NHL 18: Top 10 highest-rated players at each position

NHL 18 isn’t set to be released until Friday, Sept. 15, but EA Sports has started to generate hype for the new season of hockey gaming with ratings information for the best players in the league.

EA Sports NHL 18 promises some new features for hockey fans who are also gamers, but what fans look most forward to on an annual basis is ratings reveals. The ratings themselves are the subject of conversation this year.

EA announced that ratings overall would be lower for this year’s game, in the interest of making the game more realistic.

"First, it spreads out the talent from first liners to fourth liners to improve Franchise Mode logic. This means that there is a more defined gap between a player’s value in Franchise Mode and will affect any player transaction from trades to waivers. Since talent is more spread out throughout the league, it also allows the superstars like Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby to be even more valuable to have on your team. The top stars provide you with an advantage, so you will want to do your best to have a superstar player on your team. Finally, top prospects like Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier will be ready to step into the NHL straight out of the NHL® Entry Draft. This will allow for more authentic drafting as generally the top picks out of every NHL® Entry Draft class are able to step in and make an impact in the NHL."

EA gives a general range in which NHL veteran players will fall depending on how real teams use them on the ice, and the top 10 players at each position all lie at the top end of those ranges.

Beginning with the top 10 defensemen, here are who the folks at EA Sports think are the league’s best heading into the 2017-18 season.