Have Things Really Gotten This Bad for Auston Matthews?

There was a time when putting Auston Matthews outside the top 10 centres in the NHL would have sounded almost ridiculous. Now, EA Sports has done exactly that with its NHL 27 ratings, and suddenly there is a little debate about whether the rating is actually that far off.

Matthews comes in at 92 overall, which makes him the 11th-highest-rated centre in the game. Connor McDavid is the first 99-rated player in the game's history, followed by Nathan MacKinnon, Leon Draisaitl, Sidney Crosby, Macklin Celebrini, Aleksander Barkov and Jack Eichel. Then come Jack Hughes, Nick Suzuki and Mark Scheifele.

Who can argue with the rankings for the top centres?

There isn't much argument with the players at the top. The interesting part is Matthews sitting just outside the group. And that's a little jarring. Matthews had the worst offensive season of his NHL career in 2025-26, scoring 27 goals and 53 points in 60 games. Those aren't bad numbers for most players. For Matthews, they're startling. This is a player who scored 69 goals and 107 points just two seasons earlier.

So has he really fallen this far? Maybe the EA rating is less an indication of what Matthews is and more a reflection of what he did last season. And that's a reasonable way to look at it. Video-game ratings have to account for recent performance. If a player has a down year, his rating should probably take a hit.

But there is another way to look at Matthews’ place in the rankings.

Matthews is still only 28. He's still a three-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner. He's still the player who scored 60 goals and then 69. Those seasons didn't disappear because he had one disappointing year.

The bigger question for the Maple Leafs isn't whether Matthews deserves to be ranked 10th or 11th among centres in a video game. It's whether 27 goals and 53 points are becoming the new Matthews. That's what makes the 2026-27 season so important.

Toronto has made some significant changes around him. Gavin McKenna gives the team another potentially dynamic offensive player, while Darren Raddysh should help the team in other areas. More importantly, the organization appears to be trying to build a roster that doesn't require Matthews to do everything.

Maybe that's exactly what Matthews needs.

The funny thing about being left off a top-10 list is that Matthews doesn't have to talk about it. He doesn't have to respond to it. He can simply go out and score 50 goals again. And if he does, EA will have to fix its list next year.

Because that's the thing about Matthews: one big season can make everybody forget how quickly they started writing him off.