We're about a month away from the start of a brand new NHL season and that means one thing: EA Sports has a new edition of their NHL video game franchise and fans are going crazy over what rating they gave their favourite player. For the Toronto Maple Leafs, one specific player is ranked among the best in the game, but not at the very top.
Auston Matthews is easily -- and this shouldn't really be an arguable statement -- the best player on the current Maple Leafs roster. So, he deserves to be the best Leaf in the game (which he is) but how does he fare against the top players in his position?
Of course, some of the best players in the world are centres so it will be some tough competition, but in the unveiling of the overall ratings we all learned that Matthews is in a three-way tie for fifth among centremen in the game.
Rank | Player | Team | Overall rating |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Connor McDavid | Edmonton Oilers | 97 |
T-2 | Nathan MacKinnon | Colorado Avalanche | 96 |
T-2 | Leon Draisaitl | Edmonton Oilers | 96 |
4 | Aleksander Barkov | Florida Panthers | 95 |
T-5 | Auston Matthews | Toronto Maple Leafs | 94 |
T-5 | Sidney Crosby | Pittsburgh Penguins | 94 |
T-5 | Jack Eichel | Vegas Golden Knights | 94 |
8 | Jack Hughes | New Jersey Devils | 93 |
9 | Brayden Point | Tampa Bay Lightning | 92 |
10 | Mark Scheifele | Winnipeg Jets | 91 |
Is that right? Can we really fight on Matthews hovering around that marker as a top-five centre in the world? Not really. Take into consideration that Matthews was also tied for eighth among all players in the game, and it seems right.
Obviously, almost everyone in the world would take Matthews over an aging Sidney Crosby on their team, but in the video game world it would feel unnatural to not have Crosby have an automatically high rating. Maybe we can fight on players like Jack Hughes, Brayden Point, and Mark Scheifele being so close to Matthews in overall rating -- but if you grade them any lower it probably breaks the rating system entirely unless prospects truly start with something like a 45 overall rating instead of the 60-70 range that they do now.
Mathematics aside, we can't wait until Auston Matthews becomes Auston Matthews again and skips his way to his fourth Rocket Richard trophy and forcing EA Sports to maybe nudge him higher than an aging Crosby and a player in Jack Eichel who just had a career year after barely being a point-per-game player in his career.