(Photo by Bill Smith/NHLI via Getty Images)

It’s that time of year again, where EA unveils it’s new cover athletes for this year’s game, and soon announces some of the new changes and innovations to the newest edition of NHL. For this year, a very deserving Cale Makar gets the nod.

As almost exclusively an offline player of EA’s NHL games, I’m not privy to much of the world of online play. I hear some of the complaints, I know there’s bugs, but honestly every time I played it I got killed, so I stray away.

But I am a frequent enjoyer of both the Be A Pro mode and especially the Franchise mode. I love creating an expansion team and building up a roster into a champion. 

However, because I’ve spent a lot of time over the years, I’ve developed a few niche things I would love to see appear in NHL 24. Will they happen? Probably not, because to most people I’m sure most of the things on this list don’t matter that much to people.

Personally, I don’t expect a lot to change at all, but I figured I’d share my niche wish list anyway for NHL 24.

Add An All Star Game

All of my wish list items are applicable to both Be A Pro and Franchise Mode, and we’ll start with the lack of an All Star Game. 

I know in real life the All Star Game isn’t super popular (and some players frequently skip it), and the potential ways to fix or improve on the real All Star Game requires its own article at a later date. 

However, I would personally love to see an All Star Game in the NHL video game. I think it would be fun to play Be A Pro and be good enough to be named an All Star. 

Being able to actually play out an All Star Game would be super fun, and conversely, it would be fun to be a general manager and see which of your players were named an All Star. 

Overall I think it would be a fun and relatively simple addition to the game, and one that I don’t know why EA hasn’t already implemented. 

Use Team’s Real Goal Songs

Yes, I’m aware this would cost money, but don’t sit there and tell me EA can’t afford to make the game more realistic with all the team’s real goal songs. 

As a Penguins fan, I’ll often choose them as a team to play (either as or against, just for fun), and one thing I always notice is that when the Pens score, their goal song is a hodgepodge mess of sounds that don’t resemble the real goal song at all. 

In Expansion Franchise mode, this is of course much less of an issue, since you choose your own new team’s goal song from the list available. But even then, when playing other teams, your opponent’s goal song in their home arena doesn’t match either. 

It’s something that’s bothered me for years, and while yes, it is also minor in terms of the overall game, I think it would be great for teams to have their actual goal song. 

Replace The Silhouette Heads

Stay with me here on this one: when you’re in Franchise Mode, and you’ve simmed/played through enough years to have AI-made players on your roster now, do you notice how they don’t have pictures when you hover over them? 

Now switch to Be A Pro, and when your created player is on a team, let’s just use the Penguins as an example, your player has a generated image of your character in a Penguins jersey. 

Now let’s bring them together, if EA can create that picture for your Be A Pro, why can’t they for the AI generated players? AI generated players have faced when you’re actually on the ice playing, why can’t they have a generated picture? 

It’s something that I feel makes the game more impersonal, a clear sign that once you reach a certain point in the game, these players aren’t real anymore. 

Personally, I’m not sure how easy of a fix that is to do for EVERY AI generated player, but I think if you can do it for Be A Pro, you can fix it in Franchise Mode.

In general, the way I play NHL is rather enjoyable, and to be honest, I don’t have any major complaints. However, these little things I think would enhance the game even further.