EA Sports kicked off the NHL 27 hype cycle the way it always does — by handing out ratings and letting the internet argue about them. Except this year there wasn't much to argue about at the top. Connor McDavid didn't just get the highest number in the game, he got a number nobody in the 30-plus-year history of the franchise has ever been assigned: 99 overall, officially inaugurating EA's new '99 Club.'
McDavid came into this reveal at 97 overall in NHL 26, tied for the top spot in the game the last two years running. A bump to 99 isn't just a routine annual tick up — it's EA drawing a new ceiling and putting McDavid's name on it first. Sportsnet, Spittin' Chiclets, and Daily Faceoff all hammered the same point within hours of the announcement: first player, ever, at that number in this series.
The ratings rollout didn't stop with McDavid. A day later, EA confirmed he's also the top-rated center in NHL 27, fending off the usual suspects at the position. Elsewhere on the ice, Nikita Kucherov was named the top-rated right winger and Kirill Kaprizov the top-rated left winger, giving the Lightning and Wild each a marquee designation up front.
Wild’s Kirill Kaprizov named top-rated left winger in EA Sports NHL 27 https://t.co/rpbB2Vg6kw
The blue line and the crease got their moment too. EA tapped Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar, and Zach Werenski in a three-way tie atop the defenseman rankings, while Andrei Vasilevskiy — Kucherov's Lightning teammate — was named the top-rated goaltender in the game.
Hughes, Makar, Werenski named top-rated defensemen in EA Sports NHL 27 https://t.co/wl1j6P50sT
None of this is a surprise on the merits. McDavid just finished as the league's leading point-scorer again, which is basically an annual formality at this point, and EA's ratings have long functioned as a real-time scoreboard for who's actually running the sport. Making him the first-ever 99 is EA turning that into a marketing moment — and giving Chel players a new number to chase when NHL 27 launches worldwide on Sept. 11 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Ratings reveals always spark the usual online split — 'he's not that good' takes versus people pointing at the actual stat sheet — but there's not much of a counterargument here. McDavid has been the best player alive for the better part of a decade, and now the video game says so in a number nobody else has ever worn.