NHL 27: Alumni players wishlist
Here is a timeline of alumni players and alumni teams in the NHL video game.
• NHL 19: EA Sports added alumni players and alumni teams to the game.
• NHL 20: With the exception of the Vegas Golden Knights, EA Sports added an alumni team for every NHL team. In addition, three former NHL teams, the Hartford Whalers, Minnesota North Stars, and Quebec Nordiques, received their own alumni teams.
• NHL 25: EA Sports removed the Arizona Coyotes' alumni team from the game and added the Vegas Golden Knights' alumni team, which is unusually found under the name Vegas Golden Knights Icons.
• EA Sports has added new alumni players to the game annually, but unfortunately, some alumni players have also been removed. Removed players include at least P.K. Subban, Bobby Orr, Guy Lafleur, Pavel Datsyuk, Paul Bissonnette, Cam Neely, Patric Hörnqvist, Tyler Weiman and Wendell Young, and Bobby Hull.
• The alumni teams also feature some players who are still playing in the NHL. These players include Mikael Granlund, Anton Forsberg, Nino Niederreiter, and most of the Vegas Golden Knights team's players.
We currently have a relatively good selection of alumni players in the game, but it would be nice to have Pavel Datsyuk, P.K. Subban, Bobby Orr, Bobby Hull, and Guy Lafleur back in the game. Of course, it would also be good to have new alumni players added to the game, such as:
Goaltenders: Miikka Kiprusoff, Tuukka Rask, Kari Lehtonen, Tommy Salo, Nikolai Khabibulin, Jose Theodore, Tim Thomas, Arturs Irbe, Martin Gerber, and Jonas Hiller.
Defensemen: Kimmo Timonen, Scott Stevens, Brian Rafalski, Doug Wilson, Kevin Hatcher, Andrei Markov, Tomas Kaberle, Mark Streit, Dustin Byfuglien, Roman Hamrlík, Ruslan Salei, and Sandis Ozoliņš.
Forwards: Mikko Koivu, Johan Frantzen, Valtteri Filppula, Andrei & Sergei Kostitsyn, Mikhail Grabovski, Alexander Mogilny, Pavel Bure, Ilya Kovalchuk, Thomas Vanek, Pavol Demitra, Marián Gáborík, Miroslav Šatan, Ziggy Palffy, Tony Amonte, Zach Parise, Paul Kariya and Vincent Lecavalier.
I see that EA Sports could develop this alumni player feature further, here are a few ideas on how.
• Classic Teams: NBA 2K has two types of alumni teams; there are All-Time alumni teams, which could be compared to the NHL team alumni teams in NHL 26, and then there are classic teams. Classic teams are from specific seasons, e.g., '05-'06 Miami Heat, '00-'01 Los Angeles Lakers, and '95-'96 Chicago Bulls. In NHL 27, it would be great to see classic teams such as: Montreal Canadiens '92-'93, Tampa Bay Lightning '03-'04, '06-'07 Anaheim Ducks, '00-'01 Colorado Avalanche, or '63-'64 Toronto Maple Leafs.
• Alumni National Teams: This could be a good addition to the alumni teams. All-Time Finland, All-Time Sweden, All-Time Canada, All-Time USA, All-Time Czechia, All-Time Slovakia, All-Time Russia.
In addition, it would be nice to have the Atlanta Thrashers and Arizona alumni teams back in the game. If licensing issues prevent this from happening with the correct name, then perhaps similarly to how some Serie A teams are in EAFC, with real players but not real team names. The Atlanta Thrashers could be the Atlanta Hockey Club, and the Arizona Coyotes could be the Arizona or Phoenix Hockey Club.
Hopefully EA Sports could add at least some of these players and ideas to NHL 27.
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