NHL EHM question
 

This might actually be a general hockey question rather than a NHL EHM specific one but here goes. What does unrestricted free agent Group 2, or ,3 or 4, or 5 mean? Whats the difference? Also whats a qualifying offer? And finally what are the waiver rules for the NHL? Any help would be appreciated.

Here's what I've found:

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/feature.asp?fid=8993

I hope that helps.

Thanks. It helps a lot. Seems like a complicated system.

It is pretty complicated. I still don't understand all of it. Your other question was about waivers. I did a quick google search and came up with this:

http://www.hockeyphreak.com/playerrules.html

It looks like it was put up back in 99-00, so it may not be totally up to date. It should help you understand some of the basics though. I know it makes my head hurt just to read it :)

Actually I think EHM does a decent job of explaining the NHL waiver process. If you look at each player's page, you will see if they are exempt from waivers or if they must pass through waivers. While this is an overly simplistic system, I think it's easy to know at a glance if you could lose your guy to waivers. Also, the message which comes up when a player has cleared waivers for the first time is also helpful. It lets you know that he can play XX number of games in the NHL or spend XX number of days on the NHL roster before he must clear waivers again. While this doesn't answer your question directly, I think that we can all agree that EHM's waiver system, while simplistic, is very user-friendly.

I agree, EHM has made it pretty easy to understand. What I was refering to was the article that I posted the link to. The actual rules for waivers in the NHL are anything but easy to understand.

Since this is a thread about EHM questions, I've got one of my own: I downloaded the demo from SI. It expired. Do I have to download a different file to purchase the game or am I just being confused by the different file sizes between the demo and the downloadable version of EHM? Are they different?

You need to download the 'demo' marked as 'try before you buy' that one includes the softwrap stuff which allows you to purchase the game online (its fairly straight forward to use - but feel free to ask if you have problems with it).

Hope this helps,

Marc