What's New in HLM27

What’s New in HLM27

HLM27 adds academic leagues, recruiting, post-season tournaments, trade trees, more History Mode starts, minor-team careers, achievements, new league controls, redesigned mobile navigation, and simulation improvements. This page covers the complete published feature reveal, grouped by the part of the game each change affects.

Major additions

Academic leagues and recruiting

Six academic leagues are included in the default roster, and custom leagues can use the new Academic league type.
Academic contracts have no salary and use Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior terms.
Maximum academic eligibility age controls when prior play in another league makes a player ineligible.
A released player loses academic eligibility and cannot join another academic league. A player also becomes ineligible when their academic contract expires.
Players may leave before their commitment ends for another opportunity. A drafted player under an academic contract can accept an offer from the team holding their rights and leave college.
Academic teams have an editable Prestige rating from 0 to 99. It affects recruiting, changes with results, and appears on team and ranking pages.
Recruitment Day provides the signing event for academic teams.
Managers receive an inbox message when a player leaves their academic program.
Country pages gain a College tab listing academic leagues, ranking their teams by prestige, ranking their players, and showing a weekly national poll with movement.

Post-season tournaments

Junior and academic leagues can participate in post-season tournaments.
The junior tournament uses three league champions and a host team. A round robin determines the standings; second and third meet in a semifinal, and that winner faces first place in the final.
The academic tournament includes each conference playoff winner.
Tournament pages show player leaders, included leagues, the host, bracket, past winners, schedule, and standings.
Team pages count tournament wins, while participating league pages receive a tournament section.
Inbox messages announce the beginning and end of a tournament.
The tournament editor can change its logo, name, and color.

Trade trees

Every player trade can open a trade tree showing the connected transactions.
The default roster includes trade history beginning in 1920.

Expanded History Mode

New starts are available for 1930, 1950, 1965, 1975, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2003, 2014, 2016, and 2025.
Salary caps follow their historical values.
Maximum contract length is 18 years before 2013, eight years before 2026, and seven years from 2026 onward.
History Mode careers can contain multiple minor leagues.

Minor-team management

A minor league can be disabled without also disabling the league beneath it.
Careers can begin with the user managing a minor team, and those teams receive career objectives.
Minor-team managers can access contracts and free agency, offer contracts to free agents, and trade eligible players.
Players loaned by the manager’s major affiliate cannot be traded. Players signed by the minor team and players loaned by unrelated teams can be traded.
The roster editor can assign players to a minor team and give them minor-team contracts.
AI-controlled minor teams sign players to minor-team contracts.

Leagues, careers, and team rules

League configuration

Set the maximum seasons a player may spend in a league.
Set when the final regular-season game occurs.
Choose the league from which another league drafts.
Allow underage players, then set both the number allowed and their minimum age.
Configure the points system separately for each league.
Force a league to run active AI tasks such as trades, staff changes, scouting, training, and jersey retirement.
Set each league’s maximum contract length.
All-Star Games can take place in every league.
Minor teams are no longer tied directly to leagues.
League pages can display past playoff brackets.

Promotion and relegation

Managers in a simulation league can move through the teams and leagues involved in promotion or relegation from the updated team selector.
A team cannot enter a league containing one of its major or minor affiliates.

New Career and Active Leagues

Active leagues are grouped by continent and can be toggled individually, by continent, or all at once.
Estimated performance shows an estimated simulation speed and player count before the career begins and from Settings.
Created draft-eligible players can be ignored when starting a career.
Pre-existing injuries can be disabled for a new career.

Transactions, contracts, and scouting

Trades

During a trade, a player can be asked to waive their contract clause.
Non-contending teams place less value on first-round picks three or more years away.
Pick Swap can be enabled as a conditional-pick condition.
During the draft, Trade Finder shows the pick number.
Trade History returns every trade matching the filters instead of stopping at 50 and loads more quickly.

Contracts and salary cap

Contract negotiations can take a team up to 10% over the cap during the off-season.
The negotiation popup can switch between the major team and its minor teams.
Every league receives a contract-extension period alongside the major league’s period.
The offer page shows the player’s contract status at expiry.
The standard maximum contract length is seven years.
HLM27 adds a playoff salary cap.
A setting can define the following season’s salary cap.
Salary cap rules can be disabled after a career begins, but cannot be enabled again in that career.

Free agency

The list adds an age filter, nationality flags, and nationality filters.

Draft, lottery, and scouting

Limit the draft-eligible pool from 300 to 750 players, leave it unlimited, or use the default of 350.
A scout who reaches tier 5 on a player automatically moves to another player.
Scout top available assigns scouts manually from the best available prospects.
Prospect pages can show player statistics through a filter.
Lottery results add protected-pick details. When protection applies, the result shows the original owner rather than the conditional owner.

Staff, lineups, and players

Staff

Fire the full staff at once from the staff page.
The staff salary cap increases each season.
Staff can be disabled for an entire career.
Force sign staff can be configured.
Created staff can be filtered by name and role.
Leagues outside the major league can create non-coaching staff roles.
Staff entries can be linked to their former player profile.

Lineups, roster moves, and training

Any three players can be scratched, including goalies; scratches are no longer restricted to two forwards and one defenseman.
Switching teams on the lineup page is faster.
Roster Moves adds potential information.
Players can be assigned to faceoff training.

Players and progression

Generated players in junior, academic, and custom leagues can be traded, extended, signed by teams in other leagues, and retained across seasons. Their ages, overalls, potentials, and motivations cover a wider range.
The previous temporary generated players remain available to fill empty roster spots, but the persistent generated players fill most openings in new careers.
Free agents below 75 overall retire automatically after two seasons without playing a game.
Player size increases less frequently.
Players can have a childhood team, increasing their interest in signing there.
Potential labels distinguish forwards and defensemen: Top 6 F, Top 6 D, Top 4 D, and Top 9 F.
Two national name databases were updated.

Achievements, awards, and history

Achievements

HLM27 adds achievements across five groups:

Career and longevity: It Starts With One, Just Getting Started, Still Here, Franchise Legend, Immortal GM, and One Team, One Love.
Success and failure: Hot Streak, Champions, Dynasty, Back-to-Back, Homegrown, Trust the Process, So Close…, Collapse, and Perpetual Rebuild.
Contracts: Paying for Memories, One Last Ride, Dead Money, Locked In, and I Can Fix Him.
Trades: Weaponized Contract, No Trade? No Problem, Blockbuster, Who Approved This?, Heartless, Deadline Thief, Trade Architect, and Generational Fumble.
Draft: Who?, Reached., Diamond in the Rough, and Luck Is on Our Side.

Awards and Hall of Fame

Awards can end in a tie.
Hall of Fame ballots do not require every vote to be used.
Configure how many players enter the Hall of Fame each season or disable the Hall of Fame.

Rankings

Rankings are grouped into Teams, Players, and Draft categories. Retired players count toward the league champions ranking.
Team rankings add best and worst seasons, best non-playoff teams, worst playoff teams, worst champions, oldest and youngest champions, biggest playoff upsets, shortest and longest title runs, finals losses, deciding-game losses, reverse sweeps, and oldest and youngest average rosters.
Player rankings add most games without playoffs, one-game careers, best players without a championship, most teams played for, shortest career with a championship, and longest career without one.
Draft rankings add best draft classes, worst first-overall selections, best player at each pick, and best undrafted players.

Team, player, milestone, and inbox history

Team pages show the current captain and alternates, a captain timeline, how each player was acquired, and the full lineup.
Roster History records each season and acquisition method for every player in the organization.
Team standings add home and away records.
Player portraits use the player’s jersey as the background and show captaincy letters.
Player career statistics add a league filter.
Milestones are divided into Personal, League, and Franchise tabs.
Inbox messages can be pinned. Progression messages are ordered by overall.

Simulation and international hockey

Game simulation and statistics

Sim all on Today’s Games simulates every game scheduled that day.
Hat tricks are tracked.
Games have fewer penalties.
Shot-frequency and injury-frequency settings each gain two values.
On desktop, play-by-play appears in the Summary tab beneath the rink.
Game Score uses a 0–10 scale and a color scale, with 10 representing an outstanding performance.

Countries and international play

Five playable countries and five additional roster-editor countries were added.
Every international team receives a jersey.
A women’s international tournament appears when a women’s league is active.
Goalies win international tournament MVP less frequently.

Phone navigation uses five main tabs: Office, Calendar, Lineup, a seasonal tab, and Menu.
The seasonal tab changes among Trade, Team Standing, Playoffs, and Contracts as the career calendar advances.
Menu provides the remaining pages previously reached through the sidebar.
Settings can restore the old sidebar navigation.
Two custom shortcuts can be added beside Save and Exit on mobile.
The league selector groups leagues by continent and orders them by strength.
During the playoffs on small screens, the calendar replaces the team record with the active playoff series.

Search

Search has a redesigned interface and shows a preview of the top result on desktop.
The / key opens quick commands. The published command is /silent, which activates the silent automatic-simulation preset.

Data tables

Desktop tables can be exported to CSV with Ctrl+E.
Contracts, Waivers, and Prospects tables can show or hide columns and remember the selection.
Contracts adds hidden-by-default columns for trade value, weight, height, asking contract, and cap percentage.
Prospects adds injury information; Waivers adds trade value.
Waivers adds name, age, potential, contract, and overall filters.
Roster Moves adds name, player type, age, overall, and potential filters.
Country player lists and prospect rankings add name, position, player type, age, overall, and potential filters.
Estimated career earnings adds name, position, player type, age, overall, and potential filters.

Editors and platform controls

Roster Editor

Mark a player as deceased so they cannot be generated as staff in a new career.
Edit childhood team, potential, face, and overall. Overall can be typed directly, and the buttons stop at 99 instead of wrapping to 0.
Import a custom facepack and use the new jersey model.
Add historical team logos. History Mode uses the logo assigned to its selected season.
Active players no longer begin a History Mode career with their numbers already retired.
Add and edit retired numbers from the in-career team editor.
Edit minor-team captains and player numbers.
League Settings appears at the end of League Creator.
Affiliation editing places major and minor affiliates on one page and is also available from Team Editor.
Player Rights shows the projected lineup.
Roster Editor supports contracts up to 18 years and buyouts up to 36 years.
Created Teams adds search.
Roster Tools can delete every player from a roster.
During a career, Roster Tools can force retirement using age, overall, and potential filters.

Expansion drafts

The expansion-draft planner has a redesigned interface.
Expansion drafts can be planned for every league, not only the user’s league.

Settings

Settings has a redesigned large-screen interface.
Choose how many games remain in a player’s game log.
Customize each color in the motivation scale.
The automatic-simulation preset also enables automatic training-focus and staff-training assignments.
Save performance chooses between faster saves and smaller files.
Birthplace-related features can be disabled to improve simulation performance.

Steam and desktop

Mouse Back is supported.
Shift-click selects multiple players on Roster Moves.
Hovering over a player on Player Stats shows a player-detail tooltip.

Fixes and performance

Fixes

Manually edited player numbers no longer revert.
History Mode players are no longer drafted at peak overall, and drafted players retain the correct potential.
Scouts no longer become stuck without scouting a player.
A buyout immediately before the new contractual season no longer gains two extra years.
Junior trade value no longer values an otherwise equal 20-year-old above an 18-year-old.
Rebuilding teams can exchange their first-round pick for a better first-round pick.
Goals are no longer recorded at the very beginning of a period.

Performance

On the default roster, a full-season Android simulation is approximately 50% faster than in HLM26.
Animation performance is improved on iOS.
Simulating from Office uses a faster Office page.

For the original announcement and its feature images, read the official HLM27 feature reveal.