NHL 17 hits EA Access vault just in time for the playoffs

If the Detroit Red Wings (my team) lose tonight, they could miss the playoffs for the first time in a quarter of a century. But Electronic Arts may give me the chance to ignore reality by adding its NHL 17 game to the vault of games in its EA Access subscription service.

Xbox One owners who pay the $5 per month or $30 per year for an EA Access membership can download NHL 17 today. This is the third year in a row that EA has added its hockey game to its vault just before the start of the National Hockey League’s playoffs, which gets underway in April. While it’s likely that the bulk of the audience that would go out and buy it already has already done so, it’s just as likely that EA will get more value from ongoing Access subscribers than people purchasing NHL 17 this late in its life.