The NHL numbers have stayed static for each of the past two seasons. This season, 10.7 percent of its games were decided in overtime, before the shootout. Last season, it was 10.4 percent. In 2014-15, 14.1 percent of its NHL games have been decided in a shootout, down slightly from 14.47 percent last season.
The slight variations in the NHL's overtime/shootout numbers is likely related to the rules change adapted for this season, requiring teams to switch defensive ends for overtime to create the long-change factor which exists in the second period of regulation play.
Be A Pro mode has also taken multiple hits. You can no longer be drafted by an organization and work your way up through the ranks from lesser, ancillary leagues and into the pros. Now, you're drafted by an organization and you immediately -- and mysteriously -- make the team. I created a pro that was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens. As I played, I was as confused as to why I couldn't skip forward to my next shift automatically as I was confused by how I -- a young rookie on the periphery of the roster -- could just jump on the ice whenever I wanted. Be A Pro still has deep customization options, but it also felt hollow and half-baked.
Entire modes have been removed. EA Sports Hockey League, a multi-player online league mode that was first introduced in NHL 2009, is gone. GM Connected, an online version of the team management mode, has disappeared. There is no Season Mode, forcing players to either play a season via the game's offline GM mode with team management, or as an individual player in Be a Pro. There's no Winter Classic game, which has become a famous spectacle for the NHL by bringing regular season hockey games to outdoor stadiums. There's no Live the Life mode, which added some off-the-ice content to a regular career mode, giving players the opportunity to manage the personal and public life of their player. Some of the missing pieces aren't even modes. When you score a hat-trick, for example, no hats are thrown – this despite the fact that the color commentary team mentions that hats are flooding the ice.
In fact, the more I explored NHL 15 off the ice, the more annoyed, frustrated, incredulous and angry I became. The amount of content missing from NHL 15 on PS4 and Xbox One — content that existed in NHL 14 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 — is staggering.
What's most impressive about the presentation is how in-depth and dynamic it is. The team will talk about different angles to the game, profile certain characters, or discuss who's on a recent hot streak. Even though you think you know what they're about to say, the commentary's almost always a surprise, as there's a bevy of lines for many situations. Adding to that effect is the mid-game contribution from Ray Ferraro, who's at ice level, and will periodically analyze a player's game, whether it's showcasing his big hits or chronicling his tremendous saves.
Speaking of things remaining the same, no positive changes have been made to either NHL’s Be A Pro or Be A GM mode. The reason I say no positive changes is due to the fact that some features have been removed. For example, you can no longer manually draft players in Be A GM, a key part of your experience with the mode. This makes rebuilding a team more difficult than it would be otherwise. The lack of a manual draft is absolutely baffling in the grand scheme of things; it is something that makes you tilt your head and say “How could they ship the game without this feature that other sports games have possessed since the PS2?”
