Thursday night's Bruins-Golden Knights game being a national TV broadcast gave Boston fans a chance to check out some of ESPN's coverage. If you came away unimpressed, you probably weren't alone.
ESPN went with a bit of a more experimental booth for Thursday's broadcast, using Hall of Famers Mark Messier and Chris Chelios as color commentators alongside play-by-play voice Steve Levy.
Messier and Chelios have been used mostly as studio analysts on pregame and intermission coverage this season, with veteran color commentators Ray Ferraro, Brian Boucher and A.J. Mleczko handling more of the booth duties. Their lack of game-calling experience showed at times, as they were slow to identify players or set up replays that were being shown.
There was one especially baffling moment, though, and it came in the opening minutes of the game. As Taylor Hall touched the puck for the first time, Messier chimed in with what he thought was some insight about the position Hall was playing.
"I see they've got Taylor Hall playing center," Messier said. "Not his regular position, but [Bruce] Cassidy talking this morning said he feels really comfortable there."
One problem: Hall was not playing center, he has never played center, and Cassidy certainly did not say he feels comfortable playing there. Hall has only ever played left wing, and he was in his usual second-line left wing spot Thursday night.
Messier actually apologized for the error later in the period. It's obviously not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it was still pretty shocking to here.
Messier is obviously still around the game a lot and even has a leadership award named after him that he gets final say on every year. Hall is a former No. 1 overall pick and league MVP. Him switching positions would be a well covered story and something Messier or any other broadcaster would presumably ask more questions about if he thought it was happening.
Messier didn't explain why he thought Hall was playing center, but our guess would be that he confused Hall and Erik Haula, who has been the second-line center between Hall and David Pastrnak for a couple months now. Cassidy did talk about how Haula has fit in there during his Thursday afternoon press conference before the game, so perhaps Messier mistakenly heard "Hall" instead of "Haula."
That would be a relatively innocent mistake on its own. But you'd still think it would've struck him funny and led to some research or follow-up questions that would've quickly revealed he just heard wrong.
