Right analog stick in NHL 07 is for passing now. It does work when the 360 is configured correctly.
Until more games come with good, native 360 support, XBCD is a MUST! It was made for the for using the Xbox controller on a PC with an adapter but there are 360 drivers that will work.
So:
1) Get XBCD 1.07 from the creator's site
here
2) Get the XBCD 360 drivers to enable 360 controller support with XBCD from the creator's site
here
Install them. It's quick, has always worked great, and with the right profiles works with most any game supporting a gamepad. You can find profiles online or figure out your own. Some games have different axes mappings or only support digital triggers, or need the directional pad mapped to buttons, not a POV switch, etc so I generally just get a profile that someone else made. They usually have mappings exactly like the 360 game would have (i.e. GTA San Andreas has the same exact mapping).
Here is a set of three profiles by JudSan from a 360 controller forum:
link
Load the 'Dual Action XBOX360.xgi' profile in XBCD and launch NHL 07 (you can close down XBCD if you want). You shouldn't need to change any button mappings (even if the numbers don't match the gamepad image in the game). I haven't played NHL 07 on the 360 but it controls perfectly on the PC using that profile.
I use the Game Specific forum
here to get profiles for other games. Most work great.