NHL 27 Connected Franchise Deep Dive

Would be nice to add a feature to sim games or play games against AI. 

This person knows what he's talking about! He's laid out a specific, desired plan of action for EA to adhere to and provided reason and evidence for why the hockey gaming community wants what we want. 

We want more options and realism for this Connected Franchise mode. We're pleading for improvement, yet so far our perception of the mode seems kinda stale. If '27 doesn't deliver, please make sure '28 does. That's a FULL year to perfect what we so strongly desire. 

He listed everything I personally want as well from the GM Connected experience. Give us what we want EA. We'll be loyal to your name if you do!

-Jordan

I’ve been playing EA NHL since NHL 94. That’s 32 years. I’ve bought this game basically every single year. And NHL 27 was the first time in a long time that I was genuinely hyped again. When EA announced Connected Franchise, I thought: Finally. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Then I watched the deep dive. And my excitement disappeared pretty quickly.

This isn’t Connected Franchise. It’s Connected Season Mode. A franchise mode means building and managing an organization over multiple years. Trades. Contracts. Salary cap decisions. Drafts. Free agency. Prospects. CPU-controlled teams. Building a contender, rebuilding a bad team, and watching your league evolve season after season. That’s the entire point of a franchise.

What we’re getting instead appears to be:

Human-controlled teams only. No CPU teams. No real offseason. No contracts. No draft. No long-term progression. One season, then reset. So if five friends create a league, we basically have a five-team season where we keep playing each other. That could actually be fun.

But it isn’t Franchise Mode. That distinction matters because EA used “Connected Franchise” as one of the headline features to market NHL 27 — a mode NHL fans have been asking to get back for roughly a decade. You created enormous expectations with those two words. And then delivered something fundamentally different. Don’t sell us the name of the mode we’ve been asking for if you aren’t bringing back the things that made it a franchise mode in the first place. There IS potential here.

Playing seasons, round robins and playoffs against friends could be great. Commissioner tools are a good idea. Having everyone control their own NHL team could be really fun.

But without CPU teams and long-term franchise management, the replay value seems extremely limited. Most groups of friends don’t have 32 NHL players sitting around waiting to join their league. I might have 4, 5 or 6 friends playing NHL. Fill the other teams with CPU-controlled organizations. Let us trade with them. Give us contracts and salary-cap management.

Give us free agency. Give us the draft. Give us prospects. Give us multiple seasons. Give us the GM part of Connected Franchise.

Otherwise this mode feels like something people will be excited about for a few weeks, play a season or two with their friends, and then abandon. And that’s what frustrates me most as a longtime NHL player.

Because NHL 27 clearly has some great work in it. The visual presentation looks significantly better. The arenas, pregame presentation, broadcast atmosphere and team-specific details look fantastic. Credit where it’s due — that’s probably one of the biggest presentation upgrades this series has seen in years. But those things represent a few minutes surrounding each game.

Replay value comes from what makes me want to play the game again tomorrow. And next month. And six months from now. That’s where NHL continues to struggle.

Connected Franchise could still become something amazing. Maybe NHL 27 is year one and NHL 28 expands it. I genuinely hope so. But for NHL 27, calling this Connected Franchise feels misleading.

I’ve supported this series for more than three decades. I WANT NHL to be great. That’s exactly why this is so frustrating. For the first time in years, the reveal trailer almost had me ready to preorder immediately. The words “Connected Franchise” sold me on NHL 27. The deep dive almost unsold me.

EA, you were finally bringing back one of the most requested modes in NHL history.

You had the puck on your stick and an open net.

And somehow, you missed it.

Another year where the real Franchise mode is ignored?

please please please bring this to Clubs.

Clubs needs Connected Franchise!!!

I know this mode is probably very popular for the online crowd and was requested but why haven't they talked about the gameplay of the game? I myself don't play anything online, what about a huge fan favorite the be a pro mode, has anything changed at all from last year?

This video said nothing that we didn't already know. This should have come out before the playtest IMO.