Hopefully, you're reading this over a cup of coffee and your breakfast food of choice. You deserve the caffeine hit and some hearty meats after staying up late Monday night to watch the Stars beat the Minnesota Wild 4-2 to even the series.
The NHL decided Dallas and its first-round foe should drop the puck for Game 2 in the Western Conference playoffs at 8:30 p.m. CT despite both teams playing in the central time zone. It's awfully annoying come Tuesday morning.
On one hand, it makes sense. Four games were on the postseason slate Monday evening. The Eastern Conference tilts between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, then Ottawa and Carolina, were all played in the Eastern Time Zone, necessitating the earliest start times. The Flyers and Pens went at 6 p.m. CT, and the Senators and Hurricanes followed a half-hour later.
But in the regular season, more often than not, games played in the central time zone get going at 7 p.m. CT, just an hour after typical start times out east. Sometimes it lifts to 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m., or, rarely, 8:30 p.m. It leaves in-person viewers tired the next day, and leaves the youngest fans in the dark. Literally, Monday's game didn't end until 11:50 p.m. CT.
Who's staying up late with us for this one? ☕️
— x - Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) April 21, 2026
Obviously, the NHL wants to maximize the total time its teams play on a given night. Playing two early and two late (Anaheim and Edmonton started around 9 p.m. CT, but that was 8 p.m. for Oilers' faithful and 7 p.m. on the West Coast) ensures about seven total hours of hockey. Wonderful if you have the time, say, on a Friday night or Saturday. On a Monday? Not so much.
Game 3 isn't any better for those of us wishing to make it to bed before the a.m. hours hit. It's set to start at 8:30 p.m. again from St. Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday. Nearly as frustrating is Saturday's Game 4 puck-drop time of 4:30 p.m. Not early enough to have dinner plans and not late enough to enjoy the whole day off.
Of course, Dallas won the late start on Monday, so maybe they'd prefer another one. The rest of us, not so much.
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