Why a new release every year?

It doesn't mean you couldn't sell the physical boxed copies as well, you could release a new physical copy every year and that would include the base game + all the rosters & dlc's of the specific year it was bought, the physical version would of course look just like the current NHL games having the year and a cover player in the front.

Obviously that wouldn't justify the full 60-70€ price of a full game but it also doesn't take as many employees since you wouldn't need as much staff to create that meaning EA would probably not lose any money, in fact it would probably sell more since the price would be lower and the end product be better as well.

People that aren't needed to maintain the base game (rosters, face-scanning new athletes, new jerseys logos etc) could be assigned to create the additional content such as new game modes or historic hockey events. 

From the top of my mind:

-Soviet Union era 

-Original Six teams

-Olympics

-World Cup of Hockey/ Canada Cup

-Euro leagues (More in depth than what we currently have, the ability to play in Europe as your be a pro or in franchise mode)

-Different commentators/ presentation stuff

I know a subscription services and are not that found of among gamers but with sports games i think they would be a better option than creating a new game every year, this would allow the dev's to not only to actually fix the problems that they weren't able to fix because they only had 1 year to make the game but also keep adding content all the time. Even if you would succeed at including every single gamemode, jersey, league, team, player, coach, stick, skate etc. etc. New athletes will always come to NHL and thus upgrading to the yearly roster is a must to the majority of players giving EA a steady income. Also gamers that are introduced to the game will get a dlc pack of their favourite team or era or whatever as long as they are advertised well enough and kept updated for the years to come.

Obviously you can't just skip the next few years of releasing sports games but what about starting to develop another NHL game on the side that would take a few years to be completed but it would be a pretty good timing since the next console generation is also probably just 2-5 years away, having an next level NHL game and maybe a FIFA & Madden as well would be perfect launch titles for the next level consoles. 😉