The Rangers’ second Game 7 in this Stanley Cup playoffs delivered a nine-year cable high.
Monday’s Rangers-Hurricanes second round Stanley Cup playoff Game 7 averaged 2.79 million viewers on ESPN, the most-watched first or second round NHL playoff game on cable since Red Wings-Blackhawks Game 7 on NBCSN in 2013 (3.35M). Ratings were not immediately available.
The previous semifinal Game 7 was Islanders-Flyers in the “bubble” on Labor Day weekend two years ago. Airing on the NBC broadcast network directly after the rescheduled Kentucky Derby, that game averaged 2.96 million (pending revision due to Nielsen undercount of out-of-home viewing).
ESPN and ESPN2 are now averaging 976,000 viewers for Stanley Cup playoff coverage, up 20% from last year’s equivalent windows, including 1.52 million for the second round. Figures for the full postseason across all networks were not immediately available.
Saturday’s Game 6 of the series averaged a 0.9 rating and 2.04 million viewers, the third-largest audience of the playoffs behind Game 7 and Penguins-Rangers Game 7 on TBS in the first round (2.33M). The Rangers have played in the top five games of the postseason and six of the top seven.
In other action, last Friday’s Avalanche-Blues Game 6 averaged a 0.7 and 1.65 million on TNT — the largest Western Conference audience of the playoffs (figures for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals were not immediately available).
With no NBA game as competition, the NHL easily won the night across all of television in the key demographics on Monday. Its 0.9 rating in adults 18-49, 0.7 in 18-34 and 1.05 in 25-54 nearly doubled the next-best show, the second hour of “WWE Raw” on USA Network (0.44, 0.33, 0.56).
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 6.1 a, b; network PR]
