“Of course Ultimate Team made it in.”

Internet comment sections were filled with that sentiment once it became clear that NHL 15 would be missing many of its traditional modes and features on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

But much like the Columbus Blue Jackets barely making it into the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs before floundering in the first round, Ultimate Team's mere presence in NHL 15 is the only positive thing that can be said about the latest card-collecting fad.

The mode's present performance deserves no trophy, and certainly won't be bringing any titles back to Electronic Arts' Burnaby studio, except for the infamy of being the worst Ultimate Team experience in sports gaming.
 

Black screen of death

In Online Seasons matchups, once the first intermission concludes, there's about a 50 percent chance that the game will become permanently stuck on a black screen that says “Waiting For User.” The only way to advance past this state is if one of the players decides to quit out and take a “did not finish” loss. Even if you pick up a cheap win because the other guy left the game first, your starting goalie will now be fatigued for the next match, due to a glitch that wrongfully makes your netminder tired after an opponent forfeits an online game.

There simply isn't much point in trying to play Online Seasons mode right now, since it's essentially a coin flip of whether or not you'll make it to the second period without encountering a game-ending, goalie-fatiguing error.
 

Severe lack of content

With Online Seasons being practically unplayable at the moment, that leaves gamers with only one other way to play NHL 15 Ultimate Team: one-off “Solo” exhibition matches against regular hockey teams from the game's existing leagues. There is no way to challenge a friend's fantasy team, compete against a random player's computer-controlled lineup, or sign up for a special tournament, as those three options have all been removed from the game. Unlike Madden NFL 15, which had 10 Hall of Fame athletes waiting to be unlocked the day that Ultimate Team kicked off, there are currently no retired hockey legends in NHL 15. Offline challenges of any kind are also nonexistent -- something that even the much-maligned NBA Live 14 was able to accomplish in its next-gen debut last November.

Buggy auction house and glitchy collection rewards

With no compelling modes to play, gamers don't have much choice right now but to play Ultimate Team's card market and work on strengthening their team. Sadly, the loading speeds between screens and the input registration for every button command are both slower in NHL 15 than I have ever experienced in any other version of Ultimate Team. Basic tasks like changing your lineup (you have to do this manually, since the Lineup Assistant feature was removed) and searching for new cards have become incredibly tedious due to the input delay. If you accidentally queue up more button presses than the game can register, NHL 15 will crash back to the PlayStation 4 home screen. Even if you patiently wait for the game to finish loading between each button press, disconnections from the EA servers remain a frequent interruption. I have lost multiple bidding wars because the game “failed to retrieve data” and kicked me back to the main menu before I could input my next bid. Other auction house oddities include not being able to search for specific players by name (like in FIFA Ultimate Team), not being notified whenever you've been outbid on a card, and items disappearing from your active bid list without showing the final price that they sold for.

If you can tolerate all of those interface issues long enough to complete a few team collections, there's still a good chance that some of your reward packs won't unlock, due to a widespread bug. Some players have finally gotten their missing rewards packs to appear by selling then rebuying the last card in a finished collection, but this has not been a cure-all solution for everyone.
 

Missing players and wrong uniform numbers

Many skaters who've switched teams during the off-season, such as Dany Heatley, Mike Ribeiro, and Evgeny Kuznetsov, are absent from Ultimate Team, despite the fact that they are playable in every other NHL 15 game mode. Even the athletes who did make it into Ultimate Team are often represented incorrectly, as there's a long list of skaters with wrong (and unchangeable) uniform numbers, including big names like Marián Gáborík (#9), Phil Kessel (#18), and Tyler Seguin (#19). Many of these same players had incorrect jerseys in NHL 14.

Another leftover bug from NHL 14 is wingers still lining up at center to take face-offs during 4 vs. 4 situations. For the second straight year, left wingers like Thomas Vanek will end up taking all of your crucial overtime draws, while expert centermen like Paul Gaustad watch helplessly from the bench.

Ultimate Team's poor attention to detail even extends to its crowds, as attending fans will wear a random selection of NHL jerseys instead of sporting the involved teams' sweater sets, like they do in other game modes.

Missing User Teams

In a recent "Team of the Week" update, EA Sports Hockey Ultimate Team users saw their teams and collections wiped out by the new content. EA is attempting a fix but as of the posting of this article, many users still had not seen their teams restored after over 24 hours of waiting. If your team was deleted, EA is advising you to not create a new team -- as it could make restoring your old one more difficult.
 

Save money. Live better. Avoid NHL 15.

Across Canada, where Electronic Arts' NHL series is beloved, the game has already dropped $20 in price within two weeks of its release.

Even at that discounted rate (and after one mediocre content patch), the bug-ridden, bare-bones experience that NHL 15 currently offers is not worth buying -- especially for Ultimate Team fans, who will have a lot more fun this year in Madden NFL 15 or FIFA 15.