Sunday night’s Western Conference Final Game 7 (8:01-11:16 p.m. ET) -- which pitted the last two Stanley Cup champions against each other and was won, 5-4, by the Kings in overtime -- surpassed Game 7 of the 1996 Eastern Conference Final between the Florida Panthers and Pittsburgh Penguins (ESPN, June 1, 4.049 million) as the most-watched non-Stanley Cup Final NHL playoff game on record.

Kings-Blackhawks surpassed Game 3 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final between the Blackhawks and Boston Bruins (4.001 million) as the most-watched NHL game ever on NBCSN and the most-watched non-Olympic program ever on the network. It also had more viewers than USA-Russia (4.100 million) men’s ice hockey during the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

NBCSN was the No. 1 network on cable during the game Sunday night. It was the second-most watched cable program of the day among average viewers, P18-49 (1.909) and P25-54 (2.111), trailing only HBO’s Game of Thrones. It also outperformed all broadcast programming among P18-49 and P25-54.

The game peaked at 5.5 million viewers from 10:30-10:45 p.m. ET, and delivered a 2.35 HH rating.

NBCSN’S MOST-WATCHED NON-OLYMPIC PROGRAMS

Originally reported yesterday, following are some local ratings notes and highlights regarding Sunday night’s Game 7:

• The 22.7 HH rating in Chicago was the best Blackhawks game delivery ever on NBCSN.
• Los Angeles drew its best Round 3 metered market rating ever on NBCSN with a 4.8 rating.
• With the Rangers awaiting the winner in the Stanley Cup Final, New York delivered a 3.7 rating, its best rating on NBCSN ever for a non-Stanley Cup Final game that did not include a New York team.

Following are the Top 10 markets for Kings-Blackhawks Game 7:

Digitally, the live stream of Game 7 produced record metrics for an authenticated game on NBC Sports Live Extra. The game delivered 142,033 uniques and 8,146,724 million minutes consumed, making it the best authentication-required NHL game ever in all key metrics and the best authenticated or unauthenticated game of the 2013-14 season in all key metrics.

Through three rounds, the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs are the most-watched in 17 years. NBC, NBCSN and CNBC have combined to average 1.187 million viewers for 86 games, up 11% vs. last year (1.074 million for 78 games) and the most since FOX, ESPN and ESPN2 combined to average 1.237 million for the first three rounds in 1997.