[5][6] On April 30, 2021, the team was permitted to begin making trades and signing players after sending its final expansion payment to the league.
For the second consecutive year the draft was conducted in a remote format due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hosted from the NHL Network studios in Secaucus, New Jersey.
[73][74][75] In December 2021, all Canadian NHL teams began to reintroduce capacity restrictions due to concerns over the local spread of the highly-infectious[76] Omicron variant.
[82][78] On December 27, the Manitoba government restricted all public gatherings to a maximum of 250 people, including sporting events;[83] the Jets therefore announced that all home games would be played behind closed doors until further notice.
[84] On December 28, the NHL announced that nine games in Canada (four in Montreal, two in Winnipeg, one each in Calgary, Ottawa and Toronto) would be postponed as a result of attendance restrictions in these cities.
[85] Effective December 31, 2021, large venues in Ontario were also restricted to a maximum of 1,000 spectators; MLSE announced that all Maple Leafs home games would be played behind closed doors until further notice.
[86] At this time, the NHL began to postpone some Canadian home games, specifically citing attendance restrictions as reasoning.
[87][88] On January 3, 2022, the Ontario government rolled back the province to modified Stage 2 restrictions, which effectively mandated that all sporting events be held behind closed doors.
[89] Although Ontario began to lift some of these restrictions beginning January 31, large venues remained capped at a maximum of 500 spectators.
[93][94] On February 15 and 16, the Manitoba and British Columbia governments lifted restrictions on venue capacity, although their respective proof of vaccination requirements remain in force.
[142] On September 3, 2021, a deal was officially reached to send players to the Olympics, with an opt-out clause should COVID-19 health conditions worsen.
[102][145][146] It was originally scheduled as the last event before the Olympic break, and the NHL had reportedly chosen to host it on the west coast to ease travel to Beijing afterward.
[225] After a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Hometown Hockey games have returned to Sportsnet's schedule, moving to Monday nights.
Robertson had been the team's English radio voice since 2014, and have split television duties with Bryan Mudryk starting in 2018.
In negotiating its media rights, the NHL aimed to surpass the US$2 billion total that NBC paid over the life of their 2011–21 contract.
The structure of the two new contracts resemble ESPN and TNT's broadcast rights to the NBA, in which they also split national coverage.
[236] The agreement also included the option to stream its games on HBO Max, but TNT eventually chose not to do so until the 2023–24 NHL season.
[240][241] NHL Network continued to nationally televise selected regular season games not broadcast by either ESPN or TNT.
[244] On May 26, 2021, TNT announced that current Rangers radio voice Kenny Albert and current Blackhawks analyst Eddie Olczyk — a pairing carried over from NBC, will be their lead broadcast team, and that Turner Sports had signed Oilers and hockey legend Wayne Gretzky to be their lead studio analyst.
[258] TNT later added former Blackhawk Jamal Mayers to their broadcast team as a contributor, Rangers legend Henrik Lundqvist, who also joined MSG, as a studio analyst, former referee Stephane Auger to their team, as another rules analyst, joining Koharski, Nabil Karim, formerly of ESPN, as a fill-in studio host and reporter, Kraken play-by-play announcer John Forslund as a third play-by-play announcer, and Sharks color commentator Bret Hedican as a third color commentator.
TNT added a bunch of current players and announcers from Sportsnet, FuboTV, the Flyers, Sharks, Islanders, Vegas Golden Knights, New Jersey Devils, Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Canadian women's national ice hockey team to their Stanley Cup playoff coverage.
ESPN legend Barry Melrose, 6x Cup champion Mark Messier, and 3x Cup champion Chris Chelios were named strictly as studio analysts while TSN's Ray Ferraro, NBC's Brian Boucher, Ryan Callahan, and A. J. Mleczko,[89] NHL Network's Kevin Weekes, Hockey Night/Sportsnet's Cassie Campbell-Pascall, WEPN-FM's Rick DiPietro, and 2018 gold medalist Hilary Knight would contribute as booth, ice-level, and studio analysts.
Laura Rutledge, host of NFL Live and SEC Nation, joined ESPN team for their coverage of the 2022 NHL All-Star Game, in a celebrity interviewer role.
Bolden, who has been working as a pro scout for the Los Angeles Kings since 2020, made her official ESPN on-air debut a week later.
After the regular season kicked into high gear, Knight and Bolden were the only two who still had to make their on-air debuts with ESPN.
Occasionally, other well known ESPN personalities like Jeremy Schaap, Kevin Connors, Michael Eaves, and Max McGee will be added in fill-in roles on The Point and In the Crease.
[267] In games where Foley was off TV, either John Wiedeman, Stephen Nelson, Chris Vosters, or Mike Monaco would fill-in.
In addition, Colby Cohen replaced Steve Konroyd as the substitute TV analyst for Eddie Olczyk.
[268] Foley called his final Blackhawks game on April 14, a 3–2 shootout win over the Sharks, after which Vosters assumed the play-by-play duties full-time.
[274] With the new U.S. television deals, Sports Business Journal projected that viewership of national games had increased by 18% year-over-year during the regular season.