I think I'm about to hate you and love you at the same time.
Is EHM the Eastside Hockey Manager? I've never heard of it, but it looks pretty incredible. Is it worth the $20?
I feel like I'm about to waste a lot of time on this if it's what you're talking about.
I love it, but it can definitely get a bit tedious, and it's long in the tooth. That being said, there are still roster updates despite the game not having an official one since 2015, face packs for most of the players and some staff, logo packs to make it all look legit, and it's a very deep game. I feel really bad for mentioning my EHM game, I feel like you're gonna go down a hockey sim rabbit hole and never come back.
If I were in your position I might also have a look at FHM 8, which is another hockey sim series that has been steadily improving, and is the only one getting an annual release. In my opinion, it's gotten close enough that you may want the more modern quality of life features over EHM, but I think it's very debatable, so I'd hesitate to outright suggest either one. Maybe check out one of the many FHM vs EHM reddit threads or have a look around youtube to see if one looks more interesting to you.
Not sure either is a perfect representation of the NHL at this point. The first thing I do in any EHM game is trade away Seguin and Benn for peanuts to clear out the cap, and then tank like a motherf***er. For some reason Shane Wright was much better in my game than I expect he'll be in real life. The other flipside of that is the AI doesn't really consider cap much unless they are going to go over it or under it. You can't weaponize your cap space and so long as you find a partner you can trade good players that are severely overpaid.
Pretty much, you can coach games as well and setup linesup and style of play.
I found the game pretty good, but the SIMs are very slow which I found annoying. Like I want to SIM a month at a time or two months and just let the AI take control of the team but I never found an efficient way to do it.
Yup, the joys of a game so old that it only runs on one core, regardless of your processor. I think the thing I find most annoying is I'm not sure FHM is any faster despite being much, much newer.