- The NHL moved start times for three games Thursday, hitting six teams
- Islanders at Rangers on Oct. 6 now drops the puck at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
- Read below for every game that moved and why the networks keep doing this
The Rangers and Islanders are getting pushed around the clock again.
Three games got new start times in the league’s Thursday announcement, and the Oct. 6 meeting at Madison Square Garden is one of them. Puck drop is now 7:30 p.m. ET, with ESPN carrying it in the United States.
That is the second adjustment to that game in three weeks. The league already bumped it from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. back in August, so this one splits the difference.
Here is the league announcement:
Florida’s trip to Los Angeles is the other Oct. 6 change, now a 10 p.m. ET nightcap at Crypto.com Arena. ESPN has that one too, and the network put out its own release confirming both games as national exclusives.
February gets the third change. Colorado visits Edmonton on Feb. 17 at 9 p.m. ET, which is 7 p.m. local, and TNT, truTV and HBO Max have the broadcast.
Avalanche at Oilers also got touched in August, when it slid from 8 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. local. Now it moves up another half hour.
Six franchises are caught up in Thursday’s batch: the Rangers, Islanders, Panthers, Kings, Avalanche and Oilers. Every one of the three games is a national television window, which is almost always what drives these tweaks.
This is a small batch by recent standards. The league shuffled 109 games in one announcement on Aug. 26, so three is barely a ripple.
Everything here is stacked around a season that opens unusually early. The NHL drops the first puck Sept. 29, only the second time the regular season has started before October. The new CBA trimmed the preseason to four games and stretched the schedule to 84, the longest grind since 1993-94.
Carolina raises its Stanley Cup banner and hosts Florida at 5 p.m. ET that night to get things rolling.
Take a look at ESPN’s breakdown of what the new schedule sets up:
Fans holding tickets to any of the three games should double-check them before heading out. More changes are likely once local broadcast schedules get finalized.
