Virtual Oil Part 2

Here we go again, the 2nd part in my look at the Oilers in video games, this time I’m looking at the Oiler squads in the mid to late 2000s and the rebuilding teams that we all know and love of the 2010s. EA has dominated things in the past 10 years, with it’s main series (2K struggled to make games on par with EA’s after 2K4).

The mid to late 2000s and our good ol’ current day squads

NHL 08: Ahhhh the mid to late 2000s. The Oilers were just coming off their incredible Cup run in 2006 and hope was back with the franchise. NHL 07 and 08 were kind to the games rating wise and after 06 yes they missed the postseason but the team still had a solid roster and were in the 80s rating wise. Dwayne Roloson was the highest rated Oiler with a rating of 89 in 08 while Jarret Stoll and Ales Hemsky were the highest rated skaters, both at 87. Even in the rebuilding years the virutal ratings of the Oilers wouldn’t drop that much even though the team point totals dipped below 80 every year after 2008-09.

NHL 13: By this version of the game we were full swing into Edmonton’s rebuild but with Eberle, Hall and Hopkins leading the team in scoring in the 11-12 season, the Oilers would have a 4 out of 5 star rating for offence and a 4.5 out of 5 star rating on defense. Nostalgic times when even virtually the blueline was viewed as being very good.

NHL 16: Last year’s version of the game saw players such as Hall, and also the debut of Connor McDavid at the NHL level in the series. McDavid’s rating would be an 82 at the release of the game and at times his rating has jumped into the low 90s. Taylor Hall would be the highest rated Oiler with a rating of 88 but did midseason go into the 90s and in NHL 15 it was possible to see him at a 91, while Canada Drai himself, Leon Draisaitl would progress during the season from a 78 to an 87. As a team Edmonton would get a rating of 88 for offence, 89 on defence and 86 for goaltending. The hope for the future is what really gave Edmonton good all around ratings as the 14-15 season was an unmitigated disaster as the reign of Dallas Eakins came to an end with a thud with him being canned in December 2014.

McDavid even in the OHL was a player that the masses wanted to use in Hockey Ultimate Team, EA’s mode where you can play online with your own fantasy team from any player in the game via buying individual player “cards” or randomly by buying a pack of multiple cards.

The Future

So C
onnor won’t be the face of NHL 17 but his time for the cover is coming, after a rookie season in which he was third in scoring among rooks after playing less than 50 games in a season you can’t deny the fact that he’s on his way to being one of the faces of the league. It’s also going to be fun to see how Rogers Place is shown in NHL 17, what quirks about the arena will be in it? What gets left out when it’s complete, also what other young draft picks will be apart of this team? Is it too early to try and put Matthew Tkachuk in an Oilers jersey now?

There are many things to wonder about with NHL 17 and beyond with this series, maybe soon enough Connor will be a 99 overall in the game, and maybe by NHL 20, this squad won’t only be raising hardware before the hometown fans in Be a GM Mode.