Trade Trees
You can now view the trade tree of a player when they are traded
Trade trees are available for every trade of a player
Added trade history going back to 1920 in the default roster
Expanded History Mode
Added the following history mode start dates:
- 1930
- 1950
- 1965
- 1975
- 1985
- 1990
- 1995
- 2003
- 2014
- 2016
- 2025
The salary cap will follow historical values
The maximum contract length will be 18 years before 2013, 8 years before 2026, and 7 years afterwards
You can now configure your history mode career to have multiple minor leagues
Post-Season Tournaments
Added post-season tournaments for junior and college leagues
The junior post-season tournament includes the champions of the QJL, WJL and OJL, plus the host team
The tournament starts with a round robin
The 2nd and 3rd place teams face each other in the semifinal
The winner of that game faces the 1st place team in the final
The college post-season tournament includes the playoffs winner of each conference
Added a page detailing a post-season tournament, including:
- Player leaders
- Included leagues
- Details of the host team
- The bracket
- The past winners of the tournament
- The schedule
- The standings
Added a tournament win count to the team detail page
Added a tournament section to the relevant league detail page
Added mails for when a tournament starts and ends
Added a simple tournament editor letting you edit the logo, name and color of a tournament
College Leagues
Added the following leagues to the default roster:
- Big Ten
- CCHA
- Atlantic Hockey
- ECAC
- Hockey East
- NCHC
Added the ability to create college leagues. When creating a league, you now have a new Academic league type
When a player commits to an academic league, they receive a contract that lasts as long as the league’s maximum contract length. It has no salary.
Academic contracts use college terminology: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior
Added a Maximum academic eligibility age, which lets you choose the age at which a player loses their eligibility if they have played in another league
You can release players at any time. However, released players lose their academic eligibility and won’t be able to play in any other academic league for the rest of their career
Once a player’s academic contract expires, they become academically ineligible
Players can leave college before the end of their commitment if there are better opportunities elsewhere
Added a prestige value to teams, ranging from 0 to 99. This value affects how well a team can recruit players in an academic league
The prestige value can be seen on an academic team’s profile
It has also been added to the team ranking page
You can edit a team’s prestige value in the team editor
Prestige will vary from year to year based on a team’s results
Added a recruitment day event, similar to the free agency day event
You can sign your drafted players even if they already have a contract in a college league. If the player accepts, they will leave their college team.
Added a new mail for when you are managing a college team and a player leaves your program
Added a new College tab to the country page:
- It lists all academic leagues in the country
- It ranks all teams from all leagues by prestige
- It ranks all players from all leagues
- It has a Poll ranking section showing the top teams of the entire national academic program. The ranking updates every week and shows each team’s movement.
Minor League Control
You can now disable a minor league without having to disable its own minor league
You can now trade players while managing a minor league
You can’t trade players loaned from your major team, but you can trade players loaned from teams unrelated to you
You can also trade players that you signed to your team
You can now access the contract and free agency pages for your minor league
You can assign players to a minor league from the roster editor
You can also give contracts to players in minor leagues from the roster editor
You can now send contract offers to free agents for your minor league team
You can start a career as the manager of a minor league team
Minor leagues now have objectives when playing in career mode
The AI will sign players to minor league contracts
Leagues
Added a setting letting you choose the maximum number of seasons a player is allowed to spend in a league
Added a setting to determine when the last game of the season should occur
Added a setting letting you choose which league a league must draft from
Added a setting letting leagues have underage players (players below the minimum age limit)
- You can set the number of underage players allowed
- You can set the minimum underage age allowed
You can now set the point system per league
Added a setting that lets you force a league to have an active AI (trades, coach firing, scouting, training, jersey retirement, etc.). In HLM26, only the major league and the user’s league had an active AI.
Added a setting letting you choose the maximum contract length for a league
The All-Star Game will now be played in every league
Minor teams are no longer tied to leagues
Added the ability to view past playoff brackets on the league detail page
Promotion & Relegation
When managing a simuation league with promotion and relegation, you can now switch between teams and leagues from any promoted or relegated team
Updated the UI of the team selector
Teams can no longer be promoted or relegated into a league where their major or minor affiliates already play
Trades
You can now ask players to waive their contract clause when making a trade
Non-contending teams will be more reluctant to trade for future 1st round picks (3 or more years out)
Added a new setting that lets you enable Pick Swap as a conditional pick condition
Added the pick number to the trade finder during the draft
Trade history page
The page used to show only the last 50 trades for the selected filters. It now shows every trade matching the filter.
Improved the page’s loading speed
Contracts & Salary Cap
You can now go up to 10% over the salary cap during the off-season when negotiating contracts
You can easily switch between your major team and your minor teams directly from the contract negotiation popup
Every league now has a contract extension period running at the same time as the major league’s extension period
Added the contract status at expiry to the contract offer page
Lowered the maximum contract length limit to 7 years
Added the playoff salary cap
Added a setting letting you set the salary cap for the following season
You can now disable the salary cap once your career has started, but you can’t turn it back on for that career
Free Agency
Added an age filter to the free agency list
Added nationality flags to the free agents page
Added nationality filters to the free agents page
Draft, Lottery & Scouting
Added a new setting that limits the number of draft-eligible players. It ranges from 300 to 750 and also has an unlimited option. The default value is 350.
When a scout reaches tier 5 on a player, they will automatically start scouting a new player
Added a “Scout top available” button when manually assigning scouts
Added a filter that shows player stats on the prospect page
Lottery
Added a column showing the details of protected picks
When a protected pick’s condition isn’t met, the original owner of the pick is now shown on the draft lottery result page instead of the conditional owner
Staff
Added a button on the staff page to fire all of your staff at once
The staff salary cap now increases every season
Added a setting that lets you completely disable staff for your career
Added a force sign staff setting
Added name and role filters to the created staff page
Leagues outside of the major league are no longer limited to coaching roles when creating staff
You can now link staff to players, which lets you view their player profile from the staff entry
Lineup, Roster Moves & Training
Your scratches are no longer limited to 2 forwards and 1 defenseman. You can now scratch any 3 players, goalies included
Improved the page’s performance when switching teams
Added potential to the roster move page
You can now assign players to faceoff training
Players & Progression
Auto-generated players in leagues other than the major league (junior, college, custom) are now treated as real players. You can trade them and offer them contract extensions, and they no longer disappear at the end of the season like they used to. They can sign with teams in other leagues, and they have a wider range of overalls, ages, potentials and motivations than the previous auto-generated players.
The previous auto-generated players still exist and are used to fill empty spots, but most lineup spots will be filled with the new auto-generated players when starting a new career
Free agents under 75 overall who haven’t played a game in the past two seasons will now retire automatically
Reduced the rate at which players gain size
Players can now have a childhood team, which increases their interest in signing with that team
Added F and D suffixes to the Top 6, Top 4 and Top 9 potentials:
- Top 6 → Top 6 F or Top 6 D
- Top 4 → Top 4 D
- Top 9 → Top 9 F
Updated the Swedish and German name databases
Awards & Hall of Fame
Awards can now end in a tie
You are no longer forced to cast all of your votes during Hall of Fame voting
Added a setting letting you choose how many players are inducted into the Hall of Fame each season
Added a setting that lets you disable the Hall of Fame
Achievements
Added achievements:
Career & longevity
- It Starts With One: Win your first regular season game
- Just Getting Started: Complete your first season as a general manager
- Still Here: Manage a team for 10 seasons
- Franchise Legend: Manage a team for 25 seasons
- Immortal GM: Manage a team for 50 seasons
- One Team, One Love: Stay with the same franchise for 20 seasons
Success & failure
- Hot Streak: Win 10 games in a row
- Champions: Win the league championship
- Dynasty: Win 3 championships in 5 seasons
- Back-to-Back: Win two championships in consecutive seasons
- Homegrown: Win a championship with 10 or more players you drafted on the roster
- Trust the Process: Finish last in the league standings
- So Close…: Lose in the championship final
- Collapse: Miss the playoffs after starting the season ranked as an elite team
- Perpetual Rebuild: Miss the playoffs five seasons in a row
Contracts
- Paying for Memories: Still be paying a contract buyout five seasons later
- One Last Ride: Sign a player aged 38 or older
- Dead Money: Buy out a player’s contract
- Locked In: Sign a player to a contract of 7 years or more
- I Can Fix Him: Sign a declining player to a multi-year contract
Trades
- Weaponized Contract: Trade a player carrying a negative contract value
- No Trade? No Problem: Convince a player to waive their no-trade clause
- Blockbuster: Complete a trade involving 10 or more assets
- Who Approved This?: Lose a trade by a big margin
- Heartless: Trade your team captain
- Deadline Thief: Acquire a star player at the trade deadline
- Trade Architect: Successfully complete a three-team trade
- Generational Fumble: Trade away a future first-round pick that becomes 1st overall
Draft
- Who?: Draft a player you did not scout
- Reached.: Draft a player 30 or more spots above their projection
- Diamond in the Rough: Draft a superstar outside the first round
- Luck Is on Our Side: Win the draft lottery
Rankings
Added a number of new rankings to the rankings page
The rankings are now grouped by category (Teams, Players, Draft)
Retired players now count toward the league champions ranking
Added the following Teams rankings:
- Best teams (greatest seasons of all time)
- Worst teams (worst seasons of all time)
- Best non-playoff teams (best seasons from teams that missed the playoffs)
- Worst playoff teams (worst seasons from teams that made the playoffs)
- Worst champions (worst seasons from teams that won the playoffs)
- Oldest champions (the oldest teams to win the playoffs)
- Youngest champions (the youngest teams to win the playoffs)
- Biggest playoff upsets (lowest-ranked teams eliminating strong opponents)
- Shortest championship run (fewest playoff games needed to win the championship)
- Longest championship run (most playoff games needed to win the championship)
- Most finals losses
- Most decisive game losses (most losses in series-deciding games)
- Most times reverse swept
- Oldest average roster (highest average player age in a season)
- Youngest average roster (lowest average player age in a season)
Added the following Players rankings:
- Most games, no playoffs (most games played without a playoff appearance)
- Cup of coffee (players with exactly one regular season game played)
- Best players without a championship
- Most teams (most teams played for in a career)
- Shortest career with a championship
- Longest career without a championship
Added the following Draft rankings:
- Best draft classes (draft classes ordered by games played)
- Worst 1st overall picks (ordered by lowest peak overall)
- Best player at every pick (the player with the highest peak overall selected at each draft position)
- Best undrafted players
Game Simulation & Stats
Added a Sim all button to the today’s games page to simulate every game of the day at once
Added hat trick stats
Lowered the number of penalties in a game
Added two more values to the shot frequency slider
Added two more values to the injury frequency slider
Play by play
On desktop, the play by play tab has been moved to the summary tab, under the rink section
Game Score
The game score stat has been rescaled to run from 0 to 10, with 10 being an outstanding performance
The game score now uses a color scale
Countries & International
Added Ukraine, China, Estonia, Spain and the Netherlands as playable countries
Added Albania, Cyprus, the Cayman Islands, Kenya and Malta as countries available in the roster editor
Added jerseys for all international teams
Added the Women’s World Cup, which appears when a women’s league is active in your career
Reduced how often goalies win MVP in international tournaments
Navigation
Updated the navigation throughout the app on phones. The new navigation lets you reach your most used pages faster.
The in-game layout now has 5 tabs:
- Office
- Calendar
- Lineup
- Trade (from free agency to the trade deadline) / Team Standing (from the trade deadline to the playoffs) / Playoffs (for the duration of the playoffs) / Contracts (from the end of the playoffs to free agency). This tab changes throughout the season based on what’s happening.
- Menu: an updated version of the sidebar that lets you navigate to every other page in the game
You can roll back to the old sidebar navigation in the settings
You can add two extra shortcuts next to Save and Exit on the navigation bar on mobile
Updated the UI of the league selector. Leagues are now grouped by continent and ordered by league strength.
On small devices, the team record on the calendar page is replaced by the current playoff series during the playoffs
Search bar
Updated the UI of the search bar
The search bar now shows an overview of the top result on desktops
You can use the ‘/’ key to run quick commands
The only command currently available is /silent, which activates the auto simulation settings preset
Datatables
Added the ability to export datatables to .csv files on the Desktop version using CTRL + E
Added the ability to show and hide columns on datatables. This feature is currently available for the contracts, waivers and prospects datatables only.
Your show/hide column choices are saved for the next time you open the datatable
Added the following columns to the contracts datatable: trade value, weight, height and asking contract. All are hidden by default.
Added a cap percentage column to the contracts datatable, hidden by default
Added injury information to the prospects datatable
Added trade value to the waivers datatable
Added name, age, potential, contract and overall filters to the waivers datatable
Added name, player type, age, overall and potential filters to the roster move datatable
Added name, position, player type, age, overall and potential filters to the country player list datatable
Added name, position, player type, age, overall and potential filters to the prospect ranking datatable
Added name, position, player type, age, overall and potential filters to the estimated career earnings ranking datatable
Team Page
Added a captain section showing the team’s current captain and alternates
Added a captain timeline to that section, showing the history of the team’s captains
Added information about how each player was acquired to the player list
Added a new roster history page showing the season and the acquisition method for every player in the organization
The team detail page now shows the team’s full lineup instead of only the first line, first pair and starting goalie
Added home and away records to the team standings page
Player Page
The background behind the profile picture has been replaced by the player’s jersey
Added captaincy letters (C for captain, A for alternates) next to the profile picture
Added a league filter to the career stats on the player page
Milestones page
The page has been split into 3 tabs (Personal, League, Franchise), which improves the page’s responsiveness
Inbox
Added the ability to pin messages
Player progression mails are now ordered by overall instead of by progression
Roster Editor
Added the ability to mark a player as deceased. Deceased players will not be generated as staff when creating a new career.
Added the ability to edit a player’s childhood team
Added the ability to edit a player’s potential using the in-game editor
Added the ability to edit player faces from within a career
Added the ability to import your own facepack
Added a new jersey model
You can add historical logos to teams in the roster editor
In history mode, the historical logo is used as the team’s logo for the selected season
Teams will no longer have retired jerseys for active players when starting a new history mode career
Added the ability to add and edit retired numbers from the in-game team editor
Added the ability to edit minor team captains and numbers
The league settings page has been added at the end of the league creator
Updated the affiliation page in the league editor. You can now set a team’s minor and major affiliates on the same page.
You can now set a team’s major and minor affiliates directly from the team editor page
The player rights section in the team editor now shows the projected team lineup
You can now set contracts of up to 18 years in the roster editor
You can now set buyouts of up to 36 years in the roster editor
When setting a player’s overall with the + and – buttons, the value no longer wraps from 99 to 0 — it stops at 99
You can now click the Overall label and type the player’s overall directly instead of using the + and – buttons
Added a search bar filter to the created teams page
Added a new roster tool that deletes every player on a roster
Added an option in Roster Tools, when in a career, to force players to retire based on age, overall and potential
Expansion Drafts
Updated the expansion draft planner UI
Expansion drafts are no longer limited to your own league. You can plan expansion drafts for every league during your career.
New Career & Active Leagues
Updated the UI of the active leagues page. Leagues are now grouped by continent. You can activate or deactivate all leagues at once, or all leagues within a continent at once.
Added an Estimated performance tile to the active leagues page and to the settings page before starting a new career. The tile shows an estimated simulation speed and an estimated player count.
Added a setting that lets you ignore created draftable players when starting a new career
Added a setting that lets you disable pre-existing injuries when starting a new career
Settings
Updated the settings page UI on larger devices
Added a setting letting you choose how many games to keep in a player’s game log
Added the ability to individually edit the color scale (the colors of player motivation, from blue to red)
The auto simulation settings preset now also turns on auto assign training focus and auto assign training
Added a new Save performance setting that lets you choose between faster saves and smaller save files
Added a setting that lets you disable birthplace-related features to improve simulation performance
Steam
Implemented the back button on the mouse
You can shift-click on the roster move page to select multiple players at once
Added a player detail tooltip when hovering over a player on the player stats page
Fixes
Players no longer revert to their old number after you edit it manually
Fixed a bug where history mode players would be drafted at their peak overall
Fixed a bug where drafted players in history mode would have their potential changed
Fixed a bug where scouts would scout no players
Fixed a bug where teams would buy out players right before the new contractual season, adding an extra two years to the buyout length
Fixed a bug in junior leagues where a player of equal overall was worth more at 20 years old than at 18
Fixed a bug where rebuilding teams would refuse to trade their first round pick in exchange for a better first round pick
Fixed a bug where goals were scored at the very beginning of periods
Performance
Android simulation speed has been greatly improved. On the default roster, simulating a full season is 50% faster in HLM27 than in HLM26.
Improved animation performance on iOS
Improved the performance of the office page when simulating from the office
Follow us
HLM27 will be available on September 5th. A beta will start on August 20th for Patreon subscribers.
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