I feel your pain! I'm 2 full seasons into Franchise mode, and the AI can do no wrong. Not one power play for me in 2 seasons. But if you fart in the direction of another player it is a tripping penalty. lol. Turn penalties off, and magically you can't trip someone no matter what you do. Don't even get me started on the joke of the opposing teams goaltender always magically able to stand on his head and make insane saves, while on my end, it is just one after the other soft goals going in. I actually know when I'm going to have a goal scored on me just by how the opposing team is magically able to bounce off any body check, poke check, and still scoring soft goals with my team and their team all in front of the net without hitting a single player. But I shoot pucks off my players, and their players at every turn. Not even a fun game to play casually any longer.
I quit playing online years ago because of the cheats