My In-Depth Player Build for World of Chel in NHL 22

Why did I choose certain attributes over others? I wanted to enhance my play-style.

Hi everyone!

I hope you had the chance to watch the NHL 22 World of Chel Deep Dive. If you haven't seen it yet, here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4Savc2npM

If you have watched it, you will have seen the build I will be using to start NHL 22. I wanted to mix in a bit of my IRL traits, as well as what I find is my strengths when playing NHL. Here are some explanations as to why I chose my zone abilities, superstar abilities, boosts, and attribute readjustments.

To start, I went with a 5'7, 170 pound Center because that is what I am in real hockey. The adult league superstar had to make its way onto the virtual ice!

For my Zone Ability, I chose Third Eye. The Third Eye X-Factor gives you a "large increase to pass assist with exceptional ability to auto saucer passes out of a player's field of vision." I chose this because when I play, I try and make a lot of passes that other players don't typically make. By doing this often, I wanted to use a Zone Ability to give my teammates more accurate passes even if my body was not in the best position to make a pass.

For my Superstar Abilities, I chose the X-Factors of Tape to Tape and Elite Edges. Tape to Tape gives me "advanced power and accuracy on auto saucer and backhand passes within vision." This way, when my body is in a solid position where I can see my teammates with clear vision, my passes are a bit harder and more accurate to help get the puck to my teammates efficiently. With Elite Edges, it gives me "advanced maneuverability with the ability to turn tight corners while retaining high speed." By having this ability, I'll be able to continue to maintain higher speeds while making sharp turns and cuts to separate myself from opposing defenders.

Boosts being a new addition this year in NHL 22, I wanted to continue to add onto my passing abilities because I feel that is one of my strengths in this game. As someone who doesn't shoot the puck too much, I want to be able to best utilize my teammates. Therefore, I chose to add Controlled Passing to give me the +4 boost to passing. I also chose Offensive Timing to give me the +4 boost to Hand-Eye to help me handle tough passes and increase my ability to deflect pucks in front of the net.

For the Technique attributes, it made sense to me to maintain a decent amount of accuracy on my shooting for the times that I do shoot the puck, but my main concern was getting my speed up. Speed is crucial in the game of 6s, and not too many centers play with high speed. By having 92 speed, I had to decrease my wrist and slap shot accuracy to 80 and 77, respectively. Agility also had to be decreased by two points to 83, which I didn't feel was too much.

For the Power attributes, I decided to drop both shot powers by five to 73 for wrist shot, and 74 for slap shot. Again, I don't plan to shoot too much so that was not of my concern. By doing this, it allowed me to increase my acceleration to 92, and puck control to 91. Puck control will be very important for this build because playing only at 5'7, I wanted to keep as much puck control as I can when my opponents are playing the body on me.

For the Playstyle attributes, I maxed out my passing to 99 because that is the main reason for my build; being able to be the distributor. To do this, I had to drop offensive awareness by five points to 85, body checking down to 63, and stick checking to 75. I will very rarely hit with this build, so I am willing to sacrifice my body checking to be able to increase extra points elsewhere. Lastly, I was able to up my defensive awareness to 82, which I think is a happy-medium. Previously, playmaker builds were at times (depending on the traits you used) were a liability in the defensive zone. I feel that being able to up my defensive awareness with this build, I will be able to compete at both ends of the ice.

For my Tenacity attributes, I kept it fairly simple and added three points to my Hand-Eye (now 91 overall), and dropped my strength, durability, and shot blocking by very small amounts (ending with 68, 67, and 76 overall respectively). Hand-eye was of my main concern, because I wanted to give my player the best chances to receive passes, handle one-timers, as well as go for redirections when there is a shot on goal.

The last set of changes I made were in the Tactics attribute section. As a center, I wanted to max out my faceoff overall to give me the best chance to win faceoffs at all times. Therefore, I added five points to get the overall to 90, and had to decrease my discipline and fighting skill to do so. Discipline is not as important to me as it is other players, because I feel I can time my poke checks very well. I don't fight at all, so fighting was not a stat I was worried about. My deking in this category stayed at 83, which is perfect for how I want to play.

This is the build I will be using for NHL 22, and hope to continue to adjust as the season starts. I'm very excited to see all of the builds people are using when the NHL 22 Beta releases tomorrow. Do we think there will be one or two "meta" builds, or will the new customization allow for several different "meta" builds to be available? What do you think?