Now, I have been a fan of EA Sports hockey games since I owned a Sega Genesis in the early 90’s. I have played nearly ever iteration of their NHL game, I have owned it across close to ten different platforms and won the Stanley Cup way more times than Joe Thornton would want to know about.
But one problem I’ve always had with the series is their terrible player ratings. When I was younger, this wasn’t a big issue because I didn’t really know any better. But now that I spend an inappropriate amount of time pouring over stats, talking hockey with people who are way more informed than I am and watching a marriage-shattering amount of games, in order to bring you this fantastic Phoenix Coyotes blog, over the last few years I’ve come to realize the ratings in the game are a joke.
So what's the big deal? Well other than it being amusing that people who ostensibly earn their paycheck entirely on researching and evaluating players being so un-fathomably wrong, the problem is this: EA Sports NHL games have a crazy amount of influence on how people view players.
I have no way to prove this, but I do talk about hockey with thousands of people over the course of a season, and it seems to me that one of the biggest factors in how people view players is how they are rated in the league’s most popular video game.
If this is even partially true, it’s scary because the ratings in this year’s game are worse than ever. It’s almost as if the person responsible didn’t do any research at all. Or, more likely, they half-assed it and just didn’t care.
These ratings do not reflect reality in anyway.
Just for example:
Erik Karlsson is the game’s best defenseman. Full stop. No debate.
He is objectively the best. The recent Norris Trophy is an embarrassment to Drew Doughty – he himself knows that he doesn’t deserve it and won it because the writers who voted on it are a joke.
Objectively speaking, Erik Karlsson is the closest thing the NHL has ever seen to a second Bobby Orr. Adjusted for the era he plays in, his scoring is completely radical and his rating in both the Norris Trophy voting and EA Sports’ new game is completely Bogus.
(Insert Bill and Ted Clip. Note: Couldn't find a good one, use your imagination)
This is not an opinion. This is a mathematically provable fact.
Secondly, Shea Weber is ranked as the second best defenseman? Obviously a Habs fan went a little crazy with the coding here. I mean, how else to explain a player who isn’t statistically a top 15 player being ranked #2 by (one assumes) a group of people who’s only job is to rate hockey players for this game?
In Nashville, Shea Weber was the 4th most statistically effective defenseman on his team, and yet we have a respected institution saying he is somehow the second best in the league? For people who work very hard to align how players are viewed with reality, this is a mortal blow.
The games’ defenseman ranked 2, 3 and 4 are all objectively not in the top ten in real life anymore. Suter, Keith and Weber used to be the best – back in Obama’s first term – but today they are veteran players well into their thirties who are, at best, ranked somewhere around 15-20. And that is if you want to be generous.
I just don't have the time to go further into how stupid this list actually is because there is a brick wall downstairs I have to go beat my head against. However, in case EA Sports is reading this, here is a much more accurate list of the top ten defenseman in the NHL: