NHL 22 EA's Women's Hockey Rankings
by Chris Morris
EA Sports has just released their new IIHF Women’s Hockey addition, so for the 1st time little girls (and the rest of us too) can play as Marie-Philip Poulin, Sarah Nurse or whomever you want…but with that comes controversy. As seems to happen every year, EA’s rankings have irked some people, or at least the initial “Top 10” that was released online.
As it turns out, it was only a Top 10 of forwards and didn’t include Goalies or anyone on Defence, as if it did, Jenni Hiirikoski of Finland would have been #2 with 93 points (technically tied with Kendall Coyne-Schofield and Hillary Knight, but I give her the edge…but that’s just me).
The game itself’s rankings are based on last August’s World Championships in Calgary, so the teams included are Team Canada, Team USA, Team Finland, Team Switzerland, Team Denmark, Team Germany, Team Hungary, Team Japan, Team ROC (Russia) and Team Czech Republic. No Team Sweden, as they have had a rough time lately until they qualified for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
I’ve included the Top 24 players, as ranked by EA, and I do like that four Finnish players are in the Top 21, but all the other spots are taken up be Canadians and Americans, which I guess should be expected.
Also, five defensemen (or is it defensewomen?) are included, as are five goalies.
So now, with the Top 24 filled out, how does it effect your thoughts on these rankings? I’ve seen people online saying these rankings are “old”, based on the women’s abilities from three/four years ago…most agree with Poulin as #1 but not much else…I personally am really happy EA is doing this, but this is about three/four years overdue…
Full disclosure: I don’t own this game, I got this information based on screen grabs from THIS VIDEO on Youtube…
Full disclocure 2: I found another video on Youtube that went through all the team rosters, including, apparently, the scratched players that weren’t part of the rosters I saw in the first video…it includes Anni Seisala (Finland goalie), Susanna Tapani (Finland linemate of Karavinen and Nieminen) and Maddie Rooney (American goalie). I wonder if Alina Muller would have ranked higher if she hadn’t blown out her knee early in the tournament? Check out the video I watched earlier today HERE
**So I might be crazy here, but I can’t seem to find Russia’s Anna Shokhina in any of the listings for this game…she played at the World Championships so she should be in the game…am I nuts? Could the have misspelled her name? Did I misspell her name? Is there anyone else missing from the game? Any suggestions are welcome…
Side note: Apparently, the first version of this to go out included a glitch where none of the goaltenders wore goalie masks during game play…from what I’ve seen it looks hilarious and I wonder how long it will take for EA to fix it…
EA Overall Top 24 Rankings:
1- Marie-Philip Poulin 94 F Canada
2- Jenny Hiirikoski 93 D Finland
3- Kendall Coyne-Schofield 93 F USA
4- Hilary Knight 93 F USA
5- Petra Nieminen 92 F Finland
6- Brianne Jenner 92 F Canada
7- Melodie Daoust 92 F Canada
8- Ann-Renee Desbiens 92 G Canada
9- Brianna Decker 92 F USA
10- Anni Keisala 92 G Finland
11- Natalie Spooner 91 F Canada
12- Michelle Karavinen 91 F Finland
13- Alex Carpenter 91 F USA
14- Lee Stecklien 91 D USA
15- Megan Keller 91 D USA
16- Emerance Maschmeyer 90 G Canada
17- Nicole Hensley 90 G USA
18- Susanna Tapani 90 F Finland
19- Alex Cavallini 89 G USA
20- Sarah Fillier 89 F Canada
21- Jocelyn Larocque 89 D Canada
22- Erin Ambrose 89 D Canada
23- Meeri Raisanen 89 G Finland
24- Maddie Rooney 89 G USA
More to come, as I hope to add the rosters for all the teams…stay tuned!