This years edition of the NHL game series was released today and thought it might be good to have a discussion for anyone else who bought it or is thinking of doing so. I've had some success playing as the Isles so far as I managed to beat the Rangers in the Winter Classic (CPU) and then the Red Wings online. The Wings game also included a DiPietro vs Howard goalie fight I was able to win (excited to fight Johnson and the rest of the Penguins soon.) In general I'd say the game plays very similarly to the one from last year. I'll post more impressions of differences after I've had more time to tinker around with it.

Anyway, I've noticed a few things in particular about the Isles players and lineups that are worthy of note, see after the jump:

• Okposo is the starting RW and PaP is on the 2nd line with Frans+Grabs. I tinker with this when playing, the FNGO line must not be broken up.
  
• Grabner is clearly the fastest player in the game, so they definitely got that right. Flipping the puck to him up ice is awesome. I've also utilized his speed to score on a few wrap arounds.
  
• DiPietro is listed as the starting goalie and is rated 84 Hybrid (I'm assuming based on his replacement body parts, not style.) Montoya is listed as a 77. Obviously statistics don't play into NHL ratings for goalies.
• Nabakov isn't listed on the Isles roster as of the latest update. Apparently he won't even report in a video game.
  
• The game includes an attribute for player potential. You'd think with the Isles young core of players we'd have some high potential players but the best rating is B, which only Tavares received. Players receiving a B- include Wishart, Hamonic, Bailey, Grabner, Joensuu (somebody at EA likes Finns,) and Okposo.
• The highest rated players are Tavares and Streit each at 87, then DiPietro at 84 (again, really EA?) Haley is our lowest rated player at 73.
• All of our Right Wingers are rated 83 except Parenteau who is rated 82. Talk about video game depth on the wing.
• The special teams setups they have are a complete mess so they aren't worth going too much into but for two things: 1) They don't have Frans+Grabs as a PK unit at all. How this is possible I do not know. 2) Rolston is used as a point man on the 2nd PP unit.
• Our overall ratings are Offense 84, Defense 78, Goaltending 77

Hope everyone is enjoying it as much as myself.