EHM The Blue Line

Hi

I couldn't find a topic on this using the search function so I'm hoping this hasn't been brought up before.

I consider myself a fairly experienced user of this game. I'm currently running a game using the latest db. I've been the head of the Leafs for 3 seasons now and despite the fact I have a good team, I'm still losing games, AFAIK it's due to poor faceoffs and losing board battles constantly which leads to getting badly outshot reguarly. I know how to improve faceoff performance but I should be doing better than I am with the personel I have. I also take a lot of penalties but Clarkson (the main culprit) is going to be shown the door soon in favour of prospects.

Is there a way to improve your teams' percentage of winning board battles? Are there certain player attributes you should look for? Are they that important?

If it helps My current team setup is this:

Kulemin-Weiss-Kessel
Huselius-Kadri-D. Clarkson
Torres-Phallson-C. Armstrong
Sutherby-Halpern-Ortmeyer
Betts

Phaneuf-Kaberle
Cobourn-E Johnson
Schenn-S. Depres
Rivet

AFAIK size and strength would be the top 2. After that I really don't know but suspect a whole bunch of factors from agility, stamina, anticipation, balance, bravery, positioning, checking and hitting would probably be a factor. I know in my games I usually do pretty good in board battles and I usually have a big strong team on average.

I play Juniors which means I am not facing the top competition in the world, but I went from losing 65% of my puck battles to winning 55-60% (still preseason though) just by bulking up on my strength.

Other things I figure would be important are Work Rate and Determination. Aggression could be useful, and Bravery as well.

There might be some technical things, such as positioning. When I read the skills I'm not so sure which ones would really apply. Hitting maybe. Keeping your guys fresh (high stamina), and perhaps aggressive personal tactics might help.

I'm still newish to the game (played a lot of 2005 but that was a long time ago), but line tactics might make a difference too. Maybe too aggressive of a forecheck sets people up to fight in the offensive corners where they get out muscled and whatnot. Obviously the board play tactic is one to avoid for a line. I'll keep things posted if I see continued board play success.

From a faceoff point of view, I didn't see much success in the juniors come as a result of faceoffs, as I was outmatched everywhere else in spite of consistently having a 60-70% faceoff percentage game in and game out.

Sounds like you've figured it all out. I generally get players with those attributes and I usually find myself winning 70-90% of battles.

Yeah I don't know necessarily how to encourage board battles perse though, aside from the "Board play" breakout.

There's no explicit "dump and chase and grind it out" type tactic that I am aware of. Would it be dump in and play aggressive, heavy puck pressure with some forecheckers?

My third line in particular has 4 stars for toughness, and they do have some guys that I suspect would be dynamite along the boards (they have NHL calibre strength and effort) but I'm not quite dominating the board battles as much as I would like :S

I do have a fast team though (4 stars on all lines lol)