Contrary to what may or may not happen in youth hockey, playing as a defenseman in the NHL is not a tacit admission that the player is not good enough to be a forward. Defensemen have to combine amazing speed, stick control, passing ability, strength, and willingness to do the dirty work on the boards (or with their fists). Even so, whether it's the Hart Memorial MVP trophy or the player ratings in NHL 21, defensemen are more often the bridesmaids than the brides.
This list could very easily be ten defensemen, but they weren't the only ones to get cross-checked in this year's installation of the NHL video game franchise. With all due recognition to the players ranked above them, it takes some mental gymnastics to explain how these athletes were ranked anywhere close to correctly. It's hard enough to succeed at the highest level as it is, no professional needs additional disrespect courtesy of a video game studio.
10 Jordan Binnington, 86 (Goalie, St. Louis Blues)
Heartbreaking endings are par for the course for sophisticated gamers, but it became one man's reality in 2020. Jordan Binnington was coming off a championship the previous year and expert goaltending that led his team to a top seed in the playoffs in 2020.
But a first-round disaster ended all of that. None of the St. Louis Blues played as well as they had during the season, but NHL 21 penalized Binnington more than his teammates. The punishment is undisputably heavy-handed, as he fell from a probable first to outside of the top ten because of one series.
9 Leon Draisaitl, 92 (Center, Edmonton Oilers)
How often does an MVP end up on an underrated list? The league correctly recognized Leon Draisaitl as the best player on the ice in 2020. And somehow, he's not the top-rated player in NHL 21. He's not even the top-rated player on his team, settling in at three full ranks below Connor McDavid.
That's like saying a Game of the Year winner, like Fallout: New Vegas, is "pretty good" the very following year. It's absurd ten years after the fact, but it's even more absurd fresh off the heels of recognizing it.
8 Miro Heiskanen, 86 (Defenseman, Dallas Stars)
Competition is a beast. First place finishers have their names etched in stone. Second place finishers are, at best, remembered as a mysterious "almost was." More often, they are forgotten. In the case of Heiskanen, somebody forgot to rate him correctly.
Had the Stars overcome the Lightning in the Stanley Cups finals, Heiskanen had a chance to be the league's top-rated defensemen, with a plus 14 goal differential while on the ice. His defense and his shooting improved in the playoffs, racking up an astounding 26 points, but the Star couldn't keep up.
7 Mika Zibanejad, 85 (Center, New York Rangers)
New York teams had an embarrassment of riches at the center positions (there is another still to come). Maybe somebody over at EA thought it would look too much like east coast bias if another 90+ center out of New York graced the game.
The confusing thing is that everyone seemed to realize Zibanejad's greatness this year. At fifth in goals and twelfth in points to go along with a plus eight margin, somebody needs to wake up and figure out how Zibanejad fell out of the top ten centers. Ah well... if Marvel's Avengers can underrate some of the best outfits from the comics, it only makes sense that EA will let a few underrated players fall through the cracks.
6 Nikita Kucherov, 92 (Right Wing, Tampa Bay Lightning)
With a 92 and tied for the fourth-highest rank, readers are fair to question Kucherov as a pick. This is the retort: What more could any right wing player do to be higher? If Kucherov is a 92, is this the cap on the position?
Gamers should hope that a visual novel of the life of Kucherov is coming around the bend, especially after notching a Hart Memorial MVP trophy AND a Stanley Cup championship trophy. He notched seventh in points this year, a monolithic achievement from a wing in a world dominated by centers.
5 Connor Hellebuyck, 90 (Goalie, Winnipeg Jets)
Some video game characters are so integral to the story that the game would be useless without them (think along the lines of Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn). Nobody needs to guess who the Winnipeg Jets would be without Hellebuyck; they'd be one of the league's worst.
A 90 is not an insult by any means, but it is tremendously unfair to a guy who carried his team into the playoffs. Even after a four-game series loss, both his playoff and career save percentage is .917. Translation: Give this guy a little help and championships are on the way.
4 Artemi Panarin, 91 (Left Wing, New York Rangers)
After the shock wore off, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint was actually better with AI teammates. Many superstars on NHL teams can relate this to their teams (though they are careful not to do so publicly). Count the New York Rangers out of this group.
Panarin is the definition of a team player and does everything anyone could want from the left wing position. He tied for second in assists (63) with Connor McDavid, the game's highest-rated player at 95. The league leader in assists, Leon Draisaitl, won the Hart Memorial MVP trophy. Those are big names and Panarin should not be ranked so far behind.
3 Mathew Barzal, 86 (Center, Islanders)
Does anybody complain after they are farming for legendary items in Borderlands 3 when three legendaries drop at the same time? Of course not. The New York Islanders have three of the best centers in the game.
The problem here is that EA only recognized two of them. McDavid and Draisaitl are incredible, but Barzal, with more minutes in the position, would be on track to keep up with both of them. He has been notorious for his deke skills and speed since winning the Calder Memorial rookie of the year trophy back in 2017 and has not faded since.
2 David Pastrnak, 91 (Right Wing, Boston Bruins)
Can anybody keep up with sharpshooter Alexander Ovechkin's scoring ability? Believe it or not, one person did just that this year. Pastrnak tied his league-leading goal total with 48, then one-upped the man himself with 95 points (to Ovechkin's 67) and a plus 21 while on the ice (to Ovechkin's negative 12). The cherry on top was his 17.2 shooting percentage.
Pastrnak was better than Ovechkin at the same position as Ovechkin and was rewarded by being rated... two full points less than Ovechkin. This is not to rail on the superstar, but Pastrnak's hard work was not properly acknowledged in NHL 21.
1 Ryan Graves, 82 (Defenseman, Colorado Avalanche)
What is the job of a defenseman? Is it to score and assist? Sure, those statistics don't hurt and, as secondary objectives, there are plenty of players better than Graves. Despite that, the primary job of a defenseman is to defend and nobody did a better job of that than Graves.
Graves was the league-leader with an eyeglass-adjusting plus 40. Unlike football, turnovers in hockey are not well-documented, but if they were, one can be certain Graves would be a top ten talent and not an embarrassing 82.