AMAZON JOINING CANADIAN BROADCAST GAME NEXT SEASON

TORONTO, ON — The NHL is growing, that much is clear. Technically, we’re now at 33 franchises; one of them just happens to be inactive. But beyond the product on the ice, the broadcast game is also evolving north of the border.

Multiple sources have confirmed that Amazon has retained the Canadian broadcast rights from Rogers to air Monday Night Hockey on their platform during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, the remaining two years of Rogers’ current 12-year agreement.

Financial terms are not known, though Rogers’ deal with the NHL was for $5.2 billion.

Amazon has long expressed interest in expanding its NHL footprint and sources have confirmed they already started planning how their broadcasts will shape up next season, though talent has not yet been considered. They have first dipped their toe in League waters with its AWS/NHL partnership as the League’s Official Cloud Infrastructure Provider. Amazon also produced “All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs.”

Bell, which previously owned the national NHL rights in Canada before Rogers swooped in, had dipped their toe in the waters and had conversations about retaining partial rights, again. Bell owns TSN and RDS. There is a possibility they re-engage in a year’s time when the full Canadian rights deal nears its expiration.

The idea is for Rogers and Amazon to piggyback off ESPN and TNT’s formats, and splitting/sharing the national broadcast rights will be the goal for 2026-27 and beyond.

Though some logistical items with the NHL are still being finalized, Amazon has already commissioned a documentary-style behind-the-scenes show featuring a dozen “main cast” NHLers, believed to include William Nylander, Leon Draisaitl, Quinn Hughes and David Pastrnak. There will be additional NHL player appearances throughout the series beyond the primary individuals, however, with Jeremy Swayman entering the Pastaverse in some form.

The production company that created “F1: Drive to Survive” is putting this program together – and that, by itself, is very exciting.

Amazon’s strategy is complimenting its live game broadcasts with supplementary content, such as this new BTS documentary, and I suspect they will look to build off that with more. Come for the game, stay for the content.

It is unclear how fans will react to another sport moving part of its national broadcasts to a streaming network, but we will hear more about Amazon’s new venture into the Canadian NHL broadcast rights in the near future.

NHL AWARDS SZN

As I first reported on Sunday, the NHL Awards are taking place in Las Vegas on June 27.

The show will be produced in a smaller format than years past, with five awards being the focal point – the Hart Trophy, Ted Lindsay Award, Norris Trophy, Calder Trophy and Vezina Trophy – and takes place at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

The remaining awards will be unveiled throughout the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, starting next month.

Don’t be surprised to see some of the Awards winners and nominees in attendance at the NHL Draft the next day, either.

A quick reminder: these are regular-season awards and voted were submitted by 5pm ET on April 19.

HERE AND THERE

It’s still very early in the off-season for 16 clubs, so any chatter out there is normally premature when it comes to finalizing any deals. That being said, teams are beginning to evaluate their rosters and are starting to map out their plan.

The goalie market will be an interesting one, as several clubs will be looking to make moves. Beyond that, though, we should have a pretty active summer and maybe – just maybe – the NHL Draft will give us the fireworks we so desperately want. I mean, it’s at The Sphere. Might as well go all out.

Here’s some early off-season banter making the rounds, focused on the non-playoff clubs:

• The Buffalo Sabres wanted to get ahead of things by hiring their next head coach relatively quickly. Sabres GM Kevyn Adams wasted no time bringing on Lindy Ruff. Now, he will shift his focus to roster changes. Adams will look to add a top-six scorer to his roster and a reliable, two-way third-line centre.

• It’s no secret the Montreal Canadiens want to add a scorer this summer, and they plan to dangle some of their young defencemen as bait. Habs GM Kent Hughes isn’t afraid to pull the trigger on a deal at/around the NHL Draft and that seems to be his target again this June.

• Philadelphia will listen on the likes of Scott Laughton, Morgan Frost and even Joel Farabee this off-season. And speaking of the Flyers, kudos to our guy Anthony Di Marco for being the first to drop the contract details on goalie Ivan Fedotov. It sounds like that two-year, $6.5M extension was agreed upon when he came over from Russia.

• Flames GM Craig Conroy wouldn’t offer tooooo much on goalie Jacob Markstrom’s future, but it’s clear the Calgary netminder ended the season with a bitter taste in his mouth. Can a deal with New Jersey be ironed out? We’ll see.

• I wonder about the future of Sharks captain Logan Couture in San Jose. Some teams poked around his availability last summer around the NHL Draft and again this season before he was fully shutdown. If he’s healthy, teams will be calling again. Nashville and Ottawa had interest before.

• The Utah franchise has more than $43 million in salary cap space next season and you can be sure GM Bill Armstrong will be given the green light to add to his roster to push this club towards the playoffs in 2024-25. They’ll be an active team in both free agency this July and the trade market.

• Pittsburgh will try to move winger Reilly Smith this summer after coming up short before the trade deadline.

• Craig Berube will have the pick of the litter if he wants to coach an NHL club next season. There seems to be a lot of interest, but I suspect he will wait to see if some current playoff teams make a change behind the bench before making any decisions.

• The Minnesota Wild have around $6 million in available salary cap space next season, the last year before Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyout figures drop to $833,333 a pop. I wonder if they look to move out a body or two to free up some extra financial wiggle room this off-season to upgrade the roster.