When did Sportsnet’s Hockey Night In Canada lose its way?

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The Stanley Cup mercifully has been handed out, the NHL playoffs once again dragging past the middle of June.

Now the off-season re-tooling of teams around the league is just two weeks away from beginning in earnest.

And perhaps the franchise that needs a rebuild the most is the one that brings most Canadian hockey fans the action.

Yes, Hockey Night In Canada, once the most-revered sports broadcasting entity in the country, has grown tired and predictable, an often bland show lacking in personality despite filling your screen with a seemingly endless stream of … personalities.

Speaking in hockey terms, there is a core to build on here for Rogers Sportsnet, but as the recently completed Cup final amplified, there is work to be done.

With that mind, by bastardizing one of the Hockey Night’s best elements — the 32 Thoughts podcast from insider Elliotte Friedman and co-host Kyle Bukauskas — we offer our 15 Faults.

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1. When did HNIC begin its slide to its current state? It’s tough to pinpoint precisely, but it began sometime after Rogers Communications began its reign as Canadian rights holder 11 years ago. Over time, the show slowly moved away from the industry leader to one often lacking in focus and identity.

2. Pressure on. In keeping with the Rogers theme, the pressure should on with the 12-year, $11-billion deal announced earlier in the spring. Will status quo be enough? Are big ratings (thanks to the Oilers making it to the final) all that really matters? We fear the latter will be the case.

3. Bad jokes. I suppose there was a time when Ron MacLean’s insistence on puns made the odd person chuckle, but now they’ve become an inane distraction and thus their own often-agonizing punchline. Not only that, so much of the lame attempts at humour seem to be baffling inside jokes meant more for his other panelists than the four million or so viewers.

4. Host with the most. For a while now, TSN’s James Duthie has been the most authoritative hockey host in the country and it isn’t particularly close. The panel for the non-rights-holder shines as a result and the analysis tends to hit harder. It has to be concerning to Rogers suits that their prime rival has forged such an edge in coverage beyond the game itself.

5. Personality. The snippets we saw of TNT’s coverage in the U.S. certainly felt more engaging. For Game 6 alone, Charles Barkley’s bits as a rinkside reporter were entertaining and a nice diversion. Panelist Paul Bissonnette may push the envelope at times, but he’s the entertaining character HNIC seems to be missing.

6. Too many bodies. Having six (and sometimes seven) competing talking heads during pre-games and intermission is drastic overkill. The result is that the sum of the parts is thus far less dynamic than some of the individuals. It also mutes the potential star power of those on the panel hired to provide just that.

7. Back to the TNT-HNIC comparison. Not that pre-game interviews are often revealing, but prior to Game 6 the American broadcaster did a better setup job with rinkside comments from the key face of each team — the Oilers’ Connor McDavid and the Panthers’ Matthew Tkachuk.

8. Chemistry. I’m of the belief that there are enough engaging voices on the Hockey Night crew, but the key to making them shine is to have them work with each other. On-air chemistry shouts authenticity to the viewer and the show aches for this.

9. Entertainment value. As one seasoned observer of the telecasts put it to me, none of the on-air group are a disaster (though some are better than others) but there is a blandness to the group. Analysis is important, but when it comes across as overdone and scripted, it’s begging viewers to turn to the baseball game at intermission.

10. Give us some banter. For all its faults, especially towards the end, the back-and-forth between MacLean and Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner was appointment viewing. I’m not sure if anything does that in the current iteration. Over on TNT, meanwhile, you get to hear Wayne Gretzky giving it to Bissonnette or the panel goading Barkley into telling viewers why he jokingly detests Seth Jones because of his NBA-playing father Popeye.

11. Inane analysis. Not a slight on Jennifer Botterill specifically, but when five commentators are asked to come up with three or four talking points per intermission, it’s a reach. Case in point: After 40 minutes on Tuesday, with all but the final score inevitable, Botterill said “Can the Oilers find a way to come back? Absolutely.” If the former Canadian Olympian really believed that, she might have been the only one in the building.

12. Kelly Hrudey could be better used. If anyone gets lost in the drone of competing voices, it might be him. On a more focussed show, for example, a host would have grilled him more on the struggles of Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner, a huge story line throughout and again in Game 6. Hrudey offered some of that in the second intermission, but we wanted more.

13. Speaking of more … As previously noted in this space, the one potential impact voice is Kevin Bieksa, the former hard-nosed defenceman who dishes hard-nosed commentary. Let him loose. And maybe bring in the always-opinionated Nick Kypreos for the odd cameo.

14. Take a breath. When there are so many talking heads scrambling to get in as many words as possible, information overload mutes the impact. Too often, the show needs to breathe.

15. Chris Cuthbert. No, the veteran play-by-play man isn’t a fault — he’s the opposite. From Sidney Crosby’s Golden Goal to now, he has been the voice of so many iconic Canadian hockey moments and continues to be so just as the late, great Bob Cole was in his day. Now it’s incumbent for Cuthbert to have a better produced show around him.