EHM The Blue Line

Season 5 is done. It will be my last season in the challenge because it became boring. All gameplay I'm having is "hit Continue button". Tweak tactics? Nope, doesn't matter if it stays the same for 2.5 years. Juggle lines? Nope, my guys just don't seem to care what their opponents are trying to do (IF opponents are trying to do something).
Of course, 3rd Cup in a row. Playoffs 16-0-0. Regular season 73-5-4. Even PK is good at 85.6%. But we were shorthanded only 106 times or so. So the sample is not big enough.

But there is another level of pain:


Argh!! No, Ovechkin! Why?! At least we stole Maurice Richard from him this year.

Those are some kind of scoring numbers. Great stuff. Wish I could get some chemistry for scoring like that. Just will not happen for me.

But that being said,,,20 games of season 3 in the books.

17-2-1

Highlights

Demko-8-1-0 (loss to Montreal 4-0 outshot 51-12), 1.67 .946 2 shutouts. Great start to rookie season. Still technically he is my backup, but will come close to splitting games evenly. One of those 9 games he came on 6 minutes in when we were down 2-0 to Dallas (3 shots), and helped us win 5-4 in the shootout. Made 35 saves in this game.Linden

Linden Vey 5-9-14 in 18 games (healthy scratch twice) Still totally up and down.

Ryan Stanton--playing mean, won 2 fights, and has 2 misconducts to go with that. Doing well for stay at home guy.

Eriksson Ek---First 10 games had 11 points. Got injured. Has none in 7 games since return. Ugh...more of a lowlight?


Meh-Just about everyone else so far.


Low lights

Hunter Shinkaruk 3-1-4 in 16 games, 2 of those goals in game 15. Healthy scratch 4 games.
Jake VIrtanen-not really a low light but 3-1-4 in 12 games.
Stupidguy Dillon-Hate this guy. Looks like should be a stud. IS terrible. He is now my 7th defenceman and has only played 8 games of the 20.

Very meh so far about this season. Cannot score, but still defending well.

Think it may be my last in the challenge, unless the offense is unleashed soon. Too young down the middle and I know it.

kennec wrote:

visualdarkness wrote:By season three most of the guys here are in the playoffs but my team is stuck sucking 1-9 to start the season. Oh, that uninstall button is tempting. Like I said before this challenge is lost for me and I will end up last place every season, I just know it.

how does your lines look by s3? and whut star/core players have u brought in? If u only have young players it takes a few sesons for em to gel and devolp.

Well, the other teams won't accept the trades that you guys manage to get through so I mostly get scraps.

Right now my first line of Bärtschi-Scheifele-Saad isn't scoring enough but Saad is my only plus player so I kind of need to keep that line together for stability.

Yakupov and Grigorenko got some Russian chemistry going and bring is most of my scoring, Jenner and Lazar alternates as centers. The problem is that the line is quite dangerous defensively but I need that scoring.

Third line is unreliable and is some kind of combination of Girgensons/Jenner/Lazar/Vey/Nelson/Görtz. Nelson is a minus-machine.

Fourth is a simple goon line of Foligno-Girgensons/Nelson/Vey-Kassian.

Defensively I need to put my faith in Dillon and I'm quite happy to see that everybody else struggles with him. His stats for me are: 180games 4goals 47assists and a wooping -109.
All in all I got no top defenders at all and the only real potential first pairing guy in Dillon sucks so bad that I had to bump him to third at times.

Lindbohm-Petrovic (Petrovic got a slapper atleast)
Dillon-Musil (should be a defensive wall but isn't)
PercyOullet/-Tömmernes (Tömmernes sucks, dunno what you guys sees in him)

I even copied the tactics that was posted by one guy here earlier but I still end up:
4-18-0, 48-91

By this time I would be fighting for Stanley Cup in EHM2007 so I guess that it's simply that my methods doesn't translate to EHM:EA. I'm just as bad in my other save with the Oilers. I need some real coaching to get past this or I will probably grow really bored with the game soon and forget about it.

visualdarkness wrote:By this time I would be fighting for Stanley Cup in EHM2007 so I guess that it's simply that my methods doesn't translate to EHM:EA. I'm just as bad in my other save with the Oilers.

I really am sorry you're frustrated, but what you (and others too) are describing sounds great to me to be honest.

I thought EHM07 was far to easy to win the Stanley Cup in because even in Challenges that had limitations people could still "rebuild overnight" and unrealistically win the Stanley Cup in years 1-3 (when they should probably be at best fighting for a playoff spot).....I remember pushing (unsuccessfully HaHa) for the Washington Capitals to be used in the 1974 DB Challenge (they were the worst team in NHL history IRL)

Ok, so I thought I should write a recap post on my 5 year journey at the head of Canucks.

We did a great job developing this franchise. This is our way:
S1. 12th in the conference. Rough, but not devastating.
S2. First President's Trophy and Cup finals. But Tampa was too strong for us.
S3. 127 pts in the regular season. First Cup win! And after that I already knew what was going to happen.
S4. 139 pts + Cup. Better and better.
S5. 150 pts + Cup. Unbeaten in the playoffs.

We played together 484 games and won 336 of them.

This team is awesome. I left Vancouver with these guys:


Let's talk a little about the most notable of them.

1. Connor McDavid. I was super lucky to win that first draft lottery. That was my second save in the EHM:EA and I didn't have McDavid on my team before. So I was excited to see what he can do. But sorry guys, it kinda felt like an unfair advantage.
He played 304 games for us and did great: 99-248-347.
1 Art Ross, 2 Lester B. Pearson, 3 Frank J. Selke, 1 NHL Plus-Minus, 1 Hart Memorial, 1 Conn Smythe, 1 Lady Byng Memorial, 1 King Clancy Memorial.

2. Anthony Mantha. I brought him from Detroit as a part of Sedins trade. I knew he will be a star for us. And he is.
376 games and 208-222-430. Interesting: he is the only player on the roster who has Canucks as a favourite team right now.)
Calder Memorial, 2 Conn Smythe, 1 Maurice Richard, 1 NHL Plus-Minus, 1 Hart Memorial.

3. Max Jones. This kid is just 22 years old but he's a beast already. He was our 8th pick in the second draft. I could recommend him to everyone. He didn't play a single game in AHL. After the draft I signed him and he immediately started scoring on our 3rd line and after a year he is now our best LW.
Only 2 seasons so far, but 164 games and 94-97-191.
Calder Memorial + Bill Masterton Memorial.

4. Sven Bartschi. Such a great player. He was our main scoring force for first 4 seasons. I looked at his attributes and thought that he would be more of a passer kinda guy, but he scored a lot.
388 games with us and 195-243-438.
1 King Clancy Memorial.

5. Jesper Lindgren. Many of you guys drafted him too. And he is absolutely astonishing offensive D. 3 full seasons he played our top pairing for 226 games and 43-156-199 record.
Calder Memorial and 2 James Norris.
Maybe he's not so stacked with different attributes like super-top defenders are, but he surely knows how to get maximum out of what he has.

6. Thatcher Demko. He started not so hot for us. And of course he had a big competitor - Ortio. But I believed in him and traded Ortio away. And Demko every season did his best. He played for us 154 games and last year recorded 1.62 GAA and 0.929% with 7 shutouts.
And now he has 2 Vezinas and 2 William M. Jennings.

Ok, it's getting too long already. But I need to mention some other guys: Morgan Rielly (huge asset, his assists and his contribution on a PP was awesome), Nicklas Jensen (almost point per game all these years and 3 Lady Bing Memorials), Robin Kovacs (from the first draft; he scored so many important goals and did fantastic job on a PP) and Nazem Kadri (who carried us for first couple of seasons when it was really tough).

So I'm pretty happy with how my first ever challenge went. Maybe I'll even continue this save a little more in my spare time. Well, that was fun.

nino33 wrote:

visualdarkness wrote:By this time I would be fighting for Stanley Cup in EHM2007 so I guess that it's simply that my methods doesn't translate to EHM:EA. I'm just as bad in my other save with the Oilers.

I really am sorry you're frustrated, but what you (and others too) are describing sounds great to me to be honest.

I thought EHM07 was far to easy to win the Stanley Cup in because even in Challenges that had limitations people could still "rebuild overnight" and unrealistically win the Stanley Cup in years 1-3 (when they should probably be at best fighting for a playoff spot).....I remember pushing (unsuccessfully HaHa) for the Washington Capitals to be used in the 1974 DB Challenge (they were the worst team in NHL history IRL)

I asked for a harder difficulty too but I find that the issue isn't gone, the exploits have just changed a bit. Most people here seems to be killing it in season two and fight for the Stanley Cup by season two-three. One guy here had three 110+ scorers within a short time.

The only difference here really that makes the huge difference between the ones struggling and the ones winning three Stanleys is if you had time to find the exploits or not, in EHM2007 pretty much everybody knows about them by now.

How do you know success in EHM:EA is only because of exploits when you've only played two careers and lost a lot in both?
Are you sure that everyone that has succeeded in EHM:EA only does so because of exploits?

visualdarkness wrote:

nino33 wrote:

visualdarkness wrote:By this time I would be fighting for Stanley Cup in EHM2007 so I guess that it's simply that my methods doesn't translate to EHM:EA. I'm just as bad in my other save with the Oilers.

I really am sorry you're frustrated, but what you (and others too) are describing sounds great to me to be honest.

I thought EHM07 was far to easy to win the Stanley Cup in because even in Challenges that had limitations people could still "rebuild overnight" and unrealistically win the Stanley Cup in years 1-3 (when they should probably be at best fighting for a playoff spot).....I remember pushing (unsuccessfully HaHa) for the Washington Capitals to be used in the 1974 DB Challenge (they were the worst team in NHL history IRL)

I asked for a harder difficulty too but I find that the issue isn't gone, the exploits have just changed a bit. Most people here seems to be killing it in season two and fight for the Stanley Cup by season two-three. One guy here had three 110+ scorers within a short time.

The only difference here really that makes the huge difference between the ones struggling and the ones winning three Stanleys is if you had time to find the exploits or not, in EHM2007 pretty much everybody knows about them by now.

I actually think the tactics in EA is harder then in 07. I had to try alot to devolp good tactics and playtest em alot. In 07 it was just trade for good centers and wingers with good wristers and put on tight gaps and u won it all...

How do I take control of the Utica farm team. I try to take control, but am only seeing the NHL in the "USA" categroy

45 games into season 2 and my special teams are weaker than last year for sure. Got to work on that.

Just made an underage trade.

Emerson Etem (acquired in trade for Sedin, Sedin, Miller, and Burrows in S1) to FLA for Vincent Trocheck.

Etem had a good season last year, but was having huge difficulties this year. Scratched, didn't respond, didn't seem to fit too well.

One of my scouts sees Trocheck as a first liner, and he's got 4-5-9 in 15 games this year with 4 PP points. With room in the bottom 9, really, at least for the remainder of this year, should give him a fair bit of time to see where he'll slot in.

This year is still atrocious, but feeling a little less like this is impossible now, especially sitting in such a respectable SECOND last position now rather than last...

EDIT: Trocheck with a goal and 8 rating in his first game, a 2-1 win over NJ.

watts555 wrote:How do I take control of the Utica farm team. I try to take control, but am only seeing the NHL in the "USA" categroy

Did you have the AHL selected when you started your game? You can only GM in Leagues you have activated at start-up

nino33 wrote:How do you know success in EHM:EA is only because of exploits when you've only played two careers and lost a lot in both?
Are you sure that everyone that has succeeded in EHM:EA only does so because of exploits?

Ofcourse there are exploits available, or nobody would be ably to get stats like this the first season with this team:
1 batdad (4) 1 82 54 19 9 117 0.713 225 146 9.67 87.72 851 $36.00m 16
2 kennec (4) 1 82 52 22 8 112 0.683 352 250 19.05 78.95 359 $39.00m 16
3 Unknown User (4) 1 82 53 26 3 109 0.665 297 212 17.45 79.58 628 $47.00m 16

Any tactics that pretty much guaranties winning with a team this sucky is an exploit and I would for sure use it if I knew about any I would use them. The game is based on algorithm and once you get them down you'll start winning no matter what. It was exactly the same way in EHM2007 and the FM-series when I played them.

Batdad knows how the game calculates for defense and mad cudos for him for finding it out, but it means that he will win no matter what. As I said, it's all about algorithms.

I don't have the time nor the energy to search for the exploits in the new engine so I will lose unless I'm a blind chicken finding a kernel of corn.

nino33 wrote:

watts555 wrote:How do I take control of the Utica farm team. I try to take control, but am only seeing the NHL in the "USA" categroy

Did you have the AHL selected when you started your game? You can only GM in Leagues you have activated at start-up

It is the challenge team, so it was already set up ahead of time

watts555 wrote:

nino33 wrote:

watts555 wrote:How do I take control of the Utica farm team. I try to take control, but am only seeing the NHL in the "USA" categroy

Did you have the AHL selected when you started your game? You can only GM in Leagues you have activated at start-up

It is the challenge team, so it was already set up ahead of time

Ah yes well then I'm no help! sorry


visualdarkness - I've never played the way you describe, and I know of others that like me just pretend they're a GM/Head Coach too.....while maybe many/most looked for regens in EHM07, not everyone used to look for regens (I never did)...I can't see why anyone would play a game the way you describe, but then I never understood looking for regens

nino33 wrote:visualdarkness - I've never played the way you describe, and I know of others that like me just pretend they're a GM/Head Coach too.....while maybe many/most looked for regens in EHM07, not everyone used to look for regens (I never did)...I can't see why anyone would play a game the way you describe, but then I never understood looking for regens)

I don't know if you understood where I was going. To keep it short, once you find a method of winning you'll know how to win, it's as simple as that. I haven't found any in EHM:EA with the new engine so I suck, the perimeters that I used when setting up my team in EHM2007 doesn't work here at all.

I've tried pretty much every knowledge i have from 2007 in this challenge and it appears to do nothing at all for the end result. My results are exactly the same for every season and every part of the season no matter if I play run&gun or set up a Chinese wall. My team still got the exact same result for every part of the challenge time, 5-14-1 and 45-90. hence I change the wrong perimeters.

Here you can see my third season suffering. My team actually is getting worse in all areas and I see no light in this tunnel.

Wow look at this trade ... i love it .. haha




My team is going really good in season 2 !!! We will make playoffs Crouse doing good and all of my young gunz are doing really good in AHL and CHL

I only made one move during the 2016-17 offseason. I traded Eddie Lack (he played terrible last season) for Valtteri Filppula and Jake Dotchin. Filppula can fill in a top 6 center role so I can develop Marner and Horvat.

TheEpicOne258 wrote:I only made one move during the 2016-17 offseason. I traded Eddie Lack (he played terrible last season) for Valtteri Filppula and Jake Dotchin. Filppula can fill in a top 6 center role so I can develop Marner and Horvat.

Isn't Filppula way too old?

How about Cole Cassels? Has he developed into solid 2nd/3rd liner for somebody?

I'm trying to trade away players at the moment but nobody want my players, I get at best 3-4th round picks for them. Dunno how you guys get 1st liners back for your guys? Though my guys reputation is probably ruined by their performance.

Yep, trade value is definitely dependent on their performance. Other teams' needs play key role too. You can try to change status of your players to core member and being untouchable, sometimes it might help to get more for them in trade.

One thing i have noticed is that most young players are let go to RFA by the AI teams wich makes game less fun as we cant trade for players over 24.
I am in dec 2017 and checking the draft list from 2016 show me that only 9 of the top 21 players got a contact. 12 dont have a contract from the top prospects. They are 19 and next year turning 20.

You other managers that are in seson 4-5, does this gets better? couse i think i see a pattern that the prospects with low potential gets ignored by the AI and no contract.

sao.phim wrote:Yep, trade value is definitely dependent on their performance. Other teams' needs play key role too. You can try to change status of your players to core member and being untouchable, sometimes it might help to get more for them in trade.

So all in all I can't get anything useful for my players hence continued bottom-dwelling.
I'm already an Oilers fan IRL so I don't need this torture.

I'm apparently racking up franchise records for Canucks in season three!

Highest average attendance (masochists?)
Best(!?) goals against average: Lehner 3.90
Lowest number of wins: 13
Least points: 27
Lowest goals scored: 161

visualdarkness wrote:I'm trying to trade away players at the moment but nobody want my players, I get at best 3-4th round picks for them. Dunno how you guys get 1st liners back for your guys? Though my guys reputation is probably ruined by their performance.

How to trade away bonino for example :

1. play him top 2 lines and make him perform with your best wingers.
2. wait to other teams is interested in him in information.
3. go to trade center and check other teams needs, most teams need keepers but a few needs a top two center
4. a good time to do this is after july1, as some teams release their current centers and thus have a huge gap at center position wich raise your centers value
5. in jan-feb before trading deadline some players are blocked and sometimes a good young player have alot of rumours to get traded away, sometimes that means hes team doesnt value him so high and he can be traded for. I was very close getting jaden schwartz from blues that way, they liked my offer but accepted another offer..
6. sometimes 20-21 year olds gets sent to junior teams, very often they get rated 3 stars and are easy to get.
7 make a shortlist of your top wanted listed and check their value every 3-4 weeks by open trade window of em and guage intrest for trades u wanna do.
8 a way can be to trade for 23-24 year old players with expering contracts after window opens before the draft, they useally have lower value.

whut not to do.
1. trade for stud prospects right after they signed.
2. trade for stud prospects who perform good in nhl or ahl
3. trade for young top 2 liners
4. try to stack many assets for one, useally their is a big penalty for that and each added asset only increase value little of your offer. 2-3 assets for one is useally the way to go, gotta try to figure out whut they need.