While we’re twiddling our thumbs for the new Philadelphia Flyers season to start — or just have any semblance of professional hockey on our screens — some might opt to buy the latest installment of the NHL franchise by EA Sports for their respective video game console. It gives us a little jolt of excitement to get something hockey-related back in our minds once again as we gear up for several more months of Flyers hockey.
NHL 27 isn’t out until September 11 but we’re getting little inklings of what the game will include, and more importantly, how good or bad the game thinks the players are.
EA Sports released the top 10 player ratings for each team in NHL 27 earlier this week and for the Flyers, it’s an extremely mixed bag and the general theme is basically keeping the status quo.
After finally getting into the playoffs and really showing that they are a team to watch in the future, with young players and a mix of very good in-prime players; you would think that EA Sports would glom onto that storyline and want to give a little nod to what was eventually a very successful 2025-26 season for Philadelphia.
But no, the ratings are questionable and there is an insane snub from the top 10 list.
Travis Sanheim — 88 overall
NHL 26 rating: 88 overall
Like we said, status quo. Sanheim had an outstanding year. He has finally cemented himself as a top-pairing defenseman and is undeniably a great two-way blueliner who does all the little things right, while also having some impressive physical tools. Because of this, he made Team Canada at the dang 2026 Winter Olympics and played fairly well there.
So, for all of that, he gets the exact same rating as last year? He led a blue line to the playoffs and was so good and so consistent. Shouldn’t he at least get a little single-point bump? Somewhere?
Travis Konecny — 88 overall
NHL 26 rating: 88 overall
Okay, well Travis Konecny did have a little bit of a stale season. Had basically the same production rate while playing 90 fewer seconds on average per game. Scored more goals than last season, and was a better on-ice impact player. But overall, it basically all levelled out and keeping him the exact same makes perfect sense. Nothing else to say, really.
Trevor Zegras — 87 overall
NHL 26 rating: 83 overall
This is where we can also sort of pat EA Sports on the back and say “Good job for paying attention to the National Hockey League”. Trevor Zegras had a fall from grace as he went two consecutive seasons at 82 overall and 83 overall. Now after his move to Philadelphia and really rejuvenating his career, he gets a big four-point bump to clearly being one of the best forwards on this team and a top-six forward in the game no matter what.
Matvei Michkov — 86 overall
NHL 26 rating: 88 overall
Oof. Yeah. Matvei Michkov’s rookie year earned him an 88-overall designation last year but having a disappointing sophomore season (that we really hope we will never talk about ever again after he scores 10 points in the first six games next season) has earned him a slight dip. It’s frankly surprising that he dipped just two points, but you really can’t say that he doesn’t have talent.
Owen Tippett — 85 overall
NHL 26 rating: 84 overall
In a similar vein to Sanheim, we think Owen Tippett deserves a little bit more shine, especially when it comes to some specific abilities. Because we’re talking about Connor McDavid having an 98 rating for his acceleration, but Tippett having just a 92.
In actual real life, after the Oilers captain, it is Tippett who is considered one of the fastest players in the world. His max skating speed of 23.97 MPH last season was 10th-highest, but the amount of skating bursts over 22 MPH was second to McDavid, and there is a large enough gap between second and third (a total of 15 bursts) for it to be notable.
We should feel the virtual wind through our virtual hair while controlling Tippett in NHL 27 and racing up the boards, but we guess that will make him just too good. Haters and losers!
Dan Vladar — 85 overall
NHL 26 rating: 82 overall
While we want to put up a bit of a fight for Sanheim and Tippett, Vladar’s rating feels right and it’s more of game-specific reason. If they were to put him where he ranked among goalies just last season, Vladar probably would be somewhere in the 88 or 89 overall range, but that could break the game a little bit. Suddenly having this goalie who anyone can trade for or anyone can get on a cheap deal, who is comparative to other elite netminders in the game, and that feels a little cheap.
So, whatever. Vladar probably deserves more but he will surely get rewarded if he puts in a similar Team MVP-esque season next year.
Porter Martone — 84 overall
NHL 26 rating: 79 overall
Martone is obviously a tricky one to evaluate. His previous 79 overall rating obviously came with the caveat that he had high potential and would quickly grow in whatever franchise mode or whatever you play. Now, he has taken a jump to 84 overall and should still have ample potential (maybe even with a higher ceiling than last year).
It’s no impossible to think of a world where we can confidently say that Martone is the best Flyers forward by this time next year, so maybe that is built into the rating, but 84 overall is a fairly solid starting point since he could very well be on a second line for the entire season. This one is fine.
Cam York — 84 overall
NHL 26 rating: 84 overall
Cam York staying exactly where he is feels right. I know we prefaced this saying that EA Sports got this all wrong, but this is maybe the most correct of them all. Should he have been lowered? No, he was in the top four of a playoff team and that feels like a very good rating to have. Should he have gone higher? No, he didn’t really show anything too dynamic.
Noah Cates — 84 overall
NHL 26 rating: 83 overall
Look at that. Noah Cates gets a little bit of a bump and that feels deserved. It’s not exciting or anything like that, but it’s just super solid. His defensive attributes could have been raised a bit, as one of the best defensive forwards in the NHL — he has an 89 defensive awareness, 87 shot blocking, and 90 stick checking — but again, can only increase it so much until he’s looking like prime Patrice Bergeron in video game world.
Sean Couturier — 84 overall
NHL 26 rating: 85 overall
Sean Couturier gets the respectable decrease. In sports video games, the veterans always hold on so much longer than in real life. Players who were previously in the high 80s will have years and years go by until their rating actually represents their placement on the team and across the league. Couturier gets one single point deduction despite mainly being a very good fourth-line center right now.
And as an aside, it is very funny that Couturier’s acceleration is one point higher than Cates’s for some reason.
Where EA Sports really got it wrong
Yeah, EA Sports could have certainly given more respect to some Flyers players like Sanheim, Tippett, and Vladar considering their impressive seasons, but going down the list, there are some insanely obvious snubs that just aren’t included.
Jamie Drysdale is nowhere to be seen on the list. We know that he isn’t putting up a wild amount of points but he deserves so much more than just to be tossed aside as some mediocre player. The young blueliner had an 83 overall rating in NHL 23 and NHL 24, that decreased to 82 overall in NHL 25 and NHL 26, and now we don’t see him on a list that ends at an 84 overall. Even if he got that single point boost to 84, are we saying that he wasn’t the main driver on that pairing with York? That he didn’t bring more than Couturier to the table last season?
It feels so strange to not have Drysdale be in this mid-80s range along with his teammates. Especially considering his immense skating ability and how much that could matter in a player’s overall rating when they balance it out. He’s average in some areas, and then great in others. That should be considered somewhere on this list.
And then even a newcomer like Joseph Woll deserves some more love. He had an 85 overall rating in NHL 26. It is understandable for him to see a dip after putting up an .898 save percentage, but he also had a higher quality start percentage than his 2024-25 season and played on a terrible Leafs team. Maybe he’s also in this 84 overall range. Are we just discovering that every single other Flyer is at 84 overall?
Maybe the biggest snub of them all is Tyson Foerster. Because how the hell is he not considered one of the Flyers’ best wingers? We understand Tippett had a good step forward, but Foerster scored almost half the amount of goals (13 to Tippett’s 28) in just 29 games. All that while also being an extremely good defensive player.
Foerster was ranked an 81 overall in NHL 26 and that is absurd. To then only take maybe a two-point increase after the season he had — showing just how much the Flyers missed him and how he was a major reason why they got into the playoffs with that outstanding late-season run after his return from injury. It’s just wild.
Maybe it’s just EA Sports painting themselves into a corner. They can’t lower Michkov by several points because of where they started with his rating, and they can’t give Foerster an 87 overall because he was only an 81 last year.
There will always be a gripe for certain players, but considering just how great a season the Flyers had and how some players took massive leaps or even just small steps forward, to then not get rewarded with being a good player in a video game, feels wrong.
It’s just one of the probably many bad things about NHL 27. (Let us get another copy of the game to write another review, EA Sports. Cowards.)
