(Photo taken by Melissa Grissom)

NHL 13 is the new hockey video game created and published by Electronic Arts in their sports division. Electronic Arts is also responsible for such video games as The Sims franchise and the legendary Madden franchise. NHL has come a long way in developing its hockey series including new things each year like Winter Classic Mode or the use of NHL legends which were new features in NHL 12, or the constant work they put into their already successful modes such as the EASHL (Electronic Arts Sports Hockey League) which is an online mode in which players ”create a pro” and through playing online games build their players attributes from rookie to legend status, or HUT (Hockey Ultimate Team) which is a league in which players create the ultimate team through the use of hockey cards starting off with a bunch of players not really heard of around the world and then working to build the ultimate team.

Earlier this week the team and player ratings for NHL 13 were released and including a statement from EA saying that they have changed their system of rating players. In NHL 12 players attributes and overalls were considered by their playing style so many times tough guys had higher overalls than a two-way forward or grinders, but that didn’t mean they were a better player. For example George Parros in NHL 12 had an overall of 82 as a tough guy and Alex Goligoski’s overall was 83. That doesn’t mean that George Parros is just as good as Goligoski, but as a tough guy he is 83 overall not as a general hockey player. For NHL 13 they have based the overalls on the players skills overall and not by what type of player they are, so for starters this season George Parros will have a rating of 69. Below we will look at the Dallas Stars’ updated team rating and player ratings from the end of NHL 12 and the starting ones for NHL 13

Dallas Stars Team ratings:

NHL 12: Offense 79  Defense 87  Goalie  79  Overall 80

NHL 13: Offense 4/5  Defense 4/5  Goalie 4.5/5

Dallas Stars Player Ratings for the 2012-2013 roster

Loui Eriksson                     NHL 12: 87    NHL 13: 85

Michael Ryder                   NHL 12: 82   NHL 13: 80

Ryan Garbutt                     NHL 12: 74   NHL 13: 69

Jamie Benn                         NHL 12: 87   NHL 13: 86

Vernon Fiddler                 NHL 12: 80   NHL 13: 75

Tom Wandell                     NHL 12: 77   NHL 13: 74

Brenden Morrow            NHL 12: 87   NHL 13: 83

Eric Nystrom                     NHL 12: 80   NHL 13: 74

Tomas Vincour                NHL 12: 74    NHL 13: 68

Alex Goligoski                   NHL 12: 83    NHL 13: 82

Philip Larsen                      NHL 12: 72    NHL 13: 73

Mark Fistric                         NHL 12: 82    NHL 13: 80

Stephane Robidas            NHL 12: 81     NHL 13: 82

Trevor Daley                       NHL 12: 84    NHL 13: 84

Ray Whitney                        NHL 12: 84    NHL 13: 79

Jaromir Jagr                       NHL 12: 84    NHL 13: 81

Derek Roy                             NHL 12: 88    NHL 13: 86

Aaron Rome                        NHL 12: 79    NHL 13: 74

Richard Bachman           NHL 12: 75    NHL 13: 74

Kari Lehtonen                   NHL 12: 87    NHL 13: 86

So what do you think? You can really tell by some of the big differences in overalls how they think of some players skill wise compared to just what type of player they are by some of the big differences in overalls. If you are a big fan of the game it will be available in stores on September 11th and the demo will be available for download this Tuesday August 21st.