Excluding the Winter Classic, NBC drew its highest regular season NHL rating in nearly three years on Sunday.
Sunday’s overtime Penguins/Capitals game drew a 1.1 final rating and 1.7 million viewers on NBC, up 10% and 22%, respectively, from Red Wings/Penguins the previous week (1.0, 1.4 mil).
Compared to NBC’s fourth NHL telecast last year (Penguins/Capitals, 2/22/09), Sunday’s telecast was up 22% in ratings from a 0.9.
Penguins/Capitals ranks as the highest rated regular season NHL telecast on NBC, excluding the Winter Classic, since regional action featuring Avalanche/Red Wings in March ’07 (1.2).
This is the only the 6th time since NBC began airing NHL games in ’06 that the network has drawn at least a 1.1 rating for a non-Winter Classic regular season telecast.
(Nielsen)
