The NHL set a new viewership mark in round one of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and it does not appear that the good times are ending.
The opening round of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs averaged 1.2 million viewers on ESPN’s cable networks and TNT Sports, up 68% from last year and officially the highest average on record for the first round of the postseason. Viewership increased 29% from the previous high, an average of 936,000 on the NBC family of networks in 2012.
In particular, ESPN averaged 1.2 million for its 22 games, up 69% from last year. That includes 1.4 million for 15 games on the ESPN flagship network, up 91%. TNT Sports averaged 1.2 million, up 68%. Both averages are the highest under the current NHL rights deal that began in the 2021-22 season.
(Note that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, only began doing so in 100 percent of markets a year ago, and is mere months into a new methodology that combines its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Those changes will generally skew historical comparisons, particularly to years prior to 2020.)
The opening round concluded with Sunday’s Canadiens-Lightning Game 7, which averaged 2.31 million viewers on TNT Sports — up 70% from Blues-Jets last year (1.6M) and the most-watched game of the postseason thus far. Montreal’s win ranks as the most-watched first round game on cable involving a Canadian team. (Notably, and with caveats regarding changes in Nielsen methodology, Game 7 outdrew the first two games of the 2021 Lightning-Canadiens Stanley Cup Final on NBCSN — a COVID-era matchup that aired out-of-season, but a Cup Final nonetheless.)
The momentum appears to have continued into the second round, with Saturday’s Flyers-Hurricanes Game 1 on ABC averaging 2.50 million Saturday night — the most-watched second round opener on record, surpassing the previous high of 2.49 million for Devils-Flyers on NBC in 2012. The Hurricanes’ win, the first game of the playoffs on broadcast television, delivered the largest audience of the postseason thus far.
Sunday’s high-scoring Wild-Avalanche Game 1 averaged 2.22 million leading out of Canadiens-Lightning Game 7, marking the most-watched second round Game 1 on cable — surpassing the previous high of 2.0 million for Hurricanes-Rangers on ESPN two years ago.
Notably, both the Flyers and Wild have played in several of the most-watched games this postseason — each accounting for four of the top ten audiences through Sunday. The two exceptions in the top ten were games four and seven of Lightning-Canadiens.
Top 2026 Stanley Cup Playoff audiences through Sunday
