What improvements are we all looking for in 25?

I'd like a smoother menu system. The most annoying part of playing WoC right now is sitting through a seemingly unending sequence of menu transitions that take ages and are interrupted by splash screens advertising battle pass or whatever. 

Call of Duty has a great interface not because it's simple (in fact, it's a very comprehensive U.I.) but because it's responsive. It seems like any time EA gets their menus running quickly, it's only like that for a year before some other trend makes its way into popular titles and EA tries to shoehorn a cumbersome version of said trend in an effort to remain relevant in the menu wars. 

I'd really like to see some stricter hitting rules. There are times when I am getting hit over 1.5 seconds later of me getting rid of the puck and no interference call is made. Sometimes, these hits will even injure my player and yet still nothing. Why am I getting punished for making the good hockey play of getting rid of the puck? Either give us the ability to protect ourselves from hits (a brace for impact/reverse hit mechanic but when without the puck), or lower the hitting window to like maybe .5 to .8 seconds. Any more past this and it's too strong for the defense not to "finish their check" every time.

Here is an example I had to describe this. Its only 1.3 seconds later but still this seems like way too much time for the defense to get a free hit and drain your players stamina.
https://youtu.be/JRjkRs1WUM4

Wait I don't get why you'd want Total Control disabled in HUT games. What makes HUT games different than OVP games or Club games? Just because you pay money for cards (LOL) doesn't mean that mode is somehow more "legit." But that's beside the point... the point is that YOU can use Total Control controls as well, right? So there's really no need to disable it. 

I agree with the rest of your post, though. ESPECIALLY the speed-boost hitting. Needs to be GONE.

can we just revert back to NHL 23 hitting and just revamp that minus speed boost hitting.  24's change to hitting was so atrocious i just run into players instead.  Most of them would stumble or fall and I would achieve the goal of a hit minus the horrendous shoulder check move is is more broken than i could have ever imagined it could have been. 

"Funny" story.  My very first BAP game in 24 I got hit via a speed boost hit by the CPU and it threw my player from one end of the ice to the other into the corner boards and injured my player for the entire year.  

I wasn't very impressed as you would have imagined.

More consistency in bodychecking. Hitting guys shoulder to chest and just sliding off three player is extremely annoying.

Big defenseive builds made more viable. At the competitive level, big defensemen just don't exist because they have to keep up with tiny, 95 speed forwards who can turn on a dime. Maybe up raise the max speed of defensive builds.

Fewer EA goals where the goalie makes a save, but the puck bounces around every piece of his equipment before finally going in the net. Also fewer instances where the goalie knocks the puck into the net himself.

More consistency in net battles. Enable defenders to more consistently engage in successful tie ups in front of the net. Make forwards work for their deflections and backdoor goals.

Bring back the high flip. It was nerfed way too hard in NHL 24 specifically to make the pressure system more effective.

Rework hip checks. There's no reason a 5'7" 160 lb player should send a giant defenseman toppling to the ground because he slightly nudged him.

Rework the menus. The menu systems have been so sluggish and tedious to navigate for a long time. There's times where I wanna hop into a game in WoC, but I dread the thought of having to wait 5 minutes just to get to a lobby. I dread accidentally pressing the wrong button because I know I'll have to wait for every single tab and menu to slowly load before I can get back to where I was before.