Okay, after reading through this thread as a primarily NHL-based online player who took over an expansion team, I'd like to add my own thoughts. Many of these are cribbed from notes I took upon reading other people's suggestions. That said, in no particular order:
Fullly-Implemented Online League Play
-There are such crucial things that are not implemented in online play at all, such as trades. There are also really annoying things that aren't implemented, such as the ability of non-commish GMs to hire their own personnel. These really need to be brought into online league play.
-To accomplish the above, some sort of server-based implementation is critical, whether through a central server like you find in a console-based game or P2P, whereby the commissioner acts as the "host" and leaves the game running for player GMs to log in and manage their teams (I've never played EHM, but I understand this is how they implement it). Our league files are 568 mb and growing, which makes advancing through a season agonizing unless its done through huge chunks!
Player Generation and Development
-The scale of how ratings are measured, as well as the talent differential between players, needs to vastly expand. Players in general are too indistinguishable because of the compacted rating system. There also needs to be some understanding of what ratings are needed to be functional within different leagues, and it would be helpful for the color-coding to reflect it relative to each league. What is "replacement level" for speed or acceleration in the NHL, for instance? Surely that is different than the AHL, juniors, or Euro leagues.
-The entire prospect generation system needs to reflect the real-world distribution of talent. As documented in the "drafting Russians" thread as well as others, the draft pool slowly becomes drowned out with European/Russian skaters who ultimately decide not to play in the NHL. There needs to be way more North American prospects, less reticence to play in the NHL, and tools for GMs to determine which prospects ultimately are going to eschew the NHL for the KHL or other Euro leagues.
-Draft prospects, by and large, don't seem to develop into functional NHL players. Too many players develop super high ratings in a few areas but don't develop in any others. I have way too many drafted players who don't develop into functional skaters (with skater ratings of 4-10) or never develop any intangibles at all.
-Players in general regress too far too fast. Humans may have a physical peak at a certain age, but NHL players don't fall off a cliff once they hit 24 or 25 years old. There are way too many players who become decrepit by the time they are 28! That is exactly
the age when NHL metrics show that they are at their peak performance.
-The training system is currently too granular and not granular enough. During the season, players shouldn't not improve or be left to regress just because they don't get personal attention as directed by the GM/coach. They are still practicing and working out. The CBA dictates how much practice time with a team a player can have, but motivated NHL players practice and train on their own or with special trainers at academies like Adam Oates or Gary Roberts. The ratings of position coaches should matter, a player's intangibles should matter, team leadership should matter, and player development could be guided by suggestions that could range from very specific (e.g., the year Crosby dedicated himself on his own to improving his face-off percentage after Pens leadership brought it to his attention) to general, but the whole system of putting points in certain buckets in order to allow a player's ratings to progress in those areas doesn't make sense to me--and often leads to really random results because those buckets comprise of a number of specific ratings. I think this should be largely an organic function based on how a team's structured to allow that player to succeed.
-Right now, the offseason seems like an afterthought. From training camp to prospect development camp to the pre-season, these are opportunities for a lot of development to happen, especially with junior prospects. The NHL pre-season roster rules aren't even in the game to make it easy for GMs to test out players in game situations. These events need to be incorporated into the game in a meaningful way.
-Player happiness is also still problematic, even after being patched. Signing a player to a two-way deal immediately puts them on the NHL roster, which triggers unhappiness when they are "sent down," which would otherwise make sense if the players that were unhappy were in any way viable NHL players. We have to use commissioner re-assignments to help mitigate this.
Storylines and Customization
-Once you pass the point at which recognizable names have all retired from the league, there's nothing really notable about what's happening in the league beyond your own team. It would be great if there were generated league rumors and news that went far beyond signings and injuries. Statistical streaks, the ebb and flow of bitter rivalries, news about players from the year's draft class, how notable prospects from years past are developing, notes from the decline of previously productive players, trade rumors, potential team movement or market expansion, owners selling, etc. would all help keep my attention and make each season less of a grind.
-Additionally, full customization of leagues, with the ability to change league customization options any time (realignment, expansion, rule changes, playoff structure, etc.) would help periodically inject some life once things start getting stale. The ability to have options for these things to happen organically as well would be a nice surprise. Think about how the sudden real possibility of expansion drummed up interest in terms of which players will be protected.
-Part of this also involves international play and being able to follow and root for your players and prospects if they are selected for the Olympics or Worlds. It would be REALLY cool if you could even be invited to GM a team, based on your avatar's nationality. Heck, even being able to watch my players in the all-star game would be fun every so often.
Improved Roster Management and Trade A.I.
-This is well-documented but worth offering another vote for. Right now, teams make way too many curious decisions with seemingly no rationale for their moves.
-I think it's important for teams to more reflect the personality and desires of their owners/GMs. Teams could be in different “modes” that could influence how each GM behaves (i.e., “win now” vs “total rebuild” vs “partial rebuild” vs ???) as well as how other AI GMs interact with each other, including draft-day and deadline trades. Additionally, GMs should be able to view player ability and potential through a “lens” based on what they value (if a player or AI GM values toughness and strength over skill, that should impact how they rate and acquire players).
-I don't know anything about how trades work in this game (see above), but from what I've read, some insight into who might be available and for what price, as well as more dynamic trade negotiations, would go a long way. I also like the idea of customization options that make pulling off trades easier or harder relative to a GM's willingness to make a deal. More trades on draft day and the trade deadline would also help liven up the league at critical times.
Scouting
-Scouting needs to be either more involved or less, with customization options. For instance, what level of variance should be allowed in scouting reports, relative to your staff's ability? Should GMs (both human and A.I.) have to make hard decisions of how to allocate pro and amateur (there should be two) scouting departments' resources, or should there be an easy mode that gives every GM the opportunity to have information about all prospects, based on the amount of adjusted variance?
-Scouting reports give you player ratings and a couple of notes, but what about projections? The notes seem to only be descriptive of what a player's current strengths are, but does that mean anything when the player is 17? I need a better idea of how a player projects to the NHL after development. What are his player comparisons? Right now, it might say "outstanding" or "top" or "good" or "regular" player in one box, but it often means little, with the "outstanding player" turning out to being functionally useless with super high marks in some areas and haplessly low marks in others, though it might be a result of poor development. Hard to say.
-As many people have mentioned, ISS draft rankings are critical.
-Update: There needs to be a mechanism for occasionally unearthing a late-round sleeper (e.g., Datsyuk or St. Louis) and actually making the scouting process feel like there's payoff beyond nitpicking players in the first couple of rounds.
Personnality
-Personnel should have more personality and communicate with you when they think something about your team.
-Scouts should be pushing you to draft players they really love during the draft.
-Position coaches should be giving you some inside information about what's happening at practice--e.g., who is not feeling well or which players are having great chemistry--that might impact line combinations.
-You should be able to hire an assistant GM that prepares reports for you and gives you heads-up about some of the things happening around the league (see: storylines) that are worth monitoring.
Statistics and Reports
-Being able to view play-by-play recaps is completely integral, especially for people who are simming large chunks at a time and want more information about how people are playing beyond the game rating system, which is mysterious and seems to reward stats above all.
-The ability to sort league or team leaders in any number of categories, either by season, all time, any sort of user-directed criteria (e.g., a specific playoff round), would be great. Right now, you can only look at all-time league-wide stats by player last name.
-I believe I mentioned it previously in terms of storylines, but tracking statistical streaks would be great.
-More usable exports would be helpful. Right now, there's too much cross-referencing that needs to happen between the different CSV files.
-Being able to copy text out of the game interface would be very helpful, as would the ability to "find" text within any given screen.
-Match-up screens that show how your team matches up with the opposing team, either in the regular season or prior to a play-off round would be very helpful in terms of how one might want to set tactics or construct their lines.
-Automated depth charts and prospects rankings should be available for all NHL teams, especially one's own.
-Player comparison screens would make free agency, draft, and line construction decisions so much easier, as would better advanced search filters for finding players to begin with (e.g., finding a center with a certain face-off rating and defensive positioning rating to serve as a PK specialist).
-Being able to compare advanced stats between teams would also be helpful.
Between the Lines
-Line matching should be part of tactics. Do I want a specific line or d-pair to be out against the opponent's top line as much as possible? Should I try to avoid another team doing the same to me? This should be possible for coaches.
-Line templates would save so much time. Being able to go right back to a default template after making tweaks due to injury would be great. Or having a template based around subbing for a frequently-injured player would also be a huge help.
Injuries Happen...
-The frequency, type, and severity of injuries needs to be adjusted. There are too many long-term injures of a month or more, and not enough short and medium-term injuries.
Women's Leagues
-The most recent IIHF Women's World Championship Game between US and Canada was one of the most exciting hockey games I've seen in a long time. I think it's time to implement women's leagues in FHM so I can finally sign Hilary Knight!