EHM The Blue Line

Hello everybody, looking for a little help with tactics selections. I understand this subject is a bit tired on these boards, but I think, at least, that I'm asking something relatively new.

After deciding I had made one too many poor trades in my first career I've decided to take another stab at getting the Maple Leafs back to their rightful place as an elite team. I still haven't quite gotten comfortable with the tactics settings so this time around I decided to try someone else's solution to the problem, the "slapshot tactic." I had read someone referring to using these tactics as the equivalent of the "I win the stanley cup button," (Probably as a gripe more than anything else.) and sure enough from September to the end of December I found my team destroying other teams' defense. Sundin was repeatedly player of every length of time they hand out the award for, and I was almost feeling like this was too easy.

However, January came 'round and I found myself on the wrong end of a few 5 game streaks, generally with only one win in between. What looked to be a 50+ win campaign is now sputtering. I have read that the AI can and will start to readjust to what you're doing and that this sort of slump is common, but even with changing my tactics around quite a bit I can't seem to find that sweet spot again. As it stands, it looks as though I'll still slip into the playoffs, but it seems rather disappointing to be heading into my playoff run in such a slump after leading the league for the better part of the season.

I've read the guide, so I know that its best to tailor your tactics for your lines and I have some vague idea of what attributes to look for when doing so, but one thing that might help me is to know the no-no's. Are there any particular combinations of things that just aren't sound at a basic level? For instance, if I'm backchecking hard with lots of puck pressure, is it bad if I also have tight gap control? I dunno, I just feel as though I might be combining things in a way that confuses the players. I love hockey, but I've never really understood it all that deeply, thus my interest in this game. Its been pretty bad though, I've had a hard time generating offense and am also letting an inordinate amount of goals slip by. In some games it is close, but I still am not scoring as much as I was previously. (I'm not sure if I've ever had a game in either career that could be said to have involved good defense.)

Anyway, I'll post my lineup and a rough outline of my current tactics(not the "slapshot tactic") to give you all a better sense of what I'm dealing with.


Forwards (LW C RW):
1. Modin Sunin Hunter
2. Madden, Brind'Amour, Jiri Novotny
3. Wellwood, Oleg Kvasha, Arron Asham
4. Ryan Hollweg, Paul Gaustad, Blair Betts

I realize I've gutted the franchise this go around, but between the ridiculous price tags on tucker, o'neill, and peca, and the worthlessness of every other player on the roster, I feel I'm justified. Also, the only deal I've made within the last few months was to dump the underperforming Tucker for a first round draft pick, so I'm pretty sure my more recent problems can't be blamed on a ruined team chemistry. The first line was performing extremely well together, and still does to a large extent.

Defensive Pairings:

1. Kaberle McCabe (I know McCabe is also over-priced, but it seems like sacrilege to split them up.)
2. Leopold Kubina
3. Eminger Tyutin

Goalies:

Niitymaki
Raycroft

Current tactics:

Most lines revolve around this basic idea with a few tweaks, except for the fourth which is a checking line:

Equal forward usage and line matching
Man Coverage

Mentality: offensive
Aggressiveness: Normal
Backchecking: hard
Gaps: tight
Pressure: easy
hitting: normal
Tempo: high
Passing: creative
Shooting: selective
Dumping: very rarely

free flowing
wings cross
triangular
1-2-2
1-1-3
collapse
basic
lopsided

Any thoughts?

First of all, welcome to TBL! You should go into our arrivals section to introduce you

As you said, the AI can adapt to your tactics, especially if you always run the same tactical schemes. Try to have 2 or 3 different setups. Not too far ones from the others, else the players will be confused, but different enough to disturb the opposition. You should have a basic tactical setup mainly offensive (as you seem to play offensively), a slightly modified version of this basic setup (with changes in the breakouts and forechecks, maybe in tempo too), and a totally different tactic, more defensive, or at least less offensive. This way, the opposing wall built to stop your offense will be forced to create the play, and as they wouldn't have been set to do so, they should be confused doing it, giving you some counter-attacks here and there.

That being said, a bad streak of about 5 games, is something quite common. No drama with it. Every single team as a down period during the season. As long as it's not in the playoffs, you're fine! So it should be the AI who adapts to your style of play, but it can also be just relative to your team. When it occurs, try to mix lines a bit. Identify the players who are actually underperforming compared to usual and remove them from their current line. Mixing lines sometimes helps to keep players on their toes. But don't abuse this! If you change your lines every single game, you will loose chemistry. Once your guys start to produce well again, re-assign them to their original line, and it should turn okay pretty quickly. Of course, don't change anything to a line that is on fire!

Now about your tactical settings...
- Using line-matching while playing a rather offensive style? Why not. But when playing offensive, you try to erase the opposing team, not shut their offense down. You should try a normal icetime distribution and no line-matching, and see how it runs.
- Man coverage for all the lines isn't really the best option. Man coverage is mainly for checking lines, where your checkers will focus on only one opposing player. So you need a line made of guys who are really talented in the defensive zone (checking forwards, defensive forwards, etc). Don't forget to assign them who to match in their personnal tactics (your left winger against their right winger, C vs C, RW vs LW). Man coverage works way better with line-matching though, for obvious reasons. If you don't match lines, use a zonal coverage. If you match lines, use the man coverage only for your(s) checking line(s).
- An easy pressure lets too many holes in your defense at the NHL level of play. I'd suggest you to have at least a normal pressure, or a heavy pressure. You should have a heavy pressure for your checking line.
- High tempo is something to handle carefully. If you're players are skilled offensively, make really good passes, see the game well, handle the puck well and have a good ability to get open, it's should be a killer tempo! Else, your guys will mostly miss their passes, or make tons of giveaways. The higher the tempo is, the higher your guys must be skilled offensively. For less skilled players, prefer a normal tempo.
- Creative passing has the same issues as high tempo. If you're guys aren't that skilled in their passing abilities, or aren't that creative, you'd better not use creative passing with them. I generally use normal passing for all my lines, and then tweak the individual tactics to have my best passers making creative passes.
- A selective shooting means you're guys will shoot only if they have a reasonnable chance to score. This way you'll miss some weird shots ending as soft goals and won't benefit of some big rebounds or unexpected deflections. Remember Gretzky's words: "You don't score on 100% of the shots you don't take!" I'd recommand a normal shooting, usually the best balance between having a good number of shots and not forgetting to make passes to players that would have a better opportunity.
- Dumping the puck very rarely is mostly the Russian style of plays in the old days. It's easily stopped by a good neutral zone trap. By not duming the puck, you're players will try to keep it at all cost at the offensive blue line and make passes to try to enter in the offensive zone. Against a team that is well positionned defensively, it will totally stop their speed, and they'll be easy to defend on if ever they enter the zone. Plus, your guys may make aa bad pass that should be intercepted and end in a breakaway for the opposing team. Prefer a normal dump system, or at least a "rarely" setting. And if you often win your board battles, it would be interesting to try the "often" setting, turning more to a dump and chase style of play.
- Using a free flowing breakouts system is a bit adventurous. It means that your guys will try to get out of their own zone by themselves, rather than with an organized system like "positionnal" or "board play". Free flowing is a good option on the powerplay. With one more man, it's easier to get out of the zone. But on even strength, it's really risked. And no-one likes when their boys make a stupid pass in the defensive zone that ends in a stupid goal, right?

That's the main "issues" i've seen. Also, think about giving personnal instructions. You may want your players to use a "normal" hitting, but you'd certainly want to see your enforcer hit harder. You'd also certainly want to see your playmakers make passes more creative than the other players. But your best goalscorer should also be highly skilled in passing and creativity, and therefore it should be a good idea to set them to make creative passes. Etc etc etc

There are tons of tactical possibilities, so it's all about testing The main rules are:
- If something works, don't change it!
- If it doesn't work, try something else! (but always let 10 to 20 games to your guys to adapt to the new system, so that you can really see if it works or not )

Hope that helps!