I've just joined my first league (50M) and I was wondering if there were any suggestions that you guys could pass along. If you don't want to get too specific I do understand....that said, are there any high priced guys to avoid like the plague? I'm curious.

The 3 defencemen with D rating 93 who cost less than 4 mil are popular...Smith, Arbour, Gorman  Ted Harris**

Expensive defencemen don't seem to be used too much (like the great seasons from Orr, Robinson, Potvin, Bourque)

Most people use the cheapest (e.g. as few goals and assists as possible) defencemen with the higest D-ratings they can get

Those who want offensive defencemen use the cheap ones, like the cheap Paul Coffeys that have lots of assists, but a low D-rating...I think he has a couple of seasons like this under 2 mil.

people also use a few 165,000 forwards: with higher points like Boutette, Hextall; or those with few points and higher D-ratings like Harry Helman

There are a lot of successful owners who will help you, too.   I'm no "master user", but I want you to know there are a lot of good guys here who will help with team building!

WELCOME!!

**I edited my post to correct a mistake I realized made after I read Chuck's post.  Listen to him, don't listen to me. (that's probably the best advice I could give you!!)

As jsa said, most owners will start with the "big 3" on defense of Arbour, Harris, and Alex Smith, all costing under $4 million. Some owners will then go with another 90+ rated d man, others will go with 70 or 80 rated d men to round out their top 6. Like he stated, if you are gunning for more offense, Coffey is a good choice at under $2 million with plenty of assists. Personally, I go with d ratings for my d men and don't worry too much about helpers from the back end.
A lot of owners use a scorer, assister, and defender per line when building an offense. You can get great defense from Duggan, Helman, Larochelle, Langlois, all for well under $1 million. (Helman and Larochelle cost $165,000). The thing to remember when building an offense is shooting % costs $$$. Go with a high shots, decent shooting % guy for your top scorers. Assisters and defensive forwards are usually guys with lower shots per game as you want your scorers taking shots when one is awarded by the sim.
To repeat what jsa stated, there are plenty of good guys in the hockey sim who are more than willing to help if asked. If you find once you start that you have specific questions, reach out to the league for help and you will be amazed at how many guys will be willing to help you.
Good luck and welcome to sim hockey rickhren!

I have a couple more questions. And thanks for answering what I asked, it's nice to see people believe in the spirit of competition.

1)Goaltending. What's the priority in terms of judging goalie quality? Save %? GAA? Can I survive a season if I, say, used David Aebischer's  2001-02 season where he only played 21 games while backing up Patrick Roy, or would he get shelled as a starter because of usage?

2) How much does it hurt a team to have guys like Al Secord, Keith Tkachuk, or Wendel Clark? Guys who score a lot but get in endless fights and have a ton of PIM?

3)When I talked to some guys who play WIS baseball, they talked about normalization, or as it's known in some video game updates, "nerfing". Basically you take incredible seasons from players, like Ruth's 60 homer season, and the sim game humanizes them a little bit and makes them a bit more fiallible. Does that occur with guys like Gretzky, Orr, and Lemieux?

Goaltending, if you ask 5 different owners, you'll probably get 4 different answers rickhren. As far as using Aebishcher for an entire season, he won't make it. His energy will be in the low 70's after a few regular season games in a row. You can save him for the playoffs, but how many playoff games he will play will depend on how much action he sees in the regular season. Many owners do not spend much money on goaltending. They get a high games played % old-fashioned goalie with a lower save % on the cheap. I've seen guys win cups this way. I've also seen guys spend $4-5 million on a top tier starter and win cups that way. To me, there isn't a whole lot of difference during the regular season in goalies. When the playoffs roll around, that is when you want a good, higher % save goalie IMO. Do not spend much money on your backup if you have a high % games played guy, since you don't want a ton of $$ sitting on the bench all season, unless it is a high cap league. Lastly, GAA means nothing. Save % and games played % are what to look for in a goaltender.

The high PIM guys will continue to have high PIM's during the regular season. I've seen those guys reduce their PIM's in the playoffs though, so many owners continue to have success with them.

One of the last updates admin did to the hockey sim is to "de-tune" many of the older players. Guys like Malone, Dye, Denneny, etc... do not score at the pace they used to. The Gretzky's, Lemieux's, imo, are the best values as they (usually) still produce good numbers, depending on who they are paired with.

Coaching options will have a huge impact on your gameplay. If your defense are not goal scorers, set them to rarely shoot, no need wasting shots on guys who won't score goals anyway. Playing your forwards on aggressive is a bad idea, they'll get scored against a lot. Play with the options, see what works, and don't be discouraged if you have a bad first season, everyone does. With jsa and chucks advice you should do alright anyway. Drafting is the most important, there's a penalty for using the waiver wire so you'll have less salary cap to work with. There is a general "formula" for winning teams as some call it, but coaching options will help. Check out theme leagues for a fun twist to drafting, or progressive leagues if you want to play in leagues without "clones". I recently got into prog leagues and can't get enough!

Couple more questions

1)At what  energy level is it wise to sit your starting goalie for a game and let the backup start?

2) Earlier you mentioned guys like Orr, Robinson and Potvin don't quite get the respect they deserve from the game. How about Chris Chelios, Nik Lidstrom, and Sergei Zubov? Or Shea Weber?

3)Can you get away with starting guys somewhat out of position? I've been playing with the idea of re-creating Detroit's "Russian Five" line of Larionov/Fedorov/Kozlov/Fetisov/Konstantinov. Unfortunately, Both Larionov and Fedorov are C, and Kozlov is also a C (although he has some decent years playing LW).

4) It was mentioned you should avoid playing your line in "Aggressive" mode. Does that apply to the Powerplay, as well?

1)  I don't like using goalies under 100%...you could probably get away with 99%, 98%, tho.  I make sure I draft enough games played in my goalies that I never have to start a guy under 100%.

2)  yes, although that comment only applies to 50 mil leagues.  All those guys are quite good in progressives, and higher-cap leagues.

In general, the most important stat for D-men is d-rating, the next is assists, and the least important is goals.  Some owners get good mileage out of d-men with a lot of goals, though.  You would need to set them to shoot often.

If you are looking for 50 mil cap advice, stick with high d and low points.  Save the dollars in salary you would spend on a defence man's goals, and use it on forwards instead.

3) I believe forwards can play all 3 forward slots without penalty.  There are performance reductions when d-men play up front, and vice versa, tho.
One of my progressive teams had 6 LW, 2 C and 4 RW and made the finals and won the presidents trophy (133 pts)  I believe there was a release from the game makers that said forwards could play any forward position without penalty.

4)  I think aggressive pp's are fine.  (If you give up a lot of sh goals, rethink your lines/settings)

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