Fansided

NBC’s broadcast crew is the only bad thing about Bruins-Leafs game

By Derek Grochowski

PHILADELPHIA, PA - MARCH 07: Pierre McGuire waves to the fans during warm-ups between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 7, 2018 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Len Redkoles/NHLI via Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - MARCH 07: Pierre McGuire waves to the fans during warm-ups between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 7, 2018 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Len Redkoles/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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NBC rolled out a nightmare broadcast crew for their Saturday night primetime NHL Stanley Cup Playoff game between Boston and Toronto.

Saturday should have been the kind of day the NHL schedule makers capitalized on, but it was a broadcasting disaster. In fact, it was the only bad thing about what should have been a banner day featuring a Bruins vs. Maple Leafs match-up.

To start, both No. 1 seeds, the Nashville Predators and Tampa Bay Lightning played at the same time in the early afternoon. This created a gap in coverage which was an entirely different mistake. Next up was the ratings dream of a primetime matchup between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins. Boston and Toronto represent two of the largest TV markets in the NHL playoffs. The good news for NHL fans was that the game was (is) on nationally on NBC, the bad news was (is) they could not have put together a worse broadcasting team.

The problem starts with play-by-play man Mike “Doc” Emrick. In his day Doc was a great play-by-play announcer. He wouldn’t miss a beat and would work in a wide-ranging vocabulary that made the game exciting. Not all things get better with age and unfortunately for Doc he is one of those things. He gets caught trailing off mid-sentence, mixing up players and sometimes is simply confusing. He needs to be left off of the main stage and should have been given one of the games from this afternoon.

Additionally, the job of a good color commentator is to give useful insight or even bail out his broadcast partner if things get tough. Mike Milbury is not a good color commentator or even close to one. He should have been left in the studio to do intermission analysis. Even though he isn’t any better there, it is in smaller doses and if you change the channel to avoid him you won’t miss any of the game. Yes, he was a former player and a former coach but he still should not be in his current job.

Finally, that leaves us with Pierre McGuire. If you’re new to hockey you probably don’t mind Pierre. But after an 82 game season, you get tired of him yelling out what junior team an irrelevant fourth liner played for. Followed by him throwing back to Doc with an awkward question that doesn’t have an answer. He has a great amount of knowledge but the way he uses it throughout a broadcast is painful.

Next: Five players wowing us in the Stanley Cup playoffs

NBC has the talent to put together a good broadcast team. For some reason, they chose not to put those pieces together. Doc, Pierre and Milbury are still a functional broadcast team, but they can no longer be assigned to cover the primetime Saturday game. Kenny Albert is an underrated play-by-play option. They could have pulled useful analysts like Mike Johnson or Joe Micheletti up to the big stage. Great announcers can make a game even more memorable, especially for people watching the sport for the first time.

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