After having just one game on Monday night (Buffalo vs. Montreal) the NHL has all 32 teams in action tonight (sorry, not sorry about your back-to-back, fellow Atlantic Division teams).While this has happened in the past, this will be the first time in regular season history where the league has staggered the start times so that fans, if they are so inclined, can whittle away their entire evening watching wall-to-wall hockey.
Things get underway at 6:00 PM EST when the Capitals host the Maple Leafs. Anaheim and Columbus drop the puck at 6:30 PM EST and then a game starts every 15 minutes until the Flyers and Golden Knights get underway at 11:00 PM EST. God speed you fine folks at Broad Street Hockey. The Lightning and Hurricanes have the 7:00 PM EST slot for their start time, so there isn’t much of a change for Lightnign fans.
Perhaps the most novel approach to the night will be taken by ESPN. Along with a tripleheader of games, they will be hosting a special broadcast of “Frozen Frenzy” hosted by John Buccigross. Billed as “the Red Zone, but hockey”, Bucci will be doing live drop-ins on the games as they take place to bring the “best parts” to the fans. It’s likely that a lot of power plays will be featured, which could be good for the Lightning.
That special broadcast will be on ESPN+ from 7:00 PM EST until 1:30 AM EST and simulcast on ESPN2 starting at 8:00 PM EST. It will be interesting to see if casual sports fans drop in to check out what should be wall-to-wall action on the show. If this is somehow successful, perhaps the Frozen Frenzy broadcast will pop up a little more often on busy nights during the season. The tough part will be timing the action between games. The NFL has it fairly easy since it usually takes a while for a team to march down into a scoring area. In hockey, it could happen in the blink of an eye.
With the availability of so many games via streaming there has been an increasingly noisy cry for the NHL to adopt staggered starts on busy nights as fans and media want to consume as much hockey as possible. Instead of having three or four games go to intermission at the same time, staggering the start times by 10 or 15 minutes would allow folks to flip over and catch more live action on a nightly basis. Is this a possible test run for staggered starts in the future? Possibly.
Head over to ESPN for more details, and enjoy a night of hockey!
Lightning / NHL News
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Blog Auntie Alex is back with another episode about the Syracuse Crunch. She recaps their hot start and takes a look at things to come with this team.
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Blue Jackets place Patrik Laine on IR [1st Ohio Battery]
The sartorial genius, Patrik Laine was placed on Injured Reserve on Monday due to the hit thrown by Rasmus Andersson in Friday’s game. It’s yet another injury for the talented scorer, who has not played a full season since 2018-19. With the placement on IR backdated to Friday, he will miss at least the next two games.
Rasmus Andersson appeals suspension [Daily Faceoff]
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