I believe the reason for this is that The Atlanta Spirit Group (the owners of the Thrashers before they sold the franchise to True North Sports and Entertainment of Winnipeg) retained the rights and logos to the Thrashers after the sale. So in essence EA can't put anything in the game without permission from the owners, which is why they can't put many goalies actual masks in the game. The masks that are in the game (Quick, Ward, Scrivens, etc) owned the rights to the artwork and allowed EA to use the images.
Licensing, EA has to get a contract to put any logo, arena, equipment, etc in the game, sometimes the other side refuses to sign a deal so EAs hands are tied at that point
The Atlanta Spirit did retain trademarks when the franchise was sold, however it appears that the National Hockey League currently owns them. Could just be EA being lazy as usual.
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