NHL 18 Player Ratings Drop
This week, EA Sports revealed its top 10 young stars and the top 50 overall highest ranked players for EA Sports NHL 18, based on the game’s rating system. Cover star Connor McDavid took the top spot in both the young stars and the top 50 players with a 93 rating – up five points from his ranking last year, and blowing past many of the top stars and veterans of the NHL. This being said, is a 93 really enough for the best player of our generation?
Sure, you could make an argument Crosby is better and we would not argue that for a second given everything he has done but even a 93 for ‘Sid the Kid’ is a little low. We expected their rankings to fall somewhere between 95-97 for both those players. Sorry, Connor is a little more than 2 points better than Stamkos….
Other young stars who are climbing the ranks include Auston Matthews, now with an 87 rating, surpassing the ranking of the 2015-16 NHL Rookie of the Year winner Artemi Panarin (rated this year at 86) and 2011-12 NHL Rookie of the Year, Gabriel Landeskog, who was rated at 85.
Young star Matt Murray is ranked as the fifth best overall goalie in the game. The ranking puts him ahead of Vezina Trophy winning netminders, Henrik Lundqvist and Tuuka Rask.
EA Sports recently detailed the new ratings methodology in place for NHL 18 in a blog post. Most important to the young stars is that they are rated now rated so they can step right out of the NHL Entry Draft and into the NHL directly.
NHL 18 hits the ice on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 15.
Young Stars: https://www.easports.com/nhl/news/2017/nhl-18-player-ratings-top-10-young-stars
Top 50: https://www.easports.com/nhl/news/2017/nhl-18-player-ratings-top-50-overall
EA also revealed positional rankings over the last week, each can be found here:
Do you agree with the rankings? Tell us who you think should be the highest rated player?
Source: Press Release