Top 50 Rated Players in NHL 17

[Simple Mathematics]

Quote: Originally Posted by mikeq672

Maybe they meant that Kane's defense in the court room is really good. He did avoid any charges.

You win. Close thread.

[briguy4747]

Shea Weber # 7 in the entire NHL ??!!
Come on, EA !!!
Get a reality check !!!

[KTBFFH]

Where's Kessel?

[uni91]

The problem with the OVR rating in this game is that DEF AWR matters more than OFF AWR does! It is silly.....they should be just about the same! I can see it making a little more of a difference for D-Man but for forwards it should be equal! I agree Simple......its a joke that Kane's DEF is 92 while Jamie Benn's is 89!!!! Jamie Benn is waaaaaay more of a 2-way player than Kane.

I usually drop Kane's DEF down quite a bit which might bring him down to a 91 or 92......so what......he will still dominate offensively and put up numbers!

[Qb]

Yeah, all those screens of individual ratings illustrate the point I brought up in the Top 10 Defensemen thread. Ratings are skewed toward the perceived overall ability of the player rather than attempting to rate each attribute on its own merit.

Not to pick on Shea Weber -- my GM Connected friends know my fondness for WEBER BOMBS!!! -- but he has 90 passing and 90 puck control. And just as I predicted, 85 speed, 85 agility, and 85 acceleration. Subban has 88/87/87 and Letang 89/89/89. Huh?

And don't get me started on why speed, agility, and acceleration are almost always identical or within a point or two. Why even have three ratings if that's the case? Why not just a single "skating" rating? There are players who aren't exceptionally fast, but are very skilled skaters (high AGL/BAL), good straight line speed (SPD/ACC) but not as skilled; bigger guys can be powerful skaters (ACC/BAL) but not as fast or agile due to their mass. I know data isn't widely available yet to help quantify this stuff, so a lot of it would be the eye test and/or scouting reports & reputation. But it can surely be better than it is with EA's resources.

And nearly every other category suffers from these overrated weaknesses and not using a wide enough range of ratings. Maybe it's a mindset I just don't agree with -- eg, an NHL player must have a hands/deking rating above 75 or he wouldn't be in the league. There's no reason why Rob Scuderi (sorry Scuds) should have anything above 60 for deking. I don't care if AHLers or CHLers have higher ratings; frankly a lot of them have better hands. But they don't have the defensive awareness, shot blocking, stick checking, etc that allowed Scuderi to be an very effective defensive defenseman in his prime.

OK, I'm done being an old man yelling at a cloud.

[Simple Mathematics]

Quote: Originally Posted by Qb

Yeah, all those screens of individual ratings illustrate the point I brought up in the Top 10 Defensemen thread. Ratings are skewed toward the perceived overall ability of the player rather than attempting to rate each attribute on its own merit. Not to pick on Shea Weber -- my GM Connected friends know my fondness for WEBER BOMBS!!! -- but he has 90 passing and 90 puck control. And just as I predicted, 85 speed, 85 agility, and 85 acceleration. Subban has 88/87/87 and Letang 89/89/89. Huh? And don't get me started on why speed, agility, and acceleration are almost always identical or within a point or two. Why even have three ratings if that's the case? Why not just a single "skating" rating? There are players who aren't exceptionally fast, but are very skilled skaters (high AGL/BAL), good straight line speed (SPD/ACC) but not as skilled; bigger guys can be powerful skaters (ACC/BAL) but not as fast or agile due to their mass. I know data isn't widely available yet to help quantify this stuff, so a lot of it would be the eye test and/or scouting reports & reputation. But it can surely be better than it is with EA's resources. And nearly every other category suffers from these overrated weaknesses and not using a wide enough range of ratings. Maybe it's a mindset I just don't agree with -- eg, an NHL player must have a hands/deking rating above 75 or he wouldn't be in the league. There's no reason why Rob Scuderi (sorry Scuds) should have anything above 60 for deking. I don't care if AHLers or CHLers have higher ratings; frankly a lot of them have better hands. But they don't have the defensive awareness, shot blocking, stick checking, etc that allowed Scuderi to be an very effective defensive defenseman in his prime. OK, I'm done being an old man yelling at a cloud.

I'm in love with this post.

To go along with what you said, it is difficult to rate most players on acceleration vs speed because there just aren't scouting reports out there that always tell you that stuff. For example, a big resource I use for the Revamped Rosters is The Hockey News. They give pretty good scouting reports for all NHL players, but sometimes even for some of the fastest skaters in the league, it will not even mention his speed.

[Caniac94]

This probably won't help much but I just want to quickly input that I like to keep the speed up high because when you see a game (especially in person) guys are skating around pretty fast, even slower guys as well. I like to keep that speed element there. What I felt makes the most difference is acceleration. When I did my own roster edits I just generally made older guys slower by giving them a slower acceleration and younger guys faster with better acceleration, which is pretty obvious that younger guys are gonna generally be faster anyway. I also wanted most defensemen to be a touch slower than forwards. (I did mine pretty quickly based on what I know about each player, so they're not perfect but the game plays better than it did before).

I made Zuccarrello a pretty fast skater and he's fun to control when he has the puck. I can really feel the difference between players with just some simple edits. Now what I would just like to feel is the difference after using Revamped Rosters with this game since Simple Mathematics really does detailed edits. (C'mon EA we need roster sharing!) Anyway I just wanted to post this regardless.

[Qb]

Quote: Originally Posted by Simple Mathematics

I'm in love with this post. To go along with what you said, it is difficult to rate most players on acceleration vs speed because there just aren't scouting reports out there that always tell you that stuff. For example, a big resource I use for the Revamped Rosters is The Hockey News. They give pretty good scouting reports for all NHL players, but sometimes even for some of the fastest skaters in the league, it will not even mention his speed.

Without advanced player tracking metrics -- which the upcoming World Cup will feature -- it is hard to quantify. When I had the time to watch a lot of hockey and do a deeply edited roster of my own (NHL08?), I went with a combo of scouting reports, my "eye test", and stats (for things like checking, blocked shots, and faceoffs).

Skating is a tough one, but there a ways to create some differentiation without going wild. Take a guy like Lidstrom later in his career; not a speedster by any stretch, but a very smooth skater and quick to the puck (more due to his intelligence but hey). So I'd go with high agility, slightly above average acceleration, and average speed. With my skating scale -- I considered 80 "NHL quality" -- that worked out to something like 90AGL/84ACC/80SPD. Nothing drastic from the 85-85-85 (or higher) he probably had, but definitely something you'd feel in gameplay switching from him to young Darren Helm at 80AGL/90ACC/89SPD (IDK, just pulling that out of hat).

Quote: Originally Posted by Caniac94

This probably won't help much but I just want to quickly input that I like to keep the speed up high because when you see a game (especially in person) guys are skating around pretty fast, even slower guys as well. I like to keep that speed element there. What I felt makes the most difference is acceleration. When I did my own roster edits I just generally made older guys slower by giving them a slower acceleration and younger guys faster with better acceleration, which is pretty obvious that younger guys are gonna generally be faster anyway.

I feel you. I didn't use a very wide range for speed ratings, with most NHLers falling between 80-90. As I said above, I considered 80 NHL quality, so only guys who known for being slow or the common scouting phrase of "below average skater" (which I interpreted as AGL rather than SPD) would dip much below 80. I agree acceleration makes a big difference and like the idea of younger guys having more explosiveness, but also agility is a great way make the great skaters stand out, or conversely, the bad ones.

Crosby and Kane or two good examples; I'd say they both have above average speed (85+), but what sets them apart is how quickly they can change speeds and direction (AGL & ACC!). That's part of what makes them great IRL, and if the entire league was rated on a similar scale, it'd make them stand out when you're on the sticks too.