(Photo Credit: EA Sports NHL, via Twitter)
EA Sports made an event of releasing the ratings of the top 50 players in the upcoming NHL 19 game. The player ratings in any sports game are always bound to raise eyebrows among fans in one way or another, but, for the most part, NHL 19 looks to be fairly accurate. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t some players who have received ratings above their actual ability or some who have been underrated by the gaming franchise.
Because NHL 19 involves teams being simulated against other teams, many players’ ratings need to reflect the strength of the team more so than their real-life attributes to ensure that game modes like Franchise Mode run realistically. But, as seen by the Vegas Golden Knights last year, a team doesn’t have to boast superstars on every line to shock the league.
So, this leaves EA Sports in somewhat of a bind: they need to balance the game, but also give better players enough value to make individuals similar to their real-life value. This is less of an issue in NHL 19 than the likes of FIFA 19, where the world stage is considered as opposed to a single league – for the most part – but it still yields some rather surprising ratings from time to time. These are the top five overrated and underrated (or snubbed) players based on the ratings revealed by NHL 19 thus far.
Overrated
These are the players set to come into NHL 19 rocking ratings that are better than they’ve warranted in real life. Some of this is done for team and league balancing reasons, while others appear to be rather speculative. Nevertheless, some of these players could do with a few points shaven off of their ratings.