The problem with NHL is that the game is now build toward online (EASHL, HUT, etc) and you can't have long intro and long breaks that will make the game last 50 minutes instead of 30.
For me, they should have an offline way to present the game and another one for online. Make people having the choice to live the experience of a full game with presentation and replays, tv-style intro, etc.
Like I said somewhere else here, the problem with that game is that there's too much in it, and they can't have everything polished as it should be. Not an excuse, but when you have to work on 10-12 different modes, you'll have priorities and will left things without touching them that much.