Mark it down people, we're officially just over a third of the way into the 2016-17 NHL season. Some people take time to reflect upon the standings, stats leaderboards and look ahead on the schedule to see what key match-ups lie ahead for their team. However, some merely wish to wait on EA Sports to release a new roster update to see how 28+ games played has impacted player ratings.
Thursday, the newest roster update was released online. Seeing as we are now more than 33.3% of the way through the season, we thought it was finally fair to see which players have enjoyed a healthy boost to their stats. For our comparison we decided to roll back the active rosters to September 9th, which was the update that came before the game launched (September 13th). Next, we selected ten players who are currently enjoying a hot start to the season, and would thus be most likely to have received a bump in their stats. While a number of the players we chose to compare received a significant increase in their ratings, a few others only saw a slight boost in their digital scouting card.
Mark Scheifele
Connor McDavid
David Pastrnak
Patrik Laine
Auston Matthews
Cam Atkinson
Alexander Radulov
Devan Dubnyk
Mitch Marner
Travis Konecny
It's no surprise to see the large jump in each of the rookie's stats, as traditionally whenever a first year player enters the league, the team at EA Sports gives them a healthy kick in their stats. But McDavid's jump from 88 to 92 officially places him among the NHL elite. Errrrrhmm...well, finally in EA's list of elites, as he's kind of already known as one of the best players in the league in the RL.
