The final game of the NHL‘s Stanley Cup Finals delivered both on the ice and in the ratings.
The Florida Panthers’ 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Monday night’s seventh game averaged 7.66 million viewers on ABC in the United States — the largest audience for an NHL game since 2019 (which was also the last time the finals went to a seventh game). It’s also the biggest tune-in for ever for a Stanley Cup Finals not involving one of the league’s original six teams (Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, the New York Rangers and Toronto). Viewing peaked at 10.3 million viewers for the closing minutes of the game.
The series as a whole averaged about 4.2 million viewers. That’s up by 58 percent from last year’s five-game finals on TNT and TBS and down about 9 percent from ABC’s last turn airing the finals in 2022. (The finals also streamed on ESPN+; audience figures are for ABC’s broadcast only.)
In Canada, game seven drew about 8.64 million viewers — roughly one fifth of the country’s entire population — on CBC, SportsNet and TVA Sports for a total North American audience of 16.3 million. The series averaged 8.8 million viewers across both countries.
For the entirety of the Stanley Cup playoffs, ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 averaged 1.8 million viewers per game, up 14 percent from 2022 when ABC last aired the finals.
The Panthers won the first three games of the series, with the Oilers coming back to claim the next three. With their win Monday, the Panthers claimed their first Stanley Cup and avoided becoming the first team in 82 years to lose the finals after going up 3-0.
