Of course you can place them on the front line in the minors in order for them to progress a bit quicker. This is another wonderful part of this mode – player progression actually works—particularly the age model. So many games screw this up and it’s refreshing to see it work here; it gives franchise mode amazing legs. Player ratings fluctuate during the year and you can clearly see age taking its toll on players in their mid to upper thirties. Federov, for example, started a season in Columbus as an 83 overall center and finished the year as a 76 rated center, who wasn’t quite as nimble and had lost a lot of endurance. This is how it should be – other games retire players solely off of age, but here it’s a ratings thing. You won’t see a player hang it up if they can still perform at a high level.

There are a few downsides to franchise, though. You need to turn off CPU to CPU trades or the game has a tendency to freeze up. (You can make trades, but the CPU will not trade with itself). Also, never, ever, let the CPU auto adjust your roster unless you want players placed on waivers that you didn’t want to see leave the club. Always do things manually.

There’s no question that the new control scheme is going to turn off a lot of people because it’s anything but intuitive. However, there is a fun game of hockey underneath the (at first) awkward setup. It’s still an arcade game, no question about it; this is not a pure simulation of the sport, because of the over the top hitting and offensive AI, but as arcade hockey games go, this one’s a winner.