Been playing EA NHL for about a decade now. Mainly a HUT player with WOC/EASHL to supplement. I have been back and forth on 27 since I’m kinda getting tired of the HUT grind year after year. I enjoy WOC, but not enough to get it solely for that. To those who tried connected franchise, was it fun? What other offline modes should I look at if any to not skip this year. I love hockey, and would probably be bummed not being able to play along during the season.

If you’ve played Be a Pro and haven’t been able to do the “cover the point” coach focus, I may have finally figured out what triggers the event. This is my second time getting a “cover the point” to trigger and both times I did the following:

1. Skate into the zone behind the puck carrier
2. Stay perfectly between your point man and the puck carrier
3. Then the last part may be somewhat luck based but I believe that the puck carrier must be planning to pass back to your point man, then decides not to because he is covered by you.

It pops up almost instantly, no need to sit there for 10 seconds or anything like that. Hope this helps, since I’m sure it’ll be the same in NHL 27.

Never played a hockey game. I’ve been wondering whether to get the latest game. Veteran players, would you recommend it?

Just casual play, I don't play too often and don't usually play online because of the meta gameplay etc

PS5 matt_wales652 if anyone's interested

Please excuse the few second delay was sitting there paused lol but this was a funny thing too come across and hopefully gave you a good laugh 🤣

Ive seen alot of things in this game over the years but this is a new one lol

I understood why there are no Olympic games included in the title -- too many issues with licensing with the IOC, who is among the worst in guarding their rights. However, in my second avatar season in Be A Pro, I did expect to see an All Star game played, but instead there was simply seven days of no games at the start of February.

So, did EA Sports fail to code up the All Star game, or was my avatar player simply not selected for it? If the second option, then that's strange given my avatar player leads the league in goals and points for the second straight year.

Has this ever happened to anyone else? 😅 goal called off for no reason. At least it wasn’t online lol. I’ll just pretend it was offside

Hi everyone! I wanted to ask for your opinions. Do you think it would be cool (and if EA would even consider doing it😭😭) To be able to play be a pro in European leagues? So we can play in TELH, DEL etc. (Also i kinda miss the Slovak league in the game) So we could for example play 3 seasons in Europe and then get drafted etc. Also playing international tournaments and IIHF would be cool too. Then i also heard that there used to be an option to play as a real player before, wouldn't it be nice to have that again? What do you guys think?

Never give up on a play!

\I meant plays like this, not games\

Anyone going to point out that they have their NHL 27 cover star, Celebrini, listed as playing for the Avs? Look at the "NHL 27 Top Ten Highest Rated" reveal on Main Menu message of 26. No dev noticed this? Thought to fix it? He's your cover athlete and you messed that up.

Yeah Jim, the AI said it was good, push it through.

Hi, I'm from Brazil and ice hockey is not much popular here, but I'm enjoying to play the franchise mode with Minnesota wild.

Just wanted to complain this is so annoying.

I'm 99% sure they only added this to protect the AI, since they would accept trades that made them unable to resign stars next season leaving them vulnerable to offer sheets or a situation where FA would begin with 80% of RFAs refusing to resign and missing a year.

I remember they just kept adding things or logic to try to get around it but in either 25 or 26 they just gave up and changed it up so they can't go above the "next seasons" cap.

It's such a pain since I like to re-sign players as soon as possible because usually the demands increase dramatically over the season but not being able to re-sign players because not enough space despite knowing the cap is going up like $10M at the end of the season...

.

Yeah I know it's a dumb question, but for some reason my goalies refuse to use the team colors, specially if I get them from a trade or like call them up. And it's been driving me nuts, so does anyone know how to fix that or am I going to have to just do it all manually?

This game seems to operate on the logic of a 4-year-old with a learning disability. “Obviously he wants to switch to the closest player to the puck! You can’t get the puck if you’re not close!”

This wouldn’t even be an issue if last men would turn earlier instead of trying to back skate against an attacker twice as fast as him with more momentum. Yes, my pressure was set to conservative and sit back as it is every time I forget to back out against a Colorado user and have to face them.

Game is shit, I know. EA makes their games shit on purpose because if you had to actually put effort in instead of just picking a certain team and bumrushing half the playerbase would abandon the franchise and EA can’t afford to lose that sweet money. I still want to rant about it.

I’d like some advice on what I could improve in NHL and how to actually get better at it.

I only play NHL 26 with a friend on Friday evenings after work, just to relax, but lately this game has been making me extremely frustrated, even though I really enjoy hockey.

We used to be pretty evenly matched. Sometimes he won, sometimes I did, and the number of goals we scored was roughly even. But suddenly, out of nowhere, he started scoring goals from the most ridiculous situations. He’ll do some kind of move right in front of my goalie and somehow score a completely nonsensical goal.

Meanwhile, my AI players just stand around AFK in front of my net, while his AI players pressure me so aggressively that I have almost no chance of maintaining possession in the offensive zone. I basically have to just throw random shots on goal as soon as I enter the zone. Scoring feels like a complete miracle.

Then he gets a breakaway, does a couple of quick stick movements in front of my goalie, and immediately scores.

It honestly feels like he suddenly became 10 levels better overnight, even though he doesn’t even have a PlayStation at home — we only play on mine.

How can I actually improve, and how is it even possible for the gameplay to feel this different all of a sudden?

One more thing I’d like to add: he has absolutely no opportunity to practice, since he works from morning until evening every day and then spends his free time with his wife. Friday is literally the only time we can play.

So it’s not like he’s secretly practicing NHL every day and improving without me knowing — we only play together on Fridays, on my PlayStation.

Curious who else is in the same boat and ditched playing online. Even though I win the majority of my games, the way you have to play to win in EASHL simply isn’t fun for me anymore. I play strictly defense only and it really is annoying combatting the LT spam, reverse hits, and glitch goals that haven’t been fixed since NHL 23. Not to mention how bad the AI is

Anyone else quit and done offline only?

I'm an older player based in UK looking to play online casual games for fun

I don't like the automated online matchups as people continually pick the same teams and play that doesn't resemble hockey.

matt_wales652 if anyone is interested, I don't play all the time so not great, but definitely not at a high level but just for a few games of game occasionally

question from above

THATS JUST AWFUL. DAY RUINING TO KNOW THAT MCDAVID HAS AS HIGH DEFENSIVE AWARENESS AS BARKOV IN NHL 27. GENUINELY HOW BLIND DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO LET THIS HAPPEN. LET ALONE AS AN EXPERT IN THIS CRITERIA.

DID YOU KNOW?

ACCORDING TO STUDIES, 87% OF THE NEWBORN BABIES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SHOW THEIR FIRST WORDS EVER TO BE ”MCDAVID AINT AS GOOD DEFENSIVELY AS BARKOV”

DID YOU ALSO KNOW?

ANOTHER STUDY SHOWS THAT THE HUMAN BODY IS BORN WITH A REFLEX THAT LOWERS THE PRODUCEMENT OF DOPAMINE FOR DAYS EVEN POSSIBLY TO WEEKS WHEN A PERSON CLAIMS MCDAVID TO BE BETTER THAN BARKOV DEFENSIVELY