A few general, "procedural" questions, and a coupl

[darwinain]

-egies!

First of all, I'm a huge hockey fan but not so up on the technicalities of things, so I have a few questions during my trial run (where I crashed and burned hehe)

1) When I sign a player with a two-way clause, doesn't that mean I should be able to send the player to the AHL affiliate team without having them clear waivers? For some reason most of the two-way contracts I sign, they still have to clear waivers, which defeats the purpose (or so I thought)

2) When I put someone on waivers, and another team signs that player, how much of that player's salary counts against my cap (if any)? If i wanted to "blow up" a team around draft time in order to clear up cap space so I could sign some big name UFAs, what's the best way to do that to minimize financial loss for the players that are under contract?

3) Is it at all humanly possible to pull off a "blockbuster" trade in this game? I can offer an obscene amount (way overpay) of players to a team for a good prospect and it's turned down, simply because the other team doesn't want to part with them.

Anyway, on to more strategy...

a) Is it best to do two offensive lines and two defensive lines? Whats the best attributes to look for in defensive forwards?
b) I found in my 2nd season, my players were being injured all the time (i'd literally have two-three players on IR at any given time) some of them are big and tough (Willie Mitchell, as an example - who was out for prolonged periods three separate times during the season). Is this just dumb bad luck, or is there something I can do to prevent that?
c) My PK was horrible and the reason I went down hill so fast in the 2nd season. I had practice on PK set between 30-45% all year long to no avail. Is it due to the lack of defensive forwards?
d) How closely should you be managing games to create success? I usually speed through them a lot, but every so often watch one through, and I don't find it helps too much - what should I be looking for?
e) In what scenarios is it good to use the following:
- Discipline a Player
- Fire a Coach
- Request Training Facilities from the Board

Finally, financially speaking, if the cap stays at $39m year after year, and the board is willing to give me $39m to spend - how does that affect players that I sign but play on my AHL affiliate all year? Do they factor into that $39m that I've been given to spend, even though they don't count against the cap? If they do, is it possible for the board to give you more than the cap in terms of money to work with?

Thanks so much in advance (I know those were a lot of questions haha)

Just FYI, I was using the Canucks, my lines looked something like:

Naslund B. Richards Bertuzzi
Carter H. Sedin Dvorak
D. Sedin Reasoner Cooke
Perezhogin Kesler M. Samuelsson

Mitchell - Salo
Erhoff - Baumgartner
Butchenson - Krajicek

Cloutier
Noronen

[hluraven]

1) As in real life, two way contracts do not affect waivers in any way, all they do is mean that a play in the minors will receive a lesser salary than if he is in the NHL.

2) Not as in real life, you do not pay a penny towards the salary of a player claimed from you on waivers.

3) It is possible, timing is key though and if a team really doesn't want to part with a player it will be impossible. You have to get lucky. Look for injured players and players that you see other teams targetting as those you have more of a chance of getting, and also look for salary dumps around trade deadline time from struggling teams.

Strategy:

a) Probably varies according to your style of play but 2 offensive, 2 defensive is not a bad idea. Defensive forwards need work rate, determination, positioning, and most stuff a defender needs. Work rate and determination, along with stamina will ensure they can get up and down the rink all game.

b) Two or three players at a time is probably not much compared with real life, but seems high for EHM. When a player is injured you should always ask for a physio report on them, if the physio says that it is an injury that may recur you have the option of sending them to surgery to cure this. Or it could just be luck.

c) Yes, with good defensive forwards I train about 15% on PK and have very good results. Defensive forwards are probably the most important thing in EHM IMO.

d) I either don't watch or set it to very fast so I'm not sure what to look for. I guess anything that makes you shout at the screen such as if all you defenders get caught at the wrong end of the ice you may want to set them to do not join rush as an example.

e) Discipline players when they fail to turn up to training (Unprofessional behaviour), get ejected from a game (Violent conduct) or play very badly (3 or less for me gets a one week fine, 4 gets a warning).
Fire a coach when you are struggling, or if a significantly better one agrees to join you
Request training facilities from the board once a season. More often winds them up, and if they agree the improvements happen on 30th June/1st July update.

Finally, the 39 million applies only to players on the NHL roster for salary cup purposes (assuming you have at least 20 active players on the roster), but the salary you are paying your AHL players is included from the team budget point of view. It should be possible for the board to give you more than 39million but I'm fairly sure it never happens.

From looking at your team, Defence and Goalie is very poor and this is where you need to upgrade. A cheap defensive forward never is a bad idea for your lower lines, but that defence and Cloutier will have to improve.

Good luck, anything else please ask

[E5150_ca]

Good anwsers hluraven.

I find myself no longer deserving on my patron saint title, I haven't been able to help anyone in weeks.

One thing I would like to add is defensive players is NOT the end all and be all of EHM, I find it alot more fun to be winning high paced games (6-4, 5-3) then boring old 2-0, 3-1 games .

Also, the odd time I happen to be looking for defensive players the first stat I look for is anticipation. You have to know whats going to happen before you can make a play to stop it.

[darwinain]

Thanks for the tips, you guys rule. Refined strategy led me to round 2 of the playoffs anyway and I'm sitting pretty for next year (stole Erik Cole for a 7th rder when he was injured for the season.. Then resigned him ala cheap before free agency because of his injury all season long. )

--Dar