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EA Sports and their Crystal Ball
by Alanah McGinley on 08/15/08 at 05:27 PM ET
Comments (5)
EA Sports is putting out NHL ‘09 on September 9th, and in anticipation they’ve released their player rankings for every team’s roster. Those rankings use a pile of criteria some of which appear more subjective than those determined by straight statistics.
For the details, you can click here and scroll down to see each player’s rankings on their team page. Sort of entertaining if you use them as a predictor of how the player will perform in real life.
One aspect of the rankings that stands out (to me, at least) is that “toughness” and “aggressiveness” are two separate categories. How is it that those numbers are isolated and determined? I’m not sure, but it escalates my violence perception of a player a wee bit.
For instance, looking at those two categories on the Vancouver Canucks roster, Darcy Hordichuk ranks as 94/99 on the toughness scale, and 95/99 on the aggression scale. So maybe one could say that Darcy is similar to a starving and abused pit bull who’s being prodded with a sharp stick while some joker calls him “Darla Upchuck”...?
Well, the guys of EA Sports would have you believe that’s a bad idea, because Darcy’s tough and aggressive, after all. And he will hurt you. And he will like it. (And then later he will take a video of the beating and post it on his own website so he can enjoy it again and again...)
So yeah, in this case the 94 and 95 scores are probably a fairly accurate predictor of Hordichuk’s future behavior.
But EA Sports might not always be as trustworthy in their rankings. Turning to the Eastern Conference, James Gordon at Hockey Capital has his own concerns about how the Ottawa Senators shake out. For instance, apparently we’re meant to believe that Jason Spezza hits harder than Mike Fisher. (Umm....really??) As Gordon remarks, it’s one of the “head-scratchers.”
And then other rankings are just worrisome on a personal level. I’m thinking of poor Kyle Wellwood, a brand-new Canuck whose own scores for toughness and aggression (68 and 67) would imply that we should just expect him to lie down on the ice and bleed a lot in NHL ‘09. Cripes.
Fortunately the game is still being tweaked before its release so perhaps expectations will be raised by the time the game hits our Playstations.
For Kyle’s sake, I hope so. 
Update 3:15pm PT:
I’ve been away for the past week and I just noticed that Barry Melrose Rocks turned the EA player rankings into EA hockey blogger rankings yesterday. (Very clever and possibly more accurate than the NHL ‘09 version!)
Filed in: vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: darcy+hordichuk, ea+sports, kyle+wellwood, nhl+09,
Comments
As someone who’s very happy that my team won’t see the man my friends have nicknamed “Darcy Hordi[bleep],” yeah, he hurts you, and he likes doing it.
Meeaaaannn, and a lot smarter than a certain Jarkko Ruutu.
Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/15/08 at 05:51 PM ET
Wow, that’s laughable. They have Marek Malik with the highest score for checking on the Rangers. Not only are the Rangers not going to re-sign Malik, one of the reasons he was run out of town is because he is 6’6” and DOES NOT HIT! He had 40 hits in 42 games last year. And Shanahan somehow gets a score of 88 for checking and 84 for agression despite only registering 47 hits in 73 games last season! (Not to mention they give him an endurance score in the 80s as well...have they actually watched these players play?)
Posted by K24 on 08/15/08 at 07:01 PM ET
checking might mean - for forwards - backchacking, or ‘keeping with ones check’ on defense. IE: How well do they play man to man coverage, poke check, etc… not nec. hitting. I dont know 
Toughness is considered regarding proness to injury and recovery time, whereas agressiveness is not. Toughness is one’s ability to take it, agressiveness is ones likelihood of dishing it out.
Posted by underthechestnuttree from LaSalle, Ontario, Canada on 08/15/08 at 08:57 PM ET
They give lesser-thought-of players lower rankings across the board so you don’t have a guy like, say, Sutherby who has decent wheels, decent toughness, decent agressiveness, good checking, etc with a higher value than more talented players whose worth only manifests itself in a few stats.
This has long been their way of doing things.
A good example of this is probably Burrows, who clocks in with an 83 speed rating, when in actuality he’s closer to a 89 or 90. But having it that high would make it seem as though he’s a pretty good player overall, when he’s pretty crappy. When they do player rankings, they try more to balance the OVERALL ranking than they do ensuring every single category is letter perfect.
A bigger peeve as far as rankings go would be that they rank older players as if they were still in the prime of their career. Last year, Rob Blake was about a 90 overall, JR was still a scoring fiend and Keith Tkatchuk was more than an overweight injury prone slug. It looks like they’ve finally taken steps to realize that household names to not a good player make.
Posted by Name on 08/15/08 at 09:20 PM ET
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About Canucks & Beyond
Alanah McGinley has been blogging hockey since 2003, sharing opinions, rants and not-so-deep thoughts with anyone who will listen. In addition to writing Canucks & Beyond and helping manage Kukla’s Korner, Alanah is one of the founders and co-hosts of The Crazy Canucks Podcast, as featured at Canucks.com.
She has contributed pieces to FoxSports.com and the New York Times Slapshot blog, as well as other stray destinations in cyberspace.
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The ratings are just plain silly. Detroit’s own head-hunter Nicklas Kronwall is rated at 74 for checking. Compare that to the San Jose Sharks, where every player is rated highed than 74 in checking.
Chris Chelios, who hasn’t thrown a hit in 2 seasons is rated at 89 checking.
These folks have some homework to do before they get their stats right. Same problem every year, along with getting the starting rosters right.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this gaming franchise and will continue to support it! They do need some help in the stats department.
Posted by Pete on 08/15/08 at 05:45 PM ET