NBC Sports’ ‘Inside-the-Glass’ analyst Brian Boucher was the winning goaltender for the longest game in modern NHL history, won 2-1 by the Flyers over the Penguins in 2000, and was also on the call for last night’s second-longest game in modern history.

The Lightning’s win over the Blue Jackets last night was discussed on NHL Live by studio analysts Keith Jones, Boucher’s teammate in Philadelphia in the longest game in NHL history, and Patrick Sharp about how the Game 1 outcome may affect the remainder of the First Round series.

Patrick Sharp on the series outlook for the Blue Jackets: “Columbus, to me, is a team that needs energy to compete and play the way they do … I have to think this is going to take some wind out of their sails a little bit … I’m not writing Columbus off just yet, I think there’s a lot left in the tank, and if there’s any team that can rebound from this, it’s the Blue Jackets.”

Immediately following the conclusion of the Bruins-Hurricanes matchup, a special 1.5-hour edition of NHL Live will begin at 1:30 p.m. ET. Throughout the day, Kathryn Tappen will host studio coverage alongside studio analysts Eddie Olczyk, Anson Carter, Jones and Sharp.

Last night, NHL on NBC lead play-by-play commentator Mike ‘Doc’ Emrick won his seventh consecutive Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality – Play-by-Play. Emrick has now won this award in eight of the past 10 years.

Today’s NHL schedule on NBCSN is below:

2020 STANLEY CUP QUALIFYING ROUND DELIVERS LARGE INCREASES OVER REGULAR-SEASON VIEWERSHIP

The first-ever NHL Qualifying Round delivered significant viewership gains across the platforms of NBC Sports when compared to the 2019-20 NHL regular season, according to Nielsen and digital data by Adobe Analytics.

Following are viewership highlights for the 33 games of the Qualifying Round:

• Across all platforms (NBC, NBCSN, CNBC, USA Network, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app), Qualifying Round coverage averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 553,000 viewers, up 39% 2019-20 regular-season average on NBC and NBCSN (398,000 viewers).
• The six games on NBC averaged a TAD of 1.190 million viewers, up 11% vs. 2019-20 regular-season average on NBC (1.074 million), excluding the 2020 NHL Winter Classic.
• The Canadiens-Penguins primetime matchup on NBC on Aug. 1 averaged a TAD of 1.529 million viewers, making it the most-watched NHL game of the 2019-20 season, excluding the Winter Classic. It was also up 42% the 2019-20 regular-season average for games on NBC (1.074 million), excluding the Winter Classic.
• On cable, the 27 Qualifying Round games on NBCSN, CNBC and USA Network – which were non-exclusive and blacked out in both home markets – averaged a TAD of 396,000 viewers, up 120% from the 2019-20 NBCSN comparable regular-season average (180,000 viewers).
• NBC Sports’ regular-season viewership record for a non-exclusive game blacked out in both home markets is Rangers-Penguins with 394,000 viewers in 2011. During the Qualifying Round, 11 NBCSN games surpassed that record.

• Digitally, the Qualifying Round generated significant traffic for Pro Hockey Talk on NBCSports.com. During the 10 days of the Qualifying Round, the hockey website exceeded its traffic for the entire 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs (64 days) by 8% in page views (3.257 million vs. 3.020 million) and 27% in uniques (1.995 million vs. 1.570 million).