To me, the most crucial part and most exciting part of playing through the NHL season are player transactions. With a little creativity and a good strategy, you can make four or five moves that will completely transform a basement dwelling team into a Stanley Cup contender. Don’t get me wrong, rebuilding a team can be difficult but if you pull it off, it’s such a feeling of accomplishment. Now when it comes to player transactions there are three very important days. Day one of the NHL entry which features the first round of NHL prospects, day one of unrestricted free agency where you can bet offers for the most talented players on the market are going to flood in, and finally there is the trade deadline when teams make a last ditch effort to secure the final player(s) that will hopefully bring them the Stanley Cup.

Living in Toronto and watching TSN as much as I do, I’ve probably been spoiled when it comes to these three particularly eventful days. Honestly there’s about as much coverage surrounding “Free Agent Frenzy” and “Trade Deadline Day”, as there is the entire Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer seasons. But spoiled or not, these are three important events if you’re a general manager and I think that they should be treated as such. Last year’s NHL 09 left so much to be desired so here’s what I would hope for sometime in the near future.

For the NHL Entry Draft, there are two things I want. I want to see wild trade offers flying left and right and I want to see more details on the prospects. Having one of the top five positions in the NHL Entry Draft can land you a potential future superstar, but it can also land you several solid roster players today. From time to time, General Managers have been willing to pay through the nose in order to get the first overall pick so why can’t that happen in the game. Rather than have the computer auto-select for the 29 other teams instantly, I’d like to see a one or two minute window for deals to be made even if it’s just something that’s there for the first round only. Doing that for every team and for five rounds would admittedly be too much though because at that point you’re looking at a 2+ hour long draft.

In terms of the actual draft, I want a more detailed idea of who these kids are, what leagues are they coming out of and what kind of season did they have statistically. I love the fact that you have to send out your scouts to gather information in order to have a more accurate idea of what kind of skills these you guns possess, but I want to know more. I think it would be a lot of fun to see this because it would make you feel like you aren’t just drafting some randomly generated player, though that is the case. I know it would be a little difficult because essentially these prospects would be playing a full season in whatever league they’re playing in all the while you’re trudging along through your own 82 game season. It’s a lot of information to process, but you’re going to include players and teams from the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia or the SM-Liiga in Finland then why not have them simulate a season in behind what you’re doing in the NHL so that you can see some of these young kids in action.

Having these additional professional leagues play through their seasons would also benefit the free agency market. If you’re in a situation where you’re looking to bolster some of your talent in a particular area, it can make all the sense in the world to look at some of these other leagues as viable options. Why get into a bidding war or overpay an NHL player when you could find someone with almost the same skill and same play style as what you’re looking for, but for less money. An 86 overall left wing sniper that played in Sweden and wants $2.5 million is more ideal than an 86 overall left wing sniper that played in the NHL and wants between $4-$5 million. Honestly though, I’d be happy just with seeing a smarter and more aggressive AI. When the computer is controlling a team, all they care about is getting the highest overall players available which might make sense in theory, but an eclectic group of talented players will rarely stand up to a team that has been carefully selected to fit in a particular system. Let’s see the computer try and build teams around a specific style of play.

Lastly there is the Trade Deadline. As I mentioned before, this is a particularly important day because it’s the last chance to find that piece of the puzzle your team might be missing. Over the last few years this has been a very exciting and entertaining day because there are always a number of deals being made and some of them are very much a make or break scenario. If I’m playing through a season I want to see the computer make an effort to beat me. I want to see a team that’s fourth or fifth in the conference go after that 89 overall player in an attempt to have a deep run through the playoffs. When I’m the only one looking to make trades, things get boring.

There’s a ton more I’d like to change in the NHL franchise. Anyone who read my piece last week knows how I feel about analog controls and the attempts at realistic gameplay, but in this case I’d settle for enhancements made to the player transactions. At the end of the day, all I want is an AI that’s going to make more trades and be more active in draft selections and contract offers. In my opinion, the most fun I have when I’m playing an NHL game is when I’m building and modifying my team. It takes real creativity to pull off some of these deals and if I see the computer attempting to make deals here and there in order to shape their team and create a particular style of play, it’s going to make things that much more interesting and keep me playing that much longer.