Montreal Canadiens to only have one game on NBC for the 2018-19 season

TV networks are continuing to finalize their broadcasting schedules for the 2018-19 season, and the Montreal Canadiens have had their exposure cut.

Although the majority of the NHL is made up of American teams, there’s no doubt where hockey gets the biggest pull. NBC is a go-to distributor in terms of televising NHL games, and they’ve released their schedules for the 2018-19 season. There are some clear differences between this year’s broadcast and last, and a part of that involves the Montreal Canadiens.

The 2017-18 season had NBC broadcast a total of 99 NHL games, and 8 of them were Habs matches including the NHL100 Classic against the Ottawa Senators. The Montreal Canadiens also found themselves getting a Wednesday Night Rivalry match against the Boston Bruins on January 17th.

It’s going to be different this year for several reasons. For starters, NBC has increased their coverage from 99 to 109 games to be broadcasted. On a downer note, the Habs are only going to have a single match on NBC being their game against the Bruins on January 14th (a Monday).

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Is this a surprise? Not exactly. It does make sense why NBC would want to increase the number of Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs coverage on their network. Connor McDavid has back-to-back Art Ross Trophies and is continuing to staple his status as being the best player in the league whereas Auston Matthews is American and one of the better players on the team.

The Winnipeg Jets had a massive spike in interest as well. Going from 0 games on NBC the season before to five speaks to the buzz they generated in 2017. They also have some US-born stars in Kyle Connor, Connor Hellebuyck, and Jacob Trouba to focus on.

This has no bearing on the team itself; it’s not as if the Montreal Canadiens are going to play poorly because NBC isn’t featuring them often. But it will be interesting to see if the Habs can do enough this upcoming season to warrant more exposure in the US for the 2019-20 campaign.

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