[sureLoss]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...-19/971814002/

NBC Sports will televise the Vegas Golden Knights twice in the first week of the NHL season. The Nashville Predators will be featured three times in the first month. The Arizona Coyotes, Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, Winnipeg Jets and Tampa Bay Lightning will appear on NBC before Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins.

The network’s changing strategy will be revealed today when it announces a record 109-game regular-season schedule with a greater diversity in team selection than in the past.

“It’s a new world,” Sam Flood, president and executive producer of NBC and NBC Sports, told USA TODAY Sports. “We need to embrace and celebrate those teams more than we ever have before. It doesn’t take away from those great Pittsburgh-Philadelphia games and Bruins-Canadiens games. We will keep doing those, but we have to lean into some different matchups.”

NBC also will announce that the All-Star Game, scheduled for San Jose on Jan. 26, will be broadcast in prime time on a broadcast network for the first time since 1997.

The Wednesday Night Rivalry format will be replaced by Wednesday Night Hockey, the change that will create most of the schedule diversity on NBC Sports Network. Wednesday Night Hockey will feature 17 doubleheaders. Tampa Bay, Colorado, Toronto, Vegas, Edmonton, Nashville and Winnipeg will all have multiple appearances on that night.

“Sometimes I think, through no fault of anyone, we were looking at the ratings through a core group of teams,” Flood said. “Rivalry Night was successful but some of (the rivalries) don’t have the juice they once did when we started this 12 or 13 years ago.”

NBC plans to bring a roaming studio, and some of their top talent, to many of the doubleheader sites to add more flavor to the broadcasts.

Flood said one objective of the new strategy is “to show what’s happening in the newer markets.”

More than 60% of the Wednesday Night Hockey games will feature a Western Conference team.

NBC is not abandoning the traditionally strong markets: The Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals will appear eight times on Wednesday Night Hockey. The Penguins will be on seven times.

The NHL has been criticized in the past for not celebrating its stars enough, and NBC’s 2018-19 lineup will pay homage to star quality.

Wed., Oct. 17 N.Y. Rangers Washington NBCSN 7 p.m.

Boston Calgary NBCSN 9:30 p.m.

Wed., April 3 St. Louis Chicago NBCSN 8 p.m.

Calgary Anaheim NBCSN 10:30 p.m.

Still 7 games for the McDavid show.