Sunday Night Hockey

This article is about the broadcasts of National Hockey League games on NBC. For those broadcasts on ESPN during the 1980s, the 1990s, and 2021–present, see NHL on ESPN § History. For those that aired on Sportsnet between 2014 and 2021, see Hometown Hockey.

Sunday Night Hockey
Also known as	Star Sunday
Genre	NHL game telecasts
Presented by	NHL on NBC commentators Kenny Albert John Forslund Joe Micheletti Pierre McGuire Brendan Burke A. J. Mleczko Liam McHugh Kathryn Tappen Keith Jones Patrick Sharp Anson Carter Mike Babcock Ryan Callahan Dominic Moore
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	65
Production
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	180 minutes or until game ends
Production company	NBC Sports
Original release
Network	NBCSN
Release	January 10, 2016 (2016-01-10) – April 25, 2021 (2021-04-25)
Related
NHL on NBC Rogers Hometown Hockey (Canadian counterpart)

Sunday Night Hockey was a weekly presentation of National Hockey League games that air on NBCSN on Sundays during the regular season. Sunday Night Hockey usually debuts during the second Sunday of January.

The package made its debut on January 10, 2016, featuring a game between the New Jersey Devils and the Minnesota Wild. Following the game, NBCSN premiered a weekly recap show, NHL Sunday Shootout, which is a summary of the previous week's NHL action.

During the 2016–17 NHL season, NBC Sports began to promote both the Game of the Week and Sunday Night Hockey broadcasts under the Star Sunday brand, focusing primarily on the NHL's star players. Star Sunday features extensive pre-game, in-game, and post-game coverage of each featured player. The first game under the new package featured the Wild visiting the Anaheim Ducks on January 5, 2017. The game's featured players were Minnesota's Ryan Suter and Anaheim's Ryan Kesler. ^[1]

Results

2015–16 season

^[2]

Date	Time	Away team	Score	Home team	Score
January 10, 2016	8 P.M.	New Jersey	2	Minnesota	1
January 17, 2016	7:30 P.M.	Philadelphia	2 (SO)	Detroit	1
February 14, 2016	7:30 P.M.	Philadelphia	1	New York Rangers	3
February 21, 2016	7 P.M.	Detroit	0	NY Rangers	1 (OT)
February 28, 2016	6:30 P.M.	Tampa Bay	4	Boston	1
	9 P.M.	Los Angeles	2	Anaheim	4
March 6, 2016	8 P.M.	St. Louis	4	Minnesota	2
March 13, 2016	7:30 P.M.	Toronto	1	Detroit	0
March 20, 2016	6 P.M.	Washington	2	Pittsburgh	6
	8:30 P.M.	Minnesota	3 (SO)	Chicago	2
March 27, 2016	7:30 P.M.	Pittsburgh	3 (OT)	New York Rangers	2
April 3, 2016	8 P.M.	St. Louis	5	Colorado	1
April 10, 2016	7 P.M.	Philadelphia	5	New York Islanders	2

2016–17 season

See also: NHL Game of the Week

During the season, the Star Sunday brand made its debut. ^{[3] [1]}

Date	Time	Away team	Score	Home team	Score
January 8, 2017* [nb 1]	8 P.M.	Minnesota	2	Anaheim	1
January 15, 2017* [nb 2]	7 P.M.	Minnesota	3	Chicago	2
February 12, 2017* [nb 3]	7:30 P.M.	Montréal	0	Boston	4
February 19, 2017	6 P.M.	Chicago	5	Buffalo	1
	8:30 P.M.	Boston	2	San Jose	1
February 26, 2017* [nb 4]	7:30 P.M.	St. Louis	2	Chicago	4
March 5, 2017* [nb 5]	8 P.M.	St. Louis	3	Colorado	0
March 12, 2017* [nb 6]	7 P.M.	New York Rangers	4	Detroit	1
March 26, 2017* [nb 7]	7 P.M.	Philadelphia	6	Pittsburgh	2
April 2, 2017* [nb 8]	7:30 P.M.	Philadelphia	3	New York Rangers	4

(*) Designated as a Star Sunday game.

2017–18 season

NBC resumed its special Star Sunday presentations on March 11, 2018, both as part of the Game of the Week and Sunday Night Hockey package. ^[4]

Date	Time	Away team	Score	Home team	Score
January 7, 2018	7:30 P.M.	Boston	4	Pittsburgh	5 (OT)
January 14, 2018	7:30 P.M.	New York Rangers	2	Pittsburgh	5
March 4, 2018	7 P.M.	Detroit	1	Minnesota	4
March 11, 2018* [nb 9]	7:30 P.M.	Dallas	1	Pittsburgh	3
March 18, 2018* [nb 10]	7:30 P.M.	St. Louis	5	Chicago	4 (OT)
March 25, 2018* [nb 11]	7:30 P.M.	Boston	2 (OT)	Minnesota	1
April 1, 2018* [nb 12]	7:30 P.M.	Washington	3	Pittsburgh	1

(*) Designated as a Star Sunday game.

2018–19 season

Star Sunday returned on February 3, 2019, both as part of the Game of the Week and Sunday Night Hockey package. This will mark the first season of Star Sunday to have its presenting sponsor; AT&T was the first presenting sponsor and they branded themselves as Star Sunday presented by AT&T. ^[5]

Date	Time	Away team	Score	Home team	Score
January 6, 2019	8 P.M.	Chicago	5	Pittsburgh	3
February 10, 2019* [nb 13]	7 P.M.	Toronto	1	New York Rangers	4
February 17, 2019	6 P.M.	Philadelphia	3	Detroit	1
February 24, 2019* [nb 14]	7 P.M.	St. Louis	1	Minnesota	2 (OT)
March 3, 2019* [nb 15]	7:30 P.M.	Nashville	3	Minnesota	2 (SO)
March 10, 2019* [nb 16]	7:30 P.M.	Boston	2	Pittsburgh	4
	10 P.M.	Los Angeles	3	Anaheim	2
March 17, 2019* [nb 17]	7:30 P.M.	Philadelphia	2	Pittsburgh	1 (OT)
	10 P.M.	Edmonton	3	Vegas	6
March 24, 2019* [nb 18]	8 P.M.	Colorado	1	Chicago	2 (OT)
March 31, 2019* [nb 19]	7:30 P.M.	Boston	3	Detroit	6

(*) Designated as a Star Sunday game.

2019–20 season

For this season only, Brian Boucher replaced Pierre McGuire on the lead broadcast team with Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk. McGuire will be reassigned to work with NBC's other broadcast teams. ^{[6] [7]}

Date	Time	Away team	Score	Home team	Score
January 5, 2020	7:30 P.M.	Detroit	2	Chicago	4
	10 P.M.	Nashville	4	Anaheim	5 (SO)
February 9, 2020	7:30 P.M.	Colorado	3	Minnesota	2
February 16, 2020	6 P.M.	St. Louis	1	Nashville	2
February 23, 2020	7:30 P.M.	St. Louis	4	Minnesota	1
	10 P.M.	Vegas	6	Anaheim	5 (OT)
March 1, 2020	8 P.M.	Washington	4	Minnesota	3
	10:30 P.M.	Los Angeles	4	Vegas	1
March 8, 2020	7:30 P.M.	St. Louis	2	Chicago	0
	10 P.M.	Colorado	4	San Jose	3

2020–21 season

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the start of the 2020–21 NHL season has been delayed to January 13, 2021, and all teams will play a 56-game division-only schedule with the NHL temporairally realigning divisions to minimize travel as much as possible, with all seven Canadian teams playing one division due to COVID-19 cross-border travel restrictions imposed by the Government of Canada.

15 different teams from all four divisions will be featured on 10 Sunday Night Hockey matchups. All four teams who competed in the conference finals of the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs will be featured on Sunday Night Hockey. Six out of the 10 Sunday Night Hockey matchups will feature a traditional Western Conference team. Unlike in previous years, a few Sunday Night Hockey games will not be exclusive and are blacked out in favor of local broadcasters. ^{[8] [9]}

Date	Time	Away team	Score	Home team	Score
February 14, 2021	7 P.M.	Colorado	0	Vegas	1
February 21, 2021	7 P.M. [nb 20]	Philadelphia	3	Boston	7
February 28, 2021	7 P.M.	Detroit	2	Chicago	7
March 7, 2021	2:30 P.M. [nb 21]	Tampa Bay	6	Chicago	3
	5 P.M. [nb 22]	New Jersey	1	Boston	0
	7:30 P.M. [nb 23]	New York Rangers	1	Pittsburgh	5
March 14, 2021	5:30 P.M. [nb 24]	Los Angeles	1	Colorado	4
March 21, 2021	6 P.M. [nb 25]	Vegas	1	Los Angeles	3
March 28, 2021	3 P.M. [nb 26]	Columbus	1	Detroit	4
	5:30 P.M. [nb 27]	New Jersey	1	Boston	0
	8 P.M. [nb 28]	Nashville	3	Chicago	2
April 4, 2021	7 P.M. [nb 29]	Dallas	0	Carolina	1
April 18, 2021	6:30 P.M. [nb 30]	New York Islanders	1	Philadelphia	0 (OT)
April 25, 2021	7 P.M.	Columbus	3	Tampa Bay	4 (OT)

Ratings

During its inaugural season, Sunday Night Hockey averaged 491,000 viewers over 13 games, up 28% from Sunday Night games during the 2014–15 NHL season over the same number of games (384,000). NBCSN's ten-most watched games of the 2015–16 season were either Wednesday Night Rivalry or Sunday Night Hockey games. ^[3]

Notes

1. NBC selected Ryan Suter and Ryan Kesler as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
2. NBC selected Zach Parise and Patrick Kane as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
3. NBC selected Shea Weber and Brad Marchand as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
4. NBC selected Vladimir Tarasenko and Jonathan Toews as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
5. NBC selected Alex Pietrangelo and Nathan MacKinnon as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
6. NBC selected J. T. Miller and Tomáš Tatar as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
7. NBC selected Wayne Simmonds and Sidney Crosby as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
8. NBC selected Claude Giroux and Rick Nash as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
9. NBC selected Tyler Seguin and Evgeni Malkin as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
10. NBC selected Alex Pietrangelo and Jonathan Toews as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
11. NBC selected Eric Staal and Brad Marchand as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
12. NBC selected Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
13. NBC selected Auston Matthews and Henrik Lundqvist as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
14. NBC selected Ryan O'Reilly and Zach Parise as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
15. NBC selected Filip Forsberg and Ryan Suter as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
16. NBC selected Brad Marchand and Evgeni Malkin as featured Star Sunday players for the Bruins–Penguins game, as well as Drew Doughty and Ryan Getzlaf for the Kings–Ducks game.
17. NBC selected Claude Giroux and Sidney Crosby as featured Star Sunday players for the Flyers–Penguins game, as well as Connor McDavid and Marc-André Fleury for the Oilers–Golden Knights game.
18. NBC selected Nathan MacKinnon and Patrick Kane as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
19. NBC selected David Pastrnak and Dylan Larkin as featured Star Sunday players for the game.
20. Originally scheduled at 3 P.M. on NBC, but was rescheduled due to weather.
21. Blacked out in the Chicago market. Game was televised locally on NBC Sports Chicago.
22. Blacked out in the Boston market. Game was televised locally on New England Sports Network.
23. Blacked out in the New York metropolitan area and Pittsburgh markets. Game was televised locally on MSG Network and AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh.
24. Originally scheduled at 7 P.M., but was rescheduled due to weather.
25. Blacked out in the Los Angeles market. Game was televised locally on Fox Sports West.
26. Blacked out in the Detroit market. Game was televised locally on Fox Sports Detroit.
27. Blacked out in the Boston market. Game was televised locally on New England Sports Network.
28. Blacked out in the Chicago market. Game was televised locally on NBC Sports Chicago.
29. Blacked out in the North and South Carolina markets. Game was televised locally on Bally Sports South.
30. Originally scheduled as the first game of a doubleheader; however the Los Angeles–Colorado game was postponed due to COVID-19 protocols.

References

1. "NBC SPORTS DEBUTS "STAR SUNDAY" THIS WEEKEND – RYAN SUTER & RYAN KESLER – AS MINNESOTA WILD FACE ANAHEIM DUCKS SUNDAY AT 8 P.M. ET ON NBCSN". NBC Sports Group. January 5, 2017. Retrieved January 28, 2017.
2. "NBC SPORTS GROUP TO AIR 105 NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAMES IN 2015-16". NBC Sports Group. July 27, 2015. Retrieved May 7, 2016.
3. "NBC SPORTS GROUP SCHEDULED TO AIR RECORD NUMBER OF NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAMES IN 2016-17". NBC Sports Group. July 21, 2016. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
4. "NBC SPORTS GROUP SCHEDULED TO AIR NEARLY 100 NHL REGULAR SEASON GAMES IN 2017-18". NBC Sports Group. July 31, 2017. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
5. "NBC SPORTS SCHEDULED TO AIR RECORD 109 GAMES DURING 2018-19 NHL REGULAR SEASON". NBC Sports Group. August 13, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
6. "Report: Pierre McGuire removed from NBC's No. 1 NHL team in favor of Brian Boucher". Awful Announcing. September 4, 2019. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
7. "NBC SPORTS TO AIR 109 NHL GAMES DURING 2019-20 REGULAR SEASON". NBC Sports Group. August 6, 2019. Retrieved October 8, 2019.
8. "NBC SPORTS ANNOUNCES ITS EXCLUSIVE NHL SCHEDULE FOR 2020-21 REGULAR SEASON". NBC Sports Group. December 29, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
9. "NBC SPORTS ANNOUNCES FULL 2020-21 NHL REGULAR-SEASON SCHEDULE". NBC Sports Group. January 6, 2021. Retrieved February 2, 2021.