Kristian

Few goalies are. My memory escapes me, but did any goalie in recent history, carry a team to a cup? Brodeur in '95? Does that even qualify?

This.

I agree, I'm not in the "he needs to play against NHL level competition camp". By the sounds of it, he lacks strength and speed - Both of which he can easily work on in juniors. Without either, he won't learn much at playing against NHL'ers. If he is indeed slow, then I agree upthread - Drafting another center with skating issues is plain stupid.

Haven't seen him play, but I was always in the "If he's not the next Crosby, stick him in juniors and let the tank go on" camp.

I know it's hockey, but god oh god, I do detest these pre-season games.

I like it, especially the blue & gold goathead.

Oh great! You HAD to go and do that.... Mention his name....!! Everybody look for the presser before pre-season, in which TP announces Larry the Moron is the new President of Hockey Operations. I called it :flirt:

Don't mean to start a flame-war, but X360 NHL15 is getting a rough ride in this preview, assuming it's real, and I don't see why it wouldn't be. I pretty much expected current-gen NHL15 to be something more like NHL14 V2.0, however according to this preview, it seems more like NHL14 V1.02. Like I said, don't mean to throw fuel on the fire, everyone decides for themselves.

Makes sense. I usually only play Be A Pro, and online versus, so I guess I'm one of the people not missing much. Sure, BAP isn't the Live The Life, but that particular game mode did seem very hastily added anyway. Only thing that bothers me righht now is the no-sim-to-next-shift, which is supposedly added in a september patch, so...

That makes sense, but that really only leaves me with the feeling that EA still got it "right", considering there's an NHL15 fo current gen consoles too, with all these features intact. I know it's not perfect, but at least it gives the consumer a choice to base his purchase on needs. Including all game modes in the next gen release, and written a less than stealler on-ice game, IMHO was the worst option viable to them. And in terms how franchises carried over features, I was always under the impression that the NHL franchise was a niche compared to Madden and FIFA, and as such the dev teams are much smaller?

Don't mean to add to the mud-slinging here, but here's my two cents : Honestly, if you haven't played it, how can you really tell? I've played it, and I enjoy the gameplay, which I'll take over different game modes any day. Programming a hockey game from the ground up must be a huge task, and in the case of the current gen series, they had years to develop and tweak their game engine. Leaving time for developing new and interesting game modes. NHL07 wasn't a very good game. They ended up pretty much having to do NHL08 from scratch, or at least that's how it felt. NHL08 was an improvement so huge, it felt like a different franchise altogether, NHL15 is an improved hockey experience over NHL14, which I feared it wouldn't be. I'm sorry, you can call me EA fanboy or whatever, but I would've hated for them to focus so much of their energy into adding different game modes, that they ended up programming a bad game they would need to patch on for years to come.

Stupid yes, but without good gameplay, even the coolest feature is useless anyway :-/

I must admit, I'd much rather the development team focused their energy on delivering a nice "on-ice" experience, rather than a half-assed game, loaded with different game modes. IMHO, the AI in next-gen NHL 15 is vastly superior to that of NHL 14, and the new player and puck physics really make for an enjoyable game, so far. Also, the teammate AI in Be A Pro, is vastly improved, and your teammates actually attempt to create plays in the offensive zone, plays a shutdown game if you're up by 2 in the third, and on some nights, just make plain bad decisions. Just like they would in real life.

The Current Gen and Next Gen titles, are only similar in name. Effectively, NHL15 for the PS3/X360 are closer to NHL14 v.2, than a new game. Not an entirely bad thing IMHO, as NHL15 for the X1 lacks a few of the game modes from NHL14, such as "Live the Life", and "GM Connected", and NHL 14 was quite good.

Hey all, Just thought I'd mention it, NHL 15 is available for early release on EA Access. You can sign up to a EA Access for a 1 month subscribtion for 4.95, then cancel it. This allows you to play the full version of the game until release day, to see if it's worth getting. My gamertag is Ado173, in case somebody wants to have a quick go, online.

I don't recally exactly who it was, but when Mario made his second comeback, one broadcaster said something along the lines of "boy, looking at Mario makes you realise how many average hockey players there are in the NHL". To chich the color guy said something like "No, he's just that much better than everyone else". I forget the actual wording, but the meaning was pretty clear to me - A generational player, IMHO, is someone who makes everyone else look bad to average.

Must admit I really don't follow the Pens enough to tell, so I'll take your word for it. I guess I'm old-fashioned, I expect generational players to be head and shoulders above their peers, for at last one or two seasons. But I also think those days are gone, where single players would stand out so much.

I agree, which is why I added the "and paying for" remark - My point being that a generational player, in a very short timespan will be signed to a contract so huge, it could hamper your ability to build a proper team around him. We have an owner who likes to spend crazy cash, but for a Buffalo fan, this is something we rarely see and there's also a salary cap to consider. Do we have a generational player in the game today? Is Crosby, or Ovechkin that player? If not, then will there ever *be* another generational player?

I'm in the camp that says having, and most importantly paying, for a generational talent, is not a healthy thing when it comes to winning it all. If you look at the last 20-30 years of Stanley Cup champs, apart from Mario's Penguins, and Wayne's Oilers, none of those teams has a "generational player". And both those teams were stacked on talent, besides Gretzky and Lemieux. My point being : I'll take a team of Kane's, Hossa's, Keith's, Seabrook's, Sakic's, Forsberg's, Messier's, etc. any day, over a team of Grosek's, Sillinger's, Stillman's and a Gretzky.

This.

I agree, he wasn't a disappointment, cause who really expected more from him than he delivered? Darcy did, but who else? Kid had some tough breaks, and probably lacked a little grit and personal discipline here and there, but I could name at least 20 players I was more disappointed in than Connolly.

Connolly was what he was, it's not his fault Regier kept resigning him, and didn't bring a safe guard center on a team thin down the middle. When healthy, he was alright, but he was always put in a position where he needed to lead the team somehow, and he was just not that kind of player. Yet another example of Regier not being able to recognize players for what they were, instead of what he thought they should become.

Couldn't agree more. This is exactly why I keep saying Darcy was clueless when it came to building a hockey team. He was good at identifying talent, and good at getting value for his assets (at least early in his tenure), but he was utterly and completely LOST when it came to team-chemistry. Add to this, that he never understood *why* his teams didn't work out, and kept insisting the "core" needed to "mature" and things would be much better, tells you that he wasn't only clueless - He was also stubborn, and pig-headed.

I don't like losing. Which is why I'm perfectly on board with another year of tanking and a guaranteed McDavid or Eichel. THEN we can shove losing up the rest of the leagues backside.

Amerk6 old buddy, where are ya? :-)