Expansion Draft Travels to Seattle

With 23 days between Kraken fans and the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft, league commissioner Gary Bettman announced Monday the event will be televised live from Seattle, July 21, 5 p.m. Pacific/8 p.m. Eastern. New primary national broadcast partner ESPN will air the Kraken's choices of one player each from 30 NHL teams on its ESPN2 network.
ESPN's Chris Fowler will host the show with the Kraken taking a big step toward building Seattle's initial roster for the 2021-22 inaugural NHL season. Fowler will be joined by former NHL player Dominic Moore, who played for 10 NHL teams over 13 seasons and retired in 2018.

Former NHL goalie and popular analyst Kevin Weekes will be reporting from "various iconic Seattle locations." Weekes is a compelling presence on NHL Network and has reportedly signed a contract with ESPN to add to his visibility.
Kraken fans will love both Weekes and Moore (the latter has shown a knack for predicting overtime winning goals this postseason). Moore is currently a studio analyst for NBC Sports.
Along with the expansion draft, the league announced broadcast plans for the 2021 amateur draft. The first round of the 2021 NHL Draft will be broadcast Friday, July 23, at 5 p.m. Pacific on ESPN2. The broadcast will be live from the NHL Network studios in Secaucus, N.J.

ESPN's John Buccigross will host live coverage of Round 1, alongside Sportsnet analysts Elliotte Friedman and Sam Cosentino. Weekes, NHL Network's Jackie Redmond and ESPN hockey writer and reporter Emily Kaplan will join the coverage team, providing insight and analysis.
NHL Network™ will provide exclusive coverage of Rounds 2 to 7 in the U.S. Saturday, July 24, at 8 a.m. Pacific-coffee all around, Kraken fans. NHL Network's signature programs NHL Now™ and NHL Tonight™ also will air live pre- and post-coverage of the Expansion Draft and the first round of the NHL Draft.
ESPN's coverage of the Kraken's expansion draft and the NHL amateur draft represent the first official broadcasts by the league's Disney-owned rights partner, which signed a ground-breaking, seven-year deal earlier this spring with a full schedule of games on ESPN networks.
What's more, ESPN+ and Hulu will be home to 75 exclusive, national NHL game telecasts, and ESPN+ will be the exclusive home for NHL's out-of-market streaming package, with more than 1,000 games available for fans to stream as part of an ESPN+ subscription.
The league also announced the 2022 NHL Winter Classic with feature St. Louis and Minnesota at the Target Field ballpark of MLB's Minnesota Twins on Jan. 1, 2022. The event was scheduled for last Jan. 1 but canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The game will mark the 14th anniversary since the first Winter Classic in Buffalo with the host Sabres playing Pittsburgh.
The 2022 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend will be in Las Vegas with its exact mid-season date to be announced. An additional outdoor game, the 2022 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series, will be played between the Nashville Predators and Stanley Cup Finalist Tampa Bay Lightning Feb. 26, 2022, at the Nissan Stadium in Nashville, home of the NFL's Tennessee Titans. All details will be determined and revealed at a later date.