"Now that all the teams have shown their new Third Jerseys, it’s time to pass along the code for our gamers who have been patiently waiting to play with them in game.

Here is the code: rwyhafwh6ekyjcmr"
ELECTRONICS CD DVD GAMES PS3 XBOX 360 NHL 10 BLUERAY TV MMORPG MMO ELECTRONIC ARTS LCD PLASMA COMPUTERS

Allow for the puck carrier to move inclose to you, once infront of, beside, whichever direction he is in, nail BOTH directional pads towards the man.

ELECTRONICS CD DVD GAMES PS3 XBOX 360 BLUERAY TV MMORPG MMO ELECTRONIC ARTS LCD PLASMA COMPUTERS

I'd like to extend the tip about camera angle to an advice:

Use the Overhead angle when playing OTP. By pressing the select button you can switch between locking the camera to the puck or to your player.

This way, you can see teammates aswell as opponents behind you. I've been playing a couple of matches now and you immediately see when someone plays with the High or Low camera. Forwards playing with the BAP-camera sucks simply because they don't see that they got the option to send the puck back to the D behind them, when they get challenged or the D is in a better position. Defenders should play with the Broadcast camera, so they can see opponents camping in the neutral zone and get into their defensive position before the puck enters the neutral zone.

When to lock the camera to the player or to the puck depends on what position you play. But as a forward you can pretty much keep the camera locked to the action all the time. As a defender you want to lock to the action when both you and the puck are in the same zone, and to the player when not in the same zone as the puck.

ELECTRONICS CD DVD GAMES PS3 XBOX 360 BLUERAY TV MMORPG MMO ELECTRONIC ARTS LCD PLASMA COMPUTERS

ELECTRONICS CD DVD GAMES PS3 XBOX 360 BLUERAY TV MMORPG MMO ELECTRONIC ARTS LCD PLASMA COMPUTERS

While the CPU is pretty smart this year, the AI of your teammates simply isn't good enough. I've made a couple of plays to ensure that the forwards, who's not carrying the puck, goes for the far post on the rush.The reason I want to do this, is the CPU golies reflexes on onetimers are nothing short of phenomenal this year. So if the LW would just skate towards the middle of the crease for the onetimer, the goalie would make a nice save, no doubt.
Here's an example of a play actually working :)

This is by far the hardest strategy to play against, if you ask me. New Jersey Devils used this strategy with great result when winning the 1995 Stanley Cup. The trap, when combined with obstruction, developed into such an effective defensive system that the NHL implemented new rules during the 2004-05 players lockout. Because it is easier to trap when engaging in obstruction and restraining fouls, such as hooking and holding, the NHL ordered officials to call all obstruction penalties. The NHL also removed the two-line pass rule in an attempt to open up neutral zone play.

So what does it look like?

It's a basic 1-2-2 formation. The center sits at the top of the trap and pressures the puck. When the opponent decides which direction to attack, the two wings and defensemen collapse to that side of the ice, clogging most of the passing lanes.The most recognizable implementation of the trap sees the defense stationing four of their players in the neutral zone and one forechecker in the offensive zone, just inside the oppositions blueline. As the offensive team starts to move up the ice, the forechecker will cut off passing lanes to other offensive players by staying in the middle of the ice, forcing the puck carrier to the outside. The defensive wingers, usually on or near the red line, will then move to challenge the puck carrier, attempting to keep opponents from moving through the neutral zone. Thus forcing the puck carrier to move the puck to the boards. The two defencemen (who are positioned on or near their blue line) and weak side winger will attempt to step into the passing lanes and cause a turnover.



How to do it in NHL 10

Set the forecheck to 1-2-2. Use Puck Side Attack pressure and Staggered or Tight Point as your defensive strategy.

How do you attack it?


If you're able to cross the red line you can use the dump-and-chase strategy. Send the puck into the offensive zone from center ice, forcing the trap team to reverse its course. If you're about to get trapped by the boards, pass the puck back to a defender or, if out of options, use the boards to shoot the puck down into offensive zone.

You might feel like a bore playing dump style, but in order to overcome the trap you need to move your forwards to open ice. Since the AI tends to fuck this up, you need to create a pretty advanced play. I found a post with a strategy here. Of course you could allways try deking your way through, but you will find yourself  outnumbered 2-1 (at least) and if you beat one man with a loose puck deke another will move in and pick up the loose puck most of the time.

Playing my first  NHL 10 online game yesterday I noticed one big change (besides boardplay and fps fights). In NHL 09 cross-ice passes was a low-risk play. They got through way too often and the game pretty much rewarded dangerous passes. With the new 360-degree passing engine you take a big risk attempting cross ice passes. You're better off passing the puck around your opponents or dumping the puck down in the offensive zone. Dump-style hockey is much easier now that you can nail opponents to the board, and thus a high and aggressive forecheck works better than in NHL 09. In NHL 09, clogging the zone around your own blue line, seemed to be the most effective way to regain puck control. But now, when dump and chase hockey is more rewarding, opponents can take advantage of you having all your players, pretty much still, around your red line. At least that's what I think in theory. I have yet to find out if this is actually the case.

I don't like it one bit, but boostpacks are a fact in NHL 10.

Here you can find a complete list och different boosts for xbox.

If you want to read more about it, check out this post.

This one I don't know what to say about. Glitch or not, you decide. From time to time (especially if you have just pulled of the cheap slap shot from close range) you can get a butterfly goalie to do a split just by breaking when you're between the two face off spots. It seems like you have to come in a little from the side, so that the brake make it look like you're taking a shot.

I don't like calling goals for glitches, but yesterday I played a couple of guys who went for this goal constantly. There's definitely something wrong with how the goalie reacts to a close, slapshot from this angle. If done right, the goalie allways leaves the near post and that's just wrong.

Personally I think this is a cheap goal since it pretty much works all the time, if you time it and come in at the right angle.

Another match for those of you wanting to see what I do right and wrong. Feel free to comment.
Personally I think I really need to work on my aim on one-timers. I tend to be too aggressive on the LS. Also I leave the offensive slot too often - it's gotten to be a bad habit, I'm trying to create openings, but I overdo it. Adding to my faults, I make too many risky passes when I try to reach my D's across the ice. This results in dangerous turnovers.

The audio sound terrible at first but a minute or so in it sounds ok.

Oh, and just so you know - I play as Boston.

Can't have too many dekes in your arsenal now, can you?

We're wating for NHL 10. Judging from the demo, the game will be even more authentic this year. I like the addition of board play. This will prevent people (me also) from circling around behind net and by the boards. As for the first person fights, I don't know. I don't find the fighting part that funny, but maybe the boost in energy it will bring to your team, given you take a good fight, adds an interesting tactical element.What do you thing?

Looked at some pictures from the LA Kings Fest, where fans could try the new game. Man, I tell you - you would never have seen cheerleaders if the event had been held in Sweden. That would've been considered sexist. Not that I would've complained, but most women in Sweden would've.

Search volume index for NHL 10, NFL 10 and FIFA 10. Nice to see NHL 10 beating NFL, even though NFL 10 has allready been released. But the addition of FIFA puts NHL and NFL's numbers into perspective.

On August 27th the NHL 10 Demo will be available to download for XBOX LIVE Silver members and for the PLAYSTATION3 at the PLAYSTATION Store.

For XBOX LIVE Gold members, the demo is allready available for download.

This deke is basically a well timed Spinorama interupted halfway through. Hold down Vision Controll (L2,) then you half circle from left down to right, halfway through interupt the animation by taking a shot.

There's a lot of talk about glitch goals - wrap arounds, curve shots etc. Personally I consider any type of goal that you can score IRL not to be a glitch. What do you think?

As far as I'm concerned this is the only real (since it couldn't happen IRL) glitch goal that someone ever scored on me (the guy basically scored on every shot he took, winning 11-1 - man was I mad):

Here's an instructional series from Canadian television:

Think Hockey part 1 - 9

A couple of days ago I played another guy who tried the Pull the goalie stunt on me. Actually he tried it three times and I scored on him every time.I havn't seen the move for a while. The idea is to pull the goalie so that he skates into the player who's moving towards the goal, which automatically results in the player falling. I have never used this strategy and I never will. I think it looks stupid and the guys who tried it on me have only had success with it 20% of the times. I don't know - do you use this move with any success? I mean, I score 8 times out of 10 when someone tries this move on me and on an ordinary breakawy I do NOT score that often.

Saw some nice promos for this years NHL Playoffs. I definitly recognize myself in the Look up promo.

Decided to post another match. This one I end up loosing but I think It's interesting to see the different types of strategy me and my opponent use on defense. He (playing as PHI) is much more aggressive and go for body checks where as I try to minimize my misstakes by allways controlling a D in the slot for pokes and blocks (letting my AI do most of my body checks by using the Tight Point strategy). I think this a good strategy, when playing Tight Point, as the AI is very aggressive and often leaves their positions.

PIT plays Tight Point with Normal Pressure.
PHI (my guess) plays Tight Point and High or Puck Side Pressure.

You can only upload 5 videos to EA Sports World. However, if you're like me, you want to share more videos online. The thing to do is to download the videos and put 'em on youtube, vimeo or some other video-centric social network site. Youtube, at least, has no trouble dealing with flv-files and I don't think other sites have either.

Now, today when I was going to download some of my videos from EA, I couldn't find a download button anymore! I don't know if I'm blind, stupid, both or if EA have disabled this feature - either way, where there's a will there's a way:

Get the code by pressing one of the sharing buttons.



Copy the code.



Open a word processor, paste the code that you copied and search the html-code for the file-info that should look something like this:

file=http://cdn.content.easports.com/media2/nhl09/5044707/
861A0001_1_FLV_VIDEO_jGI.flv

Copy the highlighted part and paste it into your browsers adress field and you'll download your video.

Why? Because on rebounds and passes from your goalie, he'll freeze your AI up and leave them staring at the puck. In fact, if you try to make a pass with your goalie, the puck will be invisible to your AI-controlled players for about one to two seconds. Think about this when the slot is crowded. An experienced opponent will wait like a hyena, about two skater lengths away from your goalie, and steal the puck easy as that! So try to take controll over a player in the slot on rebounds and don't skate away from the puck when the goalie let's go off it.

If you think about it, any situation where the goalie goes for a pass is a 1 on 1 battle for the puck the first 2 seconds, unless you got more human controlled players on your team, in the slot, than your opponent.

Of course, when you're attacking, Mr. Freeze can be your best friend.

This is a trick that I don't use myself but I've played a couple of guys who've pulled it on me. What they do is they pull their goalie (L1 + Select), a yard before I reach the crease on the breakaway. When the goalie leaves his goal my player automatically falls if the goalie skates into him.

If you want to share any of your own tips or if you got a video you want to show off here at eanhl09.blogspot.com, just send a mail with the tip or video to ante.potter@gmail.com and I will post and it and give you the credit.

EA SPORTS World: NHL Top 10 5/18

Here's a vid of an online match I played this evening. I was down by one starting the 3rd period, forechecking 1-2-2 high, with staggered pressure and aggressive attack. I managed to get two early goals, but kept playing aggressive since I felt it helped me controll the match. It worked out pretty well. I lost my positions two times, luckily my opponent didn't score on me. I've made some comments in the clip. Feel free to post your opinions, if you think I should've played differently, or questions if you have any.

Offensive Awareness - Ability to pick up lose pucks
Wrist Shot Accuracy - Obvious
Slap Shot Accuracy - Obvious
Aggression - Good for fighting, nothing much else.
Checking - Bigger hits
Toughness - Fighting mostly
Acceleration - Obvious
Agility - Quick movements, fast turns, etc.
Balance - Ability to not get knocked down.
Defensive Awareness - Ability to make succesful pokechecks and stick checks.
Deflections - Obvious
Deking - Increases your deke speed, ability to fool opponents.
Discipline - The Higher the Disc, the less penalties you take.
Durability - Lower durability means higher likelihood of being injured.
Endurance - How long you can skate without getting tired.
Face-offs - Obvious.
Passing - Obvious, more passing ability, the harder and more accurate your passes are.
Puck Control - Ability to maintain puck control, I have a 99 PC and can shrug off checks and still have the puck.
Shot Blocking - Obvious
Slap Shot Power - Obvious
Speed - Obvious, max you can have is 88 with a dangler.
Wrist Shot Power - Obvious