NHL 18 ESHL Official Rules

All players are subject to abide by the general community rules and guidelines of LG. Rules are subject to change at any time. An announcement will be made when they do change. Rules are effective immediately unless otherwise stated.

We’ve settled on the following format and rules for NHL 18:

POINTS SYSTEM

3 seasons leading to a grand finale tournament which will be based on prior performance in the 3 seasons.

We will be using the European Style points system again this year:
Regulation win: 3 pts
OTW: 2 pts
OTL: 1 pt
Regulation L: 0 pt

Tie breaker is as follows (should be on the standings page as well): Head to Head (W > OTW > OTL > L), Aggregate Score, GD.

FORFEITS

In order to hold teams accountable for forfeiting we will be requesting an additional $50 deposit from each team. You will be refunded in full if your team does not forfeit any games during that season.

If your team forfeits 1 game: $10 will be added to the prize pot.
If your team forfeits 2 games: Another $15 ($25 total) will be added to the prize pot.
If your team forfeits 3 games: Another $25 ($50 total) will be added to the prize pot.

Teams that forfeit too much throughout the season will be considered for demotion regardless of finishing spot or removal from the league.

Teams must make an effort to have 6 players no later than 12 minutes after the designated time slot. Please inform team owners if your team will need these 12 minutes. This rule does not apply if a team is late due to another ESHL Xbox game.

Other league games (for example, LG NHL, AHL, CHL, ESHL PSN etc.) are not viable excuses to be late for a game.

Reschedules will be league induced. We have a set schedule and teams are expected to have 6 at the times listed. Emergencies happen, but that's what 9 player rosters are for. Opponents are not expected to reschedule and there is no way to determine if a team is trying to reschedule because they don't have 6 or they are missing 1 or 2 good players. Because of the way the community takes advantages of loopholes in rules, we will not allow team initiated reschedules.


LAG-OUT PROCEDURE

ESHL must be played 6v6 at all times. If a lagout happens, wait until the next whistle and pause the game. All players must backout and stats must be taken from this game (via screenshot or EA site). The challenge will be resent once both teams have 6 players in the DR again. If the player who lagged out cannot make it back and a team cannot find a replacement on their roster, the game will result in a FF for the team without 6 players.

Once you are back in the game, you must run down the clock to the time at which the last whistle occurred in the previous game. At that time the player who lagged out or the replacement will flip the puck over the glass and take a 2 minute minor.

The game will precede from that point.

GAME LOOP PROCEDURE

NHL 18 is known to have a looping issue where it will sometimes discount a goal scored, reset the clock and pull the play back to a faceoff. This is out of our control. When this occurs please follow this procedure:

Note the remaining time on the clock before the loop.

Note the score. All goals scored before the loop are official, no matter if the game magically takes one away at some point.

If the game can't recover from the loop, TAKE STATS and back out of the game. Who knows if the EA site will recognize a looped game, so take appropriate screenshots.

Follow the same procedure as the lagout, minus the penalty once you get back in game.

If the game seems to recover from the loop, run down the clock to the time of the loop and flip the puck over the glass NOT FOR A PENALTY, but to get a faceoff that remains 5 on 5.

Remember to take screenshots of the stats after just in case the game does not record the looped game on the site.

FIGHTING

ESHL must be played 6v6 at all times and therefore there is no fighting as the AI must not be on the ice at all. If a fight occurs the team who accepted the fight will be charged with a 2 minute penalty upon the restart. Follow the lag-out procedure to restart the game.

A goalie cannot fight a player or another goalie and the same punishment applies as above.

STREAMING

The HOME TEAM is required to ensure EACH GAME IS STREAMED! If the home team CANNOT stream, but the away team can, that will be deemed acceptable. Please contact a league admin if this is not possible, however it is possible to stream directly from your console and should not be an issue. The reason this rule is in place is so that we can have at least 1 stream to work with in order to promote games. If there is an issue within a game that requires review this will also be used as proof. Please archive your streams.

DIVISIONS

There are currently 2 divisions. Invite & Open. This is subject to change S2 depending on signups. The winning team of Open playoffs will be promoted to Invite the following season. As of January 2018, new events will be handled as: Champion of Open is moved up to Invite. 10th place Invite and 2nd place Open will have a relegation match and 11th place Invite and 12th Place Invite get sent to a qualifier event. Loser of the relegation and any new teams may play in the qualifier with 11th, 12th and any other open teams.

The final NHL 18 Invite division will carry over to NHL 19 using whatever roster rules the league deems fit. This is subject to change and the league may or may not opt out if there is a drastic format change or gameplay change.


TOURNAMENT POINTS

There are 2 divisions which means the top 12 teams in invite will be awarded tournament points and the top 2 teams in Open will also be awarded tournament points.

INVITE
1st - 14pts
2nd - 13pts
3rd - 12pts
... etc

12th - 3pts

OPEN
1st - 2pts
2nd - 1pt

The top 8 teams with the most tournament points will be granted a spot in the final tournament. If we get more divisions and teams we may think about expanding to 16.

BANNED PLAYER POLICY

Please see inquire with @Tris10, @LG McDonald, and @jonlol to discuss if an LG banned player is eligible to play in ESHL.

SCHEDULE

Sundays - 9:30 PM & 10:00 PM, 10:30 PM & 11:00 PM EST
Thursdays - 9:30 PM & 10:00 PM, 10:30 PM & 11:00 PM EST

Teams will now have 12 minutes to show up with 6 eligible players. If a team does not show up within the 12 minute window, the opponent is able to call a FF. This rule does not apply if a team is late due to another ESHL Xbox game.

Other league games (for example, LG NHL, AHL, CHL, ESHL PSN etc.) are not viable excuses to be late for a game.

Playoff schedules will be created based off of each team's availability. Teams will provide their availabilities to the league prior to the start of playoffs. The limitations of these time slots will be from Sunday – Thursday from 9:00 PM EST - 11:00 PM EST. If there are no mutual time slots or poor availability is given, league default times will be selected and will not be negotiable. There are still no reschedules in playoffs unless the league determines it's necessary.


ROSTER

A roster of 8 players = no position lock or position requirements.

A roster of 9 players = 7 skaters, 2 goalies. Only one of your goalies is allowed to fill in as a skater on occasion. They must finish the season with more games played as a goalie than a skater otherwise their games played as a skater will be overturned. Once one goalie plays as a skater, the other goalie is not eligible to play out as a skater.

Any skater can play as a G if necessary without any restrictions.

In playoffs, the appointed goalie must finish the series with more games played as a G than a skater. If a team fails to meet this requirement, the opposing team will be given FF wins until the goalie meets the required games played at G.

In order to be eligible to hold your spot in invite and/or your tournament points, your team must have 5 players on the roster from the end of the previous season. You may use these 4 roster additions/changes at any time you'd like (during the season, between seasons), but you only get 4 total from the offseason to the end of the regular season of event 2. There must be at least 1 on your roster who has been with your team since the time of the original signup to hold eligibility.

Teams wanting to drop a player during the season must receive consent from that player unless they are proving to be cancerous and refusing to show up. Once a player consents to being dropped, they are to understand that the team is not liable to pay them anything if they win any money. This does not apply between seasons as teams are free to add whoever they like.

Once a player is dropped from a roster, they cannot rejoin said roster for the remainder of the current season. They may rejoin that team for following offseason/season or in the future, however that team will be charged a roster move and they will be considered a new player (not part of the original 5).

A roster drop does not count as a roster move, but any addition after that will. (ex. a team can drop a player to run 8 players instead of 9 as long as its done before the deadline).

During a season, a team may not use a roster move on a player who is currently/or was formerly on the roster of a team from the same division.

Roster changes must be submitted and valid to an ESHL admin (me or sparty currently) 2 hours prior to games.

At the conclusion of that event and before the start of the next event, there are no restrictions on where a player is added from, as long as they have an eligible LG account. Teams may pick up players who were on other Invite/Main/Open teams in the previous season

Rosters will be locked each event at the conclusion of the final regular season game for each team. You may not be dropped from an Invite team to join an Open team after the Invite regular season is over.

Rosters will be LOCKED at the conclusion of the regular season of season 3 in order to prevent teams from stacking up for the grand finale.

If your team does not have a full 8 player roster listed on the sign up page, they can add players until they have a full 8 without using a roster replacement. These players still cannot come from another team in the same division.


A team may take an event off under the following rules:

• They will lose their spot in invite & start back in open.
  
• They will hold their tournament points as long as they hold 5/9 players from their roster.
• Players who join other teams will be treated as roster moves. In order to rejoin their team in the future they will be considered new players and not count as a 5/9.
  
• They will lose their tournament points if they do not participate in at least 2/3 events.

STATS

Stats must be completed at the end of each game/series the same way they would for LG NHL. Please make sure as an owner you know how to do stats and if you aren't able to be around to do them, someone else knows how to on your team.

PLAYOFFS

Playoffs will now be reseeded according to regular season finish after each round. As an example, if the 8 seed upsets the 1 seed, they will be reseeded in round 2 vs the next highest seed remaining.

IN-GAME

Goal posts must be a dark colour - preferably red, but can be another colour as long as there is good contrast between the ice and posts. Anything deemed to be deceptive will require the team to back out, re-colour their posts, and take a penalty.

Offensive player and team names must not be used - specifically racist, sexist, or hateful. If a team has a player using an offensive name they will be required to back out, change their name, and take a penalty. If an offensive player name is used on an ESHL promoted broadcast, on top of the above listed punishment, a team will be fined their whole FF deposit.

Team logos and names must not be subject to copyright infringements.

**Clubs with copyright names who participated in ESHL Events 1 and 2 will be grandfathered in for the rest of NHL 18. They must change to a non-copyright logo, but they can use the club name for the rest of the NHL 18 events.​

 

Added a note about stats. Should be assumed, but wanted make sure the newer teams know that stats are required.

STATS

Stats must be completed at the end of each game/series the same way they would for LG NHL. Please make sure as an owner you know how to do stats and if you aren't able to be around to do them, someone else knows how to on your team.

 

"Teams wanting to drop a player during the season must receive consent from that player unless they are proving to be cancerous and refusing to show up. Once a player consents to being dropped, they are to understand that the team is not liable to pay them anything if they win any money. This does not apply between seasons as teams are free to add whoever they like."

 

"Reschedules will be league induced. We have a set schedule and teams are expected to have 6 at the times listed. These times have been set long before the season started so it should not be a surprise to anyone. Emergencies happen, but that's what 9 player rosters are for. Opponents are not expected to reschedule and there is no way to determine if a team is trying to reschedule because they don't have 6 or they are missing 1 or 2 good players. Because of the way the community takes advantages of loopholes in rules, we will not allow team initiated reschedules."

 

Updated from the offseason post:

 

PLAYOFFS

Playoffs will now be reseeded according to regular season finish after each round. As an example, if the 8 seed upsets the 1 seed, they will be reseeded in round 2 vs the next highest seed remaining.