Can you honestly blame people for being a bit pessimistic? The AI will definitely play a big part in making or breaking this game for a lot of people, but it's still a bit of a let down to see something that looks like it's playing like a well polished NHL14 instead of a truly next-gen game.
I went into this video hoping to be proven wrong on the things i had thought might happen, but so far my expectations weren't far off. The skating and AI look largely unchanged. The goalies still look like they play the same nonsense game they did before. Is it fair to judge it based off of this tiny clip? Not entirely, but you do take something away from that. If you watched this video on low-res you would be hard-pressed to tell it apart from NHL14 by just watching the way the players move.
That said, there's still time. But, it's a daunting task. People want AI that plays hockey. Personally, i got bored with NHL14 because entering the zone was stupidly easy. I dumped the puck just to do it. Not because i had to. The attacking AI was more of the same. Skate down the wings, get smashed into the boards, stand still, start back skating when i get next to them, repeat. Same for AI players on the rush who would just stop skating at the blue line or the circles instead of crashing the net on a 3-on-1. EA has a lot to prove with 15. They've got the hardware to make amazing AI. They haven't had anywhere close to this level of memory to allocate to the computer running plays, noticing open ice, or creating breakouts. Hopefully they do something with it.
I can get past players that look goofy to me, i can deal with another year of a pretty stale Be A GM experience, but i can't take another year of brain-dead AI who just skate from one place to another, or stand still or run into each other in the zone because there's nothing else they know to do.
I'm still waiting for an actual EA provided video showing the game itself off, instead of 2 guys who are god-awful at hockey playing it, but that doesn't mean i'm not a bit letdown with what i saw beyond their control in this.
:edit:
Also, sliders that really work would be a huge change. If they gave us more slider control, and it made a noticeable difference, that would alleviate a ton of problems.
EA would be better off if they had more creation/sharing. Rosters, slider settings, created players. If we had a vault type system similar to what the show has, people could easily download released roster improvements, players, teams, and sliders, freeing up EA's time to address gameplay issues a slider fix won't deal with.