AI Goalies are Laughably Bad

The issue with this is that the goaltenders are not bad like this in all game modes. Sure there is some weak goals but that is actually fairly realistic, there is also some insane saves too. I wonder if they should up the difficulty sliders for online play to see if that helps the issue.

When did a backhander from the point become a realistic goal in hockey? Lol.

I just beat an opponent in rivals 3 hours ago from me flicking up to end the 3rd and get a shot on net for his goalie to fumble the shot spin around and put it in his own net. I'm probably still getting messages and party invites from that opponent raging lol.

It's not the sliders......

While I play offline only, specifically franchise more on superstar difficulty - those goals you speak about don't go in. The average game I play you have to work for a goal to be scored - there is some weaker goals that bounce off the blocker or glove but again it happens in real hockey and both goalies have it happen so it evens out.

Goalies on a lower difficulty like rookie or pro are not as hard to beat and allow a lot more bad goals in offline modes. I am not saying they are perfect and don't have some weird animations at times but I have played 100 games offline and never saw any type of goal that was mentioned. 

This is the point I am trying to make. The goalie issues I have seen people say this year seems to be more related to the online experience where you can't cater or affect difficulty and sliders.

You are 100% correct on the goalies, they are only terrible online :) Offline you can adjust settings/sliders to make them actually good and competent at what they do. Again you can't do much online because they are set to rookie goalie at minimum it seems and get beat with the easier shots constantly. This is the first year that the game itself feels great offline and the goalies perform quite good! Sucks that Online has to suck as much cause well its a downer for clubs :P

I’m mainly referring to Wagner and Lehman in World of Chel. Something needs to change, because they are letting in way too many goals that shouldn’t ever be going in. Especially from further out. 

I play WoC. The goalies do let in squeakers and it's mostly, in my opinion, due to the stupid goalie fatigue that's so far in the code now that it can't be removed. If your goalie's stamina / fatigue goes down into the red, literally any shot from anywhere it going to get partially saved and squeak through.

Defense as a whole is completely scuffed. Impossible to intercept the puck, perfectly lined up hits being brushed aside by 5’3 forwards, no one passes to you, and getting blamed for goals caused by forwards making the worst turnover imaginable. Overall, it’s just not rewarding to play defense in WOC

Interesting because you summed it up for HUT too, minus the 5ft3 brushing off hits more like Caufield brushing off Chara with gold truc