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Ferraro's 23rd season as an analyst and fifth with ESPN began with the second game of an opening night tripleheader at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 7. He played 18 seasons in the League as a forward and at 61-years-old, the passion for his second career is aging like the finest of spirits. He also covers the Vancouver Canucks for Sportsnet, and this season joined FanDuel Sports Network as a rotating Kings analyst. "I love going to the rink," Ferraro said. "I love the games. I love the position I'm in, between the benches, where I really feel like I'm somewhat connected to the game. Everybody prepares their games a little bit differently and for me, this is unbelievably Year 23 of doing this, so I'm pretty comfortable in the way that I prep now." Tuesday will be the third year of "Frozen Frenzy," this one coming nearly 41 years after Ferraro made his NHL debut with the Hartford Whalers, a 6-5 win against the Boston Bruins at Hartford Civic Center on Dec. 19, 1984, part of a hockey life that took the native of Trail, British Columbia, into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame with the Class of 2025 on Oct. 21. Ferraro spoke with NHL.com about what happens behind the scenes, the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, a few storylines he's watching, and calling two games in two different cities on the same night to start last season. How do you handle a busier schedule after committing to select Kings telecasts? "Well, really, nothing changes. As (analyst) Jimmy Fox lowers his workload a little bit, they were looking to cover 10 to 12 to 15 games, somewhere in there, so myself and my brother-in law, Tony Granato, are going to do some games. Luc Robitaille is [Kings] president, and Mike Altieri is (senior vice president, communications and broadcast). They're longtime friends. I played with Luc and worked with Mike, and they asked if I would do some games. It's a place I'm quite fond of, so the extra games really are not very much. They certainly won't change any prep." Storylines featuring players, coaches and trends help promote every game. How important is it to learn what goes into a broadcast? "What I hope is that I'm able to give a little bit of background, insight or experience -- I've been around the NHL for 40 years -- of what happened and there's a reason why it happened. I find the games fun. If there's something funny in the game, I often think of, if I were watching at home, would I find that funny? And then we show that too, because it's sport. Once it gets down into the final couple of series, everything just gets so intense and so dialed-in, and those games are a challenge to get that right. We do our best at it and to me, that's part of the challenge. Part of the reason I like doing games so much is you can prepare all day long, and when the puck hits the ice, so much of what I do is on the spot. It's instinct. It's working with the truck with the producer in the tape room. We're doing everything on the fly. I don't think people quite understand when the whistle blows, the people in the tape room are putting a highlight together in the two or three seconds that I've got to set it up. That highlight has got to be there because when I finish talking, it's a face-off. Football will have a pretty set time for highlights between plays, more of a structured setup. Hockey is like by the seat of your pants most of the time." The 2026 Olympics is the first tournament with NHL players since the 2014 Sochi Olympics. The 4 Nations Face-Off proved how much international competition means to players, coaches and fans. What will separate the 2026 Games from other events? "You've got all this gap of time, and many great players have never played in the Olympics. I think we saw a bit of what it will look like in the 4 Nations last year, the intensity, the pride. I was lucky enough to play for Canada three times at the (IIHF) World Championship (1989, '92 and '96) and when you pull that jersey on with your country's flag on the front, it's just different. You're just filled with pride. Maybe that's obvious, but it just feels different, so why will the Olympics be better than the 4 Nations? Because there's more teams involved. It won't be so quick. There will be strategy as teams are trying to work their way through the tournament. There's health. There's the way that the team comes together. Oftentimes, the best teams sort of create themselves during a tournament. It's that stuff that I love and that I will be looking forward to watching." Matthew Schaefer and the New York Islanders visit the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; HULU, ESPN+). You played five seasons for the Islanders (1990-95). Do you ever recall the amount of energy and excitement from the organization and fan base over any player, let alone the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft? "I'd say Edmonton was pretty excited about Connor McDavid and Pittsburgh was pretty excited about Sidney Crosby, so we can have a little bit of recency bias. You kind of forget there's been some really amazing players that changed the fortunes of franchises and fans couldn't wait to watch them play. The Islanders have been looking for some good news for a while, and certainly since John Tavares left (in 2018). They've had some really good seasons, but they've been seasons I think that have kind of gone under the radar because their style of play was not open, was not free. It was a really a grind-it-out, physical-type style play that suited them very well. I watched three clips of (Schaefer) skating and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, it's like he's glued to the ice.' Just a beautiful skater. The enthusiasm around his game sometimes makes it unfair for an 18-year-old kid to come in and you expect … it's not basketball. He can't turn a team sport by himself but given the three picks they got in the first round this year, Schaefer as the headline, Victor Eklund and Kashawn Aitcheson, there is real good news on the way on the Island. As an alum, I had my best moments there, I'm happy for them." The Blackhawks are on HULU/ESPN seven more times this season. Where do you rate them among teams that could emerge as a big surprise and is there a team that maybe no one is thinking about that can change the narrative by the end of the season? "I think the Detroit Red Wings would be the one that I would think of first. They've got six or seven guys under 24, a couple of those guys are quite experienced now, Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider. They're right there. I think John Gibson added to their team gives them a real chance to break that (nine-season) playoff drought. "Now you bring up the Blackhawks. I still think they're a way's away. What's exciting for them is they are on the bounce part [of their rebuild]. If you look at any team trying to rebuild, no matter how fast they do it, it's 7-10 years. The reason is, you spend a couple of years offloading players that you don't want anymore, the veterans. Then you spend a couple of years drafting a whole bunch of players. Then you've got to wait a couple of years for those players to get older where they can compete in the NHL, and then there's probably a couple of years until they're real contributors, real difference-makers, and in that little time frame, that's eight years. The Blackhawks, they've already weeded through their roster. Now they're starting to get some young, talented people in there. The bounce part is that these kids are just going to mature and get better. I spent time with Connor Bedard this summer. I emceed an event (in Vancouver) where he was at and noticed an immediate difference with him. I think he's going to have a big year. He seemed more comfortable, relaxed, at ease. He changed his training methods a bit, changed the amount of skating he was doing. He just seemed in a terrific headspace. I think that the expectations on him were unreachable when he came out of (Regina in the Western Hockey League), but I do think he's going to have a very, very good year this year." You covered opening night between the Penguins and Rangers. There was Dan Muse's NHL debut as a head coach. Mike Sullivan is Rangers coach after 10 seasons guiding the Penguins. There's speculation about the future of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in Pittsburgh and the perennial high expectations surrounding the Rangers. How do you see all this unfolding throughout the next six months? "The Rangers, I'm a little uncertain. I think they're a playoff team. I look at the top end of their roster and it's very good. They've got some really good players that can be difference-makers. Now they need some bounce backs. Somehow their power play fell apart last year; it went from No. 3 to No. 28. That's got to change. Adam Fox had 61 points last year, but it wasn't a Fox-type year. It was a pretty quiet year. They need him to rebound to the form that he can have on a defense that's not going to produce much offense. Mika Zibanejad has to rebound. So does Alexis Lafreniere. J.T. Miller's their new captain. All of those guys have to be able to produce alongside Artemi Panarin at a level of a couple of years ago. They got a great goalie (Igor Shesterkin), I think one of the best in the game. I think the Rangers are a playoff team, but they're kind of straddling that line where they're just about ready that they need to get some younger people in the lineup, whether it's Gabe Perreault shortly down the road. Those will be the types of kids that you might see during the season." "As for Pittsburgh, they're not even in the bounce part of the rebuild yet. They're trying to do two things at the same time, which is very difficult. Certainly until the Olympic break, there'll be all kinds of chatter about [was] it Sidney Crosby's last opening night in Pittsburgh? The guy is an icon. I think of Sid much in the same way when Ray Bourque (was traded to the Colorado Avalanche) and won the Stanley Cup that was so elusive for him, but everybody around the game would think of him as a Boston Bruin. If Sid eventually goes somewhere else, he's a Pittsburgh Penguin. I respect the way that he has gone about his business for 20 years and been a rock for the Penguins and the League for that long. As the Penguins rebuild here, in my head I don't know if this is where I see him finish." A year ago, you left Seattle right after the Blues defeated the Kraken 3-2 and landed in Salt Lake City in time to work the inaugural game of the then-Utah Hockey Club, a 5-2 victory against the Blackhawks. How did you pull that off? "I didn't do anything, which was probably to those that know me, know it's the best way for me to be involved in the travel. The game ended in Seattle, and we walked out as quick as we could, got into a waiting car, got to the airport and on a private plane, which I've not done before, and landed in Salt Lake City, which I'd never been to before. I got there and there were eight minutes before the game was going to start, so I literally went from one game to the other. "For years I did the (IIHF World Junior Championship) with Gord Miller and we often did two games a day. I prep the second game first and then the first game, so the game I need in my head immediately is the one I prepped most recently. When I was on the plane, I read my notes again, took a nap and got to do two games in a day. It was really fun. I loved it."
