NHL 19 Hockey Ultimate Team: Synergies Explained & Best Synergies

(Image Source: EA Sports)

NHL 19 has come on leaps and bounds and is proving to be a grand experience for ice hockey fans all around the world. One way in which they have improved the game is through the synergies system in the incredibly popular game mode of Hockey Ultimate Team. 

Synergies have been in HUT for a few years now, but this year’s synergies system is the most clean-cut and straightforward, allowing players to enjoy the perks of synergies with ease. So, here’ how synergies work, what forms synergies come in, and which are the best synergies to have in NHL 19 HUT. 

What are HUT synergies? 

Every player card in Hockey Ultimate Team has at least one synergy attached. When you compile multiple synergies of the same type, a bonus is unlocked for the whole team or all players who boast that specific synergy. 

For synergies to work, the players merely need to be in your starting lines – they don’t have to be on the same line – meaning that to activate a synergy bonus such as the Passing Playmaker, you could have two players with the PP synergy on the top forward line, one on the fourth forward line, and then the last one on the third defensive line.

There are two types of synergies: player and team. Each synergy in the Synergy Glossary comes with a designated number, ranging from four to six for the player synergies and set at ten for the team synergies. This number informs you of how many specific synergy points you need to have on the players in your lines with the corresponding synergy for the synergy bonus to be unlocked. 

The number of synergies that each player card has depends on the card’s type. Some players will have an extra synergy or two, but for the most part, the following applies: 

• Bronze cards hold three synergies
• Silver cards hold two synergies
• Gold cards hold one synergy
• Cover athlete cards, such as the 80-rated Vladimir Tarasenko and Jonathan Toews have two synergies
• Legends like Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have five synergies while the other legends have three or two
• Alumni Cards like Owen Nolan and Darren McCarty have between one and three synergies

NHL 19 HUT Player Synergies

On NHL 19, there are a total of ten synergies which you can use to enhance your team. Most of them require four players with the synergy to trigger, but some require five or six. When you have at least the designated number of players with that synergy in your lines, all players with the synergy get the synergy perk – meaning that the boost isn’t limited to the number of players required to unlock the perk. 

NHL 19 HUT Team Synergies

When your team has ten players with the same team synergy sitting on the lines, you’ll trigger that team synergy perk. The team synergy perk is applied to all players in your lines, not just the ones triggering the synergy. There are five team synergies in total, all requiring ten points to unlock their respective boosts. 

Selecting the best HUT synergies in NHL 19 

As you have 20 players in your lines (12 forwards, 6 defensemen, 2 goaltenders), you can mix and match many different player and team synergies, especially if you mix in some players who apply to two or three synergies. 

As far as base rare gold cards go, only St. Louis Blues left defenseman Vince Dunn (80) has more than one synergy contribution (DW, PP), so it’s not a bad idea to fill your bottom sets with a few silver or bronze players if you want to trigger more synergy boosts. 

To make the most of synergies, it’s a good idea to collect a team synergy and some player synergies which apply to similar attributes so that you get an even bigger boost. For example, if you like to play with pace, aim for the Burner team synergy as well as the Speedsters and Breakout Master player synergies, or perhaps even couple The Beauty with Burner for a big team boost in those attribute fields. But, as most HUT player cards boast similar speed stats to the regular players in the offline game modes of NHL 19, other areas of synergy boosts can be exploited to bring about a greater competitive edge.

As faceoffs and defensive attributes are so important to the game but are criminally downgraded across all base NHL 19 HUT cards, you can certainly gain an edge by triggering faceoff-enhancing and defense-enhancing synergy boosts. 

So, getting the It’s A Trap team synergy – which bolsters poise, defensive awareness, and stick checking – to couple with the player synergy Faceoff Master, for obvious reasons, will give you greater defensive stability and a huge boost in the faceoff circle provided that all of your centers carry the FM synergy. Otherwise, if you do have wings or defenseman with the FM synergy, the boost from the player synergy is all but wasted on as it’ll be the centers taking the vast majority of faceoffs. Assuming that you use all gold players for those synergies, you’ll still have six players to build further synergies.

Make sure to get the most out of these NHL 19 HUT synergies as they give your team a significant boost in key areas and can be game changers when applied well.