I have found the game to be much more enjoyable if you focus on (on All-Star, being comfortable in Pro mode) these crucial sliders...
Checking: Lowering the AI poke check accuracy by 8-10 points, poke checking power by 10-15 points and stick lift effectiveness by 10-15 points. Then they're not gods on defense, only much better than you and your teammates.
Shooting: Then you increase your wrist shot and slap shot accuracy by 10-15 points (you actually hit what you aim at more often). I don't bother with the one timer, I never ever hit those anyway. If you do, do the same here, 10-15 points.
Skating: Increase your speed and acceleration by 5 points compared to the computer (then they don't magically always burst past you disregardless of how fast they actually are). It's more even.
Then you ease your way into learning how to play with a team with collective Downs syndrome. Once you learn how to keep away from all AI players and find your spots and cycling moves, you start learning how to play on your difficulty by easing up the sliders back to original settings by about 3-5 points each step when you feel more comfortable.
I can now play on All-Star settings when I originally wanted to throw the controller out the window. My team is actually helping me in scoring and we're actually battling for a playoff spot. I'm half a season in and these settings saved the game for me.
The career mode is still horrendeously bad compared to anything else, but it's all we got and I love this play mode and I love hockey. I feel like a masochist trying to make this work. **** you EA for completely neglecting this play mode for 6 years or so.
Last game I had to quit and simulate the game, because the KeyBank Center logo was right in my face whenever I entered the offensive zone. Thank you EA. Yes, I play on classic view because I actually want to see where the heck my teammates are (even though you often can't see your defensemen at the blue line and once and then when you feed it back to them in the offensive zone, they've gone off for a line change. Or, they just refuse to receive your pass and look like Bambi on ice).
The flow of the game is good, scoring feels great, goalies move more natuarally and that's great. But the exp system is laughably bad (have they even thought it out in their own minds, I don't even bother to ask if they playtested it), you still get a ton of goals against automatically by just stepping on the ice and EA's definition of difficulty is "your robotic team is bad, your opponents play great(er)". And yeah, your line is still being 90% of the team in Be A Pro mode, still 6 years later. Great.
Seriously, the AI for the EA games is laughable and I don't think they've improved it in 10 years. If they've tried to do so, I've not noticed any improvements whatsoever. It's still the same and they still try to mask how bad and robotic it is in the same ways. It's just more aggressive and obnoxious, yet still as positionally robotic, regardless of how good the player in hand actually is. Crosby or Kane will still be as extremely predictable as Dominic Moore on the 4th line. Yes, the AI defense is much better and their offense is just as ridiculous as it has always been (the Soviet teams in the 80s would look in shame at the AI passing game).
I was drafted by Colorado in the 16th round after winning the CHL scoring race by a mile on Pro, am now ranked 87 in NHL on All-Star and play center between Landeskog and MacKinnon. I'm comfortably leading the league in points (42G, 50A in 45GP, +20, 58PIM, a **** ton of turnovers, 168 hits and about a 12% shooting percentage). The team has barely crept up in 8th place in the western standings. I'm about 45 games into my first NHL season. I've played almost every game, and yes, the NHL simulation engine is horrible. I could do a better job with 150 lines of code and I'm not even kidding. I bet their randomization engine doesn't even have any normal distribution.
Your faceoff, stamina and offensive awareness ratings will reach 99 in no time. So will your wrist shot accuracy. Your skating, endurance and other key settings will take forever, whatever you do. Just an awful, extremely broken exp system that they even recycled(!!!) several games in a row now.
You're basically forced to put all your exp in power skating and agility/ balance. Yes, soo much of a "choice" in this and the occasional point in sprints to not let your endurance sink too low, when you get a big hit on you once or twice every game, pretty much regardless of how you move on All-Star.
Yes you can. If you've played the game, you know exactly which areas I - and other people - mean where nothing has changed, and in which areas it has actually gotten worse. It's not mutually exclusive, because both statements are not hollistic statements, they are separate statements concering separate areas.
The flow of the game itself is obviously better, but the Be a Pro mode? They're not even trying. It's a locked position on one player where they have just scaled down the option of doing - or viewing - anything to an absolute bare minimum. It's just like playing the game in safe mode, nothing else.
It's much worse than 5 years ago, as an example, and even then it was bad. In franchise mode, you can even price the seats and invest in hot dog stands. What choices do you have in Be a Pro Mode? Do you want to sim or play the next game to infinity? You can't even check the standings in the NHL when you play in CHL (not that it matters, as it's basically impossible to be picked 1st anyway). You can barely check the injuries of teammates for crying out loud! You can't interact with anyone, you can't check anything (not even opposing teams' lines), everything has gotten from minimum to laughable. To top it off, their simulation engine for AI games is still crap.
As previously mentioned, check out the career mode in the 2K NBA games. 4-5 years ago, they were infinitely better than EA has ever even been close to. They're not even on the same planet. It's an insult to 2K to compare the games in this mode. I don't even like basketball and I still bought their games because of their actual career mode.
2K: Actual practices, an actual draft, conversations with your agent, life choices affecting things, interviews with the media, talks with the GM, talks with the coach, talks with opponents, talks with rivals, talks with teammates, choosing sponsors, etc, etc, on and on and on... always improving, year after year. Always a new angle, always a new story. It's very well done.
EA: "Do you want to sim or play the next game?". Shoot me.
Until EA actually cares about the career mode, I'm done with them. It's like EA has designed the career mode in the same standard as the NHL.com website: for a four year old with a smart phone.