Suggestion: Split NHL and EASHL into standalone titles?
Probably a crazy idea here but, what if EA separated NHL and the EASHL into separate games entirely with a smaller, separate team in charge of upkeep on EASHL?
What this solves: With soo many modes crammed into one title, online and offline, everyone wants something different and every year the game seems to only get a small segment focused on for fixing or improving; Which, leaves large parts of the community dissatisfied with little to no changes on the parts that they play and thus the constant tanked reviews/ratings; Not to say this discouragingly to the EA staff as they obviously have time restraints with the changing of NHL seasons and staying current.
Since WOC/EASHL modes don't depend on NHL rosters, player specific AI changes, or real world NHL season changes at all, an EASHL game could be released once and just updated with fixes or adjustments as the main updates but then release new customization options for purchase to keep the money flowing in. Think like a Rocket league or several other games with the online gameplay focused model.
With the EASHL off of the NHL game development team's back, they would focus on a smaller group of modes from year to year so, quality control would be improved for the NHL game overall as there would be more dedication to the core modes for THAT title entirely rather than small portions getting focused on.
i have a million ideas with this to make it work for both titles to be successful but, since i doubt this would ever become reality, ill just leave it here as an interesting discussion topic.