No its not pure sim, but its the closest we have when it comes to a next gen hockey title. I'd like more board play and less tape to tape passing like anyone else, but when it comes to AI being a challenge, and controls actually feeling good and intuitive, yes I perfer EA's title this year.
One question for you, do you actually use the create a play feature for breakouts or in the offensive zone? I find that alone, along with just playing good positional defense cuts way down on the AI being able to pick up on your tendencies and exploiting holes in the defense.
Do you ever dump and use a power foward like say for example Lucic to forecheck the cpu AI player going after the puck to create a turnover in the zone for a scoring chance?
Those are just a few examples of why I find 09 more sim, or as sim as its prolly gonna get in the offline game. In 2k's game theres no reason to dump and chase, or even really a reason to be positionally sound defensively because the AI is just going to do the same thing each time down the ice regardless if you have players clogging the slot or not.