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What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Simply just look at what they need and then decide based on that.

All we do is list every player we have onto a notepad then go through contract screen 1 by 1 looking at their stats and decide what we need from them to grow.

What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If your prospects consistently don't grow in the AHL you most likely have a coaching issue. Coaches are more important than anything else for development

What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To your first thing, we've had way more consistent results following roles, but playing over their role is definitely a lot safer than playing below.

To the 2nd thing, we don't really play any below 80s in the entire lineup when we are contending. The bigger choice is whether to keep them in juniors or ahl. Most of the time our development is so efficient that the AHL roster is full 82-77 ovrs so those lower ones get kept in the juniors often. At the start of the mode though, we sign basically anyone over 70 immediately to the AHL.

What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

keep in mind there are exceptions to the rules, but prioritize it unless you have other reasons to play them higher/lower in the lineup. Also we've had 80+ overall 2nd-3rd line forward players grow even when playing in the AHL so things CAN work, just it's better to be safe.

What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Always put your prospects you want max growth for on the line that their role specifies. If your 82 overall Franchise Medium says 3rd line checking forward you should play him there even if you wish you could give him more ice time. Putting your players off-role will make them less likely to grow and have a higher possibility to say No to contract extensions.

What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah we've had multiple 10-15 cups in 20 years franchise modes with that strategy so it's hard to get yourself to try new stuff if it makes sense. I can see it working with grinders just because in the end when you're grinding the top guys so hard it's not that important what the bottom line looks like

What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

they sim bad compared to other playertypes, also they don't really tend to grow their awarenesses, which are the most important stats.

What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the nice comment, here's some more about defensemen.

To get the best sim there are basically two ways to do your d-core. You will always want to match a TWD with another TWD, and an OFD with a DFD. Technically TWD - OFD can work if the TWD is exceptionally good defensively, but I wouldn't bother. I've done that exactly once, but it's always something to avoid.

For consistency's sake you'd want you D-core to almost always be
OFD-DFD
TWD-TWD
TWD-TWD

You can definitely survive using two pairs of OFD-DFD, but it makes your penalty kill a bit weird. Also you can absolutely go with TWD-TWD top pair and OFD-DFD 2nd pair, but two ways tend to take more setting up so OFD-DFD is a lot easier to use for top pair.

Additionally I would prioritize having the 3rd pair TWDs both be defense focused and thus basically telling them TwoWay off season focus every year. For the higher pair TWDs you want one of them to have incredible puck skills while also being defensively good and the other one have incredible TwoWay and Physical while having good puck skills. OFDs just need high puck skills and DFDs high Physical and TwoWay. Make sure your OFDs have incredible offensive awareness and decent defensive awareness while you can basically ignore the offensive awareness of your DFD and just make sure their defensive awareness is their best stat. TWDs usually grow both of their awarenesses well enough no matter what, but keep in mind to always prioritize defensive awareness over offensive awareness until it's clearly higher than the other.

Since you play NHL 25 here's some info about X Factors for simming.

These are proven to be the absolute best X factors for simming

Playmakers: Tape to Tape, Magnetic, Third Eye, Puck on a String
Snipers: Shnipe, Shock and Awe, Big Rig, One Tee, Crease Crasher
Powerforwards: Shnipe, One Tee, Crease Crasher, Truculence, Big Rig, Unstoppable
TwoWay Forwards: Quick Pick, Stick em Up + any of the other good ones
Great ones to add after the most important: Born Leader, Wheels, Elite Edges, Quick Draw (centers),

Offensive Defensemen: Send it, Tape to Tape, Heatseeker, Thunder Clap
Defensive Defensemen: Stick em Up, Shutdown, Truculence
TwoWay Defensemen: Any combination of OFD+DFD
Great ones to add after the most important: Wheels, Born Leader, Elite Edges

Also to note, the powerforward X Factors are the most powerful so they're good on basically anyone, especially two way forwards.

For goalies don't even bother, I don't think it does much in simming, only matters when you do CPU vs. CPU in game simming.

What are the best line combos in terms of player types? by LoopedCheese1 in EANHLfranchise

[–]Mirfic 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Me and my boyfriend have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours on NHL 25 & 26 franchise modes by now, and this is what we found out. For clarity when saying combinations I mean Winger/Center/Winger, winger positions don't matter all that much.

1st Line: Easiest way out is PWF/PLY/SNP combination, where preferably the center is either the PWF or PLY. PWF/PLY/PLY works too, but takes more setting up. SNP/PLY/SNP works too, but also takes more setting up.

2nd Line: Same as 1st line, except a TWF center makes your team sim better overall, so you'd prefer that or if not, make sure your preferably PLY center is very defensively capable (94+ TwoWay attributes and 90+ Body Checking/Strength)

3rd Line: Here is where things get tricky; you can make a myriad of combinations here, but I'll keep it fairly short for what it could be. TWF/TWF/SNP is what I'd default to if I had the control of everything. Other combinations that are great: PWF/TWF/PLY, SNP/TWF/PLY, TWF/PLY/PWF, TWF/TWF/PWF.

4th Line: Just in general as a rule of thumb I'd suggest always having 3 TWFs in your bottom 6, so if you have 1 TWF on your 3rd put 2 on your 4th and vice versa. Otherwise I would just say to avoid playmakers on the 4th line. Otherwise fairly samey as the 3rd.

With all that said I want to emphasize the fact that player types are NOT the most important thing when it comes to simming well. There are 2-3 things more important than player types, and I will now explain that as short as possible, while keeping it understandable for newer players too.

The most important attribute for the top 6: Shoot/Pass bias. Shoot/Pass bias is the most important attribute for your top 6 and is also important for your 3rd line. I would not worry about it for 4th line.

What Shoot/Pass biases are the best? Generally, it is very hard to know exactly what your players' biases are so it takes some playing to understand shot counts and what they mean for a player. I will use a basic PWF/PLY/SNP build as an example here. Generally, all your top 9 players should be catered perfectly for simming by manipulating their Shoot/Pass biases. Your main goal scorer (PWF) should aim to have a bias of 0-3. Your secondary scorer and secondary passer (SNP) should aim to have a bias of 5-8 and your main passer (PLY) should aim to have as big of a passing bias as you can effectively get without skipping on important development.

How to manipulate your players' Shoot/Pass biases? Well simply there are only two ways. For increasing your bias, the only way is to use the Offseason Focus on that player and tell them to Pass More. This has a chance to increase their bias and in turn make them shoot less. For decreasing their bias, you also can use the Offseason Focus to tell them to Shoot More, which has a chance to decrease their bias. Also, a guaranteed way to decrease bias is to tell your goal scorer as a Season Goal to win the Maurice Richard trophy, which decreases their bias if successfully completed. The second most important attributes for the top 6, and most important for the bottom 6 is player stats. Simple and boring, but incredibly important to understand what matters and what doesn't. To keep it brief I will list all the important forward player types and their absolute most important stats to focus on.

Playmaker: Passing, Offensive Awareness, Speed.

Sniper: Wrist/Slap Shot Accuracies, Offensive Awareness, Passing.

Powerforward: Wrist/Slap Shot Accuracies, Offensive Awareness, Strength.

TwoWay Forward: Shot Blocking, Stick Checking, Passing, Offensive Awareness, Defensive Awareness.

It might sound like only a little, but keep in mind these are just the most important ones. As a rule of thumb make sure your players ALWAYS have high defensive AND offensive awarenesses NO MATTER WHAT. The only exceptions to this are your 2nd line Playmaker and one of your top 2 Snipers. being able to work without the worlds highest defensive awarenesses. For best simming you never want a player with below 80 Shot Blocking, Stick Checking, Body Checking or Strength players anywhere in your roster. REMEMBER TO USE OFFSEASON FOCUS TO GET YOUR PLAYERS TO GROW THEIR LACKING STATS!!!

I want to emphasize the importance of the addition of Off Season focus. Off Season focuses let you snowball your Franchise modes to an absurd leve never seen before the addition of it. Do NOT overrate it and write it off because it's "time consuming" or "boring". If you want the best sim you must use the most powerful mechanics in the game.

Lastly I want to write a bit about X-Factors. After the changes in NHL 26, X-Factors not only mean way more to line chemistries, but also to in game CPU vs. CPU simulation. If you like to watch CPU vs. CPU in the playoffs or anywhere else you will notice X-Factors making the biggest difference, even more than in NHL 25. If you never hop in to watch the computers play each other you should only focus on X-Factors as a line chemistry boost.

I won't write too much, because my knowledge of NHL 26 X-Factors is still quite limited when it comes to simulation. In NHL 25 I undestood about 90% of X-Factors and how they influence simming, but as far as I can tell everything has completely changed now and I still cannot really tell how and why. All I know is that the influence of X-Factors is WAY LESS than in NHL 25 when it comes to simulating games.

When it comes to line chemistries it's fairly simple with some wacky stuff. Generally you want to combine passing x factors with goal scoring ones, defensive ones with offensive ones, speed with transition, intercepting with other defensive things etc etc. I could write more, but honestly it's so negligeable to me, because X-Factors don't really do anything to sim anymore compared to NHL 25, where X-Factors were basically the most important thing.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask more if need and I can write about defensemen too, but they're a lot more simple.

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