Some Improvements We Want to See in NHL 18

With the NHL's Stanley Cup Final on the horizon, that also means fans are pretty close to getting a first-look at the next installment of EA Sports' NHL franchise.

After plateauing a bit in recent years, NHL 17 made some big strides and produced optimism for the future of the series. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing how they build on that momentum with the upcoming NHL 18.

With that in mind, here are a dozen ideas that I think would be beneficial to incorporate into the upcoming release.

                          

Better graphics

The graphics have taken a step forward a bit in recent years but they're still behind where they should be, especially when you compare them to others sports franchises on the market. There are still too many generic player faces, and even the non-generic ones need fine-tuning and improvements to become more lifelike. Jersey details (and movements) still need a bit of work as well.

Revamped ratings system

In NHL 17, There are more than 50 NHL players rated an 89 or above, but none higher than a 95 — Sidney Crosby gets top honors there. That’s way too high a percentage of the player pool to be rated that highly (with many others not far behind) and bunched that close together.

It feels like there’s very little distinction between the tiers of players in NHL. Many second-tier players are rated too closely to the game’s elite superstars; too many third-tiers are close to second-tiers, and so on and so on. Any player in the game who deserves an NHL roster spot is rated an 80 or above, a mere 15 points away from the game’s very best player. That needs to be fixed.

More replay review

Apparently the league thinks that fans can't get enough of tedious, infuriating replay reviews. If EA Sports wants to deliver a truly authentic NHL experience, it will kill all momentum and make gamers sit through awful, arbitrary frame-by-frame offside reviews nearly every game...even when the goal comes dozens of seconds after the zone entry!

Can you feel that? That's the smell of excitement!

Gameplay tweaks

Gameplay was by far the biggest improvement in NHL 17 and, as a result, the game was much better and realistic. It felt a lot smoother, quicker and more responsive. It actually became possible to cycle the puck and set up in the offensive zone without sluggish play weighing the gamer down.

That being said, there are definitely things that still need work. Passing needs to be improved. Too often the game will misread your intended target on a pass and send it somewhere that will leave you shaking your head in frustration. Puck pickups also need refinement, as does the physics engine that causes response to body contact.

Also, I'd love to see them add a three-on-three mode. Mini-games would also be awesome. They series used to have an awesome Free-4-All mode that was a ton of fun. They should bring that back.