Breaking: Devastating news for the NHL in the United States.

The National Hockey League in the United States is in the worse state it's been in the last seven years, at least as far as it's viewership is concerned.

NHL agent Alan Walsh of Octagon Sports, a well-known player advocate, has just reported on the viewership numbers for the NHL on NBC and NBCSN respectively and they don't look good at all.

According to Walsh, the NHL averaged just 475,00 viewers across the season, and that is when you include the numbers from their streaming service, a huge drop of 6% from last season which saw an average of 505,000 viewers. 

While the huge number of people "cutting the cord" and moving away from your traditional cable services would be the first reason one would expect a drop, given that this includes the numbers from the NHL's streaming service it is not good news for the league.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has long been a massive advocate of hockey in the United States, but this paints his efforts in a very bad light to say the least. Not a good look for the NHL as a whole, and a major embarassment for the league's commissioner. 

Hopefully this doesn't hurt the league moving forward. 

[pub]