Elite Playoffs Round 4 and no opponents?

Hey everyone,

we’re currently playing the Elite Playoffs in NHL 25 and have run into a major issue. Here’s what’s going on:

• Rounds 1-3: We had no problems finding opponents and successfully advanced to Round 4.
• Round 4: Since yesterday, we’ve spent over 3 hours searching for opponents and haven’t found a single match.
• Tried Everything: We’ve experimented with every possible configuration—searching with and without Drop-In, changing the region settings to all available options, but nothing helps.
• Team Sizes: We searched with 4 players and also with 5 players, both with a goalie and without a goalie.
• Search Timeout: The matchmaking search always times out after exactly 2:04 minutes.
• Average Wait Time: The displayed average wait time fluctuates between 1:04 and 1:44, but it never matches reality.
• Population Always Low: The population indicator is always set to Low, even outside of playoffs. In our region (Europe), it seems the player base is consistently low.

Is anyone else experiencing similar issues in the Elite Playoffs or in general? Is there anything else we can try, or is this just a problem with the current state of the game and low population in Europe? Any advice or updates from EA would be appreciated!

Thanks!