It is so sad that this game could have been much much better than it is...
I am sorry to let everyone know that this year's NHL is just another revision of last year's NHL 07, which was already the revision of NHL 06. If you have ever played NHL 07 or NHL 06, you will notice that every single thing is ported from its previous series; from main menu to in-game rink board advertisement. How bad is it? Well, the game intro is the same, rinks are the same, commentaries are the same, graphic is the same goal ceremonies are the same and goal horns are the same. This year's dynasty mode is again the carbon copy of the last year's dynasty mode, so I don't think there would be any reason to explain how horrible it is here again.
Only things I noticed were slightly better player faces (for instance, Vancouver's Kevin Bieksa gets his own face instead of the generic one...even though he looks horrible...) slightly better penalty calls and slightly improved game play.
Skating seems to be changed a little bit. If you were skating at full speed, it will be little bit harder to control your player compared to the last year's. Penalty calls became a bit realistic as I have already seen officials making calls like Charging, Cross-checking, Roughing, and Interference relatively accurately compared to the last year's. Goalies have improved compared to last year's, in my opinion, even tough they still do allow soft goals from time to time. I have actually played as Vancouver against Calgary, and Luongo allowed 2 goals in 31 shots. Pretty impressive..
However, from consumer's point of view, doing Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V on their source code and making a few changes is not acceptable, especially if you have been doing that for at least 5 years. At this point, there is absolutely no reason for EA to not port the portion of Xbox 360 contents to PC, if not all. For this reason, you shouldn't be spending your money on NHL 08 unless if you are willing to pay $30 for the slight improvement from NHL 07.