NHL 23: A D-man perspective

I feel the same. My brother and I have been playing EASHL as a 2 person defense pair since NHL09 (Xbox, if that matters). We're not stellar, usually have a record just under .500 by the next release. So far in 23, we're 4-15. It feels almost impossible to do anything.

No matter how fast I make my skater, he is always way too slow to keep up with any forward. I lost count of how many times I've hit, poked and lifted someone's stick in the same play just to watch them keep skating. Or how their forehand glide is faster than my striding when I have speed in the 90s. Or how I can be firmly mashing the L-stick to hustle with a full body length headstart and still can't beat them for an icing call. Or how they can just glide away and render any 1:1 action I have useless. Any stick play is penalized. A hit attempt will just follow them and make no difference whatsoever.

Question: Do people gain extra stats for their EASHL loadouts by playing other modes? There have been several times when I felt outclassed in every way; weaker, slower, less likely to shot block (I'm a defensive player, and snipers and danglers are out shot blocking me), way worse acceleration, and taking 6 or 7 seconds to get up from one hit by somebody smaller than me. Literally worse in every single way.

The AI offense is nowhere near tuned to play as well as a human offense. We just played a game tonight where we outshot the opponents 40-15, and lost 2-5. We can cause teams to make mistakes and send the play the other way. We often do this more than our opponents. But our AI offense rarely ever finishes, when the human opponents are scoring on about 1/3 of their shots every single game.

I can't remember it feeling this broken before. I have no idea how anybody could think this year caters to defense better. The goaltending is better, yes, but playing as a defender is just a frustrating mess. We've played this franchise so much. I don't want to hate this game, but I do.