Inside The NHL’ Season 2, The Sounds Match The Sights

Season 2 of Prime Video’s ‘Faceoff: Inside the NHL’ captures new teammates Matthew Tkachuk and Brad Marchand of the Florida Panthers at their trash-talking best. (Photo by Mark LoMoglio/NHLI via Getty Images)

NHLI via Getty Images

When the NHL held its 2020 playoffs in fan-free arenas, the handful of reporters who were in the buildings capitalized on the rare opportunity to eavesdrop on the endless on-ice chatter between players, coaches and officials. After the success of Season 1 of the NHL docuseries ‘Faceoff: Inside the NHL’ in 2024, the series’ production team went down a similar road by getting microphones in all the right places for Season 2.

Now streaming worldwide on Prime Video, ‘Faceoff’ is co-produced by NHL Productions and Box to Box, the award-winning content studio that has helped elevate the sports documentary form in recent years through ‘Formula 1: Drive to Survive’ and many other series.

“When we made ‘Drive to Survive,’ I don’t think we realized how lucky we were that we had access to the driver radio. You had access to a sport where, when Max Verstappen overtakes Lewis Hamilton, you really hear his instant reaction in that moment. Or you you hear the machinations between the technician and the driver,” said Paul Martin, the co-founder of Box to Box and one of the executive producers of both ‘Drive to Survive’ and ‘Faceoff’.

“We sort of took that for granted,” Martin continued. “Then when we made our tennis show (Full Swing), tennis is all inner-monologue, so it’s slightly different — if you could have somehow found a way to have gotten into tennis players’ heads, what really goes through their mind in those crucial points, that would have elevated that show. I think with hockey, because they’re wearing so much equipment, it’s easy for them to wear mics in a safe way, and it’s such a great tool to have, that you can have that immediate reaction in that moment. We got a little bit of it in Season 1 and we learned how invaluable that stuff was in the edit, so it was something that we were really keen to push to another level in Season 2.”

Those microphones get put to good use before the midpoint of Episode 1, when Brady Tkachuk of Team USA circles over to Team Canada’s bench at the 4 Nations Face-off with an invitation that foreshadows the fisticuffs that rocked the sports world on Feb. 15, 2025.

“Hey Benny,” Tkachuk said amiably to Canadian center Sam Bennett before the opening puck drop. “After these couple, next change.”

Two seconds in, Bennett’s Florida Panthers teammate, Matthew Tkachuk, started things off by dropping the gloves with Brandon Hagel of the Tampa Bay Lightning. When play resumed, as suggested, Brady and Bennett further raised the temperature with a bout of their own before USA’s J.T. Miller finished things off against Canada’s Colton Parayko at the nine-second mark.

For the production team, it was the kind of catnip that can elevate a show to unexpected heights.

“The crew kind of walked out and they were just like, ‘It was the most feral, crazy atmosphere,’” said Martin. “That was almost a gift from the hockey gods, on every level.”

After Matthew Tkachuk, 27, featured prominently in Season 1 of ‘Faceoff,’ Brady was the first featured player to be announced for Season 2 when the series was officially renewed last December. Episode 1 also takes fans through Brady’s season with the Ottawa Senators, which culminates with the team’s first playoff appearance in eight years, and his life off the ice with wife Emma, young son Ryder and his larger-than-life father, Keith Tkachuk, and mother Chantal. The entire family is impressively unguarded in front of the cameras, which captured a pivotal time in Brady’s career as he begins to step out of his brother’s shadow and forge a legacy of his own.

“It’s honestly been a great experience — we had a lot of fun,” said Brady, 26. “They came in, I think, a couple days a month, so it wasn’t too invasive. It’s almost like you forgot that they’re there at times. They’re amazing to work with.”

This year, Matthew’s main storyline was his injury rehabilitation after the 4 Nations tournament. He was able return to the Panthers in time for another run to the Stanley Cup, but remained far from 100 percent, and has now undergone surgery that’s expected to keep him out of the NHL’s 2025-26 season until December. The cameras captured his journey from the training table to the highs and lows on the ice, and the eventual triumph.

“Just being able to get myself healthy enough to play, it was more meaningful to me personally this time around,” Matthew said.

In 2025, Matthew also teamed up with long-time adversary Brad Marchand, who was dealt from the Boston Bruins to the Panthers at the March trade deadline. Both notorious for their caustic tongues, the chirps picked up by the ‘Faceoff’ microphones include Marchand calling Max Domi of the Toronto Maple Leafs ‘the guy who could have been good,’ and Tkachuk demanding ‘How scared are you?’ as Toronto fell to Florida in Game 2 of the second round.

This year, Toronto’s feature turn includes more of William Nylander, who was also a star of Season 1, along with extensive footage with Leafs then-team president Brendan Shanahan during what turned out to be the final months of his 11 years as the leader of his hometown team.

Other highlights include off-ice moments with notoriously private Sidney Crosby and ultra-candid footage of rising star Seth Jarvis of the Carolina Hurricanes.

Known for his high-energy, happy-go-lucky persona, Jarvis opens up about the self-deprecation that torments him as he chases his dream, the comfort he gets from family and his Winnipeg hometown, and the personal growth he’s experiencing as his confidence grows. He gets truly self-conscious only when the cameras capture the door of his childhood bedroom.

“I don’t need that in there,” he said, attempting to redirect the focus. “Only the six-foot tall Crosby poster of the guy I play four times a year?”

Episode 2, the tear-jerker, is ultimately a tale of triumph as Johnny Gaudreau’s widow, Meredith and his former team, the Columbus Blue Jackets, display phenomenal resilience in the wake of the accident that killed Johnny and his brother Matthew in August of 2024.

The unpredictability that makes sports so compelling also throws the occasional curve ball at even the most seasoned documentarians. After announcing in May that Mikko Rantanen, Wyatt Johnson and Thomas Harley of the Dallas Stars would feature in Season 2, only Rantanen survived the editing process. He’s seen primarily after his January trade from the Colorado Avalanche to the Carolina Hurricanes.

“These stories tend to really come together in the edit,” Martin said. “We have an idea of what we’re trying to tell, and the best characters to facilitate that. But sometimes you get into the edit and characters that you think are going to work together in episodes just don’t. It just doesn’t quite gel in the way that it does when you write it on a piece of paper. We always try and think to ourselves that the best story should always win.”

With the 2025-26 NHL season set to kick off on Tuesday, Oct. 7, Season 2 of ‘Faceoff: Inside the NHL’ is a tasty teaser for the upcoming campaign. All six episodes are now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.