Maple Leafs Captain Auston Matthews' NHL 26 Ranking is Stirring Up Debate

Auston Matthews is coming off a bit of a down year with the Toronto Maple Leafs, as he went from scoring 69 goals to just 33.

Of course, this decline in production mostly has to do with the fact that he was dealing with a nagging injury throughout the entirety of the 2024-25 season.

Going into the upcoming campaign, Matthews is supposedly fully healthy, which means there is an opportunity for him to get back to the 50-goal plateau.

Of course, with the release of NHL 26 on the horizon, Matthews is under scrutinty, as fans have been curious about his overall rating, and where he would stack up across the league.

On Wednesday, it was revealed that Matthews was rated a 94 overall. EA Sports has him as the seventh-best center in the NHL, which is about where the NHL Network ranked him.

He is the 12th-ranked player in the entire game, and there is no denying that it is well deserved, given just how phenomenal of a player he is.

Of course, there are some debates surrounding the ranking, with some Leafs fans feeling as though Matthews deserves a lot better.

That said, fans should recognize that 94 is sensational, and after a 33-goal season, it is unreasonable to expect Matthews to get anything above that.

If Matthews does get back to the 69-goal potential that he is capable of, then perhaps we will see the forward take a leap to the 95 overall plateau.

Besides, Leafs fans should put their energy into something much more productive than a video game rating. At the end of the day, none of this stuff dictates who wins the Stanley Cup.