Blackhawks Tactics
 

I just started a sandbox game with Chicago, mostly keeping the team unchanged (I traded some draft picks to get Trouba). My goal is to not get eliminated in the playoffs by Nashville, which shouldn't be too hard...

My problem is that my team sucks. Tactically, I am using the Puck Control and 2-3 Defenseive tactics. My lines are pretty standard from what the Hawks did this year: Panik-Towes-Hossa, Panarin-Anisimov-Kane, etc. Defensively, I have Keith-Trouba, Campbell-Seabrooks, TvR-Hammer. Intuitively to me, these are the correct lines and the correct tactics.

But my team sucks. Like, 5 shots on goal to 40 each preseason game. Somehow we've won a few, but its brutal to watch. So what am I doing wrong? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Do you play out your games or simulate them?

And would it be possible that you upload your save for me, makes it easier to look into possible problems for me?

Thanks!

I've done both. I think I've found at least part of my issue: switching to neutral zone trap has really improved my team. Nonetheless, I am still interested in opinions of what the best tactical approach is for the Hawks.(Regarding the save, while I'm happy to post it, I am quite confident that I just suck at hockey tactics, and that there is no actual problem!)

Ive been playing as the Hawks too. Ive found that my team does better when I put Kane and Toews on the same line. I personally dont look at game to gme numbers but over the first couple years my team seemed to do ok with S and SA numbers overall. Something you need to look at with this years Blackhawks is that much of thier success was driven by staying healthy and timely scoring. They were 11th in S and 23rd in SA this year. Not overly resounding numbers to suggest success. Meanwhile having the 3rd highest PDO in the NHL. They were bound to regress on thier mediocre underlying stats. Nashville meanwhile was 6th in S and 16th in SA. Fancy stats would have you believe that those 2 numbers are the best indicator of a teams playoff success. On both accounts, the Preds were better and not otherwise overperforming. I found Nashville actually does quite well in FHM (FWIW NHL17 had them doing well too) which shows the power of these simulation engines to get things pretty right.

Another thing i found in Sandbox mode is my coaching attributes were terrible. I turned commish mode and went and raised them to around average and it helped my teams tactics.