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I think it is tremendously important for a league to have periods with more or less scoring, better or poorer goaltending, etc. This is that not only adds character to the results and creates opportunities for records to be broken from time to time, it also removes the monotony of having similar results year after year.
This is why I actually found EHM rather dull.
I see several ways of achieving this:
- Having overall league scoring / defense / goaltending rates, hidden, that change year to year - possibly along a trend line (up, down, stagnant) that is set every 5 or 10 years. This can affect sim scoring rates directly, or tendencies for the strategies set by AI coaches (run-and-gun, trap, etc being in vogue as the case may be).
- Having these same rates for the quality of the newly generated players - in offense, defense, and goaltending. As with the point above the quality ratings can go up/down by year and follow a trend line set every 5 or 10 years.
I like the second one better... it allows for variance in the players that are generated from generation to generation, and the combination of better or worse offense, defense and goaltending is able to affect the scoring trends. In the '80s for example the high scoring would have been fed by excellent offensive stock with poor defensive and goaltending stock.
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