NHL 13 ratings released: Grabovski listed as first-line C

Puck Daddy today released all of the ratings for EA’s NHL 13 players. This allows us to go through it and look at the painful omissions and errors that Electronic Arts managed, such as Marc-André Fleury being ranked as an 87.

From a Leafs perspective, though, the numbers look pretty spot-on when comparing to players on the team. Mikhail Grabovski is listed, rightfully so, as the best centreman on the team, although poor Jay McClement was hilariously omitted by the Vancouver-based company, jealous that they could not sign McClement as their own.

Also, Jay Rosehill carries a rating higher than his shoe size. That’s probably a typo, or he has real big feet.

Not having compared these numbers to every comparable player at a position, I can’t nitpick too tough yet. I will note this discrepancy however, using numbers from the last two seasons:

I think the game slightly underrates Mike Komisarek. I know he isn’t a popular player around here, but with the Leafs’ five options on defence for the second pairing, Komisarek and John-Michael Liles to me are the least offensive, as they’ve at least had some success in some uncertain past playing against secondary competition. This won’t endear me to people who have bought Jake Gardiner jerseys, but neither did EA, really, by ranking Gardiner (81) below Filip Kuba (82) and a probably retired Mattias Ohlund (82).

The game didn’t go so far as to lock Nik Kulemin in the 70s, but ranking him equal to a consistent 30-goal scorer in Matt Moulson is probably the game’s biggest flaw. I know for EA to research cutting-edge numbers to analyze player such as “goals scored” is quite tough, but there are more players in the world like Kulemin who can hold their own possession-wise against second-line players than there are 30 goal scorers, making Moulson a more valuable commodity.

Actually, looking at the Leafs again, I can’t think of why James van Riemsdyk (82) is lower than Clarke MacArthur (83) or, wait, why Mikhail Grabovski (82) is lower than Clarke MacArthur (83). Grabovski is in my estimation one of the best two-way centremen in the league, keep in mind he scores 25 goals a season. He should at least be ranked the same as Tomas Plekanec (86) if not higher, or David Krejci (85). What?

The closer you look at this, the greater the discrepancies are. It’s not only the Leafs, but there are a lot of players who seem to be overrated or underrated by EA based on how big their names are. Luke Schenn’s 82 is identical to Matt Niskanen’s? Chris Phillips gets an 84 while Josh Gorges does as well?

Huh?