NHL 21 Franchise Mode Deep Dive

Welcome Franchise fans

We’re excited to tell you about the new additions this year to Franchise Mode. Last year we revamped scouting, added coaching as well as line chemistry. For NHL 21, we wanted to address some community requests that you’ve been sharing with us.

We’ve added an all-new trade deadline experience replicating the frenzy broadcasted across the league every year. Before the trade deadline even begins, you’ll need to reevaluate your team and decide what route your franchise will take heading into the deadline. You’ll have four options to choose from:

Seller

Conservative Seller

Conservative Buyer

Buyer

Your experience within the trade deadline will be shaped by this decision and will influence what kind of trade offers you’ll receive.

Once you enter the Trade Deadline you are officially on the clock! Starting at 6AM(PST) you’ll have until 12PM(PST) to shore up any deals heading into the final stretch of the season. You’ll immediately notice that you’ll be presented with the top players on the trade block. You’ll also be able to see important information about each player like their contract status, trade value, and what the team is looking for in return.

Whenever a trade is made, you’ll be notified via the ticker at the bottom of the screen that will deliver details on every move on trade deadline day.

Just like the real trade deadline, the market value of players will fluctuate as the day goes on and you may see players go on or off the block based on prior trades a team has made.

You can sort by all available players and view each team's moveable assets, the top 10 players still available, players who are “off the market” who teams have decided to keep, and players who have been traded.

Once the clock strikes noon you’ll be presented with every move made and on your way to the back half of the season.

A long requested feature has been the ability to view league and franchise records throughout your seasons as a GM. We’re happy to say we’re introducing an all new Record Book where that will be possible.

The Record Book will allow you to sort through numerous categories including career, season and rookie records in league history.

This includes:

All-time NHL Career Stats

Most Games Played

Most Goalie Games Played

Most Goals

Most Points

Most Assists

Most Wins

Most Shutouts

Most 50 Goals Seasons

100 Points Seasons

All-time NHL Season Stats

Most Games Played

Most Goals

Most Assists

Most Points

Most Shutouts

Most Wins

All-time NHL Rookies Stats

Most Goals

Most Assists

Most Points

Most Wins

Most Shutouts

Franchise Leaders

You can also view each team's current and all-time leaders in Career, Season, Rookie and Game statistics. As your seasons progress you’ll be able to keep track of any players breaking team or league records.

Multiple Positions

We’ve added multiple positions for some players, this will help with lineup generation.

Draft Class quality & Generated Prospect Quality

Two new settings that you can adjust before starting a Franchise Mode have been added.

Firstly, the ability to control draft class quality. This setting controls the frequency of a “Strong” draft class occurring, with highly touted prospects. When set to High, stronger draft classes are generated more often every year.

The second setting we’ve added is Generated Prospect Quality. This setting controls the quality of prospect generated in the NHL Entry Draft every year. When set to High more top end prospects are generated.

Draft Pick Trade Logic

We’ve updated the logic so CPU controlled teams will refrain from putting their draft picks on the trade block early in the season, waiting until their team is more established later in the campaign.

Revamp Trade Value of Players

You’ll notice a greater separation in trade value from player to player. Players like McDavid will have high value and be much harder to acquire. We’ve also adjusted the value of certain positions, centers and defenders will see an increase in overall value while goalies and wingers will have slightly less overall value than previous years.

We are excited about the new additions we’ve added this year. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to see down the line. We’ll continue to listen and act on your feedback.