looks pretty meh. happy to see some emphasis on hitting. EA never seems to have equal amounts of offensive tools vs defensive tools to make the game fun/rewarding in all 3 zones. I have another bad feeling that they'll tone down poke checks, and we'll see more and more puck going thru sticks again.
My main beef with EAs nhl games is that the puck is basically glued to the player's stick. If it were an entity in itself, that the puck would be loose, and easier to lose as a players bumped, or by other sticks, etc. Similar to Fifa, where the ball is loose, and side by side player's jostling are both fighting for possession. i don't think they get there until the next generation console unfortunately.
I have a bad feeling this will be an extremely small delta release, with much of the dev cycles pushing the next gen. version. I would be ok with that, as long as the next gen game is head and shoulders above what we have now.