NHL can be the most excited and fast pace sports games there out there, the quick thinking and on the fly nature of the sport lends itself well to video games. But, being able to compete on the virtual ice at a consistent and high level required certain traits you must master in order to be successful on a consistent basis. Today I’m going to help you out by going over the 3 necessary things you need to be able to take your game to the next level. Let’s begin.
3. ANTICIPATE
You want to be able to anticipate your opponent’s next move while you’re on offense; you always want to be one step ahead of your opponent. You don’t want to be the guy who sees his opponent move one way and then that’s when you decide what to do: it will often be too late to adjust and you’re already lying on the ice.
Being able to anticipate where your opponent is going to go before he does it and counter it will often times leave you free for odd man rushes and free shots at the goalie. You can accomplish this by using your deke moves to get your opponent to attack a puck that isn’t there anymore or getting away from incoming trouble be it from an aggressive defender or them switching to the next player on defense to pick you up.
This is one of the hardest things to get the hang of when your first starting out, but the more you play you’ll be able to get a sixth sense in a way to what’s about to happen next.
2. PROTECT THE PUCK
We need a counter to the ever popular poke check that’s been the go to move in NHL games since well, forever….The manual says hit A to protect the puck. Well, scratch that. You actually want to utilize the right stick on your controller instead. Wherever you hold the right stick is where the puck goes and it allows you to have your backside in effect become a shield against your defender and makes it harder for them to poke check you without committing a penalty on you. So it allows you to make sharp turn around defenders while still being able to maintain the puck or build a wall against him as your charging towards the goalie
1. MASTER THE POKE CHECK
I’ve gotten a bunch of messages over the years whose basic theme is, “all you do is poke check!” Well it works, and it’s your best weapon on defense. EA has made it more risk reward over the years to counter how effective it had become in previous NHL versions which I like.
Being able to master the poke check is tied to being able to attack whoever has the pucks forehand side. Because any damage your opponent can do to you will come from their forehand unless they get close enough to the goalie to pull off a backhand shot, so the puck eventually will be exposed to the forehand before they shoot otherwise.
The added benefit is taking away his forehand really limits what your opponent can do, if he comes inside the defender exposes the puck even more and the chance of losing it goes up because he’s easier to hit, so your basically pushing everything to the sidelines if he wants to maintain puck control.
One of my favorite things to do is after I shoot and my opponent gets the puck, I don’t switch players, but instead I come from behind on whoever has the puck and attack whichever side their forehand is. It accomplishes 2 things; it forces them to rush things because they see somebody coming from behind and it also forces your opponent to play more compacted, because if they do bring the puck out it can be easily stolen. I’ve gotten many pucks on shot attempts using this tactic.
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