The Florida Panthers took a two-game lead over the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final on Monday, highlighted by a three-goal third period and stellar goaltending from Sergei Bobrovsky. The contest was televised on ABC in the United States and elicited an average of 3.6 million viewers on the network, along with a concurrent 1.9 rating. Additionally, the game peaked at 3.9 million viewers for the night. Average viewership of the Game 2 matchup is up 46% from the second game of last year’s Stanley Cup Final between the Vegas Golden Knights and Florida Panthers, which was televised on Warner Bros. Discovery networks TNT, TBS and truTV.
The Walt Disney Company, which also presented the game on its ESPN+ streaming platform, attained an average of 1.3 million viewers for the game within the Persons 18-49 demographic, up 18% over the second game of Golden Knights-Panthers last season. Game 1 of this year’s Stanley Cup Final averaged 3.1 million viewers on ABC and peaked at 3.65 million viewers.
Through 43 game telecasts, the Stanley Cup Playoffs on ESPN Networks are averaging 1.5 million total viewers, representing a 31% year-over-year increase. Moreover, viewers within the Persons 18-49 demographic average 608,000, a 23% increase from the previous year.
Monday’s contest is the highest rated second game of the Stanley Cup Final since the St. Louis Blues faced the Boston Bruins in 2019 on NBC Sports Network. Additionally, the contest attained the second-highest average viewership for a Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final since 2018, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch. In that year, the Washington Capitals defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in a second game that averaged 3.65 million viewers on NBC Sports Network.
An average of 6.8 million viewers watched the contest in North America across ABC, ESPN+, CBC, SportsNet and TVA Sports, which is up 61% year-over-year. The second game was down by 300,000 viewers in the continent from Game 1 though, which averaged 7.1 million viewers across the continent.
On Wednesday night, the Stanley Cup Final shifts to Edmonton, Alberta with the Oilers in a two-game deficit trying to collect its first win of the series. The Oilers last won the Stanley Cup in the 1989-90 season, whereas the Panthers have not collected a Stanley Cup championship in franchise history.
