EA Sports is set to release NHL 25 later this month, and they've released their player rankings for the upcoming 2024-2025 season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have three players ranked over a 90 overall, with Auston Matthews unsurprisingly coming in at a 95, while Mitch Marner and William Nylander share a 91. It's always an exciting time of year when the virtual world and reality blend to give fans an interactive way to play, manage, and coach their favourite players throughout many different game modes.
But how well do these ratings actually reflect the players true ability? Or could something more mysterious be the culprit?
Even if we were to take player ratings from EA Sports' NHL 20 video game, we can see that some player ratings have changed drastically in the five year stretch.
*** ALL RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE AND ARE BASED OFF NHL 24 RATINGS PRE-LAUNCH ***
Drew Doughty was rated a 91 in NHL 20, which based off the season he had previous; a year where he scored 45 points but was a -34 on the ice, and an absurd 105 giveaways while managing only 23 takeaways; horrible defensive metrics to warrant a 91.
Fast forward to NHL 25 where he's rated an 88; a rating 3 points lower but coming off his highest scoring season since 2017-2018. He had better defensive numbers, and actually was a plus for the Kings; so I don't understand how they determined him to be worse even if he's just older.
On the flip side, Auston Matthews went from a 90 overall in NHL 20 to a much more deserved 95 overall in this years game; no doubt due to the blistering season he had last year; nearly doubling his 37 goal output from the 2018-19 season and warranting a change. There is no doubt that if Matthews can have another stellar and historic year, he could find himself alongside Connor McDavid and Nathan Mackinnon for one of the top spots in the entire game.
There's also the possibility of the EA Sports video game cover curse and although it tends to find itself cursing those in the NFL more often than not, there are still many different examples of victims of the EA Sports cover curse when it comes to the NHL.
The whole aura around the 'Madden Curse' is the fact that when athletes get the spotlight on the video game cover, it comes with a price. Whether that be a crushing playoff loss, a brutal regular season, horrible statistical output or worst case scenario, injury; it has been a topic of conversation for years, and as superstitious as fans and athletes are, there's some reason to feel it's real.
Names such as Dante Culpepper, Michael Vick, Shaun Alexander, and Vince Young have suffered the supposed curse. In the case of Culpepper and Alexander, injuries and a serious decrease in production led them to be out of the league faster than many anticipated; meanwhile in the case of Vick, the legal issues that followed him plus injuries derailed a once promising career.
In the NHL, there have been much fewer instances of the curse being prevalent but it's still shown itself at times. In 2010, Patrick Kane was picked to be the cover athlete, but one month before release he ended up getting into a dispute with a taxi driver and gave people a bad impression. Fast forward to 2016 and Kane again gets in trouble; this time for a much more serious allegation which led EA Sports to remove him from the cover and just put teammate Jonathan Toews on it instead. A smart move for sure.
In 2004, 'Jumbo' Joe Thornton was poised to be the cover boy for NHL 2004; but after an incident with police leading to his arrest, EA Sports selected Atlanta Thrashers youngster Dany Heatley.
Well....we know how that all turned out. Heatley ended up being responsible for the death of teammate Dan Snyder after Heatley was speeding and crashed his vehicle. The game was already produced and put on shelves so as a remedy, made a cover featuring Joe Sakic instead which then went into production. Heatley was a victim of the curse off the ice, however on the ice he was a dominant force for five straight seasons averaging nearly 44 goals over that span; so while it may not have affected him on ice, the curse still lived on.
So, do the EA Sports NHL video games player ratings reflect their real-life counterparts? The argument would be yes, although there are clear outliers especially given outside circumstances that prevent players from being at the top of their game; or possibly a curse.
But in my view? They're doing what they can to make sure each player is properly presented in each game. That's just what it is; a video game. Just have fun and try to bring your team to the Stanley Cup no matter the number on the screen.
