from Aleksandra Sagan of CBC,

This playoff season, the odds of even one Canadian team making the playoffs are slim. None of the seven teams currently hold playoff spots in the standings and Winnipeg, Toronto and Edmonton are at the very bottom of the 30-team league. The season ends April 10.

"The bottom line is: no Canadian team in these playoffs is not at all good news for Rogers," Marvin Ryder, assistant professor at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business, said in an interview.

Last year, when five Canadian teams competed in the first round of playoffs, the company's gamble on hockey paid off. Ratings jumped 36 per cent over the 2014 post-season's initial match-ups, when only Montreal advanced into the playoffs, according to Numeris.

But after the second round, no Canadian teams remained in the quest for the Stanley Cup and ratings slipped, said Ryder.

So a looming Canadian playoff drought could spell trouble for Rogers, he said. The company depends on high viewership to be able to sell playoff advertising spots for hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. That revenue then helps pay for the yearly cost of its NHL broadcast rights.

Rogers declined to comment on the prospect of a Canada-free playoff season.

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