Maple Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz makes a save on a shot from Senators forward Tim Stutzle at the Canadian Tire Centre, in Ottawa, on May 1.Marc DesRosiers/Reuters
This year’s NHL playoffs are shaping up as a tale of two countries, with strong TV viewership in Canada for the first round, where five domestic teams were in the mix for the first time since 2017, but lacklustre ratings in the U.S., where none of its Original Six franchises had made it to the final 16.
The Battle of Ontario between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators attracted an average audience of 3.2 million viewers in English Canada across all six games, according to Sportsnet, citing data from the TV and streaming information bureau, Numeris.
The figures include viewership from all of the TV networks broadcasting Rogers’ production – the games aired on CBC and Sportsnet, with some also on OMNI – as well as the Sportsnet+ streaming service. This is the first year the streaming numbers are included in Numeris’ publicly released viewership tally.
The five-game Montreal Canadiens-Washington Capitals series pulled in an average audience of 1.9 million; the six-game Edmonton Oilers-Los Angeles Kings clash attracted an average audience of 1.5 million; and the Winnipeg Jets-St. Louis Blues epic, which featured a last-ditch tying goal and double-overtime game seven thriller, earned an average audience of 1.6 million.
Sportsnet also announced that the entire first round of the playoffs, including four series featuring only U.S. teams, pulled in an average of 1.2 million viewers, with 20.5 million Canadian viewers tuning in to some part of the action.
The NHL playoffs have dominated TV viewership in Canada since kicking off April 19, winning every night except April 28, when no Canadian teams were in action because of the federal election.
“More than half the population has already tuned in after Round 1,” said Greg Sansone, the president of Sportsnet, in a statement e-mailed to The Globe and Mail. “The Playoffs provide the biggest and best moments in sports, and Rogers is proud to deliver these moments to Canadians night after night.”
Sportsnet’s parent company, Rogers Communications Inc., is once again seeking to capitalize on the hunger for a Canadian team – any Canadian team – to win the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1993. It is airing brand spots featuring all of the Canadian teams that are still in the running, with the declaration: “This Is Our Game,” to the song Lay It On the Line by the classic Canadian rockers Triumph. The hunger for the return of Stanley to its birthplace has only intensified since U.S. President Donald Trump began threatening annexation and economic ruin in January.
Rogers is well positioned to build on the continuing success of the Canadian teams. This year marks the first time since the company bought the national Canadian rights to NHL games in December, 2013, in which three Canadian teams have made it through to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Even better for ratings, those three teams are playing in three separate series.
Even so, Canadian viewership was down across a few of the Round 1 marquee matches. Game 4 of the Leafs-Senators series, which aired on a Saturday night, was the most-watched of the Battle of Ontario, with an average audience of 3.6 million and a total of 8.8-million viewers who tuned in at some point.
That was fewer than the last few most-watched Round 1 matchups featuring the Leafs: Game 7 in 2022 against Tampa Bay (3.8 million viewers on average), Game 6 in 2023 against Tampa Bay (4.4 million) and last year’s Game 7 heartbreaker against the Boston Bruins, which drew just over five million.
The Canadian success may be coming at a cost to the league’s U.S. broadcast partners. Some games have pulled impressive numbers, including last Saturday’s Dallas Stars-Colorado Avalanche Game 7, which averaged 2.4 million viewers on ABC, but that was down from last year’s Leafs-Bruins classic, which earned 3.2 million viewers on that network.
But across the board, U.S. viewership was down in the first round, averaging 727,000 on ABC/ESPN, off 29 per cent from last year, and 704,000 viewers on TNT/TBS, which is off 16 per cent.
The fall-off is not a complete surprise, given that the usual playoff stalwarts in large hockey-mad TV markets, such as the Bruins and the New York Rangers, are missing this year. Still, some had expected the buzz of the 4 Nations Face-Off in February might carry the league into a playoff spotlight among American TV viewers.