Last week, EA Sports gave hockey fans a rare taste of excitement in the desert of August. A smiling Matthew Tkachuk dons the cover of the NHL 26 video game (with brother Brady and father Keith featured on the game’s deluxe edition), which fans got the first look at on Aug. 5 when the game’s inaugural trailer launched. The two-minute snippet and accompanying online release tout expansions of the X-factor and Ice-Q gameplay systems. However, the most exciting development is the first update to Be a Pro since NHL 21.
Hockey gamers know better than to get their hopes up, however. The Chel franchise has rarely received glowing reviews over the last decade. Sometimes that’s the result of the marquee “improvements” failing to move the needle, but there’s also been a fair share of annoying, minor inconveniences that have added up to detract from the whole product. Some are promptly addressed, but several have persisted across numerous game iterations. Here are four issues in the latter category that the game’s developers desperately need to fix before the virtual puck drops on Sept. 5.
The Dump and Chase/Long Flip
There are still a couple of ways to properly execute this common hockey strategy, whether you’re looking to get the puck deep to make a line change, set your strategy for an aggressive forecheck, or want to live to see another day on the penalty kill. Shooting the puck down the ice works fine, and a saucer pass also often gets the job done. The default way to do so for years, however, was by holding R1 (PlayStation) or RB (Xbox) and flicking the right stick to get the perfect mix of height and velocity.
However, EA Sports completely nerfed this mechanic a few years ago. You can debate whether that was a good adjustment or not from the user’s perspective. Long-time YouTuber Bacon Country had perfected the “long flip” as a way to beat players using a particularly passive neutral zone trap set-up. One could argue that the plays it could create were sometimes unrealistic, though.
What isn’t debatable, however, is that the change wasn’t properly accounted for in the computer player (CPU). AI players still treat the R1/RB plus right stick combination the same, resulting in dump-ins that fail to reach the icing line and penalty kill “clears” that often don’t clear the blue line. It’s also made taking a delay of the game penalty for flicking the puck over the glass nearly impossible, which at least eliminates some frustrating moments. At a minimum, the computer needs to start using the aforementioned alternatives in the appropriate situations. They look stupid when they don’t.
Player Handedness Mistakes
This issue doesn’t affect gameplay, but it’s as annoying as they come if you care about presentation. This dates back to the early days of the PS4/Xbox One era, as you can see back in the NHL 16 trailer. Towards the end, Connor McDavid skates toward center ice, preparing for a face-off… holding his stick right-handed. For a decade now, right-handed players have shown in countless cut-scene situations looking like lefties, and vice versa. This is despite multiple times in that span where one of the marquee features was upgraded presentation, only for this issue to persist.
Worse, it appears that it’s still around for NHL 26, at least at the game’s current stage. In the trailer, we see a created player working their way up to the Utah Mammoth. In every gameplay video we see, the player is right-handed. Yet a pre-game skate-around clip shows the player holding their stick like a left-hander.
There are some glitches in video games that are probably way more complicated than they seem. Admittedly, I have zero coding experience. But this seems like something that should be a basic fix that has somehow gone unfixed for an absurdly long time.
Proper Salary Cap Rules
In contrast to the previous complaint, I’m sympathetic toward the developers’ decision to simplify this. However, a generation of hockey fans still don’t properly realize the difference between one-way and two-way contracts (it’s about the level of pay in the NHL vs. the American Hockey League, not waiver status).
I’m not advocating for franchise mode to get that deep in the weeds when signing contracts. However, waiver status is one of the more frustrating discrepancies, as someone who has played franchise mode for its maximum 25 seasons multiple times. In the real NHL, all players who do not make the roster must clear waivers before being sent to the AHL, unless they are waivers-exempt. However, the game’s franchise mode doesn’t start waivers until the end of the preseason. Before then, you can send any player, from Adam Edstrom to Artemi Panarin, to the AHL and let them linger there for as long as you’d like.
As a user, you can choose not to pursue that. However, this is at least partially to blame for why computer teams let their depth fade in future seasons and why talented young players stagnate as healthy scratches. It would be great if cap space, bonus structures, and long-term injured reserve penalties were all perfectly accurate, but these are so complex and niche that it’s understandable to simplify them. But the waiver issue needs to be addressed.
3-on-3 AI
It’s hard to believe the NHL is a decade into the 3-on-3 overtime era. The decision to drop a player from the previous 4-on-4 format in the 2015-16 season has limited the number of games that reach a shootout. Perhaps even more importantly, it’s provided more excitement as highly skilled players take advantage of the extra space.
At least that’s how it works in real life. Anyone who plays the game knows the CPU doesn’t seem to realize the gravity of the situation. Players will still let long-range shots from the point fly, and sometimes even dump the puck in (using the aforementioned wonky mechanic). EA has improved its situational play in recent years by expanding power play and penalty kill tactics. Now, it’s 3-on-3’s turn for some much-needed love.
What’s Next
We’ll start to get more detailed notes on the game’s changes in the coming weeks. The second news drop arrives on Aug. 13 with a deep dive into gameplay. A YouTube video is already in preview mode, and a blog post on EA Sports’ website typically accompanies these videos.
Related: Growing Up With EA Sports’ NHL Franchise
You may not see these changes mentioned on any of the marquee channels. But addressing issues like these would go a long way toward getting the premier hockey simulation video game series back on track.
