NHL 2005 differs from its predecessor primarily in the ability to create your own team from scratch and compete with it at the world championship. The presence of a license allowed the developers to add 30 official arenas. Gamers can compete for the World Cup and watch real-life hockey clubs (current at the time the video game was released). Users can choose the level of difficulty to customize and the degree of realism by adjusting the following parameters: Hitting Power, Checking Difficulty, Game Speed, Aggression. These settings allow you to turn a hockey simulator into a sports arcade game and vice versa. The creators have redesigned the artificial intelligence of the bots. The changes especially affected goalkeepers. Now each goalkeeper needs to find his own approach. There is also a new Free4All mode. In it, several scorers and one goalkeeper are placed in half the field. Users compete with each other based on the number of goals scored.

The controls in NHL 2005 were tailored for a gamepad. Hockey players can also be controlled using the keyboard. The mouse is not fully used in this title. You can move the selected ward in different directions, carry out attacks, perform various feints, play combinations, and so on. The layout itself has changed. In this sequel, wrist throws and slap shots are controlled by different buttons. The Open Ice Control system appeared. It makes it possible to control those athletes who do not have a puck. This allows you to open up to pass the projectile, take a more advantageous position, provide assistance to the attacker, and so on. The graphics have become better compared to the previous part. The developers improved the animation, increased the detail of the models and gave each trainer a unique appearance.