from Ken Fang of Awful Announcing,

Hoping to differentiate itself from NBC which held the main NHL contract dating back to 2005, ESPN assigned Sean McDonough to be its main play caller. Ray Ferraro who had been with TSN in Canada was brought in to be his partner.

Their partnership on Tuesday for the Pittsburgh Penguins-Tampa Bay Lightning season opener showed potential. Ferraro offered the analysis that made him one of the NHL’s top color men over the last ten years. McDonough showed some rust in the beginning. His “goal” call instead of the more familiar “Score!” was lacking, and as Tampa Bay fell behind Pittsburgh early, the crowd at Amalie Arena grew silent. Perhaps that affected McDonough as his energy level was low.

McDonough is a very good nuts and bolts announcer, and he can rise to the occasion as evidenced by his college football calls, but on this night, there were times when he was behind the action and was trying to catch up, but as he went further into the game, he was able to get into a rhythm and pace.

Emily Kaplan was the rinkside reporter inside the glass and she did offer some good tidbits...

In the second game, John Buccigross joined former NHL on NBC analysts Brian Boucher and A.J. Mleczko. As Boucher and Mleczko are fresh from working for the Peacock, they had a good chemistry working off one another. Buccigross’s energy level was high throughout the game. His play-by-play has improved through the years as he has called the World Cup of Hockey in 2016 as well as the NCAA Frozen Four. Buccigross is not on the level of Doc Emrick or ESPN’s previous number hockey play-by-play man Gary Thorne, but he doesn’t have to be. He was on top of the action and had a good game to call as Seattle came back from a 3-0 deficit to tie before falling 4-3 to Vegas.

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