While the only reward for the first draft pick in NHL 23 is bragging rights, it’s only logical to wonder how the feat was accomplished in the first place.
It was fairly simple to be selected in the top two picks in NHL 22. It would be all but inevitable if you just gave passable performances.
NHL 23’s Be A Pro mode has drawn a lot of criticism from the gaming community since the game’s debut because it replicates the same gameplay as last year. The way the draft selection process operates is one area, though, where EA appears to have made some changes.
Being chosen as one of the top 2 picks, much less the top slot, is no longer an easy feat. Now that you have to put in some effort, a number of elements are at play.
In order to discover how to be the first draft pick in NHL 23, I have tested my theories throughout a few playthroughs and written this guide. Give your player the best opportunity to succeed, if not that.
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Develop Your Pro
Let’s begin by developing the player. The position you decide to play and the archetype that goes with it are the things that could potentially influence your draft position.
Remember that the goals and challenges you receive from the coach before to and during games are influenced by your choices.
If you play with a winger who is a sniper, for example, you will be evaluated based on your shooting, and the coach will frequently challenge you to reach a certain goal total, take more shots, etc.
It would still be worthwhile to master the greatest archetypes in NHL 23’s Be A Pro mode even if you are certain of the position your player will play. But if you’re open to suggestions, I’d advise going with a winger or center.
Goals have a significant impact on the points that you receive through in-game actions. Therefore, it only makes sense to develop a player in a position where goal scoring is likely to be a major component.
You’re going to need all the points you can collect now that getting into the top draft spot is a little more difficult.
Selecting a Team and a Tournament
You have three starting options after developing your professional, just like in NHL 22. You can decide to begin in the NHL, the Memorial Cup of the CHL, or Europe.
It goes without saying that you shouldn’t opt to begin in the NHL if you don’t want the relative “randomness” of the draft team selection process. If you already know the team you want to play on and don’t want anyone else, then you should only do that.
The decision between the Memorial Cup of the CHL and Europe, on the other hand, is more ambiguous. Your success with this team during the tournament will impact how the draft round plays out. You are given a choice of teams to choose from.
I decided to use the Memorial Cup of the CHL for my experiments.
Conversations
After selecting your favourite team and competition, the main hub of the BAP mode moves into the spotlight. You may find all the details you require right here, including your bio, accomplishments, abilities, development, goals, etc.
The initial contacts you will make in this area, nevertheless, will be with your agent. These discussions will be focused on how you’re feeling and the position you’re most likely to get in the draft.
You’ll converse with the coach and the media as well. The former typically want to talk about how you performed and ask you questions that could damage your brand’s reputation. The coach also discusses your performances, but he also provides you with suggestions for improvement and tasks or challenges to do.
These discussions all affect variables like management likeability, teammate likeability, and brand likeability.
At this point in the game, they are all fairly self-explanatory but don’t really affect where you are picked in the draft. I’ll explain why you should continue to pay attention to the conversational decisions you make.
Your likelihood of being placed on the first line is significantly influenced by your manager’s likeability, while your teammates’ attitudes toward you both on and off the ice (they’ll pass the puck less frequently if they don’t like you) and potential endorsement opportunities are all influenced by your brand likeability.
Your Skill Tree Growing
Your skill tree is another immediate consideration that you should make. You start out with a few trait points to create your character anyway you see fit.
The more games you play and goals you complete, the more points you’ll earn, but the first two points’ tiny but immediate increase gives you a competitive edge and can help you do better in the pre-draft tournament.
To choose which areas to concentrate on during the vital early stages of your player’s development, you can read about the greatest attributes in NHL 23.
It’s crucial to use these points wisely and avoid investing in unrelated areas that have no bearing on the player’s standing. Increases in shooting stats, for example, would be most beneficial to a sniper, however speed boosts can still be quite helpful.
It’s also crucial to develop your skill tree before the draft because you don’t want to enter the NHL while having a very low overall score. Your results will deteriorate as a result of competing against elite skaters.
If you want to be selected by the top clubs in the league, it only makes sense to put yourself in the best overall scoring position possible.
Performances in games
Now, this is the crucial component of having been selected first overall in NHL 23. You have to put in the performances, as I mentioned earlier, to give yourself a decent opportunity.
Getting picked first as a winger with two goals and two assists in the pre-draft tournament was possible in the prior game, but it was ineffective here.
Even though I’ll confess my performances weren’t great, I could only manage the 51st overall pick in my first playthrough. In my defense, I was unaware that the system had changed at the time.
I needed to score 10 goals and 2 assists for a total of 12 points during the pre-draft games in order to be selected first overall.
The goal is to accumulate as many points as you can, though obviously the scoring system is different for those who play defense or goaltender. It is the most crucial element in obtaining the first choice.
Always pay great attention to the instructions given by the coach, and monitor your ratings to get a sense of how you’re performing during the game.
More significant than your individual game performances are the tournament results. But don’t say that to the coach or the media!
Interviews
After the competition, interested teams will start interviewing you.
If you speak to your agent right before the draft, you already know with reasonable certainty if you’ll be the number one pick. He might give you a spoiler and admit you’re the top dog up front, or he might just say there’s a decent chance.
Only two teams will interview you if you really are number one. You can purposefully fail the interview and perform well in the other one if you genuinely don’t want to play for one of those teams.
This enhances your chances but does not ensure that the team you don’t want will take you.
In these interviews, there are typically three response options available: “Team,” “Persuade,” and “Star.”
The finest interview responses are team replies, whereas “Star” answers fall at the other extreme of the spectrum. Answers using the word “persuade” present a risk-reward scenario that could go either way.
The “Draft interview Score” in the conversation’s upper right corner lets you know if it went well or not.
Last Words
It is wonderful that the draft system is now a little more realistic, despite all the chatter about how EA simply reissued a copy of the same game with a new playlist this year. In most circumstances, the earlier approach of getting a top-two pick was simpler, albeit it wasn’t always better.
Anyway, using these NHL 23 first-round draft pick strategies correctly is a good approach to start off your Be A Pro game and have a bright future in the big boys’ league.