Chris Cuthbert and Louie DeBrusk will announce Edmonton’s playoff games

Sportsnet has announced its broadcast teams for the playoffs. Out West, the Canadian teams will be called by Chris Cuthbert and Louie DeBrusk, and, out East, it’ll be Craig Simpson and Jim Hughson calling games.

DeBrusk, who played for the Oilers in the 90s, is a well-known voice around these parts. But having Cuthbert, who recently left TSN to join Sportsnet, will be a nice treat. Cuthbert, in my mind, is one of the best play-by-play voices out there. He and DeBrusk will be a quality tandem in the booth so having them out West for the Oilers’ playoff games is a huge win for us.

Cuthbert has plenty of great calls, but his most iconic moment came back in 2010 when he announced “the Golden Goal” in Vancouver.

The feed for the Western Conference games will be produced by Sportsnet, whereas in Toronto, the feed will be done by the NHL’s American television partner, NBC.

Another quick note, the NHL will apparently use a five-second delay on the broadcasts in order to monitor the language that viewers will be able to hear from the ice. Without the standard noise of a packed-out stadium, we’ll be able to hear a lot of the banter and chirping on the ice, so the NHL certainly wants to avoid a situation in which foul language ends up on the broadcast.

That being said, I would pay extra in order to receive a fully mic’d up version of what’s said on the ice. I can see why Sportsnet can’t allow that on their standard broadcasts, but it would certainly be entertaining.

Another way of getting around this would be to pump in fake crowd noise to add the effect of it sounding like a normal hockey game. Major League Baseball teams have been doing this for their intrasquad and exhibition games and it actually sounds really good.