Just for the fact they had even brought it up last year in an interview hints they are cooking something up in the Online Franchise department in my opinion. Hell Franchise offline this year is getting some work done it it too. To me they go hand in hand. It's also not something that should be rushed. People sure want GM Connected back so badly but back then it wasn't a highly played mode among the community and it had lots of problems. It's best to get things correct the 1st time for people to enjoy a return of the mode.
As I've said for PC well with a new Nintendo Switch coming out there is potentially more powerful and it has a huge playerbase too maybe they making a version of NHL. Also now come November there will be the PS5 Pro which is 1 more system they will have to maintain the game working on. Getting things to work properly on PC with all the configurations is easier said than done. I would suggest you look up the issues people have with Madden and FC on PC this season and see if it's smooth sailing or not. And they got much much bigger teams and funds to work with.
Licensing isn't cheap so skipping years isn't gonna magically make the game better. If anything they would probably cut back staff. Also I can't see the community wanting to play NHL 24 for 2 years without changes. Then we talk about HUT and how it would need to be completely wiped for the off-cycle year.
And yes it's a known fact t hey don't talk about future content because it can get them in trouble. So we will always be left in the dark. Only thing you can really do is give good constructive feedback/ideas and let us pass along the information. After that it's up to them to decide how they shape the future of the game.
It doesn't take a decade to roll out a new feature.
