NBC and CBC will carry the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday night as part of the Stadium Series. The Maple Leafs will play Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in Annapolis, MD. The special start of 8 pm Eastern is to satisfy NBC and will throw off the rest of the Hockey Night in Canada schedule.
To build on the spirit of the Stadium Series, NBCSN will carry the Maple Leafs next game Monday in Buffalo. NBCSN failed to do this after the 2017 Centennial Classic appearance.
CBC wraps up the day with the New York Rangers in Edmonton in a very delayed start time. Rogers Sportsnet One handles the start just in case.
City TV will run the Ottawa Senators in the old-school desert team destination opposite the Stadium Series game.
Rogers Sportsnet will have the late afternoon start on Saturday with the Montréal Canadiens in Boston. Hometown Hockey is on Sunday from Markham, ON as the Winnipeg Jets are in Carolina. The regional channels will follow the Calgary Flames to Pittsburgh Monday night.
Wednesday Night Hockey starts with the Flames in Buffalo on Rogers Sportsnet and finishes with the old-school desert team in Vancouver on Rogers Sportsnet 360.
CBC will have the Rogers pregame right at 7:30 pm. Rogers Sportsnet will join in progress. The NHL Network won't carry the pregame.
NBC
Saturday
Toronto @ Washington, 8p
NBCSN
Monday
Toronto @ Buffalo, 7:30p
NHL Network
Tape delayed
Friday Nashville @ Edmonton, 1p
Saturday Detroit @ Winnipeg, Noon
Sunday Montréal @ Boston, Noon
Toronto @ Washington, 2p
Tuesday NY Islanders @ Vancouver, 1p
Ottawa @ Dallas, 2p
Calgary @ Pittsburgh, 3p
Wednesday Winnipeg @ NY Rangers, 2p
Thursday Arizona @ Vancouver, 1p
Calgary @ Buffalo, 2p
CBC
Saturday
Toronto @ Washington, 8p
NY Rangers @ Edmonton, 10:30p
City
Saturday
Ottawa @ Arizona, 8p
Rogers Sportsnet
Saturday
Montréal @ Boston, 5p
Sunday
Winnipeg @ Carolina, 7p
Monday
Calgary @ Pittsburgh, 7p
Wednesday
Calgary @ Buffalo, 7:30p
Rogers Sportsnet 360
Wednesday
Arizona @ Vancouver, 10p
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Tomas Plekanec sat out of action Saturday night in Montréal with the thought that he would be traded. Plekanec was dealt to the Habs' archrival in Toronto. Plekanec is 19 games short of 1,000, all with the Canadiens. The Maple Leafs have 18 games left. While Montréal travels twice to Toronto (March 17 and April 7), Plekanec doesn't have to go back to Montréal.
The whole sitting out cheapens the NHL games that fans pay hundreds of dollars to see.
Was still good to see Winnipeg to get Paul Stastny from St. Louis.
Was nice to have choices to watch in the U.S. for the trade deadline coverage. Rogers Sportsnet is not about fun. TSN is about information but the channel has a lot of fun. Thanks ESPN2.
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The pregame had a brilliant and insightful interview with writer/director Kwame Mason (Soul On Ice: Past, Present & Future) and Ron MacLean on what Devante Smith-Pelly went through in Chicago and what other black players deal with in hockey.
For all the time this topic was probably on sports radio, there is little chance there was any talk with such significance.
The interview also tied back into the theme of Hockey Is for Everyone.
The pregame had a condensed version of the interview. You can click here for the entire interview.
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The Rogers crew finally gave the Montréal Canadiens some coverage on the pregame. Rogers has consistently ignored the Habs in the pregame of late. However, the coverage was purely about who the Habs should trade. Nick Kypreos, who loves the idea of trading stars on Canadian teams, was pushing hard for the Habs to deal Max Pacioretty at the trade deadline.
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We've seen Cassie Campbell-Pascall do colour analysis on NHL games in the last few years. This season, she has been the primary backup to Kelly Hrudey on Calgary Flames telecasts not during the Olympics.
Now NBC wants to see how well that will work, at least for one game. AJ Mleczko will work with Chris Cuthbert and Brian Boucher on the Boston-Detroit game on March 6 on NBCSN.
As Kenny Albert kept reminding us during the Olympics, Mleczko was part of that 1998 gold medal winning squad for the United States. She has done well in the last few Olympics on women's hockey for NBC.
This is important for a lot of reasons. Hockey is hockey, and they say hockey is for everyone. So good for NBC to give Mleczko a shot. She is working with Cuthbert who is very helpful to his analysts, and only has to be better than Boucher.
Back in the CBC days, Campbell-Pascall would get rare opportunities to do NHL games but the time to improve. Interestingly, she worked mostly with Mark Lee on those NHL games. Lee and Campbell-Pascall called women's hockey again for CBC in the 2018 Olympics.
CanadianCrossing.com NHL coverage
With Ottawa at home, the NHL Network went with the mundane Philadelphia call on Saturday afternoon. The Philly crew is not horrible but they are used so often in the U.S. between the NBC Sports properties and the NHL Network. The Ottawa crew was not using its regular crew thanks to the Olympics but this might have been the last Sens game on U.S. TV for the season.
To no one's surprise, NBCSN used the Philadelphia feed on the day after the Olympics. The same game and feed was offered through NBC Sports Chicago so the choice would come down to the intermission feeds. NBCSN makes that a tougher decision than it should be.
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Winnipeg Jets play-by-play guy Dennis Beyak ended up filling in on TSN4 on the Maple Leafs telecasts during the Olympics. Gord Miller worked for TSN4 Tuesday night back from the Olympics.
Miller was used Thursday in Boston for NBCSN. One face we saw this week is former Hockey Night in Canada host Ken Daniels, TV voice of the Red Wings. With Detroit not likely to make the playoffs, Daniels will likely work a series on the NBC side.
The Toronto Maple Leafs will draw NBC's #1A crew on Saturday with Doc Emrick, Mike Milbury, and Pierre McGuire in Annapolis, Maryland.
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From my vantage point, the NHL Center Ice free preview was pretty horrible. No known start. Xfinity lets the feed deteriorate at the end where you can't watch the games live. The feeds on Saturday were horrible. The Winnipeg feed turned at the last minute. No HNIC feed from Montréal or the late game. And the preview ran when the world didn't care about the NHL.
Ken Daniels did some PBP for CBC at one point- the Blackhawks-Flames series in 96 and Sens-Sabres in 97 come to mind.
Posted by: daniel anderson | March 05, 2018 at 07:12 AM
I don't know much of the history back then but that wouldn't surprise me. Thanks for weighing in with that.
Posted by: Chad | April 06, 2018 at 02:55 PM