Yep but the hit progamming must now take into account the direction the player is facing, whether it's a legitimate puck battle, distance from the puck, how many steps the checker is taking towards the checkee etc... otherwise we *would* see legitimate checking from behind, interference, charging and boarding penalties on a regular basis.
So either the system behind the scenes has nerfed all of those checks in the last few years and allows the CPU to hit as it pleases or the CPU only delivers hits that wouldn't fall foul of refereeing in an actual NHL game.
I would certainly say that interference is often overlooked by the CPU refs so I think it's the former.