EHM The Blue Line

I am now EXTREMELY happy I kept Olivier Roy up for the first season. Because in GAme 82 of the season, Dubnyk let in 3 goals on 6 shots. I put in Deslauriers (who I did not want to play) and he plays 45 minutes...only to go down with an injury. Dubnyk goes back in for the last 10 minutes and gives up 2 more goals on 3 more shots.

I lost 5-1.

Oh, and when I left the game...JDD injury--4 month UCL. Yay! Olivier Roy at 18 gets to start the first game of the playoffs.

I am new and i dont get it.How do I enter in challenge?

Start by reading the rules. They're listed in the info box at the top of this forum. If you read all of the rules it should tell you exactly how to enter the challenge.

Just wrapped up the 1st season. Was 12th in the conference and got 5th pick in the draft. I have to admit that I tried to lose the last 8 games as I found that the playoff spot was too far. Or actually I just put Dubnyk in the net for the last games and he really did his job I was hoping that Fowler would fall to my reach but no such luck. So I decided to draft Jon Merrill as I wanted a defenseman rather than an offensive one. I think this team has a lot of young talent up in the front so no need to have a more of them. Well, maybe a center prospect would be nice.

And in the offseason the main point was, of course, to get a starting goalie. After a few trade negotiations I had three trades to choose from: Gagner and Staios to Pheonix for Bryzgalov and Michalek, Gagner and Staios to Senators for Leclaire and Volchenkov, and Gagner and Staios to Canadiens for Halak and Antropov.
I wanted to add a more defensively responsible defenseman to replace Staios who just wasn't worth of his salary. And as I was going to trade Gagner away I wanted to add a center who would know how to play defense too. In the free agent market Nick Boynton, Wayne Primeau and Andy Sutton accepted my offers. I soon did decide that I wasn't going to do the Phoenix trade as I didn't like Michalek that much. So the choice had to be made between Canadiens and Senators. Both of them had a upside and a downside. Leclaire was cleary a better goalie than Halak but Antropov was the guy that had my interest in the Canadiens trade. In him I would get the kind of two-way center that I was looking for. Plus I've never had him on my team so he would be a totally new player to explore. Volchenkov would have been another guy whom I've never had on my team and he looked liked a good defensive defenseman.
I went with Antropov and Halak. That still leaves kind of a goalie problem for me as I don't think that Halak is a real starting goalie, atleast not yet. He's an improvement to JDD but I would still prefer a stronger starting goalie. But hey, this is a Challenge. What comes to the free agency, I went with Boynton. Sutton was a little too old, though he would have brought some serious size and grit to my defense.

So my roster for the season 2 looks something like this:

Cogliano-Horcoff-Hemsky
Souray-Visnovsky

Mikhnov-Antropov-O'Sullivan
Grebeshkov-Gilbert

Moreau-Comrie-Penner
Smid-Boynton

Nilsson/Pisani-Stone-Stortini
Strudwick

Halak
Deslauriers

The team looks pretty good, I just hope that Halak can do a good job in the net.

So..Round 1, and guess who I get? Avalanche.

Went 4-2 against the Av's during the season. But JDD played all 6.

Anyway, have played the round..We won 4 games to 1. And my little kid in net?

4-1-0 1.20 .946 2 shutouts and 8.60 rating. Is he ready for Prime time? Wow.

Leading the way in scoring is Penner with 9 points in 5 games. Horcoff and Hemsky have 6 each and Comrie with 5 (4 in game 5)

Off to round 2...Grebeshkov got hurt in game 5, but only out for a week, and with the other series still going, should be ready for game 1 of round 2. Phew.

Well done Batdad.
I left Roy with Cape Bretton and he was tearing it up until he went down mid season with an ACL. Out 4 months..I've planned on giving him a look again for season 2 as a possible backup.

I've been looking ahead a bit to the draft and it looks like my focus will be goalies and defensemen. At LW we have MPS and Cogliano, at C we have Gagner and Lander and at RW we have Eberle and Rajala as far as top-six prospects go if I can trust my scouts.

Meanwhile at G we only have Roy and at D we are stuck with Smid who I don't really like and Plante who looks very nice but is defense only. There are three D-men ranked in the top 15 of the draft and I'd be happy with any of them but I would prefer Fowler or Gormely who look like they will be two-way monsters while Pysyk seems more defense oriented. There are two goalies expected to go in the first round but my scouts like neither. Jack Campbell of the NTDP ranked at #28 has ridiculous stats though, 41GP 38W 1.17GAA .959SV%.

Here comes the 2nd season summary...

I finished 6th in the conference about 10 points ahead of then 9th. After struggling a little bit I modified my tactics to a more physical way and Fleury started to play unbelievable the last 20 games and in the playoffs.
In the first round I faced the Kings and after trailing by 0-2 I won the series 4-2, in the second round the Flames, one of the teams I am really afraid of... I should be right, we lost after a tough fight 3-4.

Especially the PP-line line with Pääjärvi-Horcoff-Hemsky played fantastic (Hemsky had 2 consecutive hatricks), but I still have problems to develop defensive tactics, but having M.A. Fleury, who already developed almost to the maximum, in net helps a lot....

Souray was really hot in the playoffs and had a AvR of over 9 (!!) in 13 games, Visnovsky was an important element in regular season but his play dropped awfully in the playoffs, so I decided to trade him in the 3rd season, I will maybe lack some defensive play and offensive skills from the blue line, but I simply needed a great Center and Visknovsky has an immensive cap hit for his abbilities and the team's needs.

The trade: Visnovsky + Comrie for Paul Stastny + Shattenkirk

Gilbert will easily replace Lubo (at least i hope so , we will see if it was a mistake) and I really have no use for Comrie (I would have loved to trade Nilsson, his attributes are so low that I dont even want to play him)
I never played with the Avalanche but Stastnys only downside is his "low" hitting stat (12) but he is exactly the Center i wanted, fantastic offensively, good defensive play, a great captain and young. I also tried to aquire Richards, but they wanted Pääjärvi and Fowler who are both NOT available.

The loss of Visnovsky made it necessary to aquire a good UFA [Shattenkirk is a fantastic 1st line defender in my Buffalo game, my scouts rate him only 5th or 6th D-men, but I think that he will improve a lot because of his ambitious-"attribute" (I dont know if it's shown in english like this!?)] but once again I wasnt able to sign any of the 4 I wanted to sign (Van Ryn, Ehrhoff, ? and McKee) , now I need to hope for a good Waiver (the Ducks put Lupul on Waivers, but the Stars got him ).... last year Ortmeyer was my choice who is playing really well and suiting perfectly into this team....

I don't even want to mention the Draft, it was a desaster, I think I couldn't even pick one single player who makes it into the NHL, I have never seen such a terrible draft...

I signed Galimov (good 22-year old backup goalie with really good stats, last years 7th round pick), Lander and Hartikainen to develop in AHL a lil bit and see if they are able to play in the NHL sometime....

Trophies last year:

- Uncountable AHL trophies for Cogliano (about 140-150 points) and Pääjärvi (120p in 73 games 25p in 29 games in the NHL) - they lost once again against Peoria in the Calder Cup final, this time 1-4

-Horcoff: 2nd Hart trophy; 3rd Lester B Pearson; 1st All Star Team
-Hemsky: 3rd Rocket and 5th in points overall
-Fowler: Top OHL D-men

My roster heading into 3rd season looks like this:

Souray - Gilbert -- O'sullivan - Stastny - Hemsky
Grebeshkov - Fowler -- Pääjärvi - Horcoff - Gagner
Smid - Shattenkirk -- Moreau - Stone - Ortmeyer
-- Cogliano - Brule - Penner

Fleury + Deslauriers
Scratch: Nilsson

Offensively this team should be really good, but I am not sure if the lack of the defense will be to big, we'll see...
Well i just started and won the first game against the Flames 6-0 , that's the way I like to start into a new season.

Some of you played the Avalanche-challenge, will Stastny develop like Malkin, i mean if he gets painted green from his head to his feet?

Greets

EDIT: Deleted double post / Lidas

Got through the second round. I had drawn Nashville who I had some trouble with all season going 1-1-2 with them. The two OT/SO losses (one of each) came in that back to back at the end of March. Horcoff missed both games, so it really was not as bad as it sounds. We played real even.

Anyway, I won the first two games of the series before getting beat up 4-2 in game 3 (I was outshot 48-25 in this game and Roy stood on his head. But the boys could not get it done. Game 4 saw Roy get his THIRD playoff shutout. Amazing. Then back at home for game 5, the boys showed up big and toyed with the Preds outshooting them 46-24 (40-10 through 2 periods before I made some lets not get injured changes) and winning game 5 4-1.

So off to round three. Not sure who it is yet, but the Red Wings lead the Flames 3 games to 2. Either way it is gonna be one tough round.

Olivier Roy #s

8-2-0 1.31 GAA .951 SV 3 SO 8.90 avg rating.

This dude is outstanding for me, and just keeps getting better and better. My tactics also seem to work better in playoffs (Always have actually) than they do in reg season.

Are you sure that's Olivier and not Patrick?

So I'm in my preseason heading into the 07-08 season. The NHL Season Preview just came out and we're ranked #1! What the Dickens? We got knocked out in the second round of the playoffs last season. We added Toskala, Ericsson, and Abdelkader. And somehow this makes us the favorites heading into the season? Yikes!

Heh. Yeah I am sure. I got the Wings for round three. Hemsky got hurt in game 1 right after scoring. I lost 3-1, game 2 I lost 2-1...Bertuzzi with the winner with 10 seconds left. Boys are tired. I think they are done.

The ranking comes because of Horcoff/Hemsky and the offense. It is real good with this team, and you added some defensive pieces. Not too surprised. You have 4 or 5 guys who are superb or star...so the rank for the team goes way up.

1 Star and 6 Superb. Still, we're only a few players different than last season (and none of the additions were better than Very Good). Last season we were ranked near the bottom. I think a middle of the pack rating would've been more expected.

I bet not too many other teams have 1 star and 6 superb.

Anyway...Aiyeeeeee. So lose game 1 and 2, play amazing in game 3 and win 3-1 without good old Ales Hemsky. He was at 84% for game 4 so I decided to dress him...only out 4 days of 10 day anterior knee pain. Played 3rd line and 2nd line PP...not enough and he did nothing. Lost 4-0. Had to yank Roy for first time as he gave up 3 on 8 shots. Dubnyk did well, but could not get one past Osgood.

In game 5 it was an exciting game. I got up 1-0 (Hemsky at 90% scores). Detroit ties it and goes up 2-1. Chris O'Sullivan does something for the first time all season and scores to tie the game...And guess what?

That god darn Bertuzzi sets up Filpulla for the 3rd goal with 10 minutes left. From then on I outshot Detroit 17-1. I basically played 2 lines from then on, but they were set in 3 lines.

Comrie-Horcoff-Penner

Cogliano-Gagner-Hemsky

Pisani got in a bit in the last 10 minutes. Moreau was out hurt. Losing him hurt as much as losing HEmsky.

So I Finish the game which I lose, and my season ends. The first news item of the next day: HEMSKY RESUMES PRACTICING. Moreau resumes skating.

Argggh. But 9 playoff wins in season 1. I will take that.

Roy playoff run

9-5-0 1.65 GAA .947 s% 3 SO 8.71 rating.

And now...off to hit continue 1000 or so times so I can get screenshot in. Not used to watching someone else play the Stanley Cup Final.

batdad wrote:Moreau was out hurt. Losing him hurt as much as losing HEmsky.

I noticed this too. I had him out at some point in my first season and my team played completely different without him. It's like they lost their soul. He doesn't show up on the scoresheet much but he definitely makes them a better team.

god job batdad

impressing to win 9 PO games with that team! The keepers and the no trade first year prolly made that result to best in challange seson 1

Meh. I finished 1st overall and went out in the semi finals. I feel like I am not as bad as the Ottawa Senators, but still annoyed.

Bet I am the only one who got to vote for JDD for Vezina Trophy.

Yeah... I didn't have any goalies anywhere near being considered. LOL! I usually don't though. I'm more offense and less defense.

So I'm 7 games into the second season. We're 4-2-1. My PK is doing OK (better than last season) but my PP isn't clicking like I know it can yet. I was missing Moreau for 3 games and that always affects my team. I think another big difference is the fact that Pat Quinn is gone. Renney just isn't the same.

BWAH! JDD won the Vezina, and the Jennings and the Crozier. And was on the 2nd all star team and rookie all star team. Yet I may trade for a goalie. BWAH!

Horcoff won the Ross, Hart and Pearson. Member of 1st all stars.

Quinn was 3rd for Adams, and Visnovsky was 3rd for Norris.

Hemsky won the weenie trophy.

ANd then I check player reputation....JDD and Horcoff are both now considered "STARS"

That's nuts! JDD as star? Trade him for a more talented goalie while his reputation is so high.

It changes so fast, it may be gone by July 1. And he is injured anyway til then...may have to wait til season starts. But yeah it is hilarious.

In fact 3 days after the awards...I look and he is down to superb.

Well my game got one thing right. The Leafs won the draft lottery. So guess who gets to pick 1st?

Nice! B's get Hall! The Bruins got the 3rd overall in my game (IIRC, they won the lottery and moved up to 3rd) and took Gormley. The Blackhawks actually tanked hardcore in my game and they ended up picking 1st overall.

Maybe the B's get Hall...Ciarelli is not that smart in this game remember.