It’s been 84 years since I’ve last seen the sport of hockey being played. I’m not sure I’m the same person as I as when the season paused in March, let alone the person I was in October 2019, when it began.
Oh my god, do you remember 2019? That was lifetimes ago.
And still, Gary Bettman insists we must find a conclusion to this disaster of a season, so here we are, desperate for one thing in our lives to be normal — even if that means hockey after the Fourth of July.
It’s no Sharks hockey (it’ll hopefully be watchable), but it’s something.
NBCSN has you covered for today’s games. Since there’s just three, we’ll have a single open thread for all three games, unless the comments get overwhelmed. Throughout most of playoffs, we’ll run a separate open thread for each conference, just because of how the games will be staggered.
Here’s today’s schedule and each team’s roster:
Pittsburgh Penguins at Philadelphia Flyers
1 p.m. PT/4 p.m. ET on NBCSN
Penguins Roster
Forwards: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jared McCann, Teddy Blueger, Jake Guentzel, Jason Zucker, Patrick Marleau, Zach Aston-Reese, Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust, Patric Hornqvist, Brandon Tanev, Anthony Angello, Sam Lafferty, Adam Johnson, Evan Rodrigues, Phil Varone.
Defensemen: Kris Letang, Brian Dumoulin, John Marino, Marcus Pettersson, Justin Schultz, Jack Johnson, Chad Ruhwedel, Juuso Riikola, Kevin Czuczman, Pierre-Olivier Joseph.
Goaltenders: Matt Murray, Tristan Jarry, Casey DeSmith, Emil Larmi
Flyers Roster
Forwards: Andy Andreoff, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Connor Bunnaman, Sean Couturier, Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, Claude Giroux, Derek Grant, Kevin Hayes, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Oskar Lindblom, Tyler Pitlick, Michael Raffl, Nate Thompson, James van Riemsdyk, Jakub Voracek
Defensemen: Justin Braun, Mark Friedman, Shayne Gostisbehere, Robert Hagg, Philippe Myers, Matt Niskanen, Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim, Andy Welinski, Egor Zamula
Goaltenders: Brian Elliott, Carter Hart, Alex Lyon, Kirill Ustimenko
Toronto Maple Leafs at Montreal Canadiens
5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on NHLN, SN & TVAS
Maple Leafs Roster
Forwards: Auston Matthews, Adam Brooks, Alexander Kerfoot, Tyler Gaudet, Denis Malgin, Jason Spezza, Frederik Gauthier, John Tavares, Kenny Agostino, Zach Hyman, Ilya Mikheyev, Kyle Clifford, Pierre Engvall, Nicholas Robertson, Kasperi Kapanen, William Nylander, Egor Korshkov, Mitch Marner
Defensemen: Travis Dermott, Teemu Kivihalme, Martin Marincin, Jake Muzzin, Morgan Rielly, Calle Rosen, Rasmus Sandin, Tyson Barrie, Cody Ceci, Justin Holl, Nic Petan, Timothy Liljegren
Goaltenders: Frederik Andersen, Jack Campbell, Kasimir Kaskisuo, Joseph Woll
Canadiens Roster
Forwards: Joel Armia, Alex Belzile, Paul Byron, Phillip Danault, Max Domi, Jonathan Drouin, Jake Evans, Brendan Gallagher, Charles Hudon, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Artturi Lehkonen, Ryan Poehling, Nick Suzuki, Tomas Tatar, Jordan Weal, Dale Weise
Defensemen: Ben Chiarot, Cale Fleury, Christian Folin, Noah Juulsen, Brett Kulak, Victor Mete, Gustav Olofsson, Xavier Ouellet, Jeff Petry, Shea Weber
Goaltenders: Charlie Lindgren, Michael McNiven, Carey Price, Cayden Primeau
Edmonton Oilers at Calgary Flames
7:30 p.m. PT/10:30 p.m. ET on NHLN & SN
Oilers Roster
Forwards: Josh Archibald, Andreas Athanasiou, Tyler Benson, Alex Chiasson, Leon Draisaitl, Tyler Ennis, Gaetan Haas, Zack Kassian, Jujhar Khaira, Cooper Marody, Connor McDavid, Ryan McLeod, James Neal, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Joakim Nygard, Patrick Russell, Riley Sheahan, Kailer Yamamoto
Defensemen: Ethan Bear, Matt Benning, Evan Bouchard, Philip Broberg, Caleb Jones, Oscar Klefbom, William Lagesson, Adam Larsson, Darnell Nurse, Kris Russell
Goaltenders: Mikko Koskinen, Stuart Skinner, Mike Smith
Flames Roster
Forwards: Mikael Backlund, Sam Bennett, Austin Czarnik, Dillon Dube, Byron Froese, Johnny Gaudreau, Mark Jankowski, Elias Lindholm, Milan Lucic, Andrew Mangiapane, Sean Monahan, Alan Quine, Tobias Rieder, Zac Rinaldo, Buddy Robinson, Derek Ryan, Matthew Tkachuk
Defensemen: Rasmus Andersson, TJ Brodie, Derek Forbort, Mark Giordano, Erik Gustafsson, Noah Hanifin, Oliver Kylington, Michael Stone, Jusso Valimaki, Alexander Yelesin
Goaltenders: Jon Gillies, David Rittich, Cam Talbot, Artyom Zagidulin
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