I was tooling around with a goalie in free skate (didn't want to subject some possibly really nice people online to my experimenting), and I noticed some of these things too.
To my eyes, although it would need some testing or number crunching, it seems like scoring percentages and high danger scoring chances are way too high for this game to be considered a simulation. I watched a User Goalie get scored on yesterday by a lazy wrister off the rush that was in no way dangerous - it was a save animation I had not seen before where the goalie reaches over to catch the puck cross body. Half way through the animation, it was like the model reset and started to do a blocker save but it was too late. Was that some kind of User input override? I don't know.
If EA wants these games to feel more like hockey, get the Gameplay to feel more like real hockey not arcade hockey. I get it, I'm sure their marketing department is convinced the majority of the player base would cry over 2-1 or 1-0 games being more common place. That's fine for HUT and Eliminator and those other modes... (can you just make it a separate game already?) but for simulation styles?
It seems like if your going to User goalie in this game, you better be mentally prepared to get shelled and that sometimes a great game from you still means you were scored on 4 times. Players if you have a User goalie, firewagon hockey is not the way to go...
