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Hey NHLGamers, A new patch was released at 10:00am CET today (20/03/19). As far as EASHL goes, there are no changes of note (or any for that matter) in this patch, unless of course you're all about the stadium series and alternate jerseys. Essentially then, it looks as though this patch has been pushed out so that HUT games will now no longer show the gamertag of your opponent prior to the game starting. This is surely a very welcomed update to the competitive community, as there has been a lot of players backing out this year when meeting "better players" in hopes to have a better record. The full changelog is as follows: Patch 1.6

Hey NHLGamers, A new tuner & patch have been released. The changes of note (at least for EASHL) are the nerf towards a player's skating (acceleration, agility & speed) whilst backskating with the puck, some improvements towards blending of certain animations in the attempt to reduce the effectiveness of "shovel" style shots, a rise in the reliability of faceoff counters, as well as the network performance screen now correctly displaying your ping. Regarding the 'main' change (i.e. backskating), the tweaks that EA have made are described to be "subtle" in nature. So, it should not impact play too wildly in theory, although with that said, even a small adjustment to such a widely used mechanic will invariably lead to some pretty stark differences. The full changelog is as follows: Patch 1.55 Tuner 1.04 What does everyone think of the changes? Do you think the backskating nerf was something that needed to be done, or was it a necessary evil to give teams more options on attack? Please, feel free to post your thoughts below!

Hi NHLGamers! Thanks for all the constructive feedback provided during the NHL 19 Beta tuner rollback. The devs have been working hard at improving the experience for us and announced that a new tuner will be out ASAP. The original release time was on Friday, January 25th at approximately 11 CET. Due to a problem with the new update, the team made a choice not to yet release a potentially problematic tuner. No new time has been announced, but we will be awaiting more information. The new tuner update, somewhat confusingly named 1.03 will be applied to online modes first and rolled out to offline modes in the coming weeks after that. Here is a changelog of what will have changed: On behalf of the NHLGamer staff, @jahajaha93

Hey NHLGamers, As you've probably heard by now, EA will be having a tuner rollback to the Beta Tuner for a limited duration of time. That rollback has now gone live and will take place between Friday, January 18th (11:00 CET) and Friday, January 25th (11:00 CET). EA is also issuing a tuner feedback survey for the duration of the rollback, you will find a link in-game and on Twitter. Please see EA's previous announcement and the full 'changelog' below: So, what do you guys think about the rollback? It surely brings some spice to the ongoing season, where the game will have a completely different feel for the coming week. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section! On behalf of the NHLGamer Staff, @MartindalexC

Hey NHLGamers, A new patch is scheduled to be released today at 11am CET (7th Dec.). Generally speaking it appears as though this patch is certainly not as 'extensive' as the previous patch, nevertheless there are still some gameplay changes of note. For instance, they claim to have fixed an issue where one's player would attempt a forehand shot when their stick was held out on backhand. In addition to this, albeit not quite 'gameplay' related, EA also claims to have fixed the issue with challenge lobbies where the side selection option was not working correctly in EASHL, something which at the very least should save a few minutes of time on each and every game day going forward. The main bulk of this patch however comes in the form of fixing miscellaneous bugs, such as the mascot in EASHL not showing up, as well as adding additional jerseys to the game. The full changelog is as follows: What do you think about the new patch? Let us know in the comments!

Hey NHLGamers, A new patch (1.3.0) is has been released for NHL 19. As this is a patch and not a tuner there are a significant amount of changes to the game. Main additions / changes to EASHL are the reinclusion of 'Club captaincy', the removal of the post-game timer restarting once you already stopped it by going into the instant replay, as well as a bunch of other fixes aiming to stop the mode randomly breaking for no reason. In addition to this they are still investigating the dressing room errors that are plaguing some users. On top of this they have tried to improve how your player picks up a stick from the bench so hopefully they'll no longer cosplay as Helen Keller. Furthermore, they've tried to make the transitions more consistent when moving between different stances for human goalies. The full changelog is as follows: Additionally, there was a tuner released recently (24th Oct) which is shown below. What do you think about the new patch & tuner? Is the VS/HUT AI at a good level now? What is your main gripe with NHL 19? Let us know in the comments.

Hey NHLGamers, A new NHL 19 Tuner carrying the version number 1.0.2 has been released. Before we jump into the tuner notes, let's have a little talk. If you are active on social media and the NHL community, you know that there has been a lot of harsh feedback about NHL 19 and there's been claims such as: They ruined the game - it was already perfect during the beta! The patch/tuner turned the game back into NHL 18! The skating was perfect, but now I feel like a tank again! Let's take a moment to think about this. Could some of this backlash also be a community overreaction? I mean, we're having the same discussions annually. People that are familiar with marketing surely know that word of mouth works in a snowball effect, maybe that's a part of what's happening here? Understandably everyone can't like the changes but have they actually been as dramatic as the community has made it seem? I myself usually love playing the game in the first weeks it comes out - sure, it feels the same in many ways, but it's still fresh and people don't know how to play exactly and how to score in the most efficient ways. Fast-forward a few weeks: The game isn't as easy as it was on the week of the release. Your competition has also got in some game hours and has learned a trick or two. The bliss of having a new, amazing product has faded and you've become familiarized with the grind it takes to stay at a competitive level in the game. So a new patch or tuner comes out and someone tells you "this and that is completely ruined". You start focusing on it more. You notice new things that perhaps aren't actually new things, just things you didn't pay attention to before. But surely it's real - everybody is talking about it! Do I think the game is perfect? Far from it. I have spent countless hours giving constructive feedback about it this year alone. But constructive is the key word. If you want something to be actually improved, you can't expect it to improve if your feedback is at the level of "This is trash! Fix your game!". I know there are many members in our community that actually put in the time and effort to provide valuable and well constructed feedback. I believe we could all benefit from taking a look at our approach to feedback, whether it is at a Burger King or a web forum. Honestly, I have been too busy with working on the website and broadcasts to get in as many game hours as I would like to and because of that, I know that many of you are better qualified to actually discuss the pokechecks, stick lifts and skating. So please do discuss it in the comments, using words, videos and graphs or whatever you need. Let's just drill into the specifics of the issues and look at why things work or don't work the way we expect them to. It's also worth keeping in mind that if you release a patch that aims to fix everything in one go, it's could to be really hard to say what change caused an unexpected change to the game balance. NHL 19 Tuner 1.0.2 - Change log Ok, so on to the important stuff of what's new in this tuner. The tuner is now available, but I haven't had a chance to test it out yet. There are several parts that at least on paper sound like they issue many of my main complaints so far: You should not be able to smash that stick lift irresponsibly without getting called for penatlies. It should be easier to pull off some dekes with any player type now (I've felt it's too hard to get successful dekes even when the player isn't pressured) It's felt like it's been a bit too easy to knock the puck lose just by the opponent trying to hit you, but in the process their stick has touched the puck, often through your body. This should be improved now. I've often been confused with whether or not I've been able to pick up the puck or not and I don't know if I should leave the situation or not. Hopefully now the outcome will be more obvious and make reading the game a bit easier. Earlier broken sticks were removed (from competitive play) and now the dropped sticks. While I liked it as a thing that happens in real hockey, let's face it - it was very random and thus unfair. I've actually been quite happy with the goalies this year, but I imagine these tweaks are to hinder some glitch. What do you think about the new tuner? What is your main gripe with NHL 19? Let us know in the comments.

Hey NHLGamers, On Friday I had the privilege to attend the NHL 19 press event in Helsinki and talk with lead producer Sean "Rammer" Ramjagsingh about the game. A couple weeks ago we asked you to send us your questions for the NHL developers and once again the community delivered! We had a bunch of messages on the forums, Twitter and Facebook and while I didn't get the chance to ask all of them, I'm positive that we got most of them covered. The event itself was very well organized and this time around EA had set up plenty of game units connected to the internet, so even the most serious gamers could play head to head without the disadvantage of playing down-screen. NHL Gaming World Championship 2018 winner Erik "@Eki" Tammenpää, who recently joined Sampi, was a very wanted guy for the press at this event and he was giving interviews left and right throughout the day. I also had the pleasure of playing my only game of NHL 19 against him and an exciting game it was! There were quite an amount of familiar faces at the event and you should be able to find at least @Dominointi, @Eki, @Hansulinho @MakezCR @Nieppii & @PleeMaker in this video. It was a pleasure to meet the guys, as always! « Huge thanks to all of the NHLGamer community out there for all your beta feedback! » -EA Sports NHL producer Sean Ramjagsingh extending a thanks to our community Rammer and the dev team was very pleased to see that our community had sent us loads of questions, we were even able to provide some ideas they haven't thought of previously. The producer and the whole team wanted to extend a thanks to all of you. « As the community knows, EASHL in my opinion is one of the greatest experiences we have in the game. By building out the World of Chel and the multiple different experiences, I feel like we can lower the barrier of entry into the EASHL ecosystem which is only going to make the competition better. » – Rammer on the development of World of Chel and EASHL We were very pleased to hear that the thought behind World of Chel wasn't just to bring out an enjoyable game-mode, but also to lower the barrier for new players to enter and experience the fun of EASHL. Hopefully we'll see a growth in the player base of EASHL and get even more skilled players into our community. « I think being able to practice is a big part of the learning curve in EASHL from a team-play perspective. This year we made a big decision to try and build out the experience around EASHL with the World of Chel. We think it’ll be an important tool for us to bring newbies and more people into the competitive EASHL scene. » – Rammer on Practice mode in EASHL Without further ado, check out the video below! What do you think? Did you like what you heard? Something we missed? Let us know in the comments.

Hey NHLGamers, Earlier this week EA SPORTS hosted a NHL 19 pre-launch event in Stockholm where invited guests got the opportunity to play the game before the upcoming release. This time it was me being lucky to attend at the event during the NHL 19 Producers Tour. Other NHLGamers attending were @The_Alpha_Furyan, @Darkic01 and @PillenUpp. I got the chance to interview the lead producer of the NHL Franchise, Sean Ramjagsingh. First off, I took the time to tell him that me and many others enjoyed the NHL 19 Beta a lot. I gave them credit for the skating in the game and for making the bots less overpowered. "Yeah, I agree. The bot stuff is mostly based on feedback from our fans. We started to change the behaviour of the bots when people played super conservative letting the bots do all the work. So we knew we had to make them more balanced", Ramjagsingh responded to NHLGamer.com at the NHL 19 event in Stockholm. Continue reading for the entire interview! Esdor: "How are EA going to promote NHL as an esport in the future?" Ramjagsingh: "We are still relatively new in the world of competitive gaming. We are pushing forward with Madden and FIFA right now but we took our first step this year with the World Gaming Championship. The NHL was in charge of that. This first tournament was mainly about testing and learning for us about how to host a big event. We got great feedback from the players participating. We got a feeling for the appetite of competitive gaming within the NHL Community. We were able to launch it in multiple different territories in North America and Europe as well. We got loads of feedback from the fans about what they want to see, what modes we should be using. Versus, Hockey Ultimate Team or EA SPORTS Hockey League. Now we will put our heads together with the NHL to figure out what is next." Esdor: "Is there an option to have one tournament in Versus and one in EASHL for example?" Ramjagsingh: "It's a great question. Tbd (to be determined) is probably the answer right now. We are still trying to figure out what our plan is moving forward. I think we saw great success with the individual versus experience, but when you look at what our community wants right now we see a lot of our core players asking for 6v6. When there are no bots involved, it's truly skill versus skill in that mode. We take all that into consideration as we build up our plans for the future." Esdor: "Have you considered hosting a tournament at an event like Dreamhack?" Ramjagsingh: "Tournaments is something that we look at when we decide about our competitive gaming strategy. All kind of tournaments kind of fall under competitive gaming - not only the World Gaming Championship -, but also smaller community tournaments, and tournaments for casual players as well." Esdor: "Will there be a challenge team option for playing 3v3 games in EASHL?" Ramjagsingh: "We are working on that right now. It's not there when the game is released, but it's on our roadmap for the upcoming months." Esdor: "Will the division packs be better this year in HUT?" Ramjagsingh: "We actually started fresh this year with a lot of our economy redesigned, and pack contents are a part of that. This year we are starting our players much much lower so there is more room to grow. We have reworked the content that is in all of our packs. So you can essentially get any of our best players from any pack available." Esdor: "Will you make it easier to apply many contracts at the same time in HUT?" Ramjagsingh: "We made some improvements there as well, to the contracts and the healing cards." Esdor: "Am I able to do giveaways as a streamer?" Ramjagsingh: "Giveaways are tbd. I don't have the latest information on that to let you know. I'm not sure where we stand at the moment when it comes to giveaways. The piece that we got to be careful is about the trades. Because people will exploit stuff if they can. It's not necessarily the streamers doing giveaways we want to find, it's more about the guys that abuse the system that we need to be careful with." Esdor: "Are wager matches possibly coming back again in the future?" Ramjagsingh: "No. We still stand by that - it's the gambling part of it that we want to stay away from." Esdor: "Have you thought about adding a logic that kicks idle players from HUT and Versus games?" Ramjagsingh: "We get that question a lot. Definitely something that we are looking at. We have been talking about players going idle in all different game modes, not just for Hockey Ultimate Team." Esdor: "Will you be able to see your opponents username before starting a match?" Ramjagsingh: "Yes you will. It's a challenge for us to make it work when people are dodging so much. People want to pick and choose their spots in some kind of try to maximize their time playing the game without taking losses. What we have done though is improving the matchmaking system. So hopefully you will get matched with someone that is at a similar skill level." Esdor: "What about cross-play between consoles when it comes to NHL?" Ramjagsingh: "That is up to Sony and Microsoft to decide. We are starting to see games like Fortnite making cross-platform possible, but that is a bigger conversation with our first party partners and not something that we can change on our own." Esdor: "Why is NHL not using the Frostbite engine like FIFA and Madden?" Ramjagsingh: "We will get there eventually. Moving over to Frostbite is almost like a console transition. It's a massive technology change. We are able to learn from FIFA and their transition to Frostbite, so we can have a smoother journey when we move over to Frostbite too. From a company perspective it's our one engine strategy, so it's just a matter of time. Now we are laying the ground work so we can hopefully get there in the near future." Esdor: "Why is there no feature that allows you to play a league together with your online friends?" Ramjagsingh: "It's something that we have heard from a lot of our fans actually, asking for tournaments or a feature where you can set up a league that track stats and things like that. This is something that we have on our to do list but there is no ETA (estimated time of arrival) yet. It is definitely something that we are looking into in the future." Esdor: "How come you can't take a timeout without going into the menus?" Ramjagsingh: "We are out of buttons, that is the main reason. There is not a faster way for us to do that. It's not ideal but we are just out of buttons." BarreBoza, @Darkic01, @esdor, Sean "Rammer" Ramjagsingh, Evan Dexter and @PillenUpp in Stockholm That's it from Stockholm, but stay tuned for our coverage from Helsinki, which should be dropping in the next few days! For NHLGamer.com @esdor

Hi there NHLGamers, We come bearing sad news to you, as EA Sports has today announced that the Challenge Club-function will not be present at launch in NHL 19. Don't panic just yet, though! The devs also made sure to let us know that this feature will be available again in the first patch early October. Why? The all new World of Chel required a rewrite of the old dressing room function EA had. World of Chel has a bunch of new features, such as the outdoor ones and rollover lobbies, which have certain requirements for the dressing room function. The previous Club Challenge dressing room was very restrictive tech-wise and didn't allow for much improvements. This restrictive structure didn't align with the vision EA has for EASHL, as they are now building a new dressing room function to allow maximum control for the player when setting up games with friends. What? In NHL 19, a new dressing room function will be implemented. When patched into the game, you will be able to select between a few game types in the dressing room. For what we know as Challenge Club, choose "Private Game". You will have to select a password for your game, after which a protected lobby will be created. All invited players will now be able to join the lobby using your password. This is how EA describes the process: When you are in the Dressing Room, go to Matchmaking Settings. Set “Game Type” to “Private Game.” Create an alphanumeric password between 4 and 10 characters. Make it unique enough so only you and your friends and opponents will know it. You will then be able to select your side. You can choose between Any, Home, and Away. Ready up. From here, you will match up directly with other players that entered same password that you used. This new dressing room will provide more control to the player in setting up games. We'll also see the highly requested option for club challenges in EASHL 3's and also the option to randomize teams. When the dressing room is patched in, there will also be a number of more features to it, these will be announced closer to the patch date. When? You can expect the patch to be out early October. Assuming that this goes as planned, this will have no impact on the start of the ECL 7 season.

Hey NHLGamers, if you happen to be a trophy collector like me, you might be interested in the NHL 19 trophies & achievements that have been revealed today! We'll list all the trophies and their description/tier in the same order they are displayed on PlayStation Network. Here you go! Raise Your Banner '19 (Platinum) Acquire all of the Bronze, Silver and Gold trophies. Someone get that kid the puck! (Bronze) Play and score your 1st NHL goal in a regular season game. You're not Cut (Bronze) Make your NHL team out of the preseason in Be a Pro. Champion (Bronze) Win the Stanley Cup® in Be A Pro mode. Getting Drafted (Bronze) Get drafted to an NHL team in Be A Pro Mode. Practice Makes Perfect (Bronze) Complete all training camp drills. CHL Scout (Bronze) Assign a scout to one of the WHL, OHL or QMJHL regions in Franchise Mode. Cup Champs (Bronze) Win the Stanley Cup as the 32nd NHL team in Franchise Mode. Fully Scouted! (Bronze) Assign a scout to create a potential and comparison report on an amateur player. Pro Scout Master (Bronze) Assign a scout to create 5 Complete Reports on 5 NHL Players. 3 Star Performance (Bronze) Complete and win an NHL® Threes Circuit Game with 3 Stars. King of the west (Bronze) Defeat the final boss of the Western Circuit in NHL® Threes. Cooperative (Bronze) Complete and win an Online Co-op NHL® Threes Circuit Game. Star Collector (Silver) Collect all the stars in an NHL® Threes Circuit. Circuit King (Bronze) Win the final circuit trophy for NHL® Threes Mode. Mascot Winner (Bronze) Win a game as either Mascots West or Mascots East in a Threes Now game in NHL® Threes Mode. Dropping In (Bronze) Play a game of Drop-in Threes. Best of the Bunch (Bronze) Win a Ones game. Diamond Rink! (Bronze) Play in a final rink game in Ones. Enhance! (Bronze) Complete a game with 2 traits and a specialty applied to your player. Bag of Goodies (Bronze) Open your first Progression Rewards bag. Who's the Pro Now? (Bronze) Win a Pro-Am game. Conference Champions (Bronze) Be a member of an EASHL club that has recently won a Division Title and return to the Seasons HUB. Overtime Heroics (Bronze) In a World of CHEL game, score the game-winning overtime goal. You'll always remember your first (Bronze) Score your first goal as a skater or complete and win your first game as a goalie. How Prestigious (Silver) Level up your World of CHEL pro past Player Level 50. Flip Biscuit (Gold) Score a goal by flipping the puck back against the grain from the backhand toe drag in any mode. Extend the Twig (Bronze) Deflect a shot with the Defensive Skill Stick in any mode. Kids a Beauty (Silver) Score a goal with a between the legs shot in any mode. Not My Bottle! (Bronze) Knock off the opposing goalie's bottle from the net by scoring a goal. Manual Sauce (Bronze) Get an assist from a manual saucer pass in any mode. Tee it up (Silver) Score a goal with a manual one timer in any mode. Own the crease (Bronze) Have a shutout and win a game as a user-controlled goalie in any mode. Costume Party (Bronze) Score a goal as a Mascot in an NHL® Threes game. Tuck me in (Silver) Score a goal with a one hand tuck in any mode. Apple a Day (Silver) Get an assist with a between the legs pass in any mode. Contract Extension (Bronze) Use a contract item on any Gold grade player in Hockey Ultimate Team. Winner, Winner (Bronze) Win a game (online or offline) in Hockey Ultimate Team. You're all set (Bronze) Complete a set in Hockey Ultimate Team. Auctioneer (Bronze) Buy or Sell an item in the auction house in Hockey Ultimate Team. Take it online (Bronze) Complete an Online game in Hockey Ultimate Team. First Overall (Bronze) Complete an NHL® Draft Champions Draft. Specialized (Silver) Collect a special item in Hockey Ultimate Team. Legendary! (Silver) Collect a legend item in Hockey Ultimate Team. So HUT right now! (Silver) Recently win the title in a Hockey Ultimate Team Season and return to the Hockey Ultimate Team Hub. Seeing Stars (Silver) Earn a total 50 Stars in HUT Challenges. Committed (Silver) Collect 100 Free Packs in Hockey Ultimate Team. HUT Superstar! (Gold) Reach Division 1 in Online Seasons in Hockey Ultimate Team. Super Synergized (Silver) Have every player on your active Hockey Ultimate Team Lineup have an active Synergy. Overall, there are 49 trophies to obtain, including 1 Platinum, 2 Gold, 12 Silver and 34 Bronze. As usual there are some similarities to the predecessor, but we are also seeing a couple of new trophies for this iteration. Will you be going for the Platinum trophy in NHL 19? Which trophy do you believe will be hardest to get? @gzell60

Hey NHLGamers, with NHL 19 approaching rapidly (EA Access trials on Xbox One will be opened up in just 5 days!), we have now received more insight into how all of the open beta feedback - including ours, thank you for submitting your opinions! - from the past few weeks was received. The following changes have been made for the full release of NHL 19: +++ NHL 19 Release Version (1.0.0) Gameplay Physics Fixes to physics tensions and joint limits Hip check improvements Improvements to stumble fall animations Various animation blend fixes during physics reactions Skating Improvements to stop animations and transitions from stop to stand Improvements to pivot direction consistency Various animation improvements Goalie Fixed a user goalie blend after passing the puck out Various fixes to saves where the pads were not flush to the ice Fixed a case where goalies would get stuck in free skate in Ones Fixed some known cases for users getting stuck in butterfly Poke Check Improvements to collision volumes to more accurately detect incidental stick on stick or stick on body contact Fixed some cases where the defensive player could contact the puck after their stick went through the puck carrier’s geometry Fixes to conditions where the blend out of a poke check was still causing trips Puck Pickups Fixed an issue to allow the player to pick up their own pass if it was blocked/deflected Improvements to interception balance based on player ratings Improvements to staying onside during pickups Various improvements to puck pickup animations Specializations Various fixes to specializations and traits General Improve player support to get to loose pucks Fixed various desyncs Protect puck stumble animations added Improvements to CPU behaviour on breakaways and shootouts Improve logic to prevent accidental manual RS Switching Various fixes to fighting and scrum alignment Fixes to faceoff alignment in World of CHEL Seen once the AI skater will remain idle behind the net Fixes to control hints in training camp Presentation Various fixes to overlays not clearing properly Improvements to multiplayer hugs Various camera fixes Fixes to cameras clipping with crowd and arena geometry Lighting and Material improvements/fixes. Player skin will now appear more accurate New cameras added for each of the venues within NHL Ones World of CHEL Fixed various desyncs when going into gameplay in 3v3 and 6v6 drop in Fixed various crashes in the Dressing Room while opening hockey bags Fixed various crashes while customizing in the dressing room while match making Fixed a soft lock in the post match up dressing room, when one user would open the loadout selection screen as the timer ran out +++ Furthermore, we have received a list of changes that did not make it in time for the disc release, but will be available as a day one update when you first start up NHL 19. +++ NHL 19 Day One Update (1.1.0) Gameplay General Disabled various player interactions (fights, scrums, instigations) during Ones To compliment the fix to the bug that allowed you to win a forehand draw while using the backhand grip we made some faceoff balance changes Backhand stick lift now beats the tieup Forehand stick lift now beats the Backhand stick lift Removed broken sticks from online modes Fixed cases where CPU players were still taking penalties in non player locked online games Goalies Improvements to AI goalies from sharp angles Poke Checking Fixed cases where poke checks were tripping a player after getting puck first Fixes to accuracy of poke checks on stationary/slow moving loose pucks Fixed a case where players were not being tripped after consecutive pokes Various additional poke check targeting fixes Uniforms NHL Anaheim Ducks 3rd Uniform EBEL EHC LIWEST Black Wings Linz Red Bull Salzburg Home and Away Vienna Capitals Home and Away Stadium Updates Updated scoreboard in the Prudential Center World of CHEL The game now defaults to preset home and away tops in 6v6 instead of user assigned casual tops. This resolves visual confusion during gameplay. Various changes to customization items for better in-game readability Fixed an issue where gameplay assets were being rendered in the main menu Fixed a case where the game would frequently hang when going into a 6v6 game of drop in Fixed rare crashes when rolling over to the dressing room after a match Fixed a rare crash in the post game screen due to Voip conflicts. Fixed a rare desync at the puck drop in Ones Fixed various issues where the game would crash when moving from one mode to another +++ What stands out most in our opinion are the changes applied to faceoffs as well as pokechecks. Even though a lot of players have been asking for the backhand-to-forehand switch to return, it is not coming back, and instead we are seeing adjustments to the 'rock papers scissors' mechanic as backhand sticklifts now beat the tie-up, and backhand sticklifts can be countered with forehand sticklifts. Furthermore, we are seeing another increase in punishing bad pokechecks by fixing rare occasions where a stick going through a skater's body did not result in a trip, while at the same time pokecheck targeting seems to have been improved. We expect these changes to reward good defensive positioning even further, now that the RNG aspect has been toned down. What do you think of the changelogs above? Did EA SPORTS meet your expectations? @gzell60

Hey NHLGamers, Let me start off by thanking you - our community - for the excellent feedback that you submitted based on the NHL 19 Beta! I can confirm that the feedback was received in Vancouver and we have been thanked for submitting it. Next week we will have a great opportunity to talk to some of the EA SPORTS NHL producers face to face. Like last year, we are aiming for another interview compiled from your feedback and specific questions about the NHL series. This opportunity is truly a great way for everyone to voice their opinion and to keep our community and its members recognized as a valuable source of direct community feedback for the development team in Vancouver. How do I submit the feedback/questions? Easy in many ways! 1) Use the comment section below or 2) Write to us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram! (Pro tip: Use all of the channels to increase your chance of making it to our list of questions!)

Hi there NHLGamers, The release of EA Sports NHL 19 is nigh and us gamers are slowly returning from the wild outside and sunny beaches towards the familiar comfort of our gaming stations and consoles. Today we're bringing you some news about the new title, this time in the form of some reworks and additions for the Hockey Ultimate Team mode. In NHL 18, one of the major problems with HUT was the quick inflation of the market caused by a few various factors. Most notably, the lower overalls and bigger gap between low and high rated players went out the door very fast as a wide variety of special player items were released early on. The fact that the market was flooded early on also diminished the incentive for several players to chase higher rated players, as similar items were so easily available. Another problem encountered in HUT games were gamers position-locking themselves, the mere possibility of doing so received heavy criticism as it steps back on the competitiveness and overall fairness of the game. It also defeats the purpose of PvP-play. EA announced that they are going to try their best to address these problems in the new release, which is only 16 days away (13 for early release). This leads us into discussing some of the changes made from previous years iteration. Changes to NHL 19 HUT Rebalancing the economy is going to be one of the main priorities in making HUT fun for the gamers. The development team has a few answers for achieving a better market balance and avoiding the inflation we saw in NHL 18. First off, overalls have been lowered even more than last year. In NHL 19 HUT base item overalls will range from 55-85 at launch, with a few exceptions being Alumni and Legend items. The lower overalls will allow for more stat growth to happen throughout the year. Secondly, the player item class/rarity division has been revamped. In NHL 18 the class/rarity ranging from bronze to gold directly reflected the league the player played in. All CHL players were bronze items, all NHL players were gold items. This didn't allow for effective leveraging of the entire player catalogue. In NHL 19 we will see a change, where the item class/rarity reflects the overall of the player in question, not the league the player plays in. Here is how the class/rarity system works in NHL 19: 50-55 OVR Bronze Common 56-61 OVR Bronze Rare 62-67 OVR Silver Common 68-73 OVR Silver Rare 74-79 OVR Gold Common 80+ OVR Gold Rare A new class/rarity division will allow for a more effective way of sorting players and it will also make higher rated players harder to obtain, regardless of the league they play in. In addition to these two courses of action, the weekly live items are being changed. As the release frequency during NHL 18 was very high with four live items being released each week. NHL 19 will not feature Flashback player weekly items anymore, making for less new player items hitting the market. Trade-in sets have been renewed a bit too in order to make unwanted and lower rarity cards more valuable to the gamer. At launch, NHL 19 will feature six different player trade-in sets: 5 Bronze Common Players -> 1 Bronze Rare Player (6 hour cool down) 5 Bronze Rare Players -> 1 Silver Common Player (6 hour cool down) 5 Silver Common Players -> 1 Silver Rare Player (6 hour cool down) 5 Silver Rare Players -> 1 Gold Common Player (6 hour cool down) 5 Gold Common Players -> 1 Untradeable Gold Rare Player (8 hour cool down) Gold Rare Re-Roll (2 Gold Rare Players -> 1 Untradeable Gold Rare Player) (8 hour cool down) NHL 19 will also feature a trade-in set, which will allow trading five gold rare players for a gold rare collectible. This trade-in set will have a 24 hour cooldown. Other than having less player items flooding the market, NHL 19 will have position lock from HUT removed. New additions to NHL 19 HUT Well, right off the bat one of the new additions will be the much advertised 200+ alumni and legend items available for HUT gamers. According to EA, the legends and alumni will range all the way from all-time greats to local legends and fan favourites. 30 alumni player items will be available all year from the HUT store, and the rest will be released in weekly waves, with availability being time limited. Gamers will have four main ways of obtaining legend player items. 32 legends will be available in sets at launch. Some will be released as monthly collectibles available for gamers who have completed daily objectives, which is another new addition we will discuss in a bit. Seven legend items can be obtained by completing various in-game milestone tasks, such as scoring goals, completing sets or taking shots on goal. On top of these three ways, there will be legend packs in the HUT store. Legend packs will be available for a limited time and contain a guaranteed legend item from a pre-selected pool. Objectives are a new addition that might resemble daily challenges for all our Fortnite players out there. EA promises to introduce various types of objectives in NHL 19, as there will be daily tasks, but also progression objectives and special event objectives in HUT. Objectives reward the gamer with HUT items of various types. Milestones aren't a new term, but they will be introduced in a whole new way in NHL 19. They are long-term goals with impressive rewards as you go about your progression in HUT. Some milestones could be goals scored, challenge stars earned or objectives completed. Milestones will have higher rewards than objectives. Loan Players might be familiar to FIFA gamers, who have played a bit of FUT (FIFA Ultimate Team). This addition brings you the opportunity to try out star players in your line-up for a limited time before heading to the auction house to spend your hard-earned coins. Loan items can be earned in many ways, such as through completing objectives or surpassing milestones to name a few. So there you have it, it seems like a bunch of needed changes have been done to HUT for NHL 19. Is it a hit or a miss - what do you think? Let us know in the comments! Source: https://www.easports.com/nhl/news/2018/hut-deep-dive

Last week EA SPORTS released the most wanted thing of the summer by releasing the NHL19 Open Beta. There had been a lot of talk around the web on whether it would come out or not, but it eventually did and the first impressions around the community have been very positive. The new skating mechanics looks and feels amazing and the feedback especially around 6vs6 has been mostly very great. This is of course a beta and a lot of improvements are still to be made. As one of the biggest NHL gaming sites in the world - not to mention the amazing talent and passion of our community members - we want to help out. So here's the deal: We want to hear what you guys think, so we can forward it to EA SPORTS in a well structured and articulated way. We hope you take some time and write about your experiences (both the good and the bad) and possible issues and solutions that you have run into and hopefully this will help us all get the greatest NHL version yet! You may write your feedback in any format you want, but we have included the below structure, as presented by EA SPORTS NHL Community Manager Tyler Horsfall on Twitter. NHL Ones NHL THREES Drop-In (Arcade Threes) EASHL Drop-Ins (Please specify if it is in 3s/6s/both) EASHL Club 3s EASHL Club 6s AI skaters in World of Chel (specify mode + how many AI) AI goalies in World of Chel (specify mode) AI goalies in EASHL (specify if in 3s/6s) Customization: Player Classes + Traits/Specializations Customization: Gear (Casual + Pro gear + Gear Bags) Other World of Chel related feedback Online Vs. AI Skaters in Online Vs. AI Goalies in Online Vs. Skating Hitting (Collision Physics) Pokechecking Offensive Play (i.e. how did it feel to play defense? How easy was it? Was there a skill gap? Were there limitations?) Defensive Play (i.e. how did it feel to play defense? How easy was it? Was there a skill gap? Were there limitations?) Other (anything not covered here) Human Goalies in EASHL We would prefer your thoughts in English, as it will make the process quicker and make for a better discussion here in the community, as all can participate. However, we know there are those who can express themselves better in their maternal language, so for this purpose, we have made this topic discussable in some more languages in their specific topics: English (this news story) Finnish German Russian Swedish Thanks to @chavelski, @gzell60, @MAYZIIX and @Janikka for the help and translations!

Letzte Woche veröffentlichte EA SPORTS die mit Spannung erwartete Open Beta von NHL 19. Zuvor gab es bereits viele Spekulationen ob diese überhaupt erscheinen würde - doch nun ist sie hier, und das initiale Feedback aus der NHL Community fällt sehr positiv aus. Besonders die neue Skating-Mechanik und das Gameplay in 6 vs. 6 werden dabei oft erwähnt. Allerdings dürfen wir nicht vergessen, dass es sich aus gutem Grund noch um eine Beta handelt, und noch viele Verbesserungen ins Haus stehen. Als eine der größten NHL Gaming-Webseiten - ganz zu schweigen vom enormen Talent in der Community und unserer Passion - liegt es auch an uns, den Entwicklern detailliertes Feedback zukommen zu lassen. Lasst uns also eure Meinung hören, die wir dann in gut strukturierter Weise an EA SPORTS weiterleiten werden. Je mehr Zeit ihr euch dabei nehmt um über eure Erfahrungen zu schreiben (gut und schlecht), desto mehr werden wir an der hoffentlich besten NHL-Version bislang mitwirken können! Ihr könnt euer Feedback in jeder beliebigen Form abgeben, allerdings würden wir es bevorzugen, wenn ihr das von EA SPORTS NHL Community Manager Tyler Horsfall auf Twitter bereitgestellte Template verwendet. NHL Ones NHL THREES Drop-In (Arcade Threes) EASHL Drop-Ins (bitte in 3s/6s unterscheiden) EASHL Club 3s EASHL Club 6s KI-Spieler in World of Chel (bitte in 3s/6s unterscheiden und angeben, wie viele KI-Spieler üblicherweise bei euch auf dem Eis sind) KI-Torhüter in World of Chel (bitte in 3s/6s unterscheiden) KI-Torhüter in EASHL (bitte in 3s/6s unterscheiden) Individualisierung: Spielerklassen + Fähigkeiten/Spezialisierungen ndividualisierung: Ausrüstung (Casual-Ausrüstung + Pro-Ausrüstung + Ausrüstungstaschen) Weiteres Feedback bzgl. World of Chel Online Versus KI-Spieler in Online Versus KI-Torhüter in Online Versus Skating Bodychecks Pokechecks Offensivspiel (z.B. wie hat es sich angefühlt? Ist es einfach/schwer? Kann man sich durch sein Können abheben? Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten?) Defensivspiel (z.B. wie hat es sich angefühlt? Ist es einfach/schwer? Kann man sich durch sein Können abheben? Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten?) Weiteres Feedback (alles, was bisher nicht abgefragt wurde) Menschliche Torhüter in EASHL

UPDATE: The beta is now available for download on both PS4 and Xbox One! PS4 (EU): https://store.playstation.com/de-de/product/EP0006-CUSA12556_00-NHL2019BETAGAME1 Xbox One: https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/store/p/NHL-19-Beta/BNR3SCCFP0D6 Hey NHLGamers! Out of nowhere, the NHL 19 Open Beta was just announced via the PlayStation Blog. And best of all: It is set to start today! Timing: The Open Beta takes place from July 26 to August 2. World of Chel: The following modes will be included in the NHL 19 Open Beta: NHL Ones NHL Threes Pro-Am EA SPORTS Hockey League The announcement also hints at a comeback of (partly) customizable player classes: Which of you guys will be hopping on NHL 19 beta ice tonight?! Let us know! @gzell60

Hey NHLGamers, it's that time of year - NHL 19 full Feature Reveal! In the early hours of the morning (from a European perspective), at the NHL Awards, EA Sports dropped perhaps more information than usual regarding the upcoming NHL, detailing not only the cover athlete but also a whole host of features / modes in order to spice up the game and drive sales. Without further ado however, here is the official reveal trailer. The Cover First and foremost, we will begin with the cover athlete for this years upcoming NHL. P.K. Subban has been chosen to grace the cover of NHL 19, whilst there was some speculation regarding whether he was even eligible as he had appeared on a cover previously (NHL 13, Quebec exclusive), it seems the NHL either overlooked this or felt that this previous inclusion was not perhaps official enough? The Features Moving on to the nitty gritty of what NHL 19 will entail, and boy is it a lot, so sit back and relax because this could be a while. For ease of access, the main points chosen by EA on their website will be listed below: WHAT'S NEW In NHL® 19, play on outdoor rinks and journey from the ponds to the pros in new and returning game modes. Compete with and against 200 of the greatest hockey legends to ever hit the ice, highlighted by Wayne Gretzky. Powered by cutting-edge new gameplay technology, experience explosive-edge skating that delivers more acceleration, speed and responsiveness. OUTDOOR HOCKEY IN WORLD OF CHEL For the first time in franchise history, step onto the pond and compete in the EA SPORTS Hockey League, NHL THREES, Play Now and the brand new modes NHL ONES and Pro-Am. In NHL ONES, you and two other players compete in a 1v1v1 free-for-all gauntlet. Showcase your skills and creativity with no rules, no stoppages, and no limits. RPM TECH With RPM Tech, Explosive-edge skating enables more control over how you generate speed using edge-work and crossovers. With all new animations, you'll experience more responsiveness in acceleration, high-speed skating, and pin-point turns. SELF EXPRESSION Stand out on the ice with over 900 customization options from authentic NHL apparel to pond hockey lifestyle clothing from some of the biggest brands in sports. Express yourself like never before with thousands of combinations of fresh looks. Stay up to date with the latest NHL® 19 news and never miss out on gear for your avatar. LEGENDS HAVE ARRIVED Play with or against over 200 hockey legends spanning 100 years of NHL history and build your dream team. Superstars of today's game playing alongside historical figures of past seasons is a defining factor of one hockey. PLAY NHL® 19 Pre-Order NHL® 19 today and get three-day early access, HUT packs, Cover Athlete items and more through the Ultimate and Legend Editions. Outdoor hockey in World of Chel Seen as the teaser, well, teased it, it would seem then that starting off with attempting to understand what exactly "Outdoor hockey in World of Chel" entails would be a good starting point for the analysis part of this article. The trailer does not show the specifics of how this feature will work per se, however their feature list does attempt to illustrate what form it will take. It seems that the 'world of chel' will take place perhaps in conjunction with EASHL. To further cement this similarity between the two areas is the inclusion of two new playable modes, namely "NHL ONES" and "Pro-Am". NHL Ones appears to be a free-for-all type of game where 3 people can face off against each other at the same time against a goalie (unfortunately AI only from what information we can gather). An example of an NHL ONES game in action can be seen below. Additionally, based on their wording it would seem as though the beautiful setting seen above will be available in NHL threes, Play Now, EASHL, as well as the new mode "Pro-Am". Unfortunately there does not appear to be much information regarding this "Pro-Am" mode, however Polygon stipulate that it is in fact a practice mode. Rather curiously enough though Pro-Am is seemingly an online mode, whether this means EASHL now has a true practice arena / area again, or it is simply a place to admire the scenary is up for debate. Although, Gameinformer has tried to illustrate the purpose of "Pro-Am" further by stating that it is a place where players can "hone their skills against A.I before jumping into real competitions", potentially meaning that the NHL series may have a FIFA arena-esque minigame available to players prior to joining an online game. RPM Tech RPM Tech appears to be another attempt by EA to further raise the quality of the skating engine used in NHL. Note, this is not part of a port over to the Frostbite engine, as from what we can tell they will still be using Ignite based on a lack of information stating otherwise and from the trailer showcasing as much. RPM stands for 'Real Player Movement', any FIFA players amongst us will probably have a slight feeling of déjà vu as RPM was introduced to that series last year (Polygon). What this means however is that a host of new animations have been added in order to create a much more fluid and explosive skating experience, with EA anticipating that players will feel more "responsiveness in acceleration, high speed skating and pin-point turns". Furthermore, in an interview with Polygon, Will Ho (NHL 19's creative director) relayed that RPM is especially attuned at blending different animations together, in order to facilitate smoother transitions between the two. Perhaps most important of all regarding this new 'tech' is that EA claims to have "solved" a massive issue plaguing the last few NHL series entries, namely puck pickups and their inconsistent nature. In fact, Ho went as far as saying that "We’ve basically completely addressed this issue" (Polygon). Self Expression One thing that almost anyone will notice when watching the trailer above is the attire of the players involved, most (if not all) are wearing clothing unique to them, ranging from flannel to camo designs. This is of course the 3rd 'feature' on EA's list, "Self Expression". In an attempt to perhaps catch people's attention and add in something that people can grind for to unlock, EA has decided to add over 900 customisation options for your personal pro, in addition to this starting amount it seems that EA will be adding more options throughout the year to further raise the amount of customisation options. Whether this broad range of choice carries over into 6s EASHL however is again up for debate as little has been released regarding the overlap between the "Outdoor world of chel" and EASHL outside of shared personal 'characters'. Legends Have Arrived Now on to quite possibly the least game-changing addition, Legends. Over 200 players have been added, spanning across the 100 years of NHL history. Who these legends are however is again subject to discussion and conjecture as very little information has been released regarding this feature. It goes without saying perhaps that these players will be available across all offline modes, as well as Hockey Ultimate Team (as was the case with the legends inclusion in NHL 12). Pre-Order Options For select countries there will be three pre-order options available, namely: Standard, Legend, and Ultimate. Each come with their own differing bonuses, as well as cover art. (What "Hockey bag" means will be outlined further down in the article) In addition to these pre-order bonuses, there will also be special 'loyalty' rewards for players returning from previous NHL iterations. Previous owners of NHL® 16, NHL® 17, and NHL® 18 pre-order now and receive special rewards in HUT 19. 2 HUT packs for your first year of ownership, 3 more packs for your second year of ownership, and 5 more packs if you own all three. 1 HUT Cover Athlete item per year of ownership, Jonathan Toews for owners of NHL® 16, Vladimir Tarasenko for owners of NHL® 17, and Connor McDavid for owners of NHL® 18. 1 World of Chel Hockey Bag per year of ownership Note: Currently the varying editions are named incorrectly/differently on both the PSN & Xbox store, whether or not this error will be attended to is unclear at the moment. On the PSN and Xbox stores the Legend Edition is named the Deluxe Edition and the Ultimate Edition is named the Super Deluxe Edition. Extra snipets of information regarding 'The World of Chel' If all of this seems a bit confusing regarding how 'The World of Chel' (TWoC) will interact with the already established mode of EASHL then allow me to clear up some of this mess. If I was to have a crack at trying to predict how TWoC will actually play out, I would say that perhaps the best parallel existing in other games right now would be 2K's NBA series, where you create a character that will be available throughout most online modes and has the opportunity to be customised to the extreme. What this could also mean unfortunately is a quite sudden retreat back to microtransactions that were found in within EASHL on last gen NHL titles. This is evidenced by the inclusion of "Hockey bags" which are proposed to be used as a means to pay for gear to customise their personal player with (Polygon). It of course should be noted that players will still be able to earn 'Hockey bags' through winning NHL ONES games. In addition to this, you will also be able earn points / currency by playing any of the other three modes under the TWoC 'umbrella' (EASHL, being one of them). Furthermore, it appears as though EASHL players will still have to choose player types prior to starting a game (e.g. power forward spam). What is new however is that there is now a trait system where players can pick two to slot in to two very distinct slots, namely Primary and Secondary. Primary traits will be more heavily weighted than Secondary traits, resulting in more powerful effects on their player; additionally it seems as though you can choose to activate either of these traits mid game via new UI indicators (Gameinformer). In addition to this, Gameinformer also stipulate that there are "Specialisations" that players can select from that are typically context based but can in fact benefit your teammates as well as your own player (e.g. extra energy gained in the dying seconds of a period). To help players juggle this myriad of options, EA is reportedly allowing players to save 'loadouts' to quickly select a prefered build based on the opponent they are facing. GM Mode Last but not least, EA looks to have done a semi-overhaul of how scouting works within GM mode. Not only will you have the ability to handle amateur and pro scouts within your franchise, but the scouts themselves will have biases towards different regions of the world. For instance, one scout within your organisation could be excellent as discerning players within the Scandinavian region but absolutely pants at figuring out how good players are from Russia. All in all then what do you think about these features? Will the trait / specialisation system be strong enough to force more people away from the power forward, or will it just serve to power it further?

Hey NHLGamers, We didn't get any information on NHL prior to, or even at the E3 event as we're used to, as EA SPORTS are keeping us all in suspense until tomorrow, when they will be doing a full reveal of NHL 19 at the NHL Awards in Las Vegas. As expected, a teaser was released and it is in fact just that - a teaser. If you haven't seen it yet, you can enjoy this 12 second masterpiece of teasers below: As a good teaser does, this clip doesn't do much more than confirm that NHL 19 is in fact coming and leaves you asking questions that will luckily be answered tomorrow with the full reveal. Or that's what a full reveal should do, right? No teaser is too short for speculation, though, and discussion has been active on Facebook and Twitter. In the video we see what seems like a smaller and not professional hockey player - perhaps we'll finally see a full-flexed story mode, similar to the NBA2K-series or FIFA, where you start off in the minors and work your way up towards the NHL, while making character defining choices along the way. Or is it perhaps simply the availability of outdoor games? (We sure hope it's more than that.) One of the most viewed NHL YouTubers, BaconCountry, offered his humorous take on the trailer: What do you think? What would you like to see? Let us know in the comments. That leaves us with the cover athlete speculation - who will be on the cover this year? EA SPORTS has confirmed the athlete has never been on the cover before, so that takes Alexander Ovechkin out of the equation, as he's been featured on both the NHL 07 and NHL2K10 covers. Many have been wishing for Marc-André Fleury to be featured on the cover, as he had a phenomenal season and let's face it, fantasy covers like the one below are looking really sharp. Based on the art in the official "Who's next?" teaser tweet, it is looking like it's going to be a skater, rather than a goalie. Assuming the skater is facing us, the skater is a right-handed shot. Who could it be, who's your pick? We will keep you up to date with the full reveal, as soon as we get our hands on some new information tomorrow.