Yeah I get the unpolished skating engine comment, and it has been fixed. But I kinda liked it, at least in comparison to NHL 12, it was rough, kinda had a sense of realism about it. Having to be careful with the momentum.
Yeah live goalies is back, and goalies are looking real good in general.
There is a manual poke check somewhat. You can swing your stick around and change the angle of it by swinging the
Left stick side to side. Then when you're at the angle you wanna poke you hit the poke check button. I usually prefer just using the stick swinging method alone, you can steal the puck without worrying as much about tripping penalties.