EA SPORTS NHL 25 Franchise Mode Deep Dive Blog

In this blog post, we will detail NHL 25’s updated Franchise Mode, looking at what's new and how community feedback has helped shape some notable changes. 

From streamlining the Franchise Mode Hub to enhanced scenarios such as contract clauses and revamped player/coach conversations, Chel continues to innovate and deliver a more authentic experience on and off the ice. 

Let’s jump into the details of the major updates coming to this year’s Franchise Mode:

A NEW FRANCHISE HUB

The Franchise Hub has been transformed, giving players easier access to relevant info and stats.

Quick Links - Useful activities are now more accessible, from simply advancing the day to stats central and scouting, all the Franchise-focused actions that need to be done regularly are here at your fingertips.

Widgets - Ahead of each game you’ll be presented with various stats, including team point leaders, goals per game, powerplay percentage, and more for each franchise. You’ll also be able to view your team leaders directly through the revamped hub at any point in the season.

The entire league can now be viewed at a glance through the hub which includes division standings to point leaders, giving you up-to-date info on how players and teams are performing throughout the year.

Lastly, a ticker at the bottom of the Franchise Hub screen will present information just like you would experience during the trade deadline.

BOX SCORES, GAME LOGS, STATS AND AWARD TRACKING

Box Scores

The long-requested ability to view box scores from previous matches has arrived in NHL 25. All played within that respective season, from pre-season to regular and post-season can now be viewed at any time.

When viewing a game, you can sort through all the events that happened within it, individual player stats for each team, and the three stars.

Game Logs

New to NHL 25 are game logs for each player. These will allow you to view a multitude of information from the players’ performance in each game. From goals and assists to time on ice and shooting percentage, you’ll now be able to better dissect how players are operating on your team.

Split Stats

Split stats surface even more insight into each player through various split types, including player details on matchups within their division, a particular month, or even each NHL team.

Award Tracking

Players can now also view the entire awards history for every player in the league within their player card. From early in their career to future awards won within your franchise mode, you’ll have an extensive history of a player's accomplishments.

NEGOTIATIONS AND CONTRACTS

Negotiations and contracts have undergone a significant overhaul, making the signing process more authentic. New factors now come into play when trying to sign a player and are no longer solely dependent on contract length and salary.

New Contract and Organization bars display a player’s motivation for joining your team based on factors such as team status and market size. Every single player has a Contract Interest Bar and an Organization Interest Bar, and these will now dictate whether or not a player will want to sign with your team. If a player has a very low Organization bar, you can promise such things as playing on the first line to any player to bump up your contract offer and bump up your organization's interests as well. 

To add an extra layer of authenticity, players may request clauses as a part of their contract such as no-movement clauses, no-trade clauses, and modified no-trade clauses. Clause structures can also be modified between the duration of the contract as well as the number of teams they’d be willing to be traded to.

CONVERSATION SYSTEM

The Conversation System allows for assigning both short-term and long-term objectives. These objectives range from seasonal objectives that can enhance attributes or X-Factor development to short-term aims that can yield immediate results or eventually lead to winning NHL awards.  These objectives will also allow for more control in improving a player throughout the year. One more thing to mention when choosing your objectives, the younger the player, the easier it will be for them to strive towards and reach that objective. Younger players are much more likely to take your advice under consideration as opposed to old vets who are stuck in their ways.

During the offseason, coaches can focus on a specific area of a player's game to seek improvement on the ice. This now extends to position changes and playstyles. However, be prepared for a player who may reject the request; this will result in a cool-down period where you’ll have to wait before you can ask the player to change their position or play style.

• Here’s an example of how the new Conversation System works when negotiating a contract:
  • Say you have a player you want in your Organization, but they are currently refusing to sign with you. You can persuade that player by starting a conversation and performing certain actions to potentially win them over. 
  • At the beginning of the conversation, you will have the option to charm the player, which if successful, gives you better odds when you’re trying to persuade the player into joining your organization. 
  • If you’ve managed to win them over so far, you can start contract talks by pitching them on your organization’s market size and team status to persuade them to join your organization instead of playing in a smaller market. Persuading a player to join your organization is inherently harder when the player has other offers on the table and having these conversations does carry risk: If the conversations aren’t going the right way, it may dissuade the player from joining, but if you manage to navigate the conversations just right you’ll persuade that player to potentially join your team, moving you one step closer to negotiating their contract.
  • The first part of the contract negotiations is the number of years the player wants to sign for. Yyou can select how many years to sign that player for and they may or may not accept. So if you do select one year or two years, they may say, “I'm not interested in that” and just end the conversation there; but, if you select four years, they mightstart negotiating. Selecting the Negotiate option will allow you to make a more team-friendly deal. This is where the Organization bar comes into play, the higher the Organization bar, the more likely you can negotiate a player down in salary and you can also improve the contract offer by offering extra money, clauses, and promises to your contract offer.
  • You can also table the contract offer as well. So, if you think you've negotiated a deal with the player to a point where you feel good about it but you want to try out and sign another player just in case, you can table the deal. There is a risk to tabling the offer though: another team could step in and offer a contract to the player that you are negotiating with and they may sign with that team. That’s one of the major risk/reward aspects during contract negotiations.

There you have it, you’ve negotiated with a player who did not want to have anything to do with your organization now stepping on the ice with your team for multiple years all done through the power of the new Conversation System. 

Our aim with the new Conversation System was to make every conversation feel important and have a meaningful impact on your team. So gone are the ice-time conversations where players are complaining about things. It's now a more proactive system where you are assigning players' goals or trying to make that player better or try to fit into your system as you need to.

ROSTER MANAGEMENT, PLAYER MOVEMENT AND MORE

There are also improvements to roster management. By talking with the Head Coach from the Coaching Staff screen, through the Franchise HUB, or by selecting Edit Lines -> Y/Triangle for Strategies -> R3 for Coach Info, you can set the preferred lines and lock players into specific roles, allowing for a more seamless process; for example, players returning from injury can easily shift back into your lineup without going through the old process of replacing them in every line slot.

Speaking of roster management, another feature that was added to help the roster-sharing community was the addition of draft picks to the player movement screen. 

You're now able to trade five years' worth of draft picks from the player movement screen to keep up with the current real-world roster. As you wait for the latest NHL 25 roster update you'll be able to make the adjustments to the roster yourself, upload them to Roster Sharing, and have others download the rosters with the new draft picks.

Finally, we wanted to mention some of the smaller additions and details we’ve added to Chel’s Franchise Mode this year:

• Elite potential prospects into the draft so that you can refresh your player pool as your league gets into the later years.
• CPU teams target extensions and free agents based on team need, the player's organization's interest in their team, and salary cap space available.

There are many more Franchise Mode details that you check in the EA SPORTS NHL 25 Franchise Mode Deep Dive video.

Thank you so much for checking out the EA SPORTS NHL 25 Franchise Deep Dive Blog. Early access for NHL 25 begins on September 27th, pre-order the Deluxe Edition now to get on the ice early and stay tuned for details on the various gameplay modes and more.

EA SPORTS NHL 25 will be available worldwide on Oct. 4, for PlayStation®5 and Xbox Series X|S. Get seven days early access starting on September 27 with the pre-order of the Deluxe Edition. Stay in the conversation by following NHL 25 on Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube.