Heading into the 2023-24 NHL season, NHL Network has made some tweaks to a pair of its flagship studio shows.
Per a Thursday release, both NHL Tonight and NHL Now will be a bit different this season.
Lauren Gardner and Jamie Hersch will rotate hosting duties on NHL Now this season, with Mike Rupp joining as an analyst. Additional analysts on the show include Brian Boyle, Devan Dubnyk, Scott Hartnell, and Thomas Hickey.
NHL Now promises to “take viewers inside the locker room with candid commentary on the hottest topics and entertaining interviews with players across the game” each weeknight.
Previous NHL Now co-hosts E.J. Hradek and Jackie Redmond will have different roles with the network. Hradek will move back a couple of hours to the 6 p.m. ET edition of NHL Tonight, joining as the show’s lead analyst. Redmond, an NHL on TNT rinkside reporter, will serve as an on-site correspondent for NHL Network programming while also hosting editions of NHL Tonight and On The Fly, the network’s nightly wrap-up and recap show.
NHL Tonight, like MLB Network’s MLB Tonight, features “look-ins of live games, demonstrations, and analysis across the league” in its primetime edition. The 6 p.m. ET edition serves as a de facto pregame show for the league as a whole, “breaking down all the games and key storylines leading up to puck drop.”
There’s nothing wrong with freshening up studio shows every so often, and while these changes likely won’t dramatically affect either show, there isn’t all that much downside, either.
[NHL.com]
