to trade for)
Alexander popov (amazing and my buffalo refuse trade him even for both sedins)
Fredrik Sjöström ( superspeedy and brave)
Tuomo Ruttu ( hes my current nr 1 target and buffalo said no to 27 trade offers on him 2x for toumo ..)
Henrik Zetterberg ( perfect 3rd line center with pp time)
Andrei Sidyakin

kennec wrote:I have same problems with bottom 6 forwards. I overpaid like crazy to get Antropov from Maple leafs, hes not defensive but superbig and fast for 3rd line center. With dave scatchard and halpen i got decent 3 , but extremly hard get them defensive linemayes for line3/4. I had Jokinen there for 2 seson but he always got 666-7-66 and bad morale.

I got the following on my shortlist for def forwards season 6-7:
Chris Neil
Jimmie Ölvestad (regret i moved him)
Branden Morrow ( super expensive to trade for)
Alexander popov (amazing and my buffalo refuse trade him even for both sedins)
Fredrik Sjöström ( superspeedy and brave)
Tuomo Ruttu ( hes my current nr 1 target and buffalo said no to 27 trade offers on him 2x for toumo ..)
Henrik Zetterberg ( perfect 3rd line center with pp time)
Andrei Sidyakin

Some interesting names in there. I know I've been trying for Popov for the longest of times, but like you, one hard player to pry away from his team. I know Chicago came at me recently offering me Zetterberg, they want Hutchinson straight up. I'm a bit hesitant to make that move though as Hutch is so good on that 3rd pair for me right now, and on the 2nd PP. Putting up a nice amount of points and was superb in the cup run last year. On the other hand I could move Halpern to 4th and go with Zetterberg on 3rd. Eh, hard descisions to be made I think .

kennec wrote:where is tucker? why peca on 3rd line and pålsson 2nd? Samuel devolped good?

Traded Tucker almost as soon as I could, he was TERRIBLE with me (lead team in minus rating, penalties and only had 23 points.

Peca is lower because of balance (I like to keep 4 balanced lines if I don't have an all-world line) , line matching (by the AI- they will not defend the 3rd line when they match as strong as the first two) and fatigue management (Peca is on the first PP and PK). By pure talent I would do:

Brunette-Peca-Renberg
Sedin-Richards-Marek

As the top 6. Maybe Richer for Marek. For whatever reason when I don't have overwhelming talent (like when I have Parise-Crosby-Malkin in my Pens save), I really only generate goals on the PP, so I try to make sure my PP guys are rested enough to own that.

So I decided to pull the trigger. One bad thing about me is that I tend to get attached to players I drafted, even though they are just digital names on my screen. But I sent Hutchinson, as well as Afanasenkov (yes I still have the AHL beast ) to Chicago. In return they give us Zetterberg and Ruutu. I think Hutchinsons stock has risen a lot ever since the playoffs, where he was stellar. And he has had a superb start to the season as well. Gonna miss him, but Zetterberg and Ruutu adress some glaring issues on the team. Zetterberg has slotted in on the 3rd line sending Halpern to the 4th (of course got injured straight away...welcome back Pahlsson ) and Ruttu goes in on the RW on that 4th line. Both new guys on the PK as well, instantly improved! 28 games into the season and we have a 21-5-2 record. Looking very good.

Final piece missing, I feel, is a no.1 goalie. Fernandez and Vokoun are so inconsistent and Anderson still has too low recovery = some horror games from him on NHL level.

Finished the 2001-02 season, and it was a beauty!

Spent a large part of the season around 7th in the East, but caught fire near the end and finished 5th. Dropped in 5 games to the Caps (2 in OT), but for a team that was drafting top 3 most seasons, this was a big win.

Kiprusoff was the anwser, and finally have a goalie stop 90% of shots makes a WORLD of difference. Made three minor trades that made us better (but eliminated minor league depth)- Bannister for picks, Kucharczyk and Straka for Malhotra and JP Dumont and Cibak for Orpik. We were very strong top to bottom, Sedin/Peca/Marek was my best line for a lot of the year. Peca finaly was back in Selke contention with a 3rd place finish.

Next season should be even better, everyone will be one year older- Sharp and Brendl will be coming up full time, looks like Richer will price himself off the team (he was good for 11-11-22 on the 4th line, but wants 2.5 million at 36!). Hejda/Ilya/Maholtra will be in Cleveland as the first line of call ups. The only real challenge I want to address in the offseason will be to move a defenseman (I have 8 NHL quality IMO, but the AI doesn't agree on #8...)

For my challenge all under-rated team is Andrei Skopitsev. I never thought he'd make the team, and he now has 173 NHL games for me, and has been holding on no matter how many times I try to replace him.

The "wish I didn't trade him"- Cullimore (was between him and Skopitsev... he played better after I traded him).

So far feeling really good about how it's worked out. Hopefully will get to two more seasons, but with work returning next week, realistically I'll finish one more. Hopefully it's a cup run!

Headed into season 5, and *gulp* we are the cup favorites (amazing how the game changes its mind so fast).

I have the exciting problem of too many legit NHL players (finally), so I'm not sure of my long term lines (even here at game one), but the men fighting for ice time:

Kiprusoff/Aubin

Lydman/Orpik/Corss/Streit/Scuderi/Kubina/McKee (Skopintsev hanging on in the press box)

Sedin/Brunette/Sharp/Zaumner/Ilya/Brendl/Renberg/Marek/Madden on wings
Peca/Richards/Drury/Pahlsson down the middle (Madden may move in if Pahlsson gets scratched)

Kovalchuck, Brendl and Sharp can still be sent down if they aren't ready, but all three had amazing presesaons and camps, so I have to at least see if they are ready. The biggest challenge (hopefully) this season will be getting some value for Skopintsev, and making sure we get home ice for at least one round!

So I've wrapped up season 6 (I think the furthest I've done in a challenge) and my team finally got it together. We won the President's Trophy and the Stanley Cup!

I'd say that the biggest factor in our success was acquiring Roberto Luongo. While Bryzgalv was really good for us in the previous season, he just couldn't steal games for us like Luongo. Also, having him in net gave our skaters more confidence and I think that was a factor in improving our scoring as well. Another big addition to our team was Kovalchuk. He killed it in the AHL last season once he made the move over to North America and did reasonably well when called up. This season he spent the whole year in the NHL and was always on the top line. He lead our team in Goals, Points, and +/-.

I made a couple other deals besides Bryz and a 4th for Luongo. I wasn't really happy with what I was getting out of Mara. He just didn't seem like the top pairing guy he was valued at. It was time to move on from him. At about the mid-season point I moved him to the Sharks in a straight up deal for Brad Stuart. The board and fans loved it. That was my second "steal". About a week later I made another move for my defense. I had been getting teams interested in Sykora. I ended up moving him and Dykhuis to Anaheim for Paul Martin. That was my third "steal". I don't know what Anaheim was doing here. They sent Sykora down to the AHL without letting him play 1 NHL game for them. Dykhuis played in about half of the remaining games and didn't do too well. I can't wrap my head around that. These moves helped me strengthen up the left side.

We won awards this year!

Pat Burns = Adams
Luongo = Vezina, Jennings, Crozier, Clancy, 1st Team All-Star
Zetterberg = Selke
Kovalchuk = Calder, 3rd in +/-, Conn Smythe, 1st Team All-Star, All Rookie Team

Hello 98 DB Challenge participants! or any using the 98 DB who read this


I'm hoping some of you can pass on your thoughts on.....Team Budgets and contract amounts/signability of players


A few people on the HF Boards are saying things like...

• UFA's are unwilling to sign or the board is unwilling to give money to re-sign key players
• salary offering seems to be a real problem when there is no salary cap in '98 DB
• my main issue isn't the money. Players aren't getting stupid contracts or anything with there being no cap, which is nice. But the boards themselves won't give money to retain stars regardless of the current budget / salaries of the team
• As it is I just get the feeling that you don't actually get rewarded for staying below / at your budget regardless of how well your team does. You can be a mediocre team in the league or the best team but your board might not let you retain your own players even if they're willing to sign extensions
• Its the Team budgets that are the issue. I played 1 season with that DB as the wings, and even their budget limit was between $30 & $40m (or perhaps just above - i checked a few and can't remember which was which) and other big market teams were the same. Given that 4 years later the likes of Detroit, Colorado and other powerhouses were paying on average between $60-80m, this might need tweaking across the board
• the problem is that my single player budget doesn't go up when the budget goes up

In addition to any comments on the above, I'm also wondering what are NHL teams payroll totals like & what are the top NHL players salary amounts as time goes on...


Thanks in advance to any who can give some feedback


P.S. Anybody seeing/producing some real high scorers? One poster noted Bure having "4 consecutive 65+ goal seasons" & a 25 year old Gaborik had "like an 80 goal/160 point season or something"

I wonder if I did something wrong in setting up the challenge game because I definitely have a salary cap. It shows a salary cap of $44M and a salary floor of $28M. In the first several seasons of the challenge I was getting fined for not reaching the salary floor. I wonder what I did wrong?

Finances Screenshot

That screenshot shows both the salary floor and cap.

As for outrageous scoring, I don't see any sign of that. I've gone 6 seasons deep into the DB. In each season, the league's top goal scorer never topped 55 goals. The point totals seem pretty tame too. They've ranged between 87 and 101 points for top in the league. The 87 point season was actually in the most recent season. So if anything, scoring has gone down a bit over time I guess.

I'm not sure how the team budgets and allowed contracts have worked out. With the team we used and the challenge rules, I don't think I've encountered any issues. I never had a player I couldn't retain due to salary demands. I had some that just refused to sign with us but that's because we were a terrible team. I haven't had any experience with UFAs with this DB because the challenge rules didn't allow for it.

I'm still stuck on the salary cap issue. I just looked at the league info screen and it shows a salary cap there too.

League Info

So why are these people not running into a salary cap but I am?

Hmmm... so I've started a new game and now there's no salary cap. My guess is that the original challenge saved was created from the DB you guys gave me right at release. The new game I started was created from the version of the DB that I've subscribed to via the Steam Workshop.

bruins72 wrote:Hmmm... so I've started a new game and now there's no salary cap. My guess is that the original challenge saved was created from the DB you guys gave me right at release. The new game I started was created from the version of the DB that I've subscribed to via the Steam Workshop.

IIRC initially there was a typo in the transfer_rules_config file (on Steam the "Change Notes" says on July 6th "Corrected salary cap and floor settings in transfer_rules_config.cfg")

I'm guessing since the "0" wasn't registering with the game because of the typo, the game reverted to the 2006 Rule Set Salary Cap

That explains it. Thanks!

I'm playing around with a 98DB game that I started at some point that I simmed forward to 2004 that has no salary cap. I'm going to do some testing on rule ideas for the next challenge. I'll see if I spot any of the behavior that you mentioned above. Also, if anyone wants to help test out challenge rules with this save, let me know. I'm trying to figure out what will be fair for UFA signings. I'd like to not go as strict as we have in the past but also not have it exploited.

nino33 wrote:

• UFA's are unwilling to sign or the board is unwilling to give money to re-sign key players

I've come across something like this when playing around with another save with this DB. A player was unwilling to sign as a pending UFA. I would offer the guy something like 4x5M/y and he would still reject, stating I wouldn't be able to afford him. Actually had a similar thing happen with Drury on the TB save. Anyway, the player went to free agency and on day 1 I was able to offer him a contract of 4x1,8M/y...and he accepted. Meaning he not only rejected a massive contract before he went UFA, he also took a 600k paycut on his first day as a free agent!

P.S. Anybody seeing/producing some real high scorers? One poster noted Bure having "4 consecutive 65+ goal seasons" & a 25 year old Gaborik had "like an 80 goal/160 point season or something"

Not quite so high from what I have seen, but certainly more point producing is going on, meaning more point per game players. But other then that, nothing over the top as I can see. Guys like Bure or other top point guys in the league seems to land around 35-45 goals/season. Did that poster have those guys on his team? That would be my guess.

I wouldn't be shocked if you can get that with players on your own team, depending on your tactics cause I have also have seen on both the TB save and my other one that there are a lot more games like 9-2, 8-1 etc, just like EHM had from the beginning, before being patched up. THis also leads to PP% being much higher, most teams sit at 20% or higher, which means PK% is below 80% for most teams. I've noticed myself that PP is much easier now when you have a good team compared to my usual 15-20% I have on this game. Now I can have like 25% or so pretty easily. Haven't played with the regular roster in a good long while now, so not sure if it's just the '98 one doing this of it's a game thing.