The frozen stream

NHL left NBC programming at the exact right time. For whatever reason, Peacock angers more people as a streaming service than any other. It might be because NBC just doesn't have as much to offer so nobody feels the need to pay for an entire streaming service just to rewatch The Office again. I went to Purdue (The Big Ten's best school without a hockey program), and the Big Ten's rights are partially owned by NBC. No school appears on Peacock more than Purdue.

There isn't a chance in hell I am paying for Peacock.

ESPN reclaimed the American rights to the NHL, and has put a bunch of games online through their ESPN+ package. It's a much more palatable streaming service for most, because it pairs with Disney and Hulu for most people as part of a bundle. Even if I wasn't paying for ESPN, I'm not sure the house would survive without Bluey for a day. Might as well get ESPN, too.

The NHL is going to be able to lean into the streaming market a little bit more, it appears, at least in many markets. Major League Baseball has received the most attention regarding the ongoing bankruptcy of Diamond Sports, the company behind regional sports network brand Bally Sports. As part of the financing to bring the group out of bankruptcy, Amazon is stepping in and purchasing the streaming rights.

If a lot of people have Disney+, and subsequently ESPN+, the number must be higher for Amazon Prime. You don't even need to have an interest in television to make Prime worth it, given the discounts on shipping and what not. And now you may be able to watch several in-market NHL games on Prime. Who knows, maybe out of market?

MLB, NFL, NBA and MLS are all packaged through their own proprietary or exclusive streaming platforms, with a handful of games accessible in other venues. The NFL's streaming option is tied to Youtube (with a game or two on Amazon), while the MLS is on AppleTV but only the NHL will be the only major North American league with games available to stream on ore than one streaming platform once Amazon takes over Diamond Sports, and two of the most popular options at that.

Through good fortune and a forced adaptation, the NHL has found itself well positioned for the new era of sports media. After years mired in the cable backwaters, hockey is positioned to be more widely available than nearly any other sport to the next generation of fans. Now it's up to the league to seize that opportunity. 

Connor Bedard is Chicago's best player: By a lot

 

Your team is not very good if you earn the top pick in the NHL draft. Even with the lottery for the top pick, the eligible teams, even if they are the worst in the league, are pretty bad. The Blackhawks were, indeed, bad last year. Now they have Connor Bedard to show for it, and they are the second worst team in the league. San Jose is mired in a 12 game losing streak, and they only have five fewer points than Chicago. 

Now Bedard is going to be out for a couple of months, and it is hard to see where the Blackhawks go from here. At the beginning of the season, Chicago started with a couple of good veterans in Tyler Hall and Andreas Athanasiou. The Blackhawks looked to be improving, especially if their young core,  centered by Bedard, clicked.

Hall and Athanasiou have played a combined 21 games, and haven't really impressed, while the only players with more than half a point per game, aside from Bedard, are Philip Kurashev and Jason Dickinson. Facilitators and goal scorers alike, even when on a line with Bedard, aren't contributing. Bedard is averaging nearly a point a game all by himself.

That means there isn't really an easy fix coming around the corner. Kurashev, in particular, looks like a block they can use with Bedard to build on. They have some good young defensemen as well, especially Alex Vlasic and hopefully Kevin Korchinski, but that's 4 players on the roster. They have some extra picks early in the next few drafts, but outside of Dickinson, there isn't a lot of tradeable commodity to improve their lot. 

Athanasiou and Hall will be back next year, assuming nothing changes, and Seth Jones will be healthy, but as it stands right now, they will have fifty-two million in cap space. The Blackhawks may not have the youth to build around Bedard. There is not Jonathan Toews to go with Patrick Kane for Bedard, at least not right now. Even if they draft well, the new young players will take time to NHL caliber, which means their peak might come too late to incentivize Bedard into sticking around.

 They could certainly afford to go out and buy the roster, however. Now, the real trick will be convincing the Wirtz Family into throwing that money around.