NHL® 23 HUT Deep Dive

NHL® 23 has many new innovations that can change the way you play this year and HUT is no exception, thanks to new, exciting live service narratives, and all new additions to HUT rivals.

Built in direct response to community feedback requesting more stake in wins, is a new instantaneous reward structure for HUT called win-based rewards. With this system, if you get a win streak against your opponents, an additional instantaneous reward on top of your typical reward will be granted to you immediately. The higher your division, the greater the instantaneous reward, speeding up rewards. 

Also coming to HUT rivals are new game styles that will keep playing against your opponents and collecting items a fresh experience each week. There are 10 new game styles coming to NHL 23 that cover 10 different ways of playing. Each week will have a different theme for the mode including arcade speed settings, international ice, 3v3, and various other styles to diversify the way you play each week.  Listed below are the full details on each game style coming to HUT.

But for those of you who’d like to play traditional hockey, then HUT champions will remain a classic, 5v5 hockey experience with no variations or themes.

Regardless of game-style, a small, but important feature coming to the pre-game experience is the ability to now view your opponents team records. Now, you and your opponent can see the skill level of who they’re facing off against just before the game starts, increasing competition and informing you of who you’ll be playing against. And to help rebalance competitive levels, divisions will be reduced from 10 to 6.

Detailed in the video here and FAQ here, Cross-Platform matchmaking allows you to square off against your opponent if you are on the same console generation. Testing for this feature has been successful and the November patch to the game will have fewer player pools with more players in each, resulting in shorter matchmaking times.

Alongside Cross-Platform matchmaking, HUT will feature a search restriction based on skill level to better match you to your own skill level. 

With Cross-Platform Matchmaking and skill level filters, HUT will now have larger player pools and more accurate pairings than ever before - making matchmaking a much smoother process.

Every year, EA SPORTS™ NHL partners with the alumni association to add some of the greatest players in the legacy of the NHL to the game, and this year is no different. Alongside these additions are new power up icons items for players like Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin.

And now, variants of players like Wayne Gretzky from the LA Kings, Edmonton Oilers, and New York Rangers are available in-game with different attributes and abilities that reflect the way he played throughout his career. Also available are players like Mario Lemieux on the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mark Messier on the New York Rangers.

And to further expand players available in HUT, women’s teams will also be available in HUT, incorporating a new group of players in the mode that give you more options to build a team. 

Born out of the initial integration of IIHF Women’s Hockey in NHL 22, NHL 23 will feature mixed ultimate teams, an all new experience for any EA SPORTS NHL game. The arrival of IIHF women's players in HUT will provide all new team building opportunities as you can mix women’s and men’s players together in a single team. Live content for the full cycle of NHL 23 will incorporate both men’s and women’s content, so build your best team with the best men and women players in their leagues.

NHL 23 will feature a minimum floor HUT faceoff rating based on a player’s OVR rating for centers. Now, base cards for players like Evgeni Malkin, Nathan Mackinnon, and Jack Eichel will have a higher face off rating which will increase with later OVR releases throughout the year. This progression will allow for a more balanced approach to center ratings in HUT.

In addition to centers, now goalies will have shifted attributes. Instead of putting a cap on taller goalies, now shorter goalies will have boosted glove high, speed, and agility, making these goalies’ attributes more balanced.

As a result of community feedback concerning the difficulty to acquire power up icon sets, NHL 23 will have power icon choice packs with the opportunity to exchange lower OVR power up cards for higher OVR power up icons.

The exchange requires, for example, four 82 OVR power up icons exchanged for one 83 OVR choice pack. The progression continues with four 83 OVR power up icons for an 84 OVR choice pack up until you’ll be prompted to turn in a Howe, Messier, or Richard for a choice of Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux.

Now, with trade-ins for your power up icon cards, you can build your dream team with more chances at getting the power up icons you want.

These sets will be available from launch and will stay in-game throughout the entire year.

We’ve seen the positive conversation around team building items from NHL 22, so NHL 23 will feature expanded team building items.

Team building sets have become a popular program when starting out in HUT since everything you pull has value to completing a set. Once you’ve collected all the players from a particular team, you receive a higher rated player from that team to use in your lineup. This year, by exchanging 8 - 84 OVR Team Building player items from a division, you can obtain a choice of one of the 89 OVR divisional Team Building items such as Owen Nolan, Steve Duchesne, Milan Hejduk, Keith Tkachuk, Fedor Tyutin, Larry Murphy, Olli Jokinen, and Teppo Numminen.

Opening up this year’s HUT live events, NHL 23 will feature HUT Spotlight which highlights the biggest stories in the upcoming season that have consumed the hockey world. 

In the first event, you’ll be able to earn a Choice Pack (1 of 10) HUT Spotlight 88 OVR Master Item by completing all HUT Spotlight Objectives. In the choice pack, will be players who’ve been a part of the most interesting hockey stories in the last year like Alex DeBrincat who was traded to the Ottawa Senators, Kris Letang reupping with the Penguins, and more so you can add your favorite players to your roster to kick off the HUT season. Below are the event’s objectives and their corresponding rewards.^

So from telling these compelling hockey stories in our first live event to women’s integration into the game, HUT has exciting new upgrades and innovations that will keep you on the ice.

Community feedback inspires many of the updates to all areas of NHL 23, and we will continually utilize this feedback for future updates.  Pre-order* NHL 23 X-Factor Edition now to get on the ice with access three days early.​​

^NHL points not available in Belgium

*Conditions & restrictions apply. See http://www.ea.com/games/nhl/nhl-23/game-and-offer-disclaimers for details.