NHL 17 Player Ratings - Top 10 Defensemen

[Steve_OS]

EA Sports has revealed the top 10 defensemen in NHL 17. More detailed ratings can be seen in the official blog.

Check them out and post your thoughts!

• Drew Doughty – Overall 94
• Shea Weber – Overall 94
• Duncan Keith – Overall 93
• Ryan Suter – Overall 93
• Erik Karlsson – Overall 92
• Brent Burns – Overall 92
• Victor Hedman – Overall 92
• Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Overall 91
• P.K. Subban – Overall 91
• Dustin Byfuglien – Overall 91

Previously revealed player ratings:

• NHL 17 Player Ratings - Top 10 Goalies

[giantsharks]

Im ok with these ratings but Shea Weber doesnt belong in the top 10, let alone tied with Doughty for top rated.......i hate myself for saying that being as i despise everyone on the Kings. Maybe Weber of a few years ago but he really seemed to see a decline in skills the last couple years

[Moose24x]

Weber isn't a 94, Byfuglien isn't a 91 and Burns and Subban should swap.

[Al_Tito13]

I don't think Weber deserves to be a 94, but he definitely deserves to be in the top 10 defensemen. He is not as mobile as others, but he is pretty reliable defensively, plays a simple game and he brings the physical aspect in front of the net and in the corners, something that the advanced stats seem to forget. He also has a good first pass and he scored 20 goals last year. He definitely has one of the best slapshots in the league. Maybe a 92 would be more on the target for him.

On the other hand, I love Subban and I will always do. He is really good, strong physically for his size, a good passer and a great skater. However, sometimes he is more spectacular than effective. For fans on other teams or casual Habs fans, he always stand out and look great, but it may also be another story for his teammates or his coaches. Having good puck possession is great, but what you do with the puck is even more important, especially in key moments. It happens to all of them, but when turnovers cost goals or even games too often, it may be really costly. I think that right now his 91 is probably right on the target for him.

[oosterbe]

I personally like to have rosters which make more sense than the logic "Crosby's skating needs to be 91 instead of 93." It just doesn't make any sense, because there is no difference at all. What I suggest is to make only 5 different skill levels on each skill. Those levels needs to big enough so one could see on his bare eyes instead of numeral differences, differences needs to be tested with special slider set which is made to match with rosters. This special slider set + used with special rosters = Balances and makes more variety to the gameplay

For example


1. Weak 36 (all players with weak ability in certain skill have this number)
2. Basic 52 (all players with basic ability in certain skill have this number)
3. Good 68 (all players with good ability in certain skill have this number)
4. Star 84 (all players with star ability in certain skill have this number)
5. Super Star.99 (all players with super star ability in certain skill have this number)

I am not saying in every skill the scale starts from 36 and ends to 99- if there is problem in some area in the gameplay which need to be balanced via roster editing, it's possible that EVERY SINGLE PLAYER have 99 in certain skill.

For example (this is not tested thing yet) if you will like to have only some players who are BIG HITTERS and most of the players just push the opponent out of the puck you could make it by maxing the hitting power and assistance sliders from the game but making the scale of hitting like this:

1. Weak 36 (all players with weak ability in certain skill have this number)
2. Basic 46 (all players with basic ability in certain skill have this number)
3. Good 56 (all players with good ability in certain skill have this number)
4. Star 66 (all players with star ability in certain skill have this number)
5. Super Star 99 (all players with super star ability in certain skill have this)

So the scale of the abilities needs to be very different in different areas instead of being always the same in every attribute. Making only five skill levels to each attribute makes it easier and faster to do and understand. So if a player is a superstar in certain skill, so he is, he is not a "93 level superstar" or "95 level superstar" anymore. He is a superstar in certain skill because he immediately bumps out of the rest when you take a control on him in the game.

it needs a lot of more work and it always includes a lot of guessing to try find out "does player X's passing ability need to be 91 because of player Y's has 92 when you just know they both have superior (superstar level) skills in certain ability. My point is, you or the game don't see / feel / care / realize the difference between 91 and 92 when you are playing the game (in fact you or the game itself don't see the difference many times when the difference in certain skill is between 80 and 90 and mostly all the difference is between 10 numbers), but when the difference is big enough (and I mean BIG) it makes sense, and it makes you play feel and think the game differently.

In fact the overalls are a little bit too big thing to many. I give you an example. Wayne Gretzky was maybe the best player of the all time. So we easily think his overall needs to be almost 99. But when we take a look at the list of the attributes you could tweak, we easily see you need to make him way too good in many areas if you like to get him almost 99 overall guy. Gretzky wasn't superior in many areas. If we like to be honest his overall couldn't be almost 99. He was not an all-around player at all. He had some certain abilities which made him a special. Passing for example. Those certain abilities or skills are much more important than overalls. But people are looking overalls too strictly. People are playing in certain roles because they have certain abilities which supports their roles. I guess we agree on that. So those certain abilities are more important than overalls. But if we emphasize certain areas like passing and puck handling by making scales like 36-46-56-76-99 the best players get the best overalls too. The system has some more advantages too - you could maybe use even higher levels on some Gameplay sliders to compensate low ratings in the certain areas making the best players shining even more when 36-rated ( I doesn't mean 36-overall but passing skill for example) players aren't too poor when you actually play the game with controller.

[unisol_us]

No Letang LOL! Guess devs didn't watch the SCF LOL!

[Money99]

Quote: Originally Posted by Al_Tito13

I don't think Weber deserves to be a 94, but he definitely deserves to be in the top 10 defensemen. He is not as mobile as others, but he is pretty reliable defensively, plays a simple game and he brings the physical aspect in front of the net and in the corners, something that the advanced stats seem to forget. He also has a good first pass and he scored 20 goals last year. He definitely has one of the best slapshots in the league. Maybe a 92 would be more on the target for him. On the other hand, I love Subban and I will always do. He is really good, strong physically for his size, a good passer and a great skater. However, sometimes he is more spectacular than effective. For fans on other teams or casual Habs fans, he always stand out and look great, but it may also be another story for his teammates or his coaches. Having good puck possession is great, but what you do with the puck is even more important, especially in key moments. It happens to all of them, but when turnovers cost goals or even games too often, it may be really costly. I think that right now his 91 is probably right on the target for him.

Analytics dictate that Weber is actually below average defensively.
His 5-on-5 stats show that his team possesses the puck less when he's on the ice compared to the top defensemen.

94 for him is a stretch. Realistically, he should be below 90. But IMO, very few dmen in the league should be above 90.

Quote: Originally Posted by unisol_us

No Letang LOL! Guess devs didn't watch the SCF LOL!

Yeah, that's entirely laughable.
Letang is a top 5 dman in the league, no question. Certainly better than Weber.
What GM/coach would take Weber over Letang? A GM that is soon to be unemployed.

[Al_Tito13]

Quote: Originally Posted by Money99

Analytics dictate that Weber is actually below average defensively. His 5-on-5 stats show that his team possesses the puck less when he's on the ice compared to the top defensemen.

Do you think that analytics tell all the story about a player? It helps, yes, no doubt about it, but it's only a tool, there is a lot more about a player and it's exactly what I tried to explain in my post.

That being said, I agree that Letang should definitively be in the top 10.