A Statistical Analysis

[AdamJones113]

Remember when the NHL was big on offense? Remember when Sid the Kid scored 120 points and Joe Thornton had 92 assists in 2006-07? Remember when Thornton (125 points) and Jaromir Jagr (123) led the league with around 1.5 points per game in 05-06?

Here is a list of the top two point-scorers for the past ten seasons, along with the total number of 100-point scorers included in parenthesis on the right side (excluded is 2012-13, due to the lockout and 48-game season).

(3.08) 2005-2006 (7)
125—Joe Thornton (BOS/SJ); 123—Jaromir Jagr (NYR)

(2.95) 2006-2007 (7)
120—Sidney Crosby (PIT); 114—Joe Thornton (SJ)

(2.78) 2007-2008 (2)
112—Alexander Ovechkin (WSH); 106—Evgeni Malkin (PIT)

(2.91) 2008-2009 (3)
113—Evgeni Malkin (PIT); 110—Alexander Ovechkin (WSH)

(2.84) 2009-2010 (4)
112—Henrik Sedin (VAN); 109—Sidney Crosby (PIT)/Alexander Ovechkin (WSH)

(2.79) 2010-2011 (1)
104—Daniel Sedin (VAN); 99—Martin St. Louis (TB)

(2.73) 2011-2012 (1)
109—Evgeni Malkin (PIT); 97—Steven Stamkos (TB)

(2.74) 2013-2014 (1)
104—Sidney Crosby (PIT); 87—Ryan Getzlaf (ANA)

Note: Martin St. Louis scored 60 points in 48 games in 2012-2013, putting him on pace for 102, but one must take into account injuries and other missed time.

With 7 100-point scorers in our first two years, those are more than the total for all the other years combined—14-13. The past three seasons (four years) have had 1 100-point scorer apiece, with the most recent year having only 1 player score more than 90. Clearly offense is trending down in the NHL, so why does EA persist in championing offense? (OK, OK, we all know why, but consider the question rhetorical.)

Notice those numbers in parenthesis on the left side? Yeah, those are averages for team goals per game. They're declining: 2013-14's 2.74 is .34 lower than 2005-06's 3.08. And we're not even counting the earlier seasons, with Crosby, Lemieux, and Selanne racking up the points (see: 1992-93, Selanne's 76-goal rookie campaign, where the league saw 3.63 average team goals per game). Let's talk goalies. The top 5 average save percentage team seasons are the last 5 years.

Offense? Down. EA Offense? Up. EA Realism? No.

[LeafsFan90]

well the short answer obviously is they know people like offense so lets get that argument out of the way right away

i will say its not always like that in a season... i started one with the preds... at the end of year one the leading scorer was stamkos with 91 pts and only crosby and ovechkin were the other players above a point per game

also the whole high/low offense is a trend that goes up and down so there is always the possibility if they had revamped the whole game to be lower scoring like it is now, this season could of been flipped and had multiple 100pt players and people would say the game is too low scoring

[bigwill33]

Dangle, deke, snipe, celly, bro. EA hockey... it's in the game!

[speels]

Wait a second, the NHL is doing everything it can to get scoring up BECAUSE OFFENSE SELLS, maybe the NHL needs to start watching EA hockey games to figure out how to average 8 goals per game.

Homeruns sell more tickets than no hitters, touchdowns sell more tickets than defensive stops, and have you ever seen a basketball game be 60-59???? Boring!!!!!!

Like I said before, offense sells games, so why wouldn't you want to have a high scoring, fast paced game. I mean hell, if I wanted to see a pilon lose the puck every time he tried a fancy deke, I'd setup the Ipad in my backyard rink for 20 minutes a day.

Don't get me wrong, I side with realism, but the average gamers, or "people who spend stupid amounts of money", don't.

[Simple Mathematics]

Quote: Originally Posted by speels

Wait a second, the NHL is doing everything it can to get scoring up BECAUSE OFFENSE SELLS, maybe the NHL needs to start watching EA hockey games to figure out how to average 8 goals per game. Homeruns sell more tickets than no hitters, touchdowns sell more tickets than defensive stops, and have you ever seen a basketball game be 60-59???? Boring!!!!!! Like I said before, offense sells games, so why wouldn't you want to have a high scoring, fast paced game. I mean hell, if I wanted to see a pilon lose the puck every time he tried a fancy deke, I'd setup the Ipad in my backyard rink for 20 minutes a day. Don't get me wrong, I side with realism, but the average gamers, or "people who spend stupid amounts of money", don't.

If anybody wants a game like that they shouldn't be buying a game that is called "NHL". EA also claims that they are producing a sim game, which they are not if they provide high scoring games.

[LeafsFan90]

Quote: Originally Posted by Simple Mathematics

If anybody wants a game like that they shouldn't be buying a game that is called "NHL". EA also claims that they are producing a sim game, which they are not if they provide high scoring games.

but with sliders you can pretty much make the game any way you want it

[Simple Mathematics]

Quote: Originally Posted by LeafsFan90

but with sliders you can pretty much make the game any way you want it

Which slider increases physicality, decreases big hits, improves goalies, creates realistic powerplay and penalty killing scenarios and cycles, and gives more options for defending? I'm still looking for those sliders.

[canucksss]

1. Player separation - for goodness sakes if you could give ratings below 70's to AHL players, and 60's to Euro players...why not do this in NHL players. We need to see bigger gaps between line 1 and line 4 Forwards and D1 and D3 defence.

2. Sliders that work - I would love if EA would explain each of the sliders, perhaps they dont know what its good for....duh!

3. Slider that is not limited to 6 notches - why not make it minimum of 20 clicks instead of miserable 6 or 4 sheeze!

I am talking about BaGM offline here. IMO, if these three will be implemented, I am very sure we can have and excellent game if not very much close to the actual NHL.