Improved Animations

I think a few not so difficult animation tweaks would ultimately make some great improvements. Hopefully next gen release for 22 can encompass some of these suggestions:

Net Animations

It may sound really minor, but the physics of how the puck hits the net is not even close to realistic. It feels like whenever a goal is scored, the puck hits a brick wall and drops to the ice. Nets are super stiff in the NHL and that is why goals look so cool. Ideally in my NHL video game, I want to be able to wire shots and have them pop off the net and back out in to the crease. Any game highlights around the league will show the velocity that the pucks come off of the net after a goal. I think it would look really cool if ea sports was to implement improved physics. Again people may think this is super minor, but I think it would make a huge difference.

Celebrations/ Post & Pre Whistle

I have seen a lot of suggestions surrounding this issue from other players and I couldn't agree more. Stanley cup and playoff series wins are as cookie cutter as they could get. Really annoying that they miss the details. Ex) All winning players in the handshakes for rounds 1-3 have their helmets off... That does not happen in the real NHL as that would be the cockiest thing ever. It would be nice to have expanded celebrations in playoffs and the regular season. I am aware that it is difficult and unrealistic to make every game unique, but most games feel the same and lack any excitement. Home opener with full player intros and playoff clinching cely's would be really cool. An optional warm-up would be fun as well where you choose a player on your team and just mess around in a realistic pre-game warm up.

Music

It's just my personal opinion, but I think the music is getting worse and worse. Hard to complain though, as listening to any soundtrack for more than a week will make you lose your mind. I would love to see EA bring back the Arena music manager that they had in NHL 2009. Being able to import music of your choice was awesome. Post-whistle and goal songs were great and could be as realistic as you wanted. They had realistic goal songs a couple years ago but maybe they found the licensing to be too expensive. Importing mp3 cd's onto your xbox is a thing of the past, but I'd be interested if they could work with spotify. Since it is already on both consoles, maybe spotify could link in your accounts playlists? Just trying to fix the goal songs that they have for teams now, because it is pretty bad. Same weird song from 2017 every time - it almost makes me not want to score...

Equipment

Goalie masks are my biggest gripe when it comes to equipment as they stand out as quite an eye sore. I know they cant copy the exact masks due to mask art trademarks but the alternatives typically look terrible. The colors are very dull and almost every cat-eye cage is colored. That makes no sense and looks brutal since almost every good goalie in the league has a white or chrome cat-eye (not black or dark colored). Either do a better job, or set-up a mask creator which I think would be really cool. Being able to make custom pads would be awesome too. Alot of goalie are starting to do custom designs with team logos which obviously arent in the game with the current set-up.