This marks the first time in awhile that I haven't been disappointed with a sports game.
As a newbie to the series, I had to climb the learning curve through the easiest difficulty, but I found the AI's effort to be lacking. When I really thought about it, however, this made a great deal of sense, giving the "Rookies" to the game a little practice shooting, passing, and maneuvering with an in-game situation. This feature alone allowed me to take my hockey knowledge picked up from watching games and translate it to the game's unique controls. With the development stage in place, all I had to do was flip the difficulty up a notch, and there it was, a challenging, realistic, and entertaining hockey experience.
Pros: Appropriate difficulty stages, Great control scheme, Parallels to reality, Number of game modes, Flow of gameplay, Offers teams outside NHL, 2-player multiplayer, and many options for created players/teams.
Cons: 3- and 4-player offline multiplayer (players off camera too often when position lock is off), over-effectiveness of laying on the ice on defense, some online lag.