Disaster ratings report for the NHL after opening night.

The ratings are in for the National Hockey League's opening night on TNT and unfortunately for the league there are some causes for concern.

I'll start with the positives.

This past Wednesday's game between the Boston Bruins and Washington Capitals actually did pretty well, averaging 516,000 viewers which represents a 10% increase in ratings when compared to last season's opening game between the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins which only averaged 467,000 viewers.

It was however not all good news for the NHL and it's television partner by any stretch of the imagination, with Wednesday night's game between the Los Angeles Kings and Vegas Golden Knights averaging just 240,000 viewers. That represents a 24% drop in ratings when compared to last season and, to make matters even worse, that is low enough to make it the least viewed TNT opening night game of all time.

The viewership for the Kings-Golden Knights game was so low in fact that the double header only averaged 372,000 viewers across both games, representing a 5% drop in viewership from the previous season despite the success of the Bruins-Capitals game earlier in the night.

I have to mention that we are in the era of cord cutting when it comes to just how many people actually have an active cable subscription, and that could have a significant impact on viewership with more and more sports fans watching games online every day.