Jamie Hersch opened "NHL Tonight" by referencing the "five very different, very entertaining hockey games" that had played out over the previous 13 hours Wednesday.
It wasn't quite to the level of the five-overtime epic between Columbus and Tampa Bay a night earlier, but it was pretty darn close.
"On the heels of that five-OT game," co-host Kevin Weekes said, "we got a double-OT in the morning game."
The morning game. The NHL has morning games!
Who needs Breakfast at Wimbledon when you can have Breakfast at Edmonton, or at least Toronto? There isn't much difference between the NHL's two bubble sites as television entities. Both are spectacular.
This whole thing has been spectacular. It's basically March Madness on ice. Every time I turn on the TV, I'm watching live hockey. Boston-Carolina had an 11 a.m. puck drop.
Sure, that was only because their game the night before was postponed by Columbus-Tampa. So what? It just underscored how the NHL has been both light on its feet and highly calculated in navigating COVID-19 chaos.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was criticized here and elsewhere for taking his sweet time to put a pandemic plan together. Looks now like it was worth the wait.
It looks to me, in fact, like this might be Bettman's finest hour.
It's early yet. Still technically the first round. But I'm blown away by how seamlessly the league has pulled this off, even after leaving Las Vegas at the last minute and making the tournament an All-Canada proposition.
I doubted whether a bubble concept could work. I certainly doubted whether the frantic intensity of playoff hockey would translate to television with no fans in the stands.
Mike Sullivan handles bench duties against the New York Islanders in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference first round during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs at NYCB Live's Nassau Coliseum on April 10, 2019 in Uniondale, New York. The Islanders defeated the Penguins 4-3 in overtime.
At Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and Rogers Place in Edmonton, the league covered the lower bowls with sleek tarps that mitigated the reality of no fans. As Yahoo Sports described it, the "large screens and lights around the lower bowls create a look that is part television studio and part video game."
It really does feel like some combination of an outdoor game, an international game and a video game. It's like watching a hockey movie on set.
The EA Sports sound effects are subtle but efficient. They neither assault the senses nor cheapen the product but do just enough to satisfy the viewer's expectation that a significant play _ a goal, a great save, a near-miss _ will be accompanied by a crowd reaction.
The NHL is using 32 cameras in each arena, 12 more than a normal game. That includes the rotating "JitaCam," which does not feature Booger McFarland at the wheel but does provide wildly unique angles from its perch underneath the scoreboard.
As for the players' intensity, turns out they don't need fans to go from zero to Zdeno Chara in a hurry. Did you see Anders Lee hammer Nicklas Backstrom on Wednesday? Did you see the Capitals' reaction?
That kind of vengeful anger and hatred is on display across the tournament. It's wonderful.
Meanwhile, the NHL's COVID testing plan has been flawless. As a recent ESPN piece explained, players and other essential personnel are tested each day, and results arrive within 24 hours. Couriers deliver the samples to labs near both sites. There hasn't been a positive test since the bubbles opened.
From the start, the NHL was bubble-or-bust. No traveling. That, as ESPN reported, happened on the strong recommendation of people such as Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a Toronto-based infectious disease doctor who advised the NHLPA.
The move to Canada made all kinds of sense.
"I think what we did differently in Canada was, early on, all of the senior political leaders appreciated that (COVID-19) was a big deal," Bogoch told ESPN. "We listened to our senior public health leadership. When they said it was time to lock down, we locked down. When they said it was time to put on a mask, we put on a mask. ... And we waited. When they said it was time to open up safely and slowly, we carefully and slowly started to open up.
"It wasn't perfect, and we certainly got some things wrong, but we didn't politicize this pandemic whatsoever."
Even the draft lottery, idiotic as it was that none of the worst teams got the first pick, made for great television. People were peeved the New York Rangers won, believing they were the team the NHL was rooting for.
If so, good for the NHL. It's winning a lot these days.
