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NHL 16


Toe

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I didn't see a topic for this so....

 

I used to buy the EA NHL games on the day of release every year - until I played last years game on the PS4. Something about it just wasn't appealing - especially in the menus when trying to play my favourite mode, Be A GM. 

 

I heard this year's version is better, so I picked it up a few days ago. And it is better - the menus are more responsive and less of a pain in the ass to navigate. The actual game play is pretty fun too. Very smooth. I feel like I can score in a ton of different ways. Sniping it off the rush, deking around the goaltender, one timers, point shots. It's not a frustrating experience like last year - it's just fun.

 

The real reason for starting this thread is...I want to talk about my GM mode as the Leafs. I attempted to tank hard - the Jets took Bernier for a first, and I was able to unload a ton of guys and wound up with 4 first round picks and 4 second round picks, plus a bunch more later on. The team was pretty thin beyond, especially in goal with only Reimer and Garrett Sparks. I thought I had orchestrated the perfect tank job.

 

The hockey gods laughed at this thought.

 

Instead, despite not having a player score more then 21 goals or more then 60 points on the roster, the 2015/16 Toronto Maple Leafs would go on to win the division and only fall out of the playoff in the second round. The teams who had traded their picks away to the Leafs also finished strong - so despite having four picks in the first round, the earliest pick I had was 15th overall. I was not pleased.

 

When it was time for the draft, I knew that I needed to add an impact player. Edmonton was 1st overall (again?!), but willing to deal. I was able to package two picks in the first round plus a prospect to get the top pick - and with that, drafted Auston Matthews. My remaining picks were late in the first round, so I packaged them to move up to tenth, where I picked up Jake Bean. 

 

The other big move came in free agency. I was unsure about committing to Reimer as my top goaltender, so I looked to see if anything was available on the block. Low and behold, the Ducks were willing to move 22 year old John Gibson - a goaltender with the potential to become elite. I sent them Kasperi Kapanen and a 2nd round pick in 2018, and then signed Anders Lindback to have a solid back up. 

 

Going into year two, I've made some significant changes to the team, and some of the players have really grown. Already, Auston Matthews is 87 overall with the potential to be a franchise player. Gibson jumped from 86 overall at the time of the trade, to 89 overall in the preseason. Morgan Reilly and Jake Gardiner are both far and away the best defenders on the team, while Dion and Scott Harrington (from the Kessel deal) are a very good second pairing. And Nazem Kadri is 89 overall and should have a fantastic season paired with JVR.

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I find that the CPU can score very easily. They seem to try and force passes through the slot for most of the game. Once you figure out how to stop it, it becomes a bit easier to beat them. I don't find scoring too difficult, and most of the goals I give up now come from turnovers.

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5 hours ago, Toe said:

I didn't see a topic for this so....

 

I used to buy the EA NHL games on the day of release every year - until I played last years game on the PS4. Something about it just wasn't appealing - especially in the menus when trying to play my favourite mode, Be A GM. 

 

I heard this year's version is better, so I picked it up a few days ago. And it is better - the menus are more responsive and less of a pain in the ass to navigate. The actual game play is pretty fun too. Very smooth. I feel like I can score in a ton of different ways. Sniping it off the rush, deking around the goaltender, one timers, point shots. It's not a frustrating experience like last year - it's just fun.

 

The real reason for starting this thread is...I want to talk about my GM mode as the Leafs. I attempted to tank hard - the Jets took Bernier for a first, and I was able to unload a ton of guys and wound up with 4 first round picks and 4 second round picks, plus a bunch more later on. The team was pretty thin beyond, especially in goal with only Reimer and Garrett Sparks. I thought I had orchestrated the perfect tank job.

 

The hockey gods laughed at this thought.

 

Instead, despite not having a player score more then 21 goals or more then 60 points on the roster, the 2015/16 Toronto Maple Leafs would go on to win the division and only fall out of the playoff in the second round. The teams who had traded their picks away to the Leafs also finished strong - so despite having four picks in the first round, the earliest pick I had was 15th overall. I was not pleased.

 

When it was time for the draft, I knew that I needed to add an impact player. Edmonton was 1st overall (again?!), but willing to deal. I was able to package two picks in the first round plus a prospect to get the top pick - and with that, drafted Auston Matthews. My remaining picks were late in the first round, so I packaged them to move up to tenth, where I picked up Jake Bean. 

 

The other big move came in free agency. I was unsure about committing to Reimer as my top goaltender, so I looked to see if anything was available on the block. Low and behold, the Ducks were willing to move 22 year old John Gibson - a goaltender with the potential to become elite. I sent them Kasperi Kapanen and a 2nd round pick in 2018, and then signed Anders Lindback to have a solid back up. 

 

Going into year two, I've made some significant changes to the team, and some of the players have really grown. Already, Auston Matthews is 87 overall with the potential to be a franchise player. Gibson jumped from 86 overall at the time of the trade, to 89 overall in the preseason. Morgan Reilly and Jake Gardiner are both far and away the best defenders on the team, while Dion and Scott Harrington (from the Kessel deal) are a very good second pairing. And Nazem Kadri is 89 overall and should have a fantastic season paired with JVR.

Im curious do you play the game yourself or just sim and do the GM stuff?

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I really want to buy the PS3 version of the yearly hockey game because I assume that this will definitely have to be the last year, the yearly franchises are on the previous gen consoles and as I don't plan to upgrade any time soon, it'd probably be for the best getting the most up to date version of NHL now and downloading any updates before support is cut off.

I remember having to buy a new PS3 a long while back and losing all my WWE 12 data on the old, broken down machine but by the time I got around to playing it again, support for WWE 12 had been cut off and I was stuck with the vanilla game. :(

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I really like NHL 16 but i hate be a GM mode it's so unrealistic, also on be a pro why can't i go to World Juniors? when im in the NHL why isn't there worlds if your team doesn't make the play offs? why can't i resign players during the season? Why doesn't a player having a career year get a boast in trade value? I don't care if he is 35 if a guy has his best year people are going to look at him. I could go on forever

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EA doesn't bother with iihf liscensing so no iihf tournaments, no world championships, no world juniors, and worst of all, no spengler cup.

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