I just brought this up in the other BAGM thread. Players don't go up lots during the season, maybe 1 or 2 is the most I've seen, but after the season, somewhere before the start of the next, they can leap up. I saw Murray go from 75 or 76 to 88 after I got him at the trade deadline of season 2. The CPU wanted to put him in the minors because of his overall, but I put him on line 2 of my NHL roster, and he went to 88. Now after his third season overall with me, he won the Norris Trophy, but only went up to 89 OVR. So I don't get it.
The selectively choosing which areas players emphasize was taken out for BAGM in NHL 13. A sad thing to remove in my humble opinion, and I asked this a few times: is it a requirement to take out some features when adding other ones? Do they have limitations or something with total capacity for features, so if they put in GM Connected they have to remove other things, like the player training, like the 3 stars, or the rallies together after a goal?
Anyhow as for players going down, I experienced that for my first time, now that I'm playing authentic teams, not fantasty draft. Yakupov started at like 76 OVR in my first year, went up to 87 in his second year, and then now he went down to 74 at the end of the third. The only players that should be going down are older players past their prime, or players that maybe have been injured so severely that they don't get their previous form back.
There's no reason a young, good player like Yakupov, with 4 1/2 stars potential should go down. He doesn't have his best year each time, but he's still playing and practicing, and should get better even if it's just a little, or stay the same.
Same thing happened with Justin Schultz. Went up about 10 or 12 points to 87 overall after his first year, went to 88 after his second, but now at the start of his third, he's down to 85. I don't think going down is that realistic... that is going down that much. He had a GOOD year! Yakupov did too. Why down OVR?