EHM The Blue Line

stone169 wrote:So I'm giving this one a whirl. Not really off to a good start 2-4, but my tactics weren't set properly so that had something to do with it. Biggest problem I'm having right now is how I prepare throughout the season for the draft as now I have to check all recommendations to make sure they are American players. Also my biggest hole right now is the backup goaltending. I could use some help in my bottom six too. I already have a few players I'd like to target, but I have to wait until season#1 is done.

Hopefully I won't be handing someone Auston Matthews or might have to make a trade to get that pick back.

I would't spend much time preparing for the draft unless you manage to trade up, like PD did, and end up drafting in the top 20. otherwise there won't be anyone worth picking up, rather trade your picks for some depth

Agreed, outside of the 1st round (maybe half the second round) it doesn't look great for American prospects.

Started the season with a surprising 7-0-0, followed by a nasty 1-5-1 run. Still 2nd in East. Miller missed 4 games with an injury, Zatkoff did well.

Peter_Doherty wrote:Agreed, outside of the 1st round (maybe half the second round) it doesn't look great for American prospects.

I'm picking at #33 in my game, and I've had to leave it overnight- I just can't find anyone that's really worth a 2nd round pick that I probably can't get in the 4th. Of course during the draft no one wants to trade me anything other than more picks.

Asher413 wrote:

Peter_Doherty wrote:Agreed, outside of the 1st round (maybe half the second round) it doesn't look great for American prospects.

I'm picking at #33 in my game, and I've had to leave it overnight- I just can't find anyone that's really worth a 2nd round pick that I probably can't get in the 4th. Of course during the draft no one wants to trade me anything other than more picks.

That's rough.

Peter_Doherty wrote:Agreed, outside of the 1st round (maybe half the second round) it doesn't look great for American prospects.

That's the whole fun of a challenge.

My team loves going to shootouts I swear... 3-5 in the shootout at 41 GP.

Ehm, that 'uploading every quarter'...? Is that really necessary? I'm halfway and haven't uploaded anything yet.

Satyr wrote:Ehm, that 'uploading every quarter'...? Is that really necessary? I'm halfway and haven't uploaded anything yet.

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the scoring, however, I might be mistaken.

I'll restart just to be sure. My 20-20-3 record wasn't so great anyway

Satyr wrote:I'll restart just to be sure. My 20-20-3 record wasn't so great anyway

You should also enable rolling saves, I set mine to 2 weeks, that way I always have a recent save in hand

m0fownz0r wrote:

Satyr wrote:I'll restart just to be sure. My 20-20-3 record wasn't so great anyway

You should also enable rolling saves, I set mine to 2 weeks, that way I always have a recent save in hand

I actually erased them without thinking of opening one... I save every month.

"You may also add a second GM and manage your AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans."
So Greenville is out of bounds? I dont want three goalies in Rochester so I want to throw some guys out in Greenville to make space.

Satyr wrote:

m0fownz0r wrote:

Satyr wrote:I'll restart just to be sure. My 20-20-3 record wasn't so great anyway

You should also enable rolling saves, I set mine to 2 weeks, that way I always have a recent save in hand

I actually erased them without thinking of opening one... I save every month.

Just yesterday, I deleted over 30GB of saves, going back to EHM 05. My system drive feels much better now

visualdarkness wrote:"You may also add a second GM and manage your AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans."
So Greenville is out of bounds? I dont want three goalies in Rochester so I want to throw some guys out in Greenville to make space.

Why not load one of them to some AHL team with poor goalia situation?

Satyr wrote:Ehm, that 'uploading every quarter'...? Is that really necessary? I'm halfway and haven't uploaded anything yet.

Yes. If you don't upload your stats you can't be given any credit for your season in the challenge. That's how we do the scoring.

visualdarkness wrote:"You may also add a second GM and manage your AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans."
So Greenville is out of bounds? I dont want three goalies in Rochester so I want to throw some guys out in Greenville to make space.

Yes, I think adding a third GM for Greenville is a bit much. You can assign a goalie there without GMing the team or you could loan your third goalie out.

Finally set the roster for the second season, Conor Allen and Eric Tangradi did not make the team so they were both traded off, in return i got Jack Dougherty and Dominic Turgeon. Then i also had to shed some cap because of he salary i obtained during the summer, think i found a good solution though, i sent Ryan Miller and a 2nd rounder to Sens for Craig Anderson. Anderson is almost $2m cheaper and have another year on his contract, similar numbers last season so shouldn't make me worse on the ice either.

This is my team for season 2:

Kreider-Stepan-Callahan
Zucker-Hayes-Atkinson
Higgins-Brickley-Miller
Foligno-Vitale-Brown (Patrick Brown, obtained from Canes in a trade earlier)

Leddy-Trouba
McDonagh-Braun
McCabe-Ruhwedel
Potter

Anderson
Zatkoff

Potential call ups from Rochester are Skjei, Dougherty, Schmaltz, Vesey, Megna, Cassels and Barber. Hellebyuk and Halverson will split the games in Rochester.

Nah, not doing as bad as I did with Vancouver or Philly but still we are losing a lot of games by 1 goal or after big leads. If we could play more constantly or if Miller and Zatkoff would not fall from 8 to 5 after 2nd period in nearly every game, we would do much better than just 6 out of 20. Powerplay and PK are weak as always in my teams, I still have no clue how to get it going, but on the other side Derek Stepan really surprised me after trying him as 1st line RW. He was average 6.20 with 11GP-1G-3A-4P as a center so I moved him to the wing where he is 9GP-6G-5A-11P and moved up to 7.35 since then.

My lines look like this at the moment:

Kreider-Hayes-Stepan
Zucker-Miller-Arcobello
Etem-Nelson-Atkinson
Milano-Megna-Barber (changing every few games, just letting them get some NHL-experience)

Leddy-Yandle
McDonagh-Braun
McCabe-Lovejoy

Miller
Zatkoff

Biggest disappointments til now are Foligno (5G, 5.8 rating) and Joe Vitale (11G, 6.1 rating)

Got Jack Johnson for Vitale and 2017 first round pick to go RD.

Uploaded the first stats. Is there a ranking available somewhere?

This looks really good I think ill jump in for this one. To see Challenge stats click TBL challenge in the menu bar and in the middle you should see the options. Not sure if you need to be logged in or out.

20 game update:

Team is 6th @ 11-6-3 (54 GF 53 GA)

Injures: Arcobello and Stepan out 1 month
Leading Scorer: Zucker with 18

FInally, Zatkoff has taken over as the starter (5-0-1 1.47, .948%) while Miller has struggled (6-6-2 3.12 .888%)

Have you uploaded your stats?

Finished my second season ended up finishing 12th Traded really badly and then to top it off Atkinson and Kreider got injured for a while which saw us drop down.

After 40 games, stats uploaded, dead last in the East. Nothing seems to work. I don't mind, Rangers are my least favorite team anyway

Draft was interesting, managed to get Bruins 13th overall pick that belonged to SJ originally (Jones trade) by sending them Miller and my 2nd pick.
Then did a fair amount of in draft trading down as there were no Americans around the 13 pick range, so in the end ended up with Logan Brown at 16, then traded back in by sending Jeff Zatkoff off to Blackhawks for 25th overall where I snagged Charles McAvoy.

Trading down I suspect was far easier than it should have been, I offered team below me the pick I had, they traded away whatever pick they had left (bar more 1st rounders) to move up one spot.

In the end I ended up with way too many picks, which I had to take randoms for as my scouting had been very limited for the narrow pool of americans..






Post draft I've made 2 trades, got Kessler from Ducks (salary dump) for Brock Nelson, and picked up Jimmy Howard from Red Wings (belch) for McCollum and 17 third rounder in another salary dump for them, cap stands at 62.5m atm, so will probably stand pat there.


Feeling better about team now for next season, defense is strong, slightly improved on offense and Goaltending should be pretty ok now as well...



PS: Can we apply to manage USA in the world cup? Would be nice to win something with an american team for once .