TheNational Hockey League Game of the Week is a branding used for regular seasonNational Hockey League weekend games that are typically televised on a national broadcast network in the U.S.

The branding was previously used byNBC on Sunday afternoons, beginning at the weekend of theNFL Conference Championship games when it held NHL broadcast rights between the2005–06 and2020–21 seasons. During the2016–17, NBC began to promote theStar Sunday brand on both theGame of the Week and itsSunday Night Hockey broadcasts on sister cable networkNBCSN, focusing primarily on the NHL's star players.Star Sunday featured extensive pre-game, in-game and post-game coverage of each featured player. The first game under the new package featured theNew York Rangers and theDetroit Red Wings on January 22, 2017, withRyan McDonagh andDylan Larkin the featured players of their respective teams.^[1]

Beginning with the2021–22 season, ABC replaced NBC as the league's network broadcast partner.^[2][3] Since then, ABC has typically aired one game per weekend, usually on Saturday afternoons, beginning in February. Due to the current arrangement of ABC's sports programming beingproduced and co-branded by ESPN, the broadcasts carry theNHL on ESPN production and branding.

Historically, there was game of the week broadcasts in the past but untilNBC Sports took over broadcasting rights to theNational Hockey League fromESPN andABC they were never consistent.

Starting in2007–08, the most important games on primarily Sundays or Thursdays would be titledNHL on NBC Game of the Week which eventually got moved to only Sundays later that season.

Then as a part of the deal made between NBC and the NHL in2011–12, the game of the week package would add the NHL Thanksgiving Showdown to its schedule and this would continue until the2020-21 season.^[4][5]

In March 2021, after nearly 20 years away,ESPN announced it had reacquired broadcasting rights to the NHL and as a part of that dealABC would take over rights to air the game of the week package.^[6][3][7][8]

ABC Hockey Saturday as is would be called would debut on November 26, 2021 with the Thanksgiving Showdown between theNew York Rangers and theBoston Bruins.^[9]

ABC’s game of the week coverage consists of mostly of eitherdoubleheaders ortripleheaders from Saturday afternoon to night which usually begins at the last weeks of the season which starts with a 30-minute pregame show.^[10]

Starting this season, NBC aired these Game of the Week games on a national basis, in addition to carrying the national broadcasts ofthe Winter Classic onNew Year's Day and theStanley Cup Playoffs during the Spring.

ThePittsburgh Penguins had an overall five network TV appearances during this season, making it the first NHL team in Pennsylvania and the first NHL team to have overall five network appearances in a regular season.

^[11]

^[12]

^[13] NBC was supposed to air the Pittsburgh-Washington match-up on January 24, but however, the game was postponed due tohazardous weather, so the network instead selecting St. Louis-Chicago game as their match-up and it aired in the Primetime slot.

During the season, NBC'sStar Sunday concept was added to the Game of the Week package.^[14] The first game under the new brand took place on January 22, 2017, in a game between theNew York Rangers and theDetroit Red Wings.^[1]

(*) Designated as aStar Sunday game.

During this season, thePhiladelphia Flyers had an overall five network TV appearances, making it the final NHL team in Pennsylvania and the second NHL team to have overall five network appearances (the first wasPittsburgh Penguins in 2011–12 season).^[15] NBC initially announced that no NHL games would be aired on the network during the2018 Winter Olympics, however they changed course and added three Sunday afternoon games in February as a lead-in to the Winter Olympics, allowing Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk to stay home and call 3 NHL games.^{[16][17][18][19]} NBC correctly switched the final minutes of the2018 NHL Stadium Series to its sister networkNBCSN (except for viewers in the Washington D.C. market) at 11 p.m. Eastern Time after play stoppage due to the power outage delay.^[20]Star Sunday returned on March 11, 2018, both as part of theGame of the Week andSunday Night Hockey package.

(*) Designated as aStar Sunday game.

^[21] For the first time, NBC selected two regional games which to aired it in primetime on February 2, 2019.Star Sunday returned on February 3, 2019, both as part of theGame of the Week andSunday Night Hockey package. This marked the first and only season ofStar Sunday to have its presenting sponsor;AT&T was the first presenting sponsor and they branded themselves asStar Sunday presented by AT&T.

(*) Designated as aStar Sunday game.

For this season only,Brian Boucher joinedMike Emrick andEddie Olczyk on the lead broadcast team whilePierre McGuire is reassigned to work with NBC's other broadcast teams. ThePittsburgh Penguins originally had six network television appearances during that season (for the first time since the 2011–12 season), however, due to the cancellation of their final two network TV appearances (the Washington-Pittsburgh match-up on March 22 and the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia match-up on March 29) because of thecoronavirus pandemic, they reduced to four^[22][23] as the games are postponed due to the pandemic, in which the rest of the regular season was paused indefinitely due to the pandemic.^{[24][25][26][27]} All players and hockey staff were asked toself-quarantine in their home cities until further notice.^{[28][29][30][31]} On May 26, 2020,Gary Bettman, theNHL commissioner, was announced that the rest of the regular season was cancelled.^{[32][33][34][35][36][37][38]}

Due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, the start of the2020–21 NHL season has been delayed to January 13, 2021, and all teams would play a 56-game division-only schedule with the NHL temporarily realigning divisions to minimize travel as much as possible, with all seven Canadian teams playing one division due to COVID-19cross-border travel restrictions imposed by theGovernment of Canada.

NBC Sports broadcast 16 NHL regular season games, which is the most ever NHL regular season games broadcast on NBC. TheNHL on NBCschedule featured a number of rivalries, including theCapitals–Penguins rivalry, theBlackhawks–Red Wings rivalry, the Bruins-Rangers rivalry, and the Avalanche-Blues rivalry. Meanwhile, theWashington Capitals had five network television appearances this season, the third NHL team to have largest appearances during the regular season. The finalNHL on NBC game was on May 8, 2021, with two games aired regionally, all butNew York metro andBoston markets, who got the Penguins-Sabres game, got the Bruins-Rangers rivalry game, and the regional games were shared with the teams' respective broadcasters in their aforementioned markets.^[39][40] It also marked as the final season for the games to aired on NBC after 16 years, as 10 games were regained by over-the-airABC beginningnext season.^[41]

This season, ABC took over as the national over-the-air broadcaster for the NHL as part of a seven-year multiplatform deal with ESPN. They kicked off their coverage with the Thanksgiving Showdown on November 26. All games were simulcast onESPN+, and featured a stats-based IceCast alternate broadcast, excluding the Thanksgiving Showdown.

• Outside of the Thanksgiving Showdown, ESPN produced an "IceCast"alternate broadcast. These broadcasts aired onESPN+, alongside the ABC broadcast.

ABC lost the rights to the Thanksgiving Showdown toTNT, but gained the rights to theNHL Stadium Series in return. ABC also introduced doubleheaders on select Saturdays, as well as a tripleheader during the last Saturday of the season.

• ESPN produced alternate broadcasts of select games that streamed on ESPN+ along with the ABC broadcast. Those include the "Star Watch", "Puck Possessor", or an "All-12" broadcast for the Stadium Series.

ABC had four doubleheader weeks this season, as well as the Stadium Series, and two tripleheaders, one on the same day as the first game of the Stadium Series, the other on the last Saturday of the season. All games will once again be simulcast onESPN+.

ABC aired six doubleheaders, as well as the Saturday games of theNHL 4 Nations Face-Off. There were no tripleheaders this season as a result of the 4 Nations break, as well as scheduling conflicts. In addition to ESPN+, all ABC games this season are also simulcast onDisney+.

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