However, the individual numbers tell a different story.
Fleury has the support of one of the NHL’s best team and it helps to boost his standing significantly. I feel bad doing this to a man who was a major component of the Penguins’ Stanley Cup winning squad in 2009, but the truth is that he has often been inconsistent throughout his career. He started the season at a 90 and has been downgraded to an 88 with the latest roster update. I included Marc-André Fleury on this list despite the fact that his rating has already been adjusted.
I would also add that Matthews performance in the World Cup of Hockey alone should have put him close to a 90, but I guess that EA either missed the World Cup or didn’t give it much weight in their final evaluation. Toronto has been helped by solid coaching, but Matthews’s play has single-handedly made the Maple Leafs exciting to watch, a far cry from the morose franchise they were just a few years ago, marred by management which preferred to keep the money in their pocket by putting a cheap but mediocre team on ice if the tickets kept selling out. His exceptional play (as well as Mitch Marner’s) has brought the Leafs to the edge of respectability for the first time in a very long time. It would look downright reasonable on any other rookie in any other season, but Matthews deserves better because of one thing. That’s not a bad number for a 19-year-old rookie. This would have been a lot more controversial in October, as he was introduced to the game with a rating of 77, which was eventually upgraded to an 85 before finally settling at 86.
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