Darren's 10 Rules for HLS2:
 
1. For offense, the best players will be the most even over their *key*
stats.  Key stats are defined as certain ratings (i.e. shooting) that are
notably more important than other ones.
 
2. Here is the order of importance of key stats as I see them: Shooting,
Quickness, Skating, Passing, Puck Control.  No other ratings have any effect
one way or another on a player's offenive ability.  Forwards with a 9
shooting have a great edge, and defensemen with 9 passing have a similar
edge.  Defensemen with 9 shooting doesn't help too much, but doesnt hurt
either.
 
3. Low numbers in key stats are bad.  For example, if a player has 9
skating, 8 passing, 7 shooting and 1 quickness, they will still suck.
 
4. A 9 in any key stat is far better than an 8, but the goal is to have all
of them above 5 if possible (key stats that is). Thats for offense only.
 
5. Fatigue, Penalty and Injury do absolutely nothing in this game.  A
goalie's fatigue does nothing, doubleshifting a player with 0 fatigue will
not hurt them.  This is just what I have seen.  It is possible that Injury
and Penalty have a factor, but only in comparison to the other players on
your team.  I ran a few tests with penalty, changing every player on the
team's penalty rating to 0, and running the games for a season.  The result
was pretty normal looking - the average PIMs per player was the same as it
would have been had their ratings in penalty all been 9s.  I didn't have a
team of Mike Peluso's on my hands.
 
6. For defense, most of you have always traditionally thought that a 9
checking or aggression or whatever makes a player good defensively, well its
not true.  Get this: a player like this
  Smiths Suck XXXIII L D 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 55
is just as sound defensively as a player like this:
  Ian Rogers         L D 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 99.
Get the picture?  Having low numbers in certain
*defensive* key stats is what makes your team do worse defensively.  In
other words, high numbers don't make you better, low numbers make you worse.
These principles apply across the board for all positions except goal.
 
7. There are 3 main key stats for defense: Quickness, Skating and Puck
Control.  Having below 5 in any one of them is bad.
 
8. For defense, there are 4 minor key stats in this order: Shooting (believe
it or not), Aggressiveness, Power and Passing.  Try not to get below 5 in
these if you can help it.
 
9. Goalies.....There are only 2 stats that have any impact at all on a
goalie: Quickness and Puck Control.  A goalie like this:
  Butt Sniffer     R G 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 18
will always be better than this one:
  Nathan's Grandma L G 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 72.
Fatigue means diddly.
 
10. That being said, a goalie like David Wells 9 Quickness, 2 Puck Control,
will not be however, as good as RJ Awasthi (sorry Geoff, I messed up on that
one) 7 Quickness, 7 Puck Control.  In other words, never go below 7s in
either of those two stats, but a 9 *is* much better than an 8.