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Hey NHL Gamers, we wanted to share another update on "Ask NHL" answers with you, as they are revealing quite a lot of interesting details about the upcoming NHL 17. Without further ado, here is our compact summary: General Original arenas will only be included for NHL teams (example: Orlando Solar Bears are playing in the Amway Center, FL which will not be reflected in the game) Create Team / Create Arena tools will allow you to use all customizations right from the start, unlocks are only needed for your EASHL team Arena customization allows you to tweak base architectural design (board trim colour, seat pattern layouts, colour schemes, railing colours, goal light types, center ice logo design, center line styles, stanchion styles, goal spotlight effects, scoreboard types, special effects during intros/goals, goal songs, powerplay songs and much more), in-arena presentation of music, special effects and lighting Commentary was extended with new player names, as well as team / city names Just like last year, the NHL 17 beta will be your only chance to get your hands on the game early, as a demo is not planned Player, team and arena customization will be included in the NHL 17 beta If you registered for the NHL 17 beta, you will receive your code once the beta is live - watch the social media channels for more information "Classic" teams were considered, but are hard to license due to the fact that there is not a single union for retired players Music in the menus as well as in-game was updated, more details will follow at a later date Unique playoff atmospheres (like the Winnipeg Whiteout) will now also show up during season play NHL 17 player ratings will be revelead closer to launch Shared rosters like in the Madden series will not be a part of NHL 17 Custom goalie masks cannot be created The new ECHL will be available in Play Now, Season Mode, HUT and Online VS (not part of Franchise Mode or Be a Pro) Gameplay New during-the-game animations were only added for goalies - skater animations will stay the same. Camera relative controls for goalies will not make it into NHL 17, instead they tweaked the controls differently which will be tested during the beta A new camera for goalies will be available at launch (see screenshot below) On top of the new blocking mechanic (instead of reactionary saves), goalie precision movements have been updated so you can adjust your speed by pushing the left stick differently Goalies can now also quit out of animations (e.g. if you want to drop down to butterfly before fully standing up) Sticks will still be able to go through the boards as EA were not able to adjust this without limiting player movements - however they made improvements so poke checks are able to connect in these situations Stick-on-stick and stick-to-body collisions were improved to better determine if the puck should come free, but it still does not run full physics reactions due to the limitations a player currently has when moving his stick around Sliders for offline modes were overhauled and allow you to customize your game experience even deeper (e.g. for hitting, you can tweak impact relative speed, checking/balance ratings of the players involved, relative size of the players, stumble thresholds and how much incidental contact affects players) Pauses for all online game modes have been reduced to 1 per team, which remains 30 seconds long New powerplay formations (like 1-3-1) were not added to the game Offensive and defensive AI were tweaked to better stick to their opponents, recognize a threat from passing options and be more intelligent when moving the puck around Game Modes HUT: "Unowned items" view in the collection makes it easy to see which players you are missing, and allows you to search for them in the auction house immediately HUT: Details about returning user rewards will be revelead at a later point HUT: Coaches are the same as in NHL 16, though this time they do not contribute to your stats but your Synergy HUT: Preorder packs can be sold in the auction house HUT: Auction house functionality will remain the same as in NHL 16 Draft Champions: Can be played offline or online (head to head, play a friend will not be available), hinted to be equal to FUT Draft which was introduced to FIFA 16 for the first time Draft Champions: To start off, you pick one of 4 available themes (e.g. European heritage, Canadian heritage) which will determine your starting roster - the player pools will be updated with new content on a weekly basis (TOTW, special items...) Draft Champions: Winning games allows you to unlock content for HUT, such as packs and unique players EASHL: Height & weight remain locked and can only be changed by selecting a different player build EASHL: Any game started with two human goalies needs to be finished with two - having your goalie drop out will end the game with a loss EASHL: Third jerseys can be used, but need to be unlocked first EASHL Drop-in: Dropped goalies will be replaced with much smaller and weaker bot goalies EASHL Drop-in: The coach may boot you from the game when intentionally going for offsides or in case you stay idle for too long Use the comments below to tell us what you think about these changes! - gzell60

Hello everyone, I just came back from a late dinner after spending around 5 hours on Twitch with all of you. First of all I want to thank all of you who decided to tune in - we had around 140 viewers at one point, more than we have followers on our channel. People even accused us of viewbotting (a term that describes faking the number of views on your channel to make it seem like you are a famous streamer) multiple times, which made it quite clear that our community is really going strong, and that we as a whole are on to something pretty great. If you want to see all of it again, you can view the archived version of the stream here: https://secure.twitch.tv/nhlgamertwitch/v/77259439 When we started the Draft ECL / Summer Cup project 4 weeks ago (that's when I opened up the initial thread in our staff forum), I was not entirely convinced about this format. History taught us that summer time is usually a devastating time to play NHL, as the community slowly parts from the current edition and eagerly awaits a new iteration in September. I had a feeling though that this kind of tournament is exactly the kind of thing that works best during this time - giving you the ability to join the community, get to know new people and just have fun outside of the usual environment we are caught in for the first ~6 months with every new NHL game. After we opened up registrations on June 19th, the feedback was overwhelming. I expected no more than 50-60 registrations, but you actually doubled that number. A big shoutout to all of you pioneers out there, who decided to join us on this journey towards this completely new format within the European NHL community! I am also convinced that this will not be the last time we will pull off this kind of tournament, and I fully believe we can increase the number of registrations once again. Fast forward to when registrations were locked: The hardest part now was to set up the whole draft procedure. This is the point where I want to thank all of our captains, I think we could not have chosen them any better. All of them were very active after we initially contacted them, making it very easy to find a time where all of them would be able to participate. Just imagine if one or two decided to just not show up on draft day? Yikes, this could have endangered the tournament as a whole, due to the remaining time we have until NHL 17. On Friday, @Kenu and @Lurkins met each other somewhere in southern Finland and built the whole draft tool which you saw in action today. Even though there were a few hiccups during the stream, I really think they made it a pleasure for everyone: An easy-to-use website to make your picks, and a real-time site for everyone else to follow the action closely. And while I think that @Kenu and me are certainly not the most experienced streamers on this planet (yet), I hope we were able to entertain you during the 4-5 hours we spent together. Our newest staff member @The_Alpha_Furyan will go into detail about today's 1st round picks tomorrow, so definitely check out his news then! For now I want to leave you with the final team rosters (schedule etc. will follow tomorrow), and say one last thank you to every single member of this awesome community. It really is a pleasure to keep on building this whole project with all of you, I enjoy every single minute of it. Now please share your thoughts on today's draft in the comments below, especially: Do you want to have official streams more frequently? How did we perform on the moderation side? How did we perform on the technical side (stream setup/design etc.)? Please tell us, we are curious! - gzell60