”That’s jarring next to the comment from James Cybulski and Ray Ferraro as they are defining the game directly (albeit stiffly). Crosby’s beautiful backhand skill is that wicked shot he uses to score. During a showdown between the Blackhawks and the Penguins, she states: “Patrick Kane’s ability in a rope zone is the way he builds the offense. Supposedly a runway side reporter, Carrlyn Bathe is relegated to exaggerating X-Factor’s abilities as if speaking on a promo reel that runs incessantly on GameStop. The biggest problem with NHL 22 is mainly superficial. See also “Deprioritized” Google Stadia to pivot to “Google Stream” white-label service So in that sense, not having news is good news. On the other hand, it doesn’t look dramatically better than NHL 21, as you’d expect from the first game designed to impress on a new generation of consoles. The change is almost invisible, which is something of a triumph when you consider that Madden NFL still hasn’t fully recovered technically after they made the change four years ago. It should be noted that this is the first NHL game to run on the Frostbite engine, which is important to say because you probably wouldn’t know otherwise. Given the almost total lack of penalties, except for the most severe infractions (even with the penalty slider on high), NHL 22 takes steps towards this fantastic style and yet does not fully embrace it. It’s reminiscent of the series’ growing pains in the early 2000s, where arcade-style gaming reigned before giving way to loyalty to royal sports. Now universal in NHL, Madden NFL, and FIFA, these elements break down the simulation aspects that these respective sports brands were previously known for. Decades later, such abilities now evolved into X-Factors, giving certain star players special moves. That innovation was a flashy piece of flashy stick play that made it easy to dodge a defender, at the expense of realism. The NHL 22 pieces feel like a callback to NHL 95, which introduced the spin-o-branch.