On Wednesday night, the NHL 20 cover athlete was officially revealed. It all went down at the 2019 NHL Awards shown in Las Vegas, Nevada. Not only were they giving out hardware to the top players from the past season, but also debuting the new EA Sports hockey title. The latest NHL cover star will be none other than Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

New cover star joins previous NHL stars

Ahead of tonight’s big NHL Awards show, EA’s NHL Twitter account put the spotlight on the last six cover athletes. They are PK Subban (Predators, 19′), Conor McDavid (Oilers, 18′), Vladimir Tarasenko (Blues, 17′), Jonathan Toews (Blackhawks, 16′), Patrice Bergeron (Bruins, 15′), and Martin Brodeur (Devils, 14′).

The #NHL20 cover athlete will be revealed TONIGHT at the #NHLAwards. Who should it be? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/kB3H7PRTq7 — #NHL20 (@EASPORTSNHL) June 19, 2019

With a brand new game on the way, that means a brand new cover athlete as well. There’s no shortage of star players to choose from when it comes to the NHL. However, only one player can serve as NHL 20 cover athlete to lead the way for the newest installment. Toronto’s Auston Matthews seems to fit the bill just fine.

NHL 20 cover athlete reveal trailer with Auston Matthews, game release date

The 2019 NHL Awards hosted by Saturday Night Live’s Keenan Thompson featured Aleksander Barkov winning the Lady Byng, Nikita Kucherov getting the Art Ross, and Elias Pettersson taking home the Calder Memorial Trophy. In addition, we finally got our first look at who the NHL 20 cover athlete is ahead of the game’s release in several months. The latest representative is Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Matthews is coming off a season in which he was the Maple Leafs’ third-best player in goals (37) and total points (73). The Toronto center has been in the league for just three years now but is already amongst the game’s top stars. He makes sense as an ambassador for the game as he plays for one of the Canadian teams, but hails from Phoenix, Arizona of the United States.

It made perfect sense that they brought out the NHL 19 cover star PK Subban to reveal the new NHL 20 cover athlete. Subban arrived out on stage halfway through the awards show to present the newest NHL star on the cover. Just as that was going on, the NHL Twitter posted a cover reveal trailer as seen below.

The new NHL 20 cover athlete Auston Matthews arrived out on stage shortly after the new trailer debuted. Matthews said he loves the game and has played it his whole life. “Being on the cover is one of the coolest things I can imagine,” Matthews said. He mentioned the NHL 20 release date will be September 13. Gamers will be able to go online and pre-order the title ahead of its release several months from now.

We’ll have more information for how to get the game on the way. Get more of the latest NHL 20 news here.