What's more likely, the NHL is so actively involved in the development of the game that they are forcing EA to remove certain features of the game that have zero implication on the NHL or it's players or, EA just hasn't implemented those features in the game yet?
For years, people thought the NFL was the reason why Madden didn't have a true, create-a-team, turns out that was not the case and EA just hadn't developed the feature. I think it's extremely obvious what the answer is for why certain things aren't in the game and it has nothing to do with the NHL.