For me, the best part of hockey has always been storylines. Obviously the game is great, and watching the incredible skill on display is incredible, but a big part of it for me is storylines and passion.
Like for example, when Mats Sundin returned to Toronto this season and scored the game winner on Toskala. Incredible. His reaction, the team's reaction, how perfect it all ended up being was awesome. Things like when Iginla brought his team back onto the ice for Trevor Linden's last game as a Canuck and they did the handshake line. Little things like that make hockey for me, and it's something I hope to see in NHL 10.
I remember playing NHL 07 on my computer and having the camera focus on the player his first game in a new team. Or having the Stanley Cup or conference/division champ banners being raised to the rafters at the beginning of the season. Stuff like that. The big dramatic movies before each playoff series (as old as they did get the ninths or tenth time you played a playoff game), all that dramatic, cinema stuff.
The point of all of that is that is what they need to bring to NHL 10. First person fighting is cool, the board play is cool, the goalie updates are cool. All needed from a gameplay perspective. But the thing that has got me most excited is stuff like superstar players in rivalry games being booed by the opposing fans, or the fans slamming on the glass, people waving towels (should be way more prevelant in Vancouver than anywhere else, but you know). That sort of stuff is what I want to see. I want to see the C of Red in Calgary, or the white out in Pittsburg, and octopus being thrown on the ice in Detroit. It'd be great to see a variation in goal celebrations, especially when a really important one in a key part of a game is scored. It wouldn't be hard to do from a coding standpoint.
It just seems to me, for all the improvements that have been made in the NHL series, there's been a lot of regression on the presentation front, some of which I listed above (didn't mention the Stanley Cup celebration thing which is like 2 minutes long compared to the 4 minute, much better well done one in 07).
Anyway, sorry for the long rambling nature of this post. I never made it far it hockey so I want to live vicariously through video games
(sorry about the weird links, the board won't let me post links with under five posts)
youtube.com/watch?v=6OHahY4xh0U
youtube.com/watch?v=nWHDi9DQg9k
youtube.com/watch?v=VS0TzbggXEg