Interesting article on Buccigross and Melrose, how ESPN may be working to get the NHL back, and how they're surviving as hockey broadcasters there (paywall):
John Buccigross and Barry Melrose are happy to be near the...
I was so pissed at ESPN and their hockey coverage that I literally haven't had the channel programmed into my cable box since they dropped the NHL (It helps that I don't follow any other sport).
Also, MAN Bucci looks old now. I didn't even recognize him.
Since the last contract with NBC was awarded in 2011, ESPN has to get back into the NHL/hockey ring again. I believe they have even televised some form of hockey games on one of their networks in the time period since.
When they low balled the league a few years prior to social media's infancy beginning to gain traction, ESPN was still the go-to for breaking sports news, coverage, highlights, etc and in having the upper hand basically said to the NHL that coming off of the lockout, you need us more than we need you.
Ironic how the tides have turned in the 15 years or so since that lockout with the emergence of social media, the struggles ESPN has endured both related and not to social media and they have since been trying to add the NHL and hockey in general back into the fold because, while they don't necessarily need the NHL more than it needs them, they could certainly use the NHL in their hopes of gaining more viewers.