One of my biggest issues with NHL games is the rating system. It's completely gridlocked from the low-mid-high 80's and into the 90's. There needs to be way more disparity in the rating system because in my opinion player ratings are extremely inflated. A 90 overall and above should be reserved for the truly elite players in the NHL. As an example I'll use Phil Kessel. As it stands now this is what Base Kessel looks like
Overall: 90
Shooting: 91
Hands: 92
Checking: 82
Defense: 83
Now I'm not knocking Kessel here, he's an insanely talented offensive player but you're honestly trying to tell me that Jonathan Toews, an elite player with a very complete game is only 3 points above him at 93? In my opinion Kessel should look something like this (just to be clear these numbers a simply examples, I did no calculations)
Overall: 86-87
Skating: 88
Shooting: 89
Hands: 88
Checking: 75-78
Defense: 74-77
Looks crazy right? Hear me out on this one. at 86-87 overall Kessel is still a top tier player in the NHL, but the gaps in his game become more obvious and it allows us to move onto the more important steps.
Keeping in mind Kessel's base of 90 in NHL 15 let's compare him to another player, Milan Lucic. Lucic's base card looks like this
Overall: 88
Skating: 85
Shooting: 88
Hands: 85
Checking: 92
Defense: 86
It's completely asinine that Lucic is only 2 points below Kessel in rating. So lets adjust for the new system, keeping Kessel's 86-87 in mind
Overall: 81-82
Skating: 78-80
Shooting: 80-82
Hands: 76-77
Checking: 87-88
Defense: 82-84
Now before you begin screaming about how I just hate Lucic and such. I'm a Bruins fan, and I don't hate Lucic. But I'm also a fan of the game and recognize that Lucic is not on the same tier as Kessel, and nowhere near close to Toews. At a low 80's he still an above average player, but his offensive and defensive issues are recognized and a significant gap has been put between him, Kessel, and Toews. This leads us to my most important point.
Finally lets look at a career fourth liner/low tier player. Remembering Kessel's 90 overall and Lucic's 88 were going to look at Gregory Campbell's base card.
Overall: 80
Skating: 81
Shooting: 82
Hands: 80
Checking: 86
Defense: 84
While Campbell is a solid 10 points below Kessel, 13 below Toews, and 8 below Lucic, why in the world is Campbell an 80 overall? You're telling me that Gregory Campbell is an above average player? For that last time keep in mind the adjusted ratings for Kessel (86-87) and Lucic (81-82). Campbell's adjusted rating would look something like this.
Overall: 70-72
Skating: 69-71
Shooting: 68-70
Hands: 67-69
Checking: 75-77
Defense: 73-74
This creates a definitive gap between Toews by 23 points instead of 13, Kessel by 14 instead of 10, and Lucic by 10 instead of 8. Dropping Campbell to a 70-72 puts him as an average/below average player and free's up a ton more space in the rating system.
TL;DR The rating system is a log jam of 80+ overall's and a lot of players are very inflated.