Might make a separate post, but one feature I'd love to see redone entirely is faceoffs.
In the NHL, players cheat on the faceoffs all the time. I think it'd be cool if we implemented it in the game and replaced that annoying "too early = auto loss" rule.
Basically, both players would go into the draw as it is currently. If you cheat and go too early, you get thrown out of the faceoff circle and the winger with the higher faceoff skill will come in instead and take the draw. If in online modes there are multiple players, and the centre gets tossed out and is replaced by a player (not AI) winger, and they also proceed to go early, they can be assessed a bench minor penalty. The only exception in NHL Rule 76.4 is on icing draws - where if the defending zone player goes early on the draw, they will get a warning (maybe instead of too early it says "FACEOFF VIOLATION - WARNING"), and if they do it a second time it's a penalty. I think this would make faceoffs a little bit more interesting, it makes usage of the face off ratings of all players (making them less redundant) and it really doesn't add that much more time to the game unless a player is continuously messing up the draws and taking penalties. I think this isn't super complicated to implement but could go a long way as it changes a feature and makes it way more realistic.
