The most surprising thing I discovered during NHL All-Star Weekend wasn’t
This season will include 103 exclusive regular-season games across ESPN, ESPN+, Hulu and ABC. More than 1,000 out-of-market games will be available to ESPN+ subscribers via NHL Power Play on ESPN+.
• How to watch
• Subscribe to ESPN+
• Stream the NHL on ESPN
“It’s hard to make the playoffs, as opposed to having more and more teams can make it in,” one veteran NHL player told me. “It’s tough to make it into 16 of 32 spots. That’s what you work all season for. Even if you lose in the first round, you made it, you know?”
None of the players I spoke with were slamming their fists on the table and demanding playoff expansion. At best, some players whose teams are currently outside of playoff seeding might have been … shall we say, a little more accepting of the idea.
“I like it the way it is. I don’t know how much more expanding it would bring to it,” Brock Nelson of the New York Islanders said, “but I’m open-minded.”
