NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2007

[Guest mr. potato head]

I hate to always be the wet blanket but I'm not seeing a ton of improvements over NHL:EHM's later offerings

[Ruki]

I just want a new, updated hockey sim game.

Plus, this will hopefully have online play that works so we can finally have a game going

[Mountainous Cleavage]

This game gives me the worst case of 'One-more-turn' syndrome.

I've been playing as the London Knights to start. Near the end of January in my first year, we're ranked 2nd in the OHL right behind the Ice Dogs (fucking Strome & Agozzino ), prepping to most likely meet them in the finals for an all out war between the OHL's top 2 teams.

Just witnessed an entire line brawl between London and Kitchener in the 2nd game of a Home & Home. Everyone on the ice, including the goalies, burst out in a brawl. Both goalies ended up with game misconducts and are thrown out of the game (with a few skaters as well I believe). We ended up with 52 and 40 PIMs each after it all. At least we're up 2-0 before that broke out

[Ruki]

I am addicted to this game again

Since I reformatted my computer I lost the game so, once my demo is up I will have to find a crack or buy it (anyone have a spare code? )

Started a game as the Sarnia Sting, and well, I am kicking ass.... but next year I am likely losing my top line, top D-men and top goalie.

My roster!

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Roster

========================================================================================================

No.Name Position(s) Nation Born Age Height Weight Wages Expires Reputation

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 Campbell, Jack G USA 1-9-87 19 6'2'' 183 $0 7-15-07 OK

32 Palazzese, Frank G CAN 5-28-88 18 6'0'' 163 $1,500 Jun. 2007 OK

52 Basso, Alex LD CAN 6-15-88 18 5'11'' 196 $1,500 Jun. 2009 OK

24 Murphy, Ryan LD CAN 3-31-88 18 5'11'' 176 $0 7-15-07 Good

19 Percy, Stuart LD CAN 5-18-88 18 6'1'' 185 $0 7-15-07 Good

44 Luciani, Julian RD CAN 2-11-87 19 5'11'' 183 $1,500 Jun. 2008 OK

77 Murphy, Connor RD USA 3-26-88 18 6'3'' 185 $0 7-15-07 OK

20 Robertson, Adrian RD CAN 5-31-86 20 6'2'' 209 $1,500 Jun. 2007 Good

17 Broll, David LW-RW CAN 6-12-88 18 6'2'' 229 $0 7-15-07 OK

27 Brown, Tyler J. LW USA 4-4-86 20 6'0'' 191 $1,500 Jun. 2007 OK

18 Puempel, Matt LW CAN 1-24-88 18 6'0'' 191 $0 7-15-07 Good

25 Simmonds, Scott LW-C CAN 9-29-88 18 6'1'' 194 $1,500 Jun. 2007 OK

28 Thomas, Justin LW-LD CAN 1-25-88 18 6'2'' 207 $1,500 Jun. 2011 OK

94 Galchenyuk, Alex C-LW USA 2-12-89 17 6'1'' 200 $1,500 Jun. 2010 Good

9 Rensfeldt, Ludvig C-RW SWE 1-29-87 19 6'3'' 196 $1,500 Jun. 2008 OK

12 Sarault, Charles C CAN 2-20-87 19 5'10'' 183 $1,500 Jun. 2008 OK

11 Strome, Ryan C CAN 7-11-88 18 6'1'' 183 $0 7-15-07 Good

93 Thompson, Brett C CAN 1-31-86 20 5'9'' 165 $1,500 Jun. 2007 Good

57 Boucher, Reid RW-C USA 9-8-88 18 5'10'' 194 $1,500 Jun. 2009 OK

10 Yakupov, Nail RW-LW RUS 10-6-88 18 5'11'' 194 $1,500 Jun. 2010 Good

And their stats...look at Yakupov, Strome and Puempel. In the first 2-3 games they were getting 5 points a game

No Name GP G A P +-- PIM SOG ShAv R

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

1 Campbell, Jack 23 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 7.52

32 Palazzese, Frank 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 5.00

52 Basso, Alex 22 1 5 6 4 10 29 3.4 7.00

24 Murphy, Ryan 23 8 12 20 16 10 51 15.7 8.00

19 Percy, Stuart 24 2 11 13 16 20 36 5.6 7.00

44 Luciani, Julian 13 2 1 3 9 10 17 11.8 6.46

77 Murphy, Connor 19 2 3 5 3 14 26 7.7 6.89

20 Robertson, Adrian 24 11 13 24 12 36 84 13.1 7.42

17 Broll, David 24 7 6 13 10 34 42 16.7 7.33

27 Brown, Tyler J. 24 2 7 9 1 28 24 8.3 6.25

18 Puempel, Matt 24 22 29 51 18 16 85 25.9 8.67

25 Simmonds, Scott 18 4 1 5 -1 6 17 23.5 6.83

28 Thomas, Justin 22 5 5 10 7 33 18 27.8 7.00

94 Galchenyuk, Alex 24 5 15 20 10 38 54 9.3 7.58

9 Rensfeldt, Ludvig 24 3 9 12 10 2 26 11.5 7.29

12 Sarault, Charles 24 2 6 8 1 16 13 15.4 6.63

11 Strome, Ryan 24 26 35 61 20 20 93 28.0 9.42

93 Thompson, Brett 24 4 7 11 7 16 25 16.0 6.33

57 Boucher, Reid 23 7 7 14 5 18 63 11.1 6.87

10 Yakupov, Nail 24 15 40 55 21 14 87 17.2 8.75

Currently 1st in the west going 20-3-1. Not looking forward to next season...losing these top players is gonna suck Maybe by then I will be in the NHL

[Mountainous Cleavage]

My heart was broken when my hard-drive crashed on my computer. Why? 99% because I lost my EHL save I was playing. Tons of hours, planning, COACHING THOSE FUCKING DOTS My London Knights were on their way to dominating the playoffs, god damnit!

All I gotta say is thank god that my girlfriend has a laptop (ironically the same as mine). I've now installed the game on a USB thumbstick, so I now have the addiction back (at least when she leaves me her computer).

After much debate, I decided to start again with the London Knights and try to get all of the players that I could remember back on my team. I'd say I've got a good 85% of them back, although I've also kept some guys I regretted trading beforehand and some decent guys that weren't on the team in my last game but are now with the newer roster update I downloaded. I've now just finished the pre-season, but have 're-tailored the roster' in a way and I'll probably update this post with it sometime tomorrow.

[Noah]

How does this fare when played by a casual ice hockey fan?

For example, I find too much to do and got lost fast in the scary depth of recent OOTP offerings but I am only a casual baseball fan.

[SeanDMan]

The key to success in the CHL is utilizing draft picks properly: pick rounds 1-5 players who are fast and strong and have the potential to develop skillwise rather than players who have moderate skill levels, then hire coaches capable of training them to develop those skills. For picks after round 6, trade them in the offseason before the draft to get players who have 1-2 years left in the league, IE 18,19,20 year olds, because their value tanks as they get closer to overager status. The Import Draft can be a complete crapshoot but I'd suggest targetting players who either "Want to play Major Junior hockey" (and even then, they often refuse to sign and come overseas) or target NHL draft picks who are likely to be reassigned to you sometime after NHL Training Camps. It can often be best, however, to trade your own Import Draft prospects in exchange for other teams Imported players under contract.

[Ruki]

So, get rid of picks 6 and up? Done! But yeah, I've gotten Strome, Pumpel and a few other guys super cheap just because they're likely done at the end of the year.

[SeanDMan]

Most teams, by round nine or ten, have a full reserve list and pass on selecting someone, so picks beyond round eight are useless. Still, the trade value for them as opposed to actual roster players is absurd.

[Ruki]

Why am I at work and not at home playing this!?

Nail Yakupov needs to go get another 40 assists.

Also, apparently the hockey sim from OotP guys will be out this fall? Excited.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

I wish you could trade 1st round picks in the OHL/CHL

I'd have somehow stocked up on them instead of the 5 2nd round picks I've got. It's ridiculously easy to trade, say, and 8th and a 10th for a 2nd.

Also, I'd say it's very easy to get sucked into the depth of this game. For instance, I know I spent a good amount of time one night just going over draftable players stats, and making a draft-lists of whom I wanted for each draft that year. I've only got to the end of the preseason of my first season in my current game and have already put, I believe, 3 or 4 hours into it. (could be off by a bit)

Edited April 17, 2012 by Mountainous Cleavage

[Guest mr. potato head]

Don't quite understand what's up with the birth years in Ruki's game, but nice to see Frankie and Murphy in there

[Ruki]

Why can't you trade 1st round picks? That always confused me. I would totally buy them from teams like the Otters

[Mountainous Cleavage]

I'm not positive on this, but my theory is that the CHL has some sort of rule in place where teams must keep their 1st round picks to ensure that every team has the equal chance to draft a good, if not decent, player in the 1st round.

Either that, or the EHM devs knew that people like us would just rape the league for the good draft positions, and decided to counteract us.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Mountainous Cleavage

[Draevyn]

I wanted to find a crack for this because there's no way I'm paying the kind of money they want for the game still. There's talk on Greydog of trying to get them to create a new hockey sim which would be nice.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

So coming up to the 1st game of the season, this is how my London Knights roster currently looks, and how my lines are currently laid out (of course, subject to change ).

LINES

Note that I will be sending Jake Patterson down to the London Nationals once John Gibson returns from his tryout with his NHL team, thankfully on the same day as our first game. Not quite sure who will end up as my starter, both are capable #1's so I will probably bounce between the two. In my last game that was lost with my hard drive, I had traded Houser when I had aquired Gibson. I ended up playing against him later in the season and he played a really solid game against my top of the league team, making me regret trading him in a way so I decided to keep him this time around.

I have my third line set up as my tougher, grind it out type of line (4* toughness, 3* offense, defense, speed, 2* skill), and find myself playing them against teams top lines at times to give my top lines easier offense against their bottom two lines with the [1v4, 2v3, 3v1, 4v2] line-style. Couple of my bottom six guys I'm able to use on my PKs, but I also hope to get shorties sometimes, which is why I've put some offense power on it as well.

You can probably pick out a couple guys (moreso the better players) that might end up tired at times from the workload, so when it starts to happen I try to lighten it up a bit and give others that fit their spots for a bit. I've also got some younger guys (or guys that I just couldn't fit in my main roster) down on the Nationals that are capable of playing with the team now if I need them. Most are also 17, and will be the core in a few years when most of my top guys go.

I also gotta say that most of my reason for getting Ryan Strome is purely to screw over the Icedogs, as they were insanely good in my last game with Strome & Agozzino together. With this stacked a team, I should be able to make the playoffs easily. I'll hopefully beef out my younger players in the Nationals throughout the season so I'm not scrambling at the start of next season to get a team together.

Another thing, I hate the feeling of playing Namestnikov on the 4th line as he's 1st/2nd line material, but I just couldn't figure out a good combo with the top six without playing him as a 'competant' rated RW when he's a 'natural' C. So I decided to even out my offense over 3 lines (as well as my 'tough' line), and give him his own line to control with as much icetime as the top 2 lines.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Mountainous Cleavage

[Ruki]

I hate the world Juniors! For like...5-6 games it crippled my roster....Strome, Yakupov, Galchenyuk, Saad...boo! It sucked. But Yakupov, Puempel, and Strome are still leading the league in points (Strome is just a few points off of 100 )

But, still in single digit losses (but that might change, my goalie just went down for a week), and I've already qualified for the post season. I only have picks in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th round. But those 2nds? I have eight of them. Bought a whole bunch for around 100k each. I now have my scouts going around lookign at non-well known forwards and goalies.

[Ruki]

What the hell?! Kicking ass all season long...last 15 or so games, I drop almost all of them :/

[Meacon Keaton]

You jinxed yourself, chubs.

[Ruki]

I did. Now I am doing ok in the playoffs. Up against London for the conference finals :/