NHL on TNT
The NHL on TNT is a presentation of the National Hockey League (NHL), games produced by Turner Sports, and televised on TNT in the United States. In 2021, Turner Sports reached a seven-year contract to serve as one of the two rightsholders of the NHL in the United States, alongside ESPN/ABC, and both replacing NBC Sports. TNT will hold rights "up to 72" nationally-televised regular-season games per season, the annual NHL Winter Classic game on New Year's Day, half of the Stanley Cup playoffs (with games airing on TNT and TBS), and  alternating rights to Stanley Cup Finals in odd-numbered years (with games being split across the Turner networks). The contract also includes an option for HBO Max to carry and/or simulcast games. Turner Sports has previously aired hockey, as the regional home for the Atlanta Flames and Atlanta Thrashers, and as the cable home for Olympic ice hockey from 1992–1998 for CBS. The co-owned AT&T SportsNet regional sports networks also hold local rights to the Pittsburgh Penguins, Seattle Kraken, and Vegas Golden Knights. However, Turner Sports never had a national contract with the NHL until the current deal was  reached. History. Prior to a national contract. From 1992–1998, TNT served as the American cable television partner for CBS in its coverage of the Winter Olympic Games. Jiggs McDonald handled the play-by-play for ice hockey at the 1992 and 1994 Olympics with Bill Clement on color commentary in 1992 and Joe Micheletti in 1994. In 1998, Mike "Doc" Emrick provided the play-by-play commentary alongside color commentators Peter McNab, Joe Micheletti, and Digit Murphy. When the NHL's media rights were up for renewal in 2011, Turner Sports was reported to have been among the bidders (with  Sports Business Journal suggesting that Turner would want to pick it up for TruTV to expand its sports output alongside the NCAA men's basketball tournament), alongside past NHL rightsholders Fox Sports and ESPN. The NHL ultimately decided to renew its rights with NBC Sports under a 10-year deal, taking advantage of the acquisition of its parent company NBC Universal by Comcast—the existing cable rightsholder via Versus. National contract (2021–present). In order to increase the value of its U.S. media rights after the expiration of their ten-year deal with NBC Sports, the NHL pursued having multiple  media partners for its next round of media rights deals, including possible deals with streaming services. After announcing on March 10, 2021 that ESPN would hold the first half of the new media rights, on April 27, the NHL announced that a seven-year agreement was reached for Turner Sports to hold the second half of its new media rights beginning in the 2021–22 season; The contract was reported to be valued at $225 million per-season. On May 26, 2021, Turner announced the hiring of Wayne Gretzky as its lead studio analyst, and that NBC's top commentary  team of Kenny Albert and Eddie Olczyk would move to Turner as its own top commentary team. Retired basketball player and current TNT "Inside the NBA" panelist Charles Barkley, who is a friend of Gretzky, was instrumental in convincing Gretzky to join Turner. Craig Morgan, an Arizona-based reporter on the Arizona Coyotes and correspondent for the NHL Network, reported that Darren Pang and Keith Jones, color commentators for the St. Louis Blues and Philadelphia Flyers, would will be joining Turner. On June 9, Morgan reported that NBC’s Anson Carter would be doing the same. On June 28, Marchand  reported that Islanders play-by-play man Brendan Burke was in talks to join Turner as their #2 play-by-play man. On August 31, it was reported that Liam McHugh would join TNT from NBC. On September 14, 2021, TNT announced its slate of on-air staff for its inaugural season. Jones, who served as a studio analyst at NBC, would serve as the lead "Inside-the-Glass" reporter, joining Albert and Olczyk on the lead broadcast team. Burke and Pang were named as the secondary broadcast team. McHugh and Carter were named to the studio team, along with  former Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet and veteran Paul Bissonnette, who all joined Gretzky in studio. "Hockey Night in Canada"’s Jennifer Botterill, NHL Network’s Jackie Redmond, and Tarik El-Bashir also appear as contributors. TNT later added former referee Don Koharski as a rules analyst, and former Blackhawk Jamal Mayers as an extra contributor. On November 23, TNT added retired Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist to its studio panel, starting on the next day's broadcast. On November 30, TNT welcomed former referee Stéphane Auger to their team, as another rules analyst, joining Koharski. He made his debut during  the Penguins-Oilers game the next night. On January 13, 2022, TNT added Nabil Karim, formerly of ESPN, to contribute as secondary studio host and reporter for both the NHL and the NBA. Former NBC and current Kraken play-by-play announcer John Forslund was picked up by TNT as a fill-in announcer, whenever Albert or Burke are on assignment. Forslund first filled in for Albert for the Avalanche-Golden Knights game on February 16, as Albert was working the Olympic women’s hockey gold medal game for NBC about an hour after puck drop. Sharks color commentator Bret  Hedican also joined in a fill-in role, joining Forslund in Vancouver on March 9. TNT will most likely add a fourth play-by-play announcer and fourth color commentator to their roster for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. For the 2021-22 season, TNT will air 50 games, primarily on Wednesday nights (with 15 doubleheaders), seven weeks of Sunday afternoon games in March and April 2022, and rights to the Winter Classic, Stadium Series, and Heritage Classic outdoor games. TNT's first broadcasts were a preseason doubleheader on September 30, 2021 between the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers, and the  Vegas Golden Knights and Los Angeles Kings. TNT then aired its first regular season games on October 13, 2021, with a doubleheader between the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals, and the Chicago Blackhawks and Colorado Avalanche. Due to conflicts with TNT's first two NHL doubleheaders, "AEW: Dynamite" was pre-empted to Saturday on the weeks of October 13 and 20. From October 27 through December 15, 2021, "Dynamite" aired as scheduled on Wednesday nights (and, concurrently, began to be broadcast live on both TNT's East and West coast feeds), limiting TNT to a single Wednesday-night NHL  game as a lead-out at 10 p.m. ET until January 5, 2022, when "Dynamite" moved to TBS. Coverage on other networks. Turner Sports produced hockey has also aired on other networks. TBS. For a short period in the 1970s, WTCG, the predecessor to TBS, was the television home of the Atlanta Flames. All of the Flames' radio and television broadcasts were simulcasts. The Flames' games were also broadcast on the radio by WSB (AM). Jiggs McDonald was the main play-by-play announcer with Skip Caray substituting from 1976–80. Color commentators included Andy Still (1972-73), Bob Neal (1973–74 ), Ed Thilenius (1974–75; home and televised games only), Bernie Geoffrion (1975–79), and Bobby Harper (1979–80; home games only). Pete Van Wieren also did play-by-play for the Flames. The Flames left Atlanta for Calgary prior to the 1980-81 NHL season. During the Stanley Cup Playoffs, TBS will air select playoff games alongside TNT. Turner South. Turner launched the regional Turner South network in 1999, which carried games of the Atlanta Thrashers, which were owned at that time by Turner parent Time Warner. Matt McConnell was the primary television play-by-play announcer for the Thrashers from 1999–2003 with  JP Dellacamera taking over for the rest of the way in Atlanta. Darren Eliot was the television color commentator throughout the Thrashers' entire existence before their 2011 departure to Winnipeg as the Jets. Time Warner sold the Thrashers in 2003, and sold Turner South to Fox Cable Networks in 2006, which merged it with FSN South to form SportSouth. AT&T SportsNet. Following AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner in 2018, AT&T SportsNet,—a regional sports network system acquired in 2015 as a part of DirecTV, and formerly part of the Fox Sports Networks (FSN) group—was moved alongside Turner Sports within  the WarnerMedia News & Sports division under Jeff Zucker in March 2019. AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, and Root Sports Northwest (majority owned by the Seattle Mariners) currently serve as the regional outlets for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Vegas Golden Knights, and Seattle Kraken, respectively. International. In Canada, NHL on TNT is aired by Sportsnet for simlucast purposes under a deal with Turner Sports. Production. A Turner Sports executive stated that TNT's goal for its coverage was to provide information on-air that would appeal to both mainstream viewers and "diehard fans", including leveraging the NHL's new player  and puck tracking system for on-air features and graphics, and high frame rate cameras. The network is also experimenting with an on-ice power play clock graphic, similar to the on-court shot clock graphic used in TNT's NBA coverage. TNT's studio coverage originates from Turner's headquarters in Atlanta, with a set featuring projection mapping effects.