Ive been following hockey religiously since 1996 and I honestly cant remember national tv games on Sunday during football season
Outside of the outdoor game in Toronto a few years ago (when NYD was on a Sunday), I think it is probably a first.
It is obviously filler content. These are games that would otherwise be ESPN+ exclusives, so it is still probably a net gain in viewership.
My guess is the ESPN+ numbers were beyond awful last year and that combined with not having the Final meant they had to shift games from + to ESPN to satisfy advertisers and get the total audience numbers up. So the NHL got the old MLS death timeslots that opened up because of the November World Cup (and MLS leaving ESPN for Apple next year).
Again though these are extra games. It isn’t like ESPN shifted what was their Tuesday/Thursday schedule into these slots.
In 1996 there was an espn2 game opposite SNF.
In 1997 there was an ESPN game opposite SNF.
In 2001 there were 5 espn2 games opposite SNF and one that started in the late afternoon NFL window on espn2.
In 2002 there were 12 espn2 games opposite SNF.
In 2003 there were 9 espn2 games opposite SNF.
In 2008 Versus had the "NHL Premiere" (Europe games) doubleheader against NFL early games.
In 2017 there was the Centennial Classic (as mentioned above.)
So most of the previous NFL conflicts are similar to this upcoming Sunday where ESPN has Capitals-Lightning with a 7pmET start. In the early 2000s that's what it was on espn2 (for a majority of them) where late afternoon NFL was in late 4th quarter when the NHL started on espn2, then the game would overlap into SNF (which was on ESPN back then.)
The rarity is Sunday NHL games H2H with NFL afternoon windows. Like the NHL had twice previously this season and once more going forward. After that the final two "NFL Sunday" ESPN NHL games (2nd and 3rd periods of them) will go against SNF.
As for the change, Disney split their inventory more 50/50 (linear/stream) this season. What were 24 espn+/Hulu exclusives last year -which inexplicably were usually overlapping or same time as other espn+/Hulu exclusives sort of counter-programming themselves on espn+ (only one of those overlaps this season and it already happened)- are now extra ABC/ESPN (and one espn2) games. That show up all over the schedule, not necessary all swapped out for "NFL Sunday" filler, since there's only 6 Sunday games against the NFL. So 1/4th of the additional linear games are "Sunday filler", the rest come via additional Tuesday games the first few weeks of the season, added ABC games, and a ton of game nights added to the final few weeks of the season.
