ESPN has decided to keep one of their prominent NHL personalities around. That would be writer, host, and commentator Greg Wyshynski. The network announced Tuesday that they had signed Wyshynski to a new multi-year deal:
ESPN signs Greg @wyshynski to a new, multi-year deal
The senior #NHL writer will continue to be a part of ESPN’s multi-platform coverage of the league including the Stanley Cup Final in June pic.twitter.com/F47GCY17zt
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) November 7, 2023
Wyshynski joined ESPN to lead their hockey coverage in 2017, following nine years at Yahoo Sports (where he founded and ran the Puck Daddy blog) and time at AOL FanHouse and beyond before that. His hire was interesting, as it came shortly after ESPN had laid off long-time NHL voices Pierre LeBrun, Scott Burnside, Craig Custance, Joe McDonald, and others, with many of those cuts coming in the wide-ranging April 2017 layoffs and with those cuts signifying to some that ESPN was abandoning the NHL. But the network then hired Emily Kaplan and Wyshynski, and they built up their NHL coverage again ahead of their 2021 deal for broadcast rights.
Since then, though, there have been some changes to ESPN’s NHL coverage. In particular, they parted ways with Chris Chelios this June, notable considering how Chelios was one of their most-hyped voices around the 2021 launch of their coverage. (Chelios is now making at least some appearances for WBD Sports’ NHL on TNT coverage.) But ESPN has a deal with the NHL that runs through 2028, so they’re clearly going to cover it in at least some manner for at least that span.
And ESPN choosing to sign Wyshynski to a new deal is perhaps particularly notable for showing that they’re committed to more than just game coverage for the NHL. He makes TV appearances for them and hosts a podcast in addition to his writing, but his TV appearances tend to be on other ESPN properties such as SportsCenter, the hockey-focused The Point, and the gambling-focused ESPN Bet Live, so this isn’t a move focused on pumping up game coverage. It’s one that indicates their interest in ongoing NHL coverage overall. And we’ll see what role Wyshynski plays there going forward.
[ESPN PR on Twitter]
