EHM The Blue Line

I've stumbled upon a weird trend in the AHL around 2013-2014. I have a GM for the Rangers and the Wolfpack and in 2013 I have my first round pick from the previous year playing 1st line center. He's basically on pace for a 160+ point season, which I thought was awesome but somewhat unrealistic. The team is also 38-0-1. Again, awesome but unrealistic.

I started to wonder what the competition looked like for this team to dominate so easily. Checking out the other teams' lineups I found that a lot of teams carried a lot of players whose total games counted against the veteran max, which always took a scramble before each season for me to adjust to. I then clicked on one team's tactics to see what the lines looked like a found a lot of teams are only playing 2 lines and 3-4 defenseman a game. No wonder we're dominating so easily, we are the only team in the league rolling 4 lines with injury reserves. I wonder if this is a glitch or if there are actually teams in the AHL that roll only 2 units, which I highly doubt.

That would be a glitch.

No AHL teams run only 2 lines.

Do you think NHL teams would like their players not getting ice time?

My farm team, which I GM, is actually in the same boat (three forward lines, two defensive pairings). This is a) because I don't care, as long as my prospects get ice time, b) they get MORE ice time filling in for empty spots in the line-up and c) I don't bother keeping marginal prospects on my payroll, so most of the guys that usually fill up an AHL roster are nowhere to be found. Either way, this year my team is winning (11 or 12 games above .500) so it can't be that bad....a lower league team going on a tear like your farm team isn't unrealistic either: the London Knights won 40 games in a row the other year.

I don't mind when teams have 3 lines or 2 defensive pairs but 2 lines and 3 defensemen just isnt realistic, it has to be a glitch. I usually roll 4 lines when my talent pool is deep and let the best players earn their ice time. Sometimes when the prospect pool is thin or in transition I'll roll 3 lines but always have 6 defensemen.

Speaking of farm teams: does your AHL team consist of player other than the ones you send there? Sometimes my farm team only has nine players on the roster - apparently their GM doesn't sign any players and relies solely on those I send to him

Many AHL/ECHL teams have multiple affiliates; look at their Info page and it will list them. They won't sign players if you've stocked them with enough for a lineup so that's kind of a chicken/egg thing

My only problem with my AHL affiliate is in the goaltending department. I currently have two goalies there, one a top-level prospect, the other a 24-year-old who's good in the AHL but probably will never be a regular NHLer. The problem is this: if one of my regular goalies gets injured seriously enough that I have to call up a back-up, the first thing the AHL manager does is loan some crummy no-hoper from another NHL team. That isn't so much a problem at the AHL level right now, because he's likely to be worse and have worse reputation than the guys I've put there. The problem is at ECHL level, because that's where the crummy loan goalie gets sent to after the injury is over and the situation is back to normal; because this guy has a 'Good' reputation, he's taking away valuable playing time from the mid-level prospect that I want doing netminding duties at my ECHL affiliate.

In an ideal world, I'd call the ECHL guy up to AHL for a short spell in this scenario, but thanks to the ECHL rostre limit, I won't because in all likelihood I couldn't put him back there.

This roster problem seems to be getting worse the longer I play. The Wolfpack just beat a team 8-0 so I wondered whether the team had a full roster. It turned out the team had 2 forward lines and no defensemen. NO DEFENSEMEN! I hope I don't have to start a new game for the glitch to be resolved since I installed the patch 2 years in.