EA Sports NHL 27 ratings are live, led by Connor McDavid’s first-ever 99 overall. Here is how the early rankings shape HUT, versus play, and Franchise Mode decisions.
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McDavid’s 99 overall gives NHL 27 its first ratings headline
EA Sports has completed its first NHL 27 rankings rollout, and the concrete headline is a series first: Connor McDavid is the first player in EA Sports NHL history to enter the 99 Club. EA announced McDavid’s 99 overall during Ratings Week, and GamersHeroes noted that the rollout covered the Top 10 Forwards, Top 10 Defensemen, Top 10 Overall, and biggest ratings updates ahead of the game’s September release window.
That creates the immediate tension around this year’s EA Sports NHL 27 ratings. McDavid is alone at the very top, but the rest of the elite tier is compressed tightly enough that mode choice will matter. In EA’s public ratings hub, Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov sit at 97 overall, Leon Draisaitl follows at 96, and six players in the published top 10 are rated 95 overall. For competitive players, that means the best NHL 27 player ratings are not only a question of overall number. The individual attribute spread is where roster-building decisions start.
EA’s Ratings Week blog frames the numbers as meaningful across Franchise Mode, Hockey Ultimate Team, and head-to-head play, saying ratings influence speed, precision, and physical dominance on the ice. That is publisher language, but it lines up with how this reveal reads on paper. McDavid’s overall is historic, while the field below him looks built around tradeoffs between straight-line speed, puck handling, passing, shot profile, and positional value.
The NHL 27 best players list is top-heavy, then suddenly crowded
EA’s ratings hub lists the top 10 overall players in this order: Connor McDavid at 99, Nathan MacKinnon at 97, Nikita Kucherov at 97, Leon Draisaitl at 96, Cale Makar at 95, Zach Werenski at 95, David Pastrnak at 95, Sidney Crosby at 95, Quinn Hughes at 95, and Macklin Celebrini at 95.
The shape of that list matters. The top four are forwards, led by two Edmonton Oilers in McDavid and Draisaitl. After that, defensemen take three of the next five slots, with Makar, Werenski, and Hughes all at 95. That gives the NHL 27 rankings a different competitive read than a pure scoring leaderboard would suggest. If the gameplay environment rewards defensemen who can skate, pass, and create clean exits, the 95-overall blue-line group could be as valuable as similarly rated forwards in certain modes.
Yahoo Sports reported the production context behind several of the top names. According to Yahoo, McDavid earned the 99 after leading the NHL with 138 points in the 2025-26 regular season, including 90 assists. Yahoo also reported that MacKinnon scored a career-high 53 goals while Colorado captured the Presidents’ Trophy, and that Kucherov posted 130 points and won the Hart Trophy. USA Today likewise identified Kucherov as the 2025-26 MVP and noted that McDavid had been NHL 26’s highest-rated player at 97 before moving to 99 in NHL 27.
Celebrini is the most eye-catching name inside the top 10 because of how fast he has been pushed into the game’s elite tier. Yahoo describes his 95 rating as a reflection of a 115-point breakout season, while USA Today notes that he is NHL 27’s cover athlete and signed a record-setting extension with San Jose in July. EA’s hub ranks him 10th overall at 95, just behind Hughes and ahead of Aleksander Barkov, who is also rated 95 but sits 11th in the overall ranking.
The attribute split favors different stars for different modes
The overall ratings tell the headline story, but EA’s public ratings hub gives enough attribute detail to start separating use cases. McDavid’s profile is the cleanest competitive package in the reveal: 98 acceleration, 98 speed, 98 deking, and 99 passing. In modes where controlled zone entries, rush chances, and lateral puck movement drive offense, that combination makes his 99 feel functional rather than ceremonial.
MacKinnon is close in the skating categories, with 96 acceleration and 95 speed, plus 95 passing. Kucherov is a different build. EA lists him with 90 acceleration and 90 speed, but 98 deking, 98 passing, 93 slap shot power, and 93 wrist shot power. On paper, that makes MacKinnon the more obvious transition weapon, while Kucherov looks like the stronger half-wall creator or possession finisher if NHL 27’s feel supports slower, more deliberate cycling.
Draisaitl’s 96 overall comes with 96 passing, 94 deking, 91 acceleration, and 90 speed. That is elite but less explosive than McDavid and MacKinnon in the skating fields EA has published. For online versus players, the Oilers’ advantage is clear from the rankings alone: they have the No. 1 and No. 4 overall players in the game. For HUT players, the practical question will be availability and cost at launch, which EA’s ratings materials do not detail.
The 95 tier is where team-building gets interesting. Makar has 94 acceleration, 94 speed, 95 deking, 94 passing, 92 slap shot power, and 94 wrist shot power. Hughes has 93 acceleration, 93 speed, 96 deking, and 97 passing. Werenski sits at 95 overall with 91 acceleration, 92 speed, 95 deking, 93 passing, 93 slap shot power, and 93 wrist shot power. Those are not shutdown-only profiles. They are puck-moving engines, and that should matter in Franchise Mode and HUT if the game rewards defensemen who can start offense without forcing risky forward support.
Defensemen are unusually prominent near the top
EA’s social reveal for defensemen and goalies, as cited by GamersHeroes, highlighted 95 overall ratings for Cale Makar, Zach Werenski, and Quinn Hughes, with Andrei Vasilevskiy at 94 overall in goal. The full EA ratings hub then places Makar fifth, Werenski sixth, and Hughes ninth overall. That is a strong defense presence inside the top 10 highest-rated players.
For Franchise Mode players, this is the part of the NHL 27 rankings that should affect draft, trade, and cap thinking once the game is in hand. A 95 overall defenseman who can skate and pass changes how a roster functions. Makar’s 94 speed and 94 passing, Hughes’ 97 passing, and Werenski’s balanced shot and skating profile all point toward blue-liners who can drive offense instead of simply supporting it.
The rankings also suggest a narrower gap between elite forwards and elite defensemen than some players might expect. Pastrnak, Crosby, and Celebrini are all 95 overall, the same overall band as Makar, Werenski, and Hughes. Pastrnak’s published profile includes 96 deking, 95 passing, 93 slap shot power, and 94 wrist shot power. Crosby’s includes 97 passing but lower listed skating, with 87 acceleration and 87 speed. Celebrini’s includes 96 passing, 93 deking, 92 slap shot power, and 93 wrist shot power. Depending on mode and play style, a 95 forward will not automatically be the better roster anchor than a 95 defenseman.
That is a useful early read, not a final verdict on the meta. EA has published ratings, but it has not provided enough in the supplied materials to judge gameplay tuning, stamina behavior, checking balance, goalie consistency, or HUT economy. Those systems will decide how much these numbers dominate once NHL 27 is playable.
Celebrini and Barkov show two different ratings arguments
Celebrini’s 95 overall is the loudest youth-development signal in the reveal. EA’s hub places the San Jose center at No. 10 overall, and Yahoo ties that jump to a 115-point breakout season. USA Today adds that Celebrini is the NHL 27 cover athlete. For Franchise players, that makes him one of the most important names to inspect at launch, assuming the mode’s contract, potential, and progression systems align with the headline rating. The source material confirms his 95 overall and real-world rise, but it does not provide NHL 27 potential grades or Franchise-specific contract behavior.
Barkov is the more complicated case. USA Today reported that Aleksander Barkov received a 95 rating despite missing all of last season after preseason ACL surgery. EA’s ratings hub lists him at No. 11 overall with 86 acceleration, 87 speed, 93 deking, 94 passing, 87 slap shot power, and 87 wrist shot power. That is still an elite overall, but the published attributes show a very different shape from the faster stars above him.
For competitive players, Barkov’s rating raises the kind of question that always follows EA Sports NHL player ratings: how much should overall represent peak impact, reputation, two-way value, and positional completeness compared with recent availability? The supplied sources do not give EA’s internal formula. Yahoo says EA weighs overall impact, consistency, position, and the ability to influence games at both ends of the ice, but the exact attribute math remains unannounced in the provided material.
That uncertainty matters for roster decisions. A 95 overall can hide different strengths. Celebrini’s listed passing and shot power make him look like an immediate offensive centerpiece. Barkov’s lower listed skating makes him a less obvious speed-meta choice, even with the same overall number.
Ratings Week is also a marketing beat, with launch details still split across sources
EA’s Ratings Week blog laid out a five-day schedule beginning August 17 with the 99 Club inductee, followed by Top 10 Forwards on August 18, Top 10 Defensemen and Top 10 Goalies on August 19, Top 10 Overall on August 20, and ratings updates on August 21. GamersHeroes reported that the rollout is now complete and pointed readers to EA’s ratings hub for the full published list.
The practical release information is slightly fragmented across the supplied sources. EA’s Ratings Week blog says NHL 27 is available for pre-order on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. The EA Sports NHL social post embedded by GamersHeroes says Deluxe Edition pre-orders can play seven days early on September 4. USA Today reports that NHL 27 will be released on September 11. The EA blog excerpt provided here does not itself state the standard launch date, so the cleanest confirmed reading from these materials is that EA is advertising PS5 and Xbox Series X|S pre-orders, EA’s social channel is promoting September 4 early access for Deluxe Edition pre-orders, and USA Today lists September 11 as the release date.
There is no PC, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One availability confirmed in the supplied EA blog excerpt. There is also no price, cross-play detail, HUT launch pack information, performance target, or upgrade path included in the provided materials. Players deciding whether to pre-order should treat the ratings reveal as useful roster information, not as a substitute for mode details.
For HUT players, the rankings identify likely premium cards but not their acquisition path. For Franchise players, the ratings identify roster power and player archetypes but not development curves. For online versus players, the Oilers, Avalanche, Lightning, and teams with elite puck-moving defensemen are the early names to watch. The strongest confirmed fact remains simple: NHL 27 has its first 99 overall player, and every competitive conversation starts with McDavid until gameplay proves where the rest of the elite tier catches up.