It’s that time of year again. NBC Sports has released its 2017-18 broadcast schedule, and that means that fans of NHL teams that have eight fans will complain about how their team is never on national television.
Meanwhile, as fans of a team that lots of people do like, we get to complain about how often our team is on the national feed. It’ll be the second-most in the league for Philadelphia, with 16 of 82 games on NBC or NBCSN this coming season. That’s tied with the Penguins, and it’s one shy of Chicago, who will have 17 games on national TV.
Here’s our schedule:
Philadelphia Flyers 2017-18 NBC Sports schedule
| Date | Game | Network | Time (ET) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wed., Oct. 4 | Philadelphia vs. San Jose | NBCSN | 10:30 p.m. |
| Thurs., Oct. 5 | Philadelphia vs. Los Angeles | NBCSN | 10 p.m. |
| Wed., Nov. 1 | Philadelphia vs. Chicago | NBCSN | 8 p.m. |
| Wed., Dec. 20 | Detroit vs. Philadelphia | NBCSN | 8 p.m. |
| Tue., Jan 2 | Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia | NBCSN | 7 p.m. |
| Tue., Jan. 16 | Philadelphia vs. NY Rangers | NBCSN | 7 p.m. |
| Sun., Jan. 21 | Philadelphia vs. Washington | NBC | 12:30 p.m. |
| Tue., Jan. 23 | Philadelphia vs. Detroit | NBCSN | 7:30 p.m. |
| Wed., Jan. 31 | Philadelphia vs. Washington | NBCSN | 8 p.m. |
| Mon., Feb. 26 | Philadelphia vs. Montreal | NBCSN | 7:30 p.m. |
| Wed., Mar. 7 | Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia | NBCSN | 8 p.m. |
| Tue., Mar. 20 | Philadelphia vs. Detroit | NBCSN | 7:30 p.m. |
| Sun., Mar. 25 | Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh | NBC | 12:30 p.m. |
| Sun., Apr. 1 | Boston vs. Philadelphia | NBC | 12:30 p.m. |
| Thur., Apr. 5 | Carolina vs. Philadelphia | NBCSN | 7 p.m. |
| Sat., Apr. 7 | NY Rangers vs. Philadelphia | NBC | 3 p.m. |
Three teams — Washington, Detroit and Boston — will appear on the Networks Of NBC™ a total of 15 times. The expansion Vegas Golden Knights have five games on national television, and I’m a bit surprised it’s that low.
Other highlights:
- Four of the Flyers’ national games are on the big NBC channel, which is more than any other team in the league can say.
- The Flyers will be featured on “Wednesday Night Rivalry” a total of four times. Two of those are against actual rivals, Washington and Pittsburgh. The other two are against Chicago and Detroit, which are apparently only rivalries because the Flyers once played those teams in the Finals? I don’t know, man.
- Philadelphia’s opening night game against the San Jose Sharks will be an NBCSN game.
- The Nashville Predators, previously one of those teams that were never on national TV, will be featured seven times in the upcoming season.
- Every American team appears at least once, which I think was true last season for the first time as well.
- NBC went out of their way to note in the press release that both Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid will be featured on their networks this season, but like was originally true last year, neither of the head-to-head games between Edmonton and Toronto are on the schedule. NBC corrected that mistake on the fly last year, ultimately televising one of those two games on NBCSN./
