Due to NHL 15's poor AI and underpowered stick checking, even highly rated defenders and goaltenders are going to look silly at times against skilled offenses. As such, try to stockpile offensive players first, and then build up your defensive core later on. There are tons of interchangeable defenders going for 600
NHL 15 coins or less, but not nearly as many impactful offensive talents for that price. Make sure to buy "position-change" cards, too, so that your players don't suffer a chemistry penalty from being used outside their natural position.
Stay away from the boards as much as you can, and when you are carrying the puck through the players, please let go of the left joystick to get more agility and this way, you can skate by the defenders who come charging at you for a body check. Keep this in mind and you can avoid injurious in the match as much as you can. Because the AI and stick checking in NHL 15 are not powerful enough, sometimes the highly rated defenders and goalkeepers can't against the skilled offenses. Therefore, it would be better to build your offense at first. And usually you can cost 600 coins or less to buy an impactful defender, but you cannot get a talented offensive player at such a price.
In other words, it doesn't need to be Jason Spezza, Danny Heatley, and Daniel Alfredsson playing together. The replacement player doesn't necessarily need to be as talented, but you better make sure that he provides skills that are similar to those of the player he replaces. That can cause problems when there isn't a suitable player on the roster. The Anaheim Ducks are currently in such a situation in scrambling to find a partner for Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. To do that, the "shutdown line" of Rob Niedermayer, Samuel Pahlsson, and Travis Moen has been shuffled around, much to the chagrin of some Ducks fans.
The problem is that not every player should be able to make moves like these. When anyone can pull them off, they make for an inauthentic representation of the diversity of talent in the league. It's easier than ever to pull off one of these "one-touch dekes" and it's never been more agonizingly difficult for the defending player to cover them effectively. Consequently, I've been able to utilize them too often, especially in online play. I wouldn't knock the feature so hard if it were easier to defend against, but the way it's currently tilted, it's as if the game punishes players that rely on solid defense to combat an offensive minded opponent. But before we ask how and why the game could be missing so much, let's focus on what's new, what's great, and what's not so great about NHL 15.
This leads me to the sounds of the arena. As good as they look the fans sound incredible. They are loud and proud if you are winning but if you are on the losing end they will let you know with boos and cat calls. You can also hear players talking at each other as well as grunt and call for the puck on the ice. I really like that EA has included each and every horn, siren, whistle or buzzer from each and every rink in the league. They are easily distinguishable and most hockey nuts will be able to tell what rink they are from. The game also runs in DTS or Dolby Digital Surround Sound, so you are not going to be missing anything audio related.
Speaking of the American Hockey League, there’s no way of being able to play your farm team’s games during the season-like modes. That’s yet another thing that failed to make the cut. Add it to the list and let EA know your frustration, because they were the ones who said that they were skipping next-gen with NHL 15, in order to learn from the teams behind Madden and FIFA. That way, they’d be able to go in knowing how to develop for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and would be able to make sure to include a rich feature set. I’m paraphrasing from this interview with creative director Sean Ramjagsingh.
Hockey over the years has lost a lot of ground to the other big three American sports. There were player strikes that saw it disappear from major television networks, most of its best players are either Canadian or European - generally a problem for the US market, and the best players tend to get injured and miss a lot of games. But, even if the actual game has had its problems, EA Sports’ NHL franchise has always remained a quality product.
