NHL 23: Release Date, Cover Athlete Predictions & Latest News
NHL 23 will once again bring hockey to gamers later this year, and we’re already looking ahead to what it might have in store.
Here’s everything we know so far about NHL 23 including the likely release date and when more could be announced.
Latest – NHL Draft gets next season rolling
With the Stanley Cup now concluded and the season wrapping up, we’re still devoid of many big details about the upcoming NHL 23 release.
The 2022 NHL Entry Draft is scheduled to begin on Thursday, July 7 and wrap up the following day, and there’s always a chance of some early reveals at events like this.
However, with EA Sports likely most focused on the build towards Madden 23 at this point, we’re likely still several weeks away from any official NHL 23 news.
NHL 23 Release Date
While nothing has been made official just yet, we can get a good idea of when NHL 23 will arrive by looking back at the last few releases in this ongoing franchise.
NHL 20 was released on September 13, 2019, but with NHL 21 the window shifted forward a bit by releasing on October 16, 2020.
They repeated that this year, as NHL 22 was released on October 15, 2021, and we’re expecting them to stick to that new window next year.
As such, the expected NHL 23 release date is October 14, 2022, which will once again fall on a Friday in the middle of that month.
Reveal Trailer
While development is already underway, we probably won’t get our first glimpse of NHL 23 until a few months before that likely release date.
The NHL 20 reveal trailer landed a bit sooner on June 19, 2019, three whole months before release, but they’ve shrunk that window a bit the last two years.
The official reveal trailer for NHL 21 was released on Monday, August 24, 2020, and the reveal for NHL 22 landed on Thursday, August 19, 2021.
With that in mind, we’ll likely see an NHL 23 reveal trailer released on Thursday, August 18, 2022, and it should bring some other big news.
NHL 23 Cover Athlete
One thing we can likely count on is that the NHL 23 Cover Athlete should get revealed along with the reveal trailer that announces the game.
These two are usually done together so that the cover reveal can trigger the launch of pre orders for the title, which companies tend to want rolling as soon as they get people’s attention.
Auston Matthews got the nod this year, and some of the top players we could see next year include Leon Draisaitl and Nathan MacKinnon.
Sidney Crosby has also never gotten one despite his consistent dominance for more than a decade, so it would be great to see him finally get the honor.
Betting odds have also weighed in on the possibilities, and here are the top seven contenders for NHL 23 cover athlete (lower numbers mean higher odds of being chosen):
- Nathan MacKinnon +200
- Steven Stamkos +300
- Kirill Kaprizov +350
- Connor McDavid +400
- Nikita Kucherov +500
- Cale Makar +600
- Adam Fox +1200
The NBA 2K23 cover athlete odds were also released along with these. To see those, follow this link.
EA Play Trial
While most details about NHL 23 remain unclear, one thing we can almost surely look forward to is an EA Play Trial.
EA Sports has become predictably standard this year with their 10-hour EA Play Trial, as this allows users to test the game out for themselves before buying.
Rather than gating features like some demos or trials have in the past, the EA Play Trial would offer unfettered access to all of the features in NHL 23.
However, it will come with a time limit, and after 10 hours of gameplay players would be required to purchase the game in order to continue playing.
