Ability to create teams and edit individual players? Gone and gone. Tournaments and battling for the Stanley Cup? Gone. EA Sports Hockey League for online play? Gone. When EA representatives say that they set everything back to square one to start over with the current generation of consoles, they really mean it. Even though I was well aware going in that the feature set had been scaled back, I still found it astonishing just how much was left out this year. So much has been pulled out of NHL 15 that I spent my first 10 minutes with the game scavenging through the menus wondering where everything had been hidden. The only way that EA could further annoy hockey fans with this game would be if the company had Gary Bettman personally deliver every copy. But the gameplay isn't so much better that it offsets what has been lost. Action on the ice is still pretty impressive for the most part, and everything has been spruced up further with refined hockey smarts, improved puck physics, and mostly impressive new visuals and sound. Some aspects of the game have been stripped down so much that they are barely playable. Even the features that have survived EA's new-gen purge are present in much-reduced circumstances, with far fewer options than seen just last year with NHL 14 on the 360 and PS3. Many, many modes of play are missing in action.
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EA Sports has ripped the heart out of its long-time arcade hockey game, taking what was supposed to be a brave first step for the franchise on the new-generation PS4 and Xbox One and turning it into a pratfall. Less really can be more.īut NHL 15 is something else entirely. Then we can talk about collecting players like sports cards, or bobblehead modes of play, or whatever.
Get the sport itself right on the field, or the ice, or whatever. As something of a purist-and as a guy whose first sports gaming experiences involved the LED bleeps and bloops of Coleco handhelds like Electronic Quarterback-I've never needed a lot of frills. The youngsters have been well represented, with Quinn Hughes of the Canucks (22), Rasmus Dahlin of the Sabres (21) and Miro Heiskanen of the Stars (22) all landing new contracts, joined by veterans Mattias Ekholm of the Predators (32) and Colton Parayko of the Blues (29).One thing that has always annoyed me about sports games is feature creep. Six have an average annual value of $9 million or more, led by Zach Werenski of the Blue Jackets, who commanded $9.583 per season. Over the past three months, 14 blueliners have signed hefty deals, seven of which have come with eight years of term. The best teams are all in the top half - save for the Islanders, who always seem to be able to do things differently. Toronto is currently in the bottom quarter of the league in dollars spent on defence. Money is going to have to be redistributed to make it work.
That combination merits a premium, and the Leafs will both understand that and work to get their veteran leader under contract. Many feel there is still an offensive upside to the player who is also capable of handling a shutdown role against the best in the league. Two years removed from a 72-point season that has only been surpassed by three players in the past five years, Rielly will have suitors. Approaching 600 regular-season games, his experience and versatility will be coveted. Only 27 years old, he is just entering his prime. It’s a thin year for free-agent defenders, and Rielly will be at the top of many teams’ lists.
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In the final year of a six-year, $30-million deal, the longest serving Toronto player and pending unrestricted free agent at year’s end has put himself in a lucrative bargaining position. With the upping of the ante, veteran Maple Leafs defender Morgan Rielly sits in an interesting seat. The new dollar figure will make McAvoy the highest-paid Bruin, passing offensive stars Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak. The trend to spend on the blue line is increasing. It’s fitting that the Boston Bruins joined the recent wave of hockey clubs signing their young defensive stars to mega-dollar, multi-year contracts - with 23-year-old stalwart Charlie McAvoy putting pen to paper on an eight-year, $76-million (U.S.) deal as the season’s first week came to a close.īoston has been one of the NHL’s best at controlling its internal salary cap, yet joined the recent surge in both recognizing and rewarding the defence position.