Bubble hockey is pretty great. Overtime bubble hockey might be one of the best things going on Earth right now.
Thanks to the record-setting, five-overtime Game 1 thriller between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Tampa Bay Lightning, NBC Sports recorded its most-watched first day of televised Stanley Cup Playoffs coverage ever.
Tuesday's two Game 1s averaged 689,000 viewers on NBC Sports Network, topping all previous first days on record and up 33% over last year's coverage. Leading the way was the instant classic in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the Blue Jackets and Lightning.
An audience of 755,000 sat in for the whole thing, on average, with the number rising to 957,000 viewers for the overtimes and a staggering 1.265 million TV-only viewers during the portion of the game that took place in primetime (7:30-9:25 p.m.). It becomes the third-most watched first-day game every broadcast by NBC.
The five-overtime affair, won by Tampa Bay, saw 150:27 of game time and close to 6.5 hours of televised time, making it the second-longest game of the modern era. Blue Jackets goalie Joonas Korpisalo set an NHL record, stopping 85 shots in the loss, while his teammate, defenseman Seth Jones, established a new NHL record for ice time in a single game, skating an astonishing 65:06.
Digitally, the numbers were through the roof as well, with streams up 72% over the first day of postseason coverage in 2019.
