A few days ago, the NHL 13 video game from EA Sports released its player ratings for the 30 franchsies. We’ll take a look inside the New Jersey Devils rankings and debate some of the controversial ones.
Ilya Kovalchuk is a 90. He is the highest-rated Devil in this year’s game. Just a 90 though? He is one of the best players in the game. He finished fifth in the point race last year. He was tied for sixth in goals scored. And he is barely cracking the 80s tier? Bad job by EA.
I think Adam Larsson is going to be a nice player. EA has him at an 84 rating. Ok, a bit high for a player who played perhaps a slightly above average rookie season. But he’s the best-ranked defenseman on the Devils? The next closest guy is Henrik Tallinder at 83, who was underwhelming to begin the year and only played a few playoff games after his blood clot injury in January. Two of the most consistent Devils defenseman all year were Mark Fayne and Bryce Salvador. They are both rated 79. Again, inconsistent.
This slipped my mind when I looked it up, but Patrik Elias finished in the Top-10 in points in the league this past season. While I don’t think the 82 rating is that far off, a little bit of respect for the veteran would be nice.
Here’s one on the flip side…how on earth is Jacob Josefson a 75? What exactly has he done to merit that rating? Don’t get me wrong, I like Josefson a lot and think he can be a really strong two player, but that mark is ludicrous. 69 regular season games and five goals scored…yup, this rating totally makes sense (false, this rating actually makes no sense). In comparison, Dainius Zubrus is a 79 and Adam Henrique is an 81. I don’t follow.
And talk about the biggest disservice of all? Martin Brodeur was given ONLY an 82 rating. He just put up his best playoff GAA since the 2002-03 postseason. Oh yea, the Devils were also in the Finals that year too. Not enough respect being shown to Brodeur here. While I agree, he’s not a 90s-caliber player right, he should certainly be in the mid to high 80s with no questions asked. Side note: Johan Hedberg is a 73. Another crazy low number. Certainly his work last year was a smaller sample size with just 27 games, but he won 17 of them with the lowest GAA and highest save percentage of his career.
What do you think? Is someone ranked too high? Too low? Which Devil’s rating is spot on?
Thanks for reading. All feedback is appreciated.