Be it the jaw-dropping puck plays from Connor McDavid, the crunching hits from Sam Bennett, or even a blinder of a netminding from Sergei Bobrovsky—the 2025 Stanley Cup Finals has it all. On top of all this, the 3rd period free-for-all in Game 3 was for those guys who were missing the NHL of the olden days. All in all, the 2025 Finals have been entertainment galore. And yet, the ratings are telling a different story. Here’s the scoop on the troubling US trend.

According to Braylon Breeze‘s Twitter update on June 11, here’s how the TV ratings read in the USA. “Stanley Cup Final Viewership (TNT/truTV) Game 2 (Friday): 2.5 million viewers▪️Down 30% year-over-year, but actually up 2% from FLA–VGK Game 2 in 2023 on TNT.” The rest of the tweet brought more bad news: “Game 3 (Monday): 2.3 million viewers▪️Down 31% year-over-year and 14% from FLA–VGK Game 3 in 2023 on TNT.”

It’s so puzzling to make sense of this. The first 2 games were electric, with both needing overtime goals for a result. Till Game 2, the expert verdict was that this series is closer than last year and one of the best Stanley Cup Finals we are watching. And yet, the viewership was down for Game 3. We even have the numbers that prove this is a baffling issue. Last year, the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals (SCF) went to the Panthers 3-0. The 2nd game was 4-1 to them, while they even won the 3rd on the road ice 4-3.

None of the previous 2 SCF series started on such a competitive note. In 2023, the first two games were won by the Vegas Golden Knights 5-2 and 7-2, respectively. The third was a 3-2 reversal by the Panthers. Why aren’t the people on the USA side turning up for the television games all of a sudden? Because the viewership trends in Canada are consistent with what we were expecting. The first two games have seen a 14% increase in TV ratings over the 2024 Cup Finals.

But that was not the case for the USA, not even in Game 1. In fact, the chronic drop in US viewership was noticed much before.

US viewers turning away from the NHL despite strong Panthers showing

The same guy who gave the TV ratings update for games 2 and 3 had shared on June 6 how bad it had been in game 1. “Wednesday’s (June 4) Game 1 of the Panthers–Oilers Stanley Cup Final—2.42 million viewers—was nearly outdrawn by the competing Women’s College World Series, which drew 2.11 million viewers on ESPN.” He gave more comparative figures to show the NHL has an issue at hand.

The Game 1 ratings for the 2025 SCF were the lowest figure since 2008’s Detroit-Pittsburgh SCF (excluding Covid years SCF). Has the mode of coverage had anything to do with this? ABC hasn’t been covering this year’s games, which generally draw substantial viewership. They had even covered last year’s SCF, drawing 3.115 million TV ratings in Game 1, which dropped 22% this year.

And the drop was seen even in the Eastern Conference Finals (ECF) between the Panthers and the Hurricanes. The total series averaged 1.408 million US viewers, which was 33% less than last year’s ECF between the Panthers and the Rangers. In fact, the 2025 ECF was the least watched non-COVID-era ECF since the Versus broadcast era of 2005-11.

Will we see any reversal in the TNT and truTV ratings as the Stanley Cup unravels further? Let’s stay tuned for Game 4 on June 11.