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Hey NHLGamers, Today, the 30th of January, EA SPORTS has released the fourth update for NHL 20. Based on the list of changes, there are quite a few fixes that the community has been asking for. The biggest change is most likely the tweak regarding how players will experience pickups from now on, with a greater emphasis being placed on players properly facing the puck to boost the chances of picking up passes. We should also not see those superhuman behind-the-back one-handed no-look interceptions from the opposing team. Additionally, defensive awareness has seen a buff, with balance whilst back skating being nerfed slightly. An important fix comes to the Xbox, as the goalie puck covering issue should now be resolved. Previously you might experience the goalie unable to cover the puck, turning into a poke check-fest in front of your net, eventually leading to the puck trickling in. This hasn't been much of an issue on the PS4, but Xbox players will be happy to get rid of this inconvenience as well. Last but not least, we'll mention the ability to skip the Play of the Period replays. Think of all those saved seconds adding up throughout the rest of your games of NHL 20! For the full changelog, please see below. What are your thoughts on the update? Have you had the chance to test it - does it deliver? Let us know in the comments below!

NHLGamers, The next championship to be crowned in the 9th iteration of ECL is the second highest tier in our divisional system - Pro. Two magnificent teams faced off in the finals, but only one could call themselves champions at the final buzzer of game 6. We present to you, the ECL 9 Pro champions - Delusion, who had an unstoppable campaign and were only defeated an astounding four times! Delusion will certainly be looking forward to the next season of ECL, as because of their win Delusion are now promoted into the highest division - Elite. Vesa Pompa HC will continue their season with one more matchup - perhaps the most important one of their season, as they will face off against BRAYCE Phantoms in a battle for promotion to Elite. Delusion 🏆 Group stage record: 29-0-1 (1st) Round 1: vs Pata Hellalla (8) 4-0 Quarterfinals: vs Black Horse (8) 4-0 Semifinals: vs GHETTO FIREBIRDS (4) 4-1 Finals: vs Vesa Pompa HC (2) 4-2 GOALIES #98 J. Nobes - @uhNikke DEFENSEMEN #63 Ilmari Töyrylä @iilmarii #82 Janne Nyqvist @Janzuh #93 'N. Svetsjenko' @Prom99 FORWARDS #92 Joakim Nyholm @Joukki #94 Tuukka Röpelinen @Tuukka.R #96 Perttu Kemppainen @Beniittto #97 Santeri Niemi @sannteri The finals between Delusion and Vesa Pompa HC were 6 games of exciting play and a great showcase of the new influx of skill that Elite will surely see in ECL 10. All games were broadcasted at the NHLGamer Twitch-channel. @Tougie24 and @Cyn once again blessed us with their presence and put forth a great effort in the commentator booth. If you missed that action, you can watch it again below:

NHLGamers! The ECL 9 Neo Playoffs are nearing the end, but before we reach that point we still have a pair of very interesting semifinal matchups to be played. The semifinals will start on Thursday the 9th of January 2020 and end on Wednesday the 15th of January 2019. For the relevant rules regarding these playoffs, please find extracts from section 5.7 and 10.7.2 of the ECL 9 Rulebook below. Essentially, each series will be a best-of-five and the higher seeded team will play 'at home' first, then alternate back and forth with the lower seeded team. Without further ado, here are the matchups for the semifinals of the ECL 9 Neo Playoffs: (1) Kuutamokiekko vs. Olympia (8) (2) Seinajoki Noms vs. TanssiiTuhtienKansa (4) As always, NHLGamer would like to wish good luck to all remaining teams!

NHLGamers, The ECL 9 Neo Playoffs are here and we have got some very strong teams that will battle each other. In Neo, the playoffs consist of the top 4 teams from each group being seeded against other teams who finished in the same position (e.g. group winners are seeded #1-4, group runners-up are seeded #5-8 and so on.). The first round of the playoffs will start on Monday the 16th of December 2019 and end on Sunday the 22nd of December 2019. Here is a full schedule of the ECL 9 Neo playoffs: Playoffs Round 1: 16.12 - 22.12 Quarterfinals: 30.12 - 5.1 Semifinals: 7.1 - 13.1 Finals: 15.1 - 21.1 For the relevant rules regarding these playoffs, please find extracts from section 5.7 and 10.7.2 of the ECL 9 Rulebook below. Essentially, each series will be a best-of-five and the higher seeded team will play 'at home' first, then alternate back and forth with the lower seeded team. Here are the matchups for round 1 of the ECL 9 Neo Playoffs: (1) Kuutamokiekko vs. Fat Burritos (16) (2) Seinajoki Noms vs. Bauer Rangers GmbH (15) (3) Eliel Kings vs. United Ryminae (14) (4) TanssiiTuhtienKansa vs. MAD Knogmackers HC (13) (5) Bonusambers vs. Team HulluPullo (12) (6) Oulunsalon Pallo vs. SUNTRIP (11) (7) EIS Force Hockey vs. Augsburg Panther (10) (8) Olympia vs. KulmalaHengaus (9) Good luck for everyone!

Hey NHLGamers, On the 5th of December EA released the third update for NHL 20. Unlike the content updates before it, this one looks to explicitly tweak gameplay mechanics, with backskating facing the brunt of their ire. Aside from backskating receiving a potentially substantial nerf, EA claim to have updated their physics interactions with goalies, as well as fixing the zone camera. Furthermore, in EASHL it should now properly show a player's position when they're being highlighted in a replay, as opposed to being listed as center regardless of their actual position. In addition to this, players will now have the option to have Snoop Dogg as a guest commentator alongside James Cybulski, replacing Ray Ferraro. For the full changelog, please see below.

LA Rulings - December 3rd, 2019 Case 1 (Freddy Mercury Institute vs. Rakish): FMI contacted League Administration about Rakish not responding to communication, nor showing up for their games at the default time. FMI contacted Rakish hours ahead and the captain of Rakish later admitted to making a mistake by not staying on top of the schedule. LA has come to the conclusion that Rakish failed to keep their end of what's considered good communication and as such rule 10.8 would be pertinent to this case. LA has thusly decided to award FMI with WO's from both matches. Case 2 (Virtuoso vs. Kesaloma): Late in the second game (less than a minute remaining in the 3rd) between Virtuoso and Kesaloma, there was a disconnect prior to the center ice faceoff taking place after Kesäloma scored and was only one goal behind. Neither team managed to stop play and the game ended with a CPU player on the ice for the last minute. Virtuoso suggested to Kesaloma to play the game from the start because of the disconnect. Kesaloma didn't agree with that and instead asked League Administration for technical defeats, due to Virtuoso having connection issues earlier in the matchup and Kesaloma suspecting an intentional disconnect when they had good momentum in the game and believed they would tie the game up. LA could not confirm that the disconnect would have been intentional and thus could not give out technical defeats and told Kesaloma to either agree to replay the game or the number of seconds that were remaining at the time of the disconnect. At this point, Virtuoso was reluctant to replay the games though and while LA believes they should honor their own suggestion, LA couldn't force Virtuoso to do so as per the current ruleset. As such, when teams can't agree on how to resolve things, rule 11.11 dictates that games should be continued from the point of the disconnect, thusly LA rules that the two teams shall play out the remainder of the game from where it left off. Additionally, we have now amended rule 11.11 with the following: Case 3 (EBR eSports Official vs. Syntax Error): EBR eSports Official contacted the League Administration about Syntax Error not showing up at the agreed time, instead, they showed up one hour late when they finally realized they were due to play. The issue was caused by miscommunication by the Syntax Error captain. LA has come to the conclusion that both teams agreed to play on Friday 29.11 at 20 CET - as such rule 10.8 would be pertinent to this case. LA has thusly decided to award EBR eSports Official with WO's from both matches. Case 4 (Alliance HT): Alliance HT has been using a player with more than one registered NHLGamer account in multiple games this season (namely, Oo_hazzey_oO / AntiHoma). Additionally, the captain (MAYZIIX) was fully aware of this and still continued to use said player. This is in direct violation of rules 2.4 & 6.1, as shown below. After hearing the explanation for the new account, the whole ordeal seems very unnecessary. Reportedly Oo_hazzey_oO played for Nearbird Fighters in the RCL 5 season and didn't want to use the same account to join Alliance HT in ECL 9, so a new account was created for this purpose. To our knowledge, the player has neither played RCL since joining Alliance HT with the second account and also hasn't played ECL with another account. In other words, had the player just used his regular account to join Alliance HT in the first place - there would be no problem here. The aforementioned circumstance, combined with captain MAYZIIX assuming liability for this situation has been taken into account as a mitigating factor when making the decision. After careful consideration, LA has decided to ban Alliance HTs captain MAYZIIX and Oo_hazzey_oO for the rest of the season (ECL 9 & RCL 5), as well as institute a ban on them being the captain of a team until the end of NHL 20. Furthermore, MAYZIIX will be stepping down from the admin role within the RCL. Additionally, any games involving Oo_hazzey_oO / AntiHoma will remain and not be removed from either respective league. Due to this case, however, LA would like to add the following rule in order to cover scenarios like this in the future: “8.3 Void Games” If a game is played where one (or more) of the players involved was deemed to not be legal, then LA reserves the right to potentially void all games played with the said player(s), and award WOs victories to the non-offending team. The rulebook has been updated with the above-mentioned rule amendments. We would like to remind the ECL Pro teams that the transfer deadline is coming up on Thursday, December 5th. Despite this disappointing news, NHLGamer would like to thank MAYZIIX for all of his hard work with the RCL during the years. We are looking for some new staff members for RCL roles. Good communication skills in English and Russian are important. Please contact @Kenu via private message if you're interested.

For this season of ECL Elite we are tweaking the recurring segment that looks to detail the ‘hottest’, ‘coldest’ and… ‘mildest’? teams in Elite over the past week. There will be more of an emphasis towards the quantitative approach, so expect more graphs and fewer walls of text. Despite a *very* late opening to the series this time around, expect to see these rankings released towards the end of the week (read: ~friday), as such the rankings be based on the days in between each power ranking iteration. In addition to this it should be noted that each ranking will invariably be in some way biased as it is, at the end of the day, a subjective list. The logic behind the ranking is admittedly a sort of internal subjective ranking that weighs up results, opposition 'strength' as well as thoughts on the general play during some games. As such a ranking is not 100% quantifiable in nature there will be some bias that creeps in. One thing I would like to make abundantly clear however is that points are not the be all and end all within these rankings; for instance, just because 3 teams have the same record does not mean they won't be ranked wildly differently, as the context behind said results are of great importance and simply cannot be understated. --- Note: As week 1 was not released in time, I have decided to bundle it with this week (2), so bare with the scroll fest that is about to follow... Week 1 Rankings: 1. HAVU Gaming (10-0-0) 2. FILADELPHIA (6-0-0) 3. Farjestad BK (7-1-0) 4. Roots (7-3-0) 5. POGGERS (6-2-0) 6. PARRU (5-4-1) 7. Butterfly Effect (4-2-0) 8. TIKI TALK (4-4-2) 9. Unlucky Boys (4-5-1) 10. Symphony (4-5-0) 11. Miracle (4-6-2) 12. Lulea Hockey (3-2-1) 13. BRAYCE Phantoms (3-6-5) 14. Synergy Hockey (4-7-1) 15. Checkmate (3-6-0) 16. Almost Famous (3-9-2) --- Week 2 Rankings: 1. FILADELPHIA (15-1-0) [+1] 2. HAVU Gaming (4-0-0) [-1] 3. Butterfly Effect (8-2-0) [+4] 4. BRAYCE Phantoms (1-3-0) [+9] 5. POGGERS (3-2-1) [=] 6. Unlucky Boys (2-2-4) [+3] 7. Miracle (4-1-3) [+4] 8. PARRU (4-3-1) [-2] 9. Lulea Hockey (5-4-1) [+3] 10. Symphony (4-3-2) [=] 11. Roots (2-1-1) [-7] 12. Checkmate (1-1-1) [+3] 13. TIKI TALK (1-1-2) [-5] 14. Almost Famous (2-3-1) [+2] 15. Synergy Hockey (0-4-0) [-1] 16. Farjestad BK (1-8-1) [-13] Standings Timeline Please note, the colours are a little counterintuitive at the present moment.

NHLGamers, The playoffs for IS Cup 4 are well underway and we've already bore witness to a few upsets. Will we see anymore now that the stakes have been raised and the level of play has intensified, or will it be 'business as usual' for every higher ranked seed? All we can do now is wait and see! Please note that the schedule for the IS Cup 4 playoffs is as follows: Round 1: 28.10 - 30.10 Round 2: 31.10 - 3.11 Quarterfinals: 4.11 - 6.11 Semifinals & Finals @ GameXpo: 15-16.11 With that out of the way, here are the matchups for round 2: (1) HAVU Gaming vs Vaxjo Lakers HC (24) (2) Delusion vs Reality Check (23) (3) Symphony vs Almost Famous (17) (4) TIKI TALK vs Raccoon Rampage (15) (5) FILADELPHIA vs Vesa Pompa HC (14) (6) Butterfly Effect vs Unlucky Boys HC (13) (7) Bucketeers vs Roots (12) (8) POGGERS vs Northern Ascendancy (11) We would like to wish all of the teams good luck! Please agree on your game times as soon as possible and let us know in the comments when your games will be played. We will be broadcasting some games during the playoffs, so knowing our options well ahead of time gives us the best chances of featuring matchups! Also feel free to let us know your predictions for this round in the comments!

Hey NHLGamers, On the 25th of October EA released the second update for NHL 20. Like the content update that came almost a month prior, it appears as though EA are sticking to their guns so to speak and are trying their damnedest not to change the core gameplay as much as they can. As such, the bulk of this patch comes in the form of a bunch of miscellaneous additions, although that said there are some that should be highlighted. Perhaps the biggest addition for EASHL players would be the option which now allows players to change which camera they view when in the box or on the bench. For HUT players however, the biggest change would be the inclusion of the new mode 'HUT Rivals'. For players who are still yet to play HUT Rivals, a breakdown of what the mode looks to achieve as well as a rough guide to it will be available shortly - so stay tuned for that! Not mentioned in the patch log, but you should notice the PS4 version play more like the Xbox One version now. The difference is small, but you should notice it's a little bit easier to bump a player off his/her balance from smaller nudges. At least in theory, this should make defence a little easier around the net. For the full changelog, please see below. Is it better? Is it worse? Let us know your thoughts on the new content update in the comments below!

Hey there NHLGamers, Coming sometime today (1st of October) will be the first content update (often also known as a patch) of the year for NHL 20. Contrary to last year, EA will not be releasing a tuner just yet. Releasing tuners often is something they have done for the past few years, which especially last year was criticised by many players for changing the game for the worse or simply too often. As such, the main focus of this update will be to fix bugs that have been reported across many modes, from World of Chel to Franchise. That is not to say that there are just bug fixes, as they have tweaked some aspects of the game in order for the user to have a better experience when playing the game. In the content update notes the community manager "Clappy" gives the details about the update, but also points out the development team in Vancouver are monitoring and would like feedback about: Interceptions from behind Inconsistency of low relative speed hits from console to console Puck loss when pivoting at high speed The team is also looking at the ping (=one way of measuring connection quality) in Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) not reflecting the user experience in responsiveness of gameplay. Be sure to give your opinion in the comments below. On the updated side of things, there is a lot of added art and fixes to things such as presentation and lots of "nice to have" things, but there is also a good amount of things that could really improve your gameplay experience, such as: Fixed a case where players could get their limbs stuck in the net Fixed multiple cases where the puck could go through the goalie’s pad Improved cases where slap shots would be missed when taken near the boards Various goalie animation fixes Fixed cases where goalies were sometimes trying to perform controlled/redirect saves when the puck had a high chance of being deflected and would leave them more vulnerable than they should be Improved goalie tracking when the puck is behind the net Improvements to shot angle selection logic for some rare cases Improved cases where players on loose pucks would perform a snap shot when a slap shot would be expected Fixed rare cases where one-timers would miss the puck completely There have also been many fixes to issues such as the game crashing or the game desyncing (often called looping or the "faceoff loop" and competitive HUT players will be happy to hear that the opponent name will not anymore be visible before the faceoff, so the ability to dodge players by leaving without a loss against tough opponents should be much harder to pull off now. Below you'll find the full changelog for the update: What do you think about these changes? What else would you like fixed? Let us know in the comments below.

Hi NHLGamers! 29 teams down, 2 remain. The finals for SC4 are to be played by the end of the 10th of September. Furthermore, this series like all before it, will be played in a best-of-5 format meaning that whoever gets to 3 wins, clinches the tournament. NG Vilun Taksi (#2) vs. NG Moevenpick (#7) As always, good luck to both teams! As for spectators, keep an eye out for any streams for this, as we're sure it's going to be a very interesting matchup and a great way to conclude NHL 19!

Hi NHLGamers! The semifinals are to be completed and reported by the end of Thursday the 5th of September. The playoff series are played in a best-of-5 format, meaning that three wins takes you to the next round. We would like to add that whilst the 5th is the deadline, it is encouraged that teams try to play their games as soon as possible, as we're sure most want to get ready for the release of NHL 20 as soon as possible! NG Karaokemiehet (#1) vs. NG Moevenpick (#7) NG Vilun Taksi (#2) vs. NG PepeHands (#6) As always, good luck to all remaining teams!

Hi NHLGamers! The quarterfinals are to be completed and reported by the end of Monday the 2nd of September. The playoff series are played in a best-of-5 format, meaning that three wins takes you to the next round. We would like to add that whilst the 2nd is the deadline, it is encouraged that teams try to play their games as soon as possible, as we're sure most want to get ready for the release of NHL 20 as soon as possible! NG Karaokemiehet (#1) vs. NG Pay To Win (#12) NG Vilun Taksi (#2) vs. NG Swedish Giants (#8) NG Take Me To Church (#3) vs. NG Moevenpick (#7) NG Baraben (#4) vs. NG PepeHands (#6) As always, good luck to all remaining teams!

Hi NHLGamers! With the regular season of Summer Cup 4 being concluded yesterday, we move on to a series of playoff rounds that are... hectic, to say the least. As always, we would like extend a massive thank you to all teams and players, playoff bound or not, for taking part! Without further ado though, let's get to the playoff pairs! The first round of the playoffs is to be completed and reported by the end of Thursday the 29th of August. Playoffs are played with a best-of-5 format, meaning that three wins takes you to the next round. We would like to add that whilst the 29th is the deadline, it is encouraged that teams try to play their games as soon as possible, as we're sure most want to get ready for the release of NHL 20 as soon as possible! NG Karaokemiehet (#1) vs. NG Spacemonkey Mafia (#16) NG Vilun Taksi (#2) vs. NG TYV HC (#15) NG Take Me To Church (#3) vs. NG Setelit (#14) NG Baraben (#4) vs. NG Rumat ja Kaunis Ilmari (#13) NG You Got Floored (#5) vs. NG Pay To Win (#12) NG PepeHands (#6) vs. NG Blue Circle (#11) NG Moevenpick (#7) vs. NG Baarikarpanen (#10) NG Swedish Giants (#8) vs. NG Kesahessut (#9) Good luck to all the teams in the playoffs - we can't wait to see what happens next! --- Edit: The schedule appears to have an error in it, in that the team with the better seeding ends up having to play the first game at home, then goes on to play the next two games away from home. This is not intentional, as such we ask that teams try to emulate the Home / Away / Home / Away / Home structure instead (from the perspective of the better seeded team). Edit 2: Fixed.

This year’s iteration of EA NHLs franchise mode has tried, more than any before it, to radically change the way in which the player builds their team. They have attempted this by shifting the “meta” of the mode away from the idea of just getting the highest rated players, to a much more holistic approach, where in order to have a good team you will need to juggle a host of intertwined factors. Heading up this radical change is what EA are calling a “coaching overhaul”. In NHL 20, coaches will effectively be ‘players’ behind the bench, they will have their own set of attributes, goals, statistics, even a generated face to put to the name, both in game and in the menus. It should be noted here, that the statistics screen for both coaches and players will now show which team they ‘played’ on for each year, a minute change, but a very welcome one for sure. In fact, players can retire and have their likeness preserved in game if they decide to 'become' a coach, using the same system that allowed players to retire and become scouts in 19. Coaching Overhaul Coaches with a penalty kill attribute for instance will effectively act as a ‘buff’ for penalty killers on the team. Whereas, a bad attribute here will result in a detrimental impact on the ability of the penalty killers. In addition to this, coaches will now have a ‘teaching speciality’, what this means is that each coach will have a bias towards how they grow (or even stagnate / decline) skaters (offensive or defensive), or even goalies. This is tied quite heavily with the ‘teaching’ attribute. In essence then, certain coaches may be good on a rebuilding team, where the teaching attribute will be valued highly, but will have reduced ‘value’ on an older, more established team, as there are less players to ‘grow’. Furthermore, it sounds as though that with good teaching, a coach may in fact be able to increase a player’s potential, raising their value to a rebuilder even further. Not only will coaches now have individual attributes for you to weigh the value of, but they will also have specific strategies that they would like the team to use, as well as a general bias of how offensive / defensive / physical they want to play. Of these ‘strategies’, there are three distinct types, namely: Line strategies, Team Strategies, & Scheme Fit. The last type is not strictly a strategy, rather it’s an indicator of how well the team’s composition and the coach synergise with each other in a way. Line strategies effectively signifies how the coach wants each line to play. For instance, in the video ‘Coach Toms’ wants the 1st Forward line to play an overload strategy, with a carry and shoot bias, with a balance between efficiency / energy, and don’t block / blocking of shots. With the 4th Forward line however, ‘Coach Toms’ would rather that that line played a much more direct style of play and ‘crashed’ the net. These line strategies pair with an individual players’ propensity to play a certain way, to give us ‘Line chemistry’, which we will cover later. Moving on to the second type now, we have Team Strategies. Generally speaking, this is how the coach wants the team to setup as. For instance, ‘Coach Toms’ wants the pressure exerted by the defensive and offense in 4v4 and 5v5 to be ‘normal’ and ‘standard’ respectively. Whereas, in 3v3, he wants the offense to be aggressive. Additionally, the team strategies page also lists the coach’s individual style in how he wants the team to be set up. Apparently, the four styles at the moment are offensive, defensive, balanced, and finally physical. Which style the coach ‘subscribes’ to will determine in turn which individual strategies he wants to use, as well as affect how he assigns ice time. For instance, a physical / defensive coach is much more likely to rely on his bottom 6 than an offensive coach is. Finally, we have Scheme fit. Essentially, scheme fit is a representation of how well a coach thinks a player (as well as the team as a whole) fits into his preferred style of playing. In other words, an offensively geared coach will prefer offensive players to balanced, or even defensive players. As far as gameplay impact goes, it does not seem as though that having a bad scheme fit in and of itself results in anything, instead it simply gives you a quick way to check how well everything synergises, since having a higher team / scheme fit can be an incredibly useful thing thanks to another new feature in Line Chemistry. Line Chemistry looks to add more depth to line-up creation for players. Instead of the only challenge in assembling a ‘good’ line being cap restraints, players will now have to contend with the line strategies set by the Coach, and the preferred way that the individual players would like to play. Maximising line chemistry can be especially important, as a poorly managed line can result in an extreme penalty of -5 ovr across the three players, whereas a line that works well together can receive a +5 ovr boost. In addition to this, players will also receive negatives for chemistry is they play in the wrong position (e.g. a RW on LW), as well as if they are set up with player types that don’t mesh together very well (e.g. three snipers, instead of twf, grinder, sniper). What this means in practice then, is that it should be worth having ‘role’ players that fit with the coach’s ethos that are technically not the best, but can easily slot in and out of the line up across all lines, as a way to give a ‘boost’ to a line that maybe does not have the greatest chemistry to begin with. Finally, with an overhauled conversation system, players can now conduct interviews with coaches that you may want to hire, in order to see how interested they would be in joining the team, as well as what strategies in particular they subscribe to. For example, some coaches may have a preference for teams with a large (or even small) fan base. In fact, with the said conversation system, coaches can come to you the GM / owner with suggestions of how to better the team. You will then be prompted with three main options (Agree / Disagree / Persuade), with a fourth option in ‘Promise’ being available after the first statement has been replied to. The persuade option in particular has a likelihood of failing dependent on the subject of the conversation. Additionally, if you promise to make a change, you will receive morale, however if you fail to carry out said promise, you will lose double what you gained in morale for the coach. Scouting To help with finding players that could be a good fit with your team, the scouting for franchise mode in NHL 20 has been updated as well. Pro scouting now provides you with a readout showing how well a certain player would slot into your team, naming which lines in particular would be a good fit for him. For instance, in the video Vancouver’s pro scout assessed Hampus Lindholm and decided that the only lines he would fit in with ‘Coach Toms’’ strategies would be on the power play, whereas Getzlaf would fit in on the power play, as well as the 1st line. Additionally, pro scouts will now provide information on which strategies a certain team employs. As far as pro scouting goes, this appears to be the main changes, so with that let’s move on to Amateur scouting which has received a bit of a facelift. To help inform the player on prospects, there will now be two additional pieces of information that a player will have access to, namely: NHL ETA, and Scheme Fit. NHL ETA mostly does what it says ‘on the tin’ in a way. It tries to make a guess on how close / far away a particular prospect is from making the NHL, whether he’s ‘NHL Ready’, 1,2,3,4, or even 5 years away. Whereas for scheme fit, the amateur scout tries to decide how well the prospect in question would fit in with the team / coach quite simply. These two new categories combined should make the entry draft even more important than in previous iterations, as players can now make more informed decisions regarding who to draft, since if you happen to be contending, it may be better to draft someone who can play almost immediately and make some form of an impact. Whereas, if you’re a rebuilder, you can afford to take the hit of not getting any impact from the players for a few years before he’s properly NHL ready. Furthermore, with the scheme fit element, it may promote players to select slightly lower potential players, if they will fit in well with the team once they grow enough, in turn raising the chemistry of the line they happen to find themselves on. Finally, players will now have the ability to conduct draft day interviews with players. Similar to the interview that can be conducted with prospective coaches. Trade Finder Moving on to quite possibly the biggest feature for playability and reducing annoyance, we have the trade finder. Previous to NHL 20, if you wanted to trade a player, you would just have to flick through all the teams across the league, and just start plugging away, throwing in players and draft picks, getting rejected a bunch of times, before finally arriving at a deal that the AI would accept. Now, instead of having to go through that arduous affair, players have the option to select what they want to trade, then simply hit “Find trade (Open block)”, and voila, the game will go through each team automatically and give you a list of trades that each team can do with the players you selected being the principal pieces. In addition to this, the logic behind trading has been updated. So, it seems as though that rebuilding teams will be much more likely to take on cap dumps (provided they receive a good enough ‘sweetener’). Furthermore, AI teams will be able to make use of this as well as human players, meaning that teams will prioritise shifting cap burdens in order to make space for their expensive UFAs / RFAs. Misc. Tweaks Users will now find that players who have yet to play in an NHL game but have a decent enough overall (e.g. ~84), will no longer ask for a contract around the 3-4mil mark, but instead will ask for a contract around the 900k-1mil mark, as they have not in a sense ‘proven’ that they are worthy of such an expensive price tag. Carrying the topic of price tags, players will not be priced based on their performance in the last season, and not just their overall. So, if a player scores at a point per game pace but is a fairly low overall (say, 80), then they will ask for a larger contract the proceeding off-season compared to NHL 19. This also goes the other way as well, in that a highly rated player will ask for a lower than usual contract, if they just so happened to have a pretty poor year previously. For goalies, this is also the case and they will go off of SV%. Additionally, there are now exempt contracts. Specifically, players that are signed to entry deals and currently play in the OHL, WHL, and the QMJHL, will no longer count towards the 50-contact cap, instead they will now have their own internal cap of 40. This means that players will no longer have to let prospects walk because they simply don’t have enough space, furthermore it means that the AI will have some flexibility now that has not been afforded to them in the past, leading to potentially more AI - AI trading. Better goalies will now be more likely to appear later in franchise mode than years past Goalies and wingers by default will have less trade ‘value’ than centres and defenders. Although, if a goalie has a high rating (90+) for instance, their trade value will be comparable to that of a similarly rated centre, however, as the goalie’s rating falls, his trade value will drop off very quickly and no longer be comparable to an equally rated centre. Players on 1yr deals will have reduced value as the year goes on, being significantly lower on draft day. This should make rental deals much more attainable and affordable. Additionally, teams will no longer reject trades on the day of the draft if a player with an expiring contract is involved. There will be fewer franchise and elite goalies available in the draft An ‘auto-owner’ mode will be an option; in case you do not want to have to deal with the upkeep of the stadium and its facilities Players will now receive trade alert pop-ups The efficiency of scouting has been reduced, making it harder for players to find ‘gem’ and franchise level players as it will take longer for the scouts to compile a complete report. By default, there will be more 100pt scorers in the simulation. However, players will now have the option of changing the rate of scoring league wide, ranging from High, Medium, to Low. Finally, franchise mode will have ‘Icon Integration’, allowing players to play against legendary ‘all-time’ teams, such as Gretzky on the Oilers. For the full write up by EA, click here. Additionally, you can find @Tougie24's take just below!

Hey NHLGamers, Anyone keeping up with the NHL 20 news over the past few days and weeks no doubt has been subjected to the widespread speculation regarding whether or not there would be a beta, as well as when said beta would become available. As a response it appears, EA have announced that there will indeed be a beta, albeit with some fairly extreme caveats. Additionally, whilst the release date has not been officially confirmed just yet, it seems as though that it will in fact go live today sometime during the "evening", which timezone this evening is 'set' in is anyone's guess, but it certainly lines up with the idea that it will be playable from 15:00 EST (or 21:00 CEST) onwards. So, all we can say is keep your eyes peeled as the upcoming evening goes on! Anyway, probably most importantly I would like to take a minute and go over the caveats that I spoke of previously. EA have been rather uncharacteristically forthright about the upcoming beta, stating that “… we cut the beta build eight weeks prior to today, meaning that there are 8 additional weeks that you’re not going to see and feel in the beta. You’re playing an early, work-in progress version of the game. Some of our new gameplay features were not fully ready to be included in the beta build …”. In essence then, this beta, more than any before it, stands as more of a proof of concept than the ‘finished article’. Despite this disconnect between what we will be playing and where the game actually is at, EA have tried their best to assuage the problem by attempting to get the general feeling of the main three additions (Shooting overhaul, Explosive Transitions, & Goalie Intelligence) in the beta, at the potential cost of stability. Therefore, with the disclaimer that there will be some “inconsistencies”, players should expect to see the following improvements over NHL 19 in the NHL 20 Beta: As always, we will be setting up bug reporting threads that we will then compile and send to EA once the beta has concluded. Furthermore, these threads will be available in English, Finnish, Russian, & Swedish. In addition to this, the full (and especially extensive) post-beta changelog is as follows: Again, please note that the changes immediately above will NOT be visible in the beta. We will let you know the moment the beta is released. Edit: The beta is now available for download!

Hi NHLGamers! Earlier today EA released a gameplay trailer for NHL 20. Among the 'innovations' shown were: RPM tech 2.0, Signature shots, Contextual shots, Explosive transitions, & finally Goalie intelligence. Of the five innovations, around 2.5 have been already been loosely shown off by EA previously in the reveal a few weeks ago, namely the new signature / contextual shots, as well as some improvements made to the RPM tech which debuted last year. Anyway, the trailer in question is available just below so let's get straight into that... Per EA, here is the rundown for the RPM Tech Speed & Shooting as shown in the trailer: In addition to the RPM tech, they also released a "deep-dive" regarding Goalie Intelligence. Once again, this is per EA. NHLGamer SHORT TAKE The puck pickups have been one of the most debated subjects in recent years, although almost annually promised to have been improved, very little has actually happened on that front. RPM tech was an exciting and positive overhaul of the skating in NHL 19 and can be expected to greatly increase the flow and speed of the game now that it's being implemented in shooting and puck pickups too. Goaltenders will also receive some new tools to combat rebounds and crease bounces too - a much welcomed addition. In the end, it comes down to how well these animations respond to surprising in-game events. We'd expect nothing less than for our community to work out these kinks and provide some valuable feedback in order to fine-tune the end product eventually. Finally, we'd like to provide you guys an opportunity to ask some gameplay related questions. Eight of the EA Game Changers had an opportunity for a hands-on experience with the game in the development phase at the EA HQ in Vancouver. @Kenu as our inside man made the trip in late April and might have some insight to your questions. Shoot your thoughts and questions in the comments section below!

Hey NHLGamers! After a week of games fraught with upsets and demolition jobs, the groups are slowly coming together, and we are starting to get a good idea of who will end up making it in to the playoffs. Indeed, it appears as though the end of this week will be one entertaining way to end a season as almost every group is still up the air, so much so that for many groups, the final three playoff bound teams may not be properly decided until the final night of the season in a few days. Let's quickly look over what we are looking at with the FCL: The FCL is an abbreviation for the Finnish Championship League, which is an independent follow-up to our national GCL, RCL and SCL leagues. We're partnering with tech giant Gigantti in order to bring you this experience, which will culminate at Assembly Summer 2019 in Messukeskus of Helsinki, Finland. A total of 36 teams are divided into five groups of 7-8 teams. These teams will play every group opponent once in a home-away matchup, after which the top three out of each group will advance to the playoffs, starting already on Friday, the 19th of June. The playoffs will be played in a best of three format. Tomorrow, Tuesday 16th of July, we'll be broadcasting two FCL matchups - your favourite caster Arttu Hämäläinen will be calling the action. Stay tuned for a more specific announcement later today or early tomorrow. Anyway, let's get into how each group is doing, who are favourites to finish in the top 3 based off of p/g averages, who are within range of making a challenge and gaining entry in to the top 3, and finally who are in danger of missing out / have already been eliminated. Group 1 1. SOPPAJENGI (1.8 P/G, 10gp) 2. HAVU Gaming (1.67 P/G, 12gp) 3. Mockba (1.36 P/G, 14gp) -- Group 1 probably holds the lone distinction as the only group where the top three teams have all but clinched their playoff spots already. In fact, the only team within range is Supernatural, who would have to win at least 4 of their remaining games, although in practice they would probably have to roll closer to 5 if they wanted to become a lock for the playoffs. Nevertheless, if they are able to trade blows with SOPPAJENGI, then run the rest of the table then stand a very good chance of displacing Mockba and entering as the third seed. Group 2 1. Rusty Blades (1.75 P/G, 8gp) 2. Northern Ascendancy (1.67 P/G, 6gp) 3. TeQuila Sunrise (1.5 P/G, 6gp) -- If group 1 was all but finished already, then group 2 is the antithesis of that as every team bar one (Uuteen Nousuun) stand a decent enough chance of cracking the top 3 providing they go on a bit of a run. It is especially cliché, but the adage that "every game counts" has never been more applicable than it is here. Group 3 1. Almost Famous (1.83 P/G, 6gp) 2. Ghetto Firebirds (1.5 P/G, 10gp) 3. Symphony (1.38 P/G, 8gp) -- Moving on to group 3 we have another somewhat open set of teams, Virtual Horizons eSports for instance are currently in 6th place with a measly 2pts, however they have only played 4 games, with 2 of them coming against Symphony where they were able to steal a win in regulation. Ghetto Firebirds head up the group currently with 15pts in 10 games, however if they are to lose any more games, they may very well find themselves on the outside looking in once the dust has settled. Group 4 1. POGGERS (1.67 P/G, 6gp) 2. Kaupallinen Yhteistyo (1.5 P/G, 6gp) 3. LIONHEARTS (1.43 P/G, 7gp) -- You wanted an absolute free-for-all as a group? Well, look no further! Every team bar one not only are 'technically' within range of a top three finish, hell, they each stand a decent enough chance at it. Cannonieris for instance are currently sitting in 6th place with 6pts in 8 games, a total that in other groups may very well have spelled doom for them, in group 4 however all that means is that they are just 3pts out of a playoff spot, throw in some upset wins against the leading teams and the mounting of a comeback from those in positions 4,5 & 6 should not be deemed to be out of the realm of possibility. Group 5 1. Raccoon Rampage (1.83 P/G, 6gp) 2. TIKI TALK (1.75 P/G, 4gp) 3. Butterfly Effect (1.29 P/G, 7gp) -- Last, but certainly not the least we find group 5. A group in which no one has been mathematically eliminated, and one in which one slip up by any team could cost them very dearly as far as their playoff hopes go. Raccoon Rampage & TIKI TALK are perhaps the only ones who have some breathing room, although if this 'breathing room' ends up being squandered due to two losses they could very easily find themselves back fighting in the thick of it to claw back those lost points. As every other team is seemingly on their tails. That's all for now! Remember to stay alert for our broadcast announcement, which matchup would you guys like to watch?

What's up NHLGamers, it's that time of the year again - the full reveal of this falls NHL! As is tradition, in the early hours of the morning (for us Europeans), at the NHL awards EA released a bunch of information pertaining to the next iteration of their NHL series, ranging from details such as who the cover athlete will be, to general tweaks / additions made to specific game modes. To kick this off, here is the official reveal trailer for NHL 20, which will be released on the 13th of September 2019. The Cover As always, we'll start this deep dive into the game off with a brief introduction to the cover athlete. This year, the star chosen to grace the cover is none other than Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs. There was some speculation that the honour would have gone to Alex Pietrangelo of the St. Louis Blues instead, simply due to the much circulated picture of him hoisting the Stanley Cup, as it was perhaps the most 'photogenic' cup photo of late and was of course a fitting end to an unforgettable run by the Blues. Of course, there was also the option of going with Nikita Kucherov due to his incredible performance over the past regular season, putting up a ridiculous 128pts in 82 games (resulting in some serious hardware tonight). The Features Anyway, let's get into the real meat and potatoes of the reveal, namely the features. It may not perhaps be as 'extensive' as last years; however it is still fairly sizable. For ease of viewing, the full run down for each 'feature' will be posted below via EAs website, but as a quick guide there are five distinct additions as cited by EA. In EA SPORTS™ NHL® 20, your favorite NHL stars now look and feel more authentic with new Signature Shots and over 45 new shot types that make every attack a threat. A new broadcast package celebrates your biggest plays as you take on all-new game modes, including the new winner-take-all Eliminator mode where you play solo or team up with friends to take down the competition. Speed and Shooting Fueled by RPM Tech NHL® 20 introduces the next major innovation in RPM Tech-powered gameplay with Superstar Signature Shots. Your favorite NHL stars now look and feel truly authentic with the trademark shooting-styles you recognize from the real world. Additionally, over 45 new contextual shot animations make shooting more lifelike as players use new tools to get the puck on net. RPM Tech also ignites more speed to gameplay through revamped animation blending that allows players to execute shots, passes, and puck pickups without slowing a skater’s pace; creating faster, more skilled and more fluid plays up and down the ice. Finally, new goaltender A.I. includes full offensive threat analysis, allowing goalies to read the positioning and threat level of every attack before actively controlling rebounds and redirecting pucks away from danger. A New Generation of Hockey Broadcasting A revamped broadcast package delivers fresh new play-by-play and color commentary to NHL 20, paired with overhauled scoreboards, overlays and motion graphics; all built to put you at the center of the game’s biggest moments. See your most memorable plays come to life in new Play Of The Game highlights designed to put your best skills on a pedestal for your teammates and your opponents. New Mode and Icons in Hockey Ultimate Team™ Hockey Ultimate Team™ introduces a new way to play in Squad Battles, the fan-favorite mode from EA SPORTS™ FIFA that allows you to compete and earn big rewards in offline battles. New opponents are refreshed every day, including weekly Featured Squads assembled by NHL players, hot musical artists, hockey influencers, and superstar athletes from other major sports. Squad Battles introduces a brand new way to compete, earn and collect your dream team as you take on the best teams assembled by the biggest names in sports and entertainment. Hockey Ultimate Team also welcomes a new roster of playable hockey Icons, bringing the total number of collectible and playable Icons to over 400. New Ways to Play With Friends NHL 20 adds an all-new competitive game mode: Eliminator. Inspired by the winner-take-all competition in battle royale, Eliminator is a new way to compete in NHL ONES and NHL THREES that pits up to 81 players against each other in a survival tournament bracket to be crowned the ultimate winner. Compete solo in ONES Eliminator, or squad up with friends in THREES Eliminator as you attempt to win three back-to-back elimination rounds against increasingly competitive opponents for ultimate bragging rights. Also new to NHL 20, last year’s fan-favorite outdoor free-for-all mode, ONES, is now available to play in local multiplayer. You and two friends can select from an elite roster of your favorite NHL players, each with a unique class-based playstyle, and compete on eight outdoor ponds from the comfort of your couch in the ultimate party mode. An Ever-Expanding World of CHEL New to World of CHEL are CHEL Challenges, weekly in-game events across all of your favorite modes that unlock unique customization rewards, character XP and more. Adding to the robust character customization options introduced in NHL 19, World of CHEL now offers over 2,000 unique customization items to craft your look and your playstyle - from gear and equipment, to lifestyle apparel from hockey’s biggest brands. Four new outdoor locations bring the game to never-before-seen ponds in remote wilderness and city landmarks inspired by iconic locations. Feature Impressions Unlike last year EA appear to have been quite a bit more open regarding how much information they have released about each 'feature' this time around, dare I say they have almost been fairly self-explanatory? Let's start with "Speed and Shooting Fueled by RPM Tech". This feature in particular game should bring quite a large QOL (quality of life) update thanks to the "Superstar Signature Shots" which will add some level of immersion to the game when you are playing, as it should differentiate various 'upper echelon' players (such as Subban for example) from more 'average' players. Additionally, they have included 45 new contextual shot animations which will help raise the realism element of shooting as a whole. Furthermore, EA have added upon their 'RPM tech' for the second year in a row, which they state will improve the fluidity of the game as players should be able to blend animations together to a much higher standard, as well as pick the puck without having to slow down too much. Moving on to "A New Generation of Hockey Broadcasting" which is probably the most ambiguously written piece of the whole article. They state that the broadcast package has been "revamped", including "fresh new play-by-play and color commentary". This signifies EA completely ditching their experiment with the 'NBC' package, and have changed out the commentators of Mike 'Doc' Emrick and Eddie Olczyk for a local Vancouver radio personality in James Cybulski as the new play-by-play, as well as 'promoting' Ray Ferraro from in between the benches to color commentator. Taking up Ferraro's old role will be the infamous Pierre McGuire. The reason for the change is purely logistical it would seem, as EA are now able to get the new team in a couple of times a week to record new lines, something that was a challenge before, as Doc and Eddie were often on the road across the country from each other, and critically did not have enough time to spare. In fact, it EA appear to be pushing the boat out and will have guest appearances in the booth from hockey icons like Don Cherry & Wayne Gretzky, to musicians such as Chance the Rapper and Drake. Included in this presentation overhaul is a tweaking of the score clock location, instead of being placed in the top left it will now be visible at the bottom of the screen. Additionally, they have also included a new element to the whole presentation with a "play of the game highlight" reel. How this interacts with the whole package however is yet to be seen, although it will apparently be akin to Overwatch's play of the game system, just playing at the beginning of every intermission instead of at the end of the game. All information not visible in the EA release within this section has been sourced from Game Informer. Next up is "New Mode and Icons in Hockey Ultimate Team™" which headlines with the main change being a new mode within HUT called "Squad Battles", something that fans of FIFA should be able to recognise. Aside from this, there has also been an expansion on the raw amount of collectible and playable items within the mode, going to over 400 for this upcoming year. On to possibly the most interesting addition for NHL 20, "New Ways to Play With Friends" which signifies the expansion of The World of Chel with an entirely new mode called "Eliminator" which pits up to 81 players (yes, that is not a typo, 81... 8-1) against each other in a tournament bracket based battle royale. You can compete as either a solo player in "ONES Eliminator" or as a "squad with friends in THREES Eliminator". The goal is to win four straight games against ever increasingly more difficult opponents for "ultimate bragging rights", whatever 'that' specifically entails. Furthermore, fans of offline play will be happy to know that you can now play the 1v1v1 mode of 'Ones' offline with friends now, with a choice from various NHL players. Finally, we move on to "An Ever-Expanding World of CHEL". This seems like EA have recognised their mistake from last year and have added ways for players to gain XP when they are max prestige with the inclusion of "weekly in-game events" (named "CHEL Challenges) seemingly across all modes within WOC. As well as this, they have raised the amount of "customisation items" to over 2,000 within the mode. In addition to EA have included four more outdoor locations which will most likely be rotated through in online games (e.g. Ones and drop ins). For an even deeper dive into the features above, as well as additional information regarding Franchise Mode then please click on the following link to an article by Game Informer. Pre-Order Options As usual, EA will offer three different pre-options. Standard, Deluxe, and Ultimate. The latter two offer the ability to play the game three days prior to it's official release, therefore they will have access from the 10th of September 2019. Additionally, those with an EA access subscription will be able to play the game for the usual 10hrs from the 5th of September onwards.

Hey NHLGamers, Code of Conduct have been crowned as the first NACL Pro (XB1) champion by beating Epicenter 4 games to 0. Naturally, NHLGamer would like to congratulate each and every player from COC for putting on a show en route to their title. Additionally, we would also like to thank everyone that participated in this inaugural season for making each game as memorable as the last. The game by game results for the series are as follows: Game 1: Epicenter - Code of Conduct 0:1 Game 2: Epicenter - Code of Conduct 0:4 Game 3: Code of Conduct - Epicenter 6:1 Game 4: Code of Conduct - Epicenter 3:0 Code of Conduct's championship roster: GOALTENDERS #9 C. Hoose @EnVyD l 1 #35 H. Bluntqvist @Darcy Kuemper DEFENSEMEN #2 L. Butters Scotch @Lbflag #7 D. Jacobs @x beit #16 A. Miller @Lmiller16L #16 A. Roy @Makar x 16 #23 J. Blais @Ragey23 #25 J. Kingov @cabcavlax1 #55 -. LiL-emo-boy @GeTMuTeDD FORWARDS #7 -. Karma @Karma I2I #9 -. LOL @LOL #37 J. Himoff @PieR Talent #45 -. TINO @TIN045 #87 -. Auggy @Auggy The Code of Conduct was enforced quite heavily throughout the season as the COC guys put on an absolute show in the regular season only to keep up the form in the big games. Somewhat surprisingly the eventual champions dropped games in the first two rounds but managed to sweep Epicenter in the finals. Code of Conduct seemed to have completely dismantled their final opponents as all but one game were quite one-sided and the eventual scoring differential ended up being 14-1 in favor of COC throughout the series. @TIN045 ended up being the most prolific scorer of the postseason tallying 13 goals and 23 assists for 36 points in 15 games. Code of Conduct's road to the trophy: Regular season: 12-1-1 (1st) Quarterfinals: 4:1 vs. Fox Squad Semifinals: 4:2 vs. Problematic eSports Finals: 4:0 vs. Epicenter As always, NHLGamer would like to extend a warm thank you to all participants and every single member of this great community! Enjoy your break and get ready to step on the virtual ice again very soon! Your NHLGamer Staff

Hey NHLGamers, No Limits have been crowned as the first NACL Pro (PS4) champion by beating Best 4 Business 4 games to 1. Naturally, NHLGamer would like to congratulate each and every player from NOL for putting on a show en route to their title. Additionally, we would also like to thank everyone that participated in this inaugural season for making each game as memorable as the last. The game by game results for the series are as follows: Game 1: Best 4 Business - No Limits 3:5 Game 2: Best 4 Business - No Limits 1:3 Game 3: No Limits - Best 4 Business 5:1 Game 4: No Limits - Best 4 Business 0:2 Game 5: Best 4 Business - No Limits 0:1 No Limits' championship roster: GOALTENDERS #55 i. SoWhat @icallsowhat55 #69 M. Hunt @thebipolarjew69 #70 B. Holtby @Capitalsfan_08 DEFENSEMEN #8 M. FLoWeR @LaFleuR11 #9 -. Heiskanen @RSall14 #10 B. Dangles @Bo-dangles10 #91 A. Stammer @Stammerchel FORWARDS #8 -. Ethan @xDeath #19 I. Jbur @i9-Stamkos-1i #21 K. Rivs @Rivnasty #89 Y. Gladu @Yann_Gladu #90 -. Laziee @LazieeQc There really were No Limits to the greatness of this team during the past season. No Limits only suffered one regular time loss all season long and it didn't come until in the fourth game of the finals against Best 4 Business. The teams proved to be a superior defensive power with a serious scoring upside as they conceded less than a goal per game during the season and averaged over five a game at the other end of the ice. No Limits' road to the trophy: Regular season: 13-0-1 (1st) Quarterfinals: 4:0 vs. Gr8ness Awaits Semifinals: 4:0 vs. Barbajous Finals: 4:1 vs. Best 4 Business As always, NHLGamer would like to extend a warm thank you to all participants and every single member of this great community! Enjoy your break and get ready to step on the virtual ice again very soon! Your NHLGamer Staff