Interesting little thing in franchise mode that I noticed. I started an original six franchise mode with the Bruins, got a pretty good team going. When playing NHL and Madden I always tend to trade all of my draft picks outside the first round when I'm building up the roster with talent, normally in a 32 team league getting offers for a combination of lower draft picks (i.e. two 3rd rounds for a second) or one better draft pick for the next season (a third in '24 for a second in '23). In a six team league the valuation of draft picks becomes very glitched. Essentially, you can deal any pick within the first four rounds for a first rounder. However, no matter what deal I attempted, I could not get all five draft picks. Chicago was constantly refusing any deal I gave them.
It makes me wonder about what systems are still in the game that we're not aware of, because I get the feeling that a lot of the former features are still coded in the game, but just not apparent. I know in previous games you had relationship values with different teams that shifted based on the quality of your offers. So for example a better deal for the other team increased the relationship between you and the team, while a more insulting offer would make it even more difficult to make deals.
I still get the feeling that (after 13 straight years of playing franchise mode) that the series is more lackluster and stagnate than ever. At this point there should be a number of features, including banner raising (which would change within the arena), detailed and complete record keeping of each player/award/manager/coach (like in NBA 2K), accurate stanley cup finals patches that change year to year, teams either changing their visual designs or moving arenas over time, custom uniform combinations (something done in the mid 00s), the financial aspect actually having an impact on franchise mode, jersey retirements, regular season storylines, rule changes, improved presentation, long-term injuries (and even career ending injuries), NHL combine, improved free agency, and a lot of other minor things. The game is halfway decent, but it just has so much further to go before it can even be competitive in the declining market of sports games.