The NHL Network will finally carry a Hockey Night in Canada game. For the first time in 3 weeks, the U.S. channel has a Canadian-based team in a live game — first time since Valentine's Day.
The Toronto Maple Leafs will be in St. Louis with the NHL Network picking up the CBC feed.
CBC will carry the Vancouver Canucks in San Jose in the Saturday night late game.
City TV is back carrying a Canadian team on Saturday night as the Montréal Canadiens are in the desert with Gary Bettman's favorite desert team (for now).
Hometown Hockey is an all-Canadian matchup with the Calgary Flames in the nation's capital, Sunday night on City TV. The Hometown Hockey crew will be in Thompson, Manitoba.
Rogers Sportsnet also has a game Saturday night as the Winnipeg Jets are in Nashville in a possible playoff preview. The Wednesday night game on Sportsnet has the Great Lakes matchup of Buffalo at the Air Canada Centre.
Sportsnet One was originally going to carry the Oilers in Chicago tonight on the original schedule, but that game has been dropped from the broadcast schedule.
---
NHL Network
Saturday
St. Louis @ Toronto, 7p
Tape delayed
Friday Calgary @ Boston, 3p
Tuesday NY Islanders @ Toronto, 2p
Anaheim @ Vancouver, 4p
Wednesday Winnipeg @ St. Louis, 3p
Tampa Bay @ Montréal, 4p
Thursday Buffalo @ Toronto, 3p
Anaheim @ Calgary, 4p
CBC
Saturday
St. Louis @ Toronto, 7p
Vancouver @ San Jose, 10p
City
Saturday
Montréal @ Arizona, 7p
Sunday
Calgary @ Ottawa, 7p
Rogers Sportsnet
Saturday
Winnipeg @ Nashville, 7p
Wednesday
Buffalo @ Toronto, 7p
---
The NHL Network carried the Rogers Sportsnet feed of trade deadline coverage, though TradeCentre (TSN's show) was in the TV listings. Carrying Rogers isn't a surprise, though we had hope for the TSN feed.
We can argue back and forth about which coverage is better (TSN). Outside the trade deadline coverage, one network prides itself in covering the business of hockey (TSN) and the other is prideful of not covering the business of hockey (Rogers). When deadlines count, I'd would rather have the network that feels covering the business end is crucial.
Rogers coverage wasn't horrible in what I saw at the end of the coverage. George Stroumboulopoulos did what he does well and blended in properly with the coverage. Daren Millard is a decent traffic cop, and when Elliotte Friedman made an odd sound at one point, Millard knew that something important was happening and went straight to Friedman.
Mike Johnson and Kelly Hrudey, who last year were with TSN and CBC respectively, formed a nice analyst tandem. Their battle over the number of trades and what constituted a trade filled desperately needed empty space. Craig Simpson and Glenn Healy also formed a solid partnership in their roles.
There was no realistic trade deadline coverage outlet for the former CBC stars until this season. Friedman, Simpson, Healy, and Hrudey looked very happy to be doing what they were doing on television.
---
We did miss TSN's coverage. One hilarious video was Calgary's Dennis Wideman having a bit of fun with the trade deadline. Wideman kept referring to the TSN coverage and Aaron Ward. The video was being shown on Rogers, which likely meant management was fuming.
The tidbit that we missed live but heard plenty about afterwards was TSN broadcasting a libelous tweet involving the Toronto Maple Leafs' Joffrey Lupul as well as Dion Phaneuf and his wife, Elisha Cuthbert. Social media can be cool but only if done in a responsible fashion. Better not to air than to air something like that tweet. Dustin Penner was supposed to be on the TSN coverage but after a poor rape joke on Twitter, Penner withdrew his services.
The threatened lawsuit against the original tweeter and TSN is a bit humouruous, given that TSN's parent company, Bell, owns 50% of the Maple Leafs.
---
On the ice, Toronto's road win on Tuesday marked a milestone in that the Maple Leafs finally won a road game in 2015 … in March. Before the win, Toronto had been 0-14-2 in its last 16 road games.
Calgary has achieved a lot this season, but losing captain Mark Giordano for the season due to a torn biceps tendon might be the difference in the Flames not making the playoffs.
Montréal made a nice pickup in getting Jeff Petry from Edmonton to shore up the blue line. The Oilers really didn't get much for Petry, but something is better than, well, you know. Winnipeg picked up some badly needed depth. Sven Baertschi could be a steal for Vancouver and a frustration for Calgary fans to see him in the blue and white rather than the Flames red uniform.
---
We joked on Twitter that NBC is really insecure about not having another hockey game on TV opposite its game. Turns out NBC is way more paranoid than we thought.
NBC had exclusive U.S. rights from 8-10 pm to not have any U.S. game played in that time slot. That's right. NBC prohibited any game involving a U.S. team during its window. East Coast games started at 5 pm or 5:30 pm. Colorado had to push its game to 8 pm local time to escape the window.
Toronto-Montréal was allowed at 7 pm because the game featured Canadian teams in Canada. But the NHL Network was prohibited from carrying that game, thanks to NBC. The network couldn't prevent U.S. fans who get a CBC signal from watching that game.
NBC insists on the outright ban so people will watch its game and increase TV ratings. But NBC doesn't draw that well in ideal circumstances, and attitudes such as this one doesn't endear the network to hockey fans outside the main teams it covers.
NBC noted that the game was the first regular season (non-outdoor) primetime game on network television in 41 years. That would normally be an exciting moment, but on Saturday nights, NBC's inferior coverage can't compete with the CBC/Rogers.
So the only way NBC can show a game is to make sure the league in the United States goes dark. If that's true, then we can wait another 41 years, or pick a different night.
NBCSN will do this garbage next week, forcing the NHL Network to drop a HNIC game. Holding U.S. hockey fans hostage doesn't make us want to watch its inferior coverage.
---
How well did NBC do with the NHL in primetime? A 1.0 overnight rating with the #1 (New York) and #4 (Philadelphia) TV markets in the country. Ouch.
NBC drew a 1.0, a tie for the second-lowest mark of the season. Washington-Philadelphia drew a 0.8 last week.
The NHL could draw in primetime on U.S. television, but not on Saturday nights. Unlike in Canada, Saturday nights are the worst nights for U.S. television. The NHL Network is in a lot fewer homes, but couldn't have drawn much worse with the Leafs-Habs via the CBC feed.
---
Friday was a nice dose of TSN feeds as we had the TSN4 crew (Gord and Ray) with the Leafs hosting Philadelphia and TSN3 for the Jets home game against St. Louis.
The CSN-Bay Area feed was the call for the Habs getting whitewashed by San Jose Tuesday afternoon.
We got the Rogers Sportsnet Pacific feed for the Sharks in Vancouver Wednesday afternoon. The Anaheim feed ran for the Canadiens road game in southern California on Thursday afternoon.
Comments