'Star Sunday' a way for NBC Sports to highlight NHL's best

When NBC Sports Executive Producer Sam Flood played high school hockey for Noble and Greenough in Massachusetts his coach-father announced that for the first time he was putting names on the back of the jerseys.

“We all thought, ‘Oh cool, this is going to be great. We will be just like the other schools,'” Flood told USA TODAY Sports. “We came in the next day and every jersey had Nobles on the back. We all had names on the back. That’s the culture of the sport. It’s about team, being part of community, not about the individual.”

While Flood respects hockey’s team-first tradition, he believes you can honor that idea and still celebrate the stars of the game. NBC Sports Network is attempting to do that this season with its "Star Sunday" games.

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Every Sunday, NBC Sports will focus on a star from each team. This Sunday, the spotlight will be on Chicago Blackhawks winger Patrick Kane and Minnesota Wild winger Zach Parise. Minnesota visits Chicago at 7 p.m. ET.

Get-to-know segments will be shown before and during the game. In addition, isolated cameras will be used to allow for a more detailed analysis of their playing style.

“One cool aspect of this is a pre-draft scouting report on these guys,” Flood said. “What the draft experts said before they came into the league, and how that matched reality.”

NBC Sports highlighted Minnesota’s Ryan Suter and the Anaheim Ducks' Ryan Kesler last week.

“I do think we can hit it out of the park, but I think it’s going to be a gradual build because players do want to remain part of a team,” Flood said. “They don’t want to come in the locker room this morning and be told: ‘Oh, you think you’re best, think you are the greatest.'”

In other words, it’s a hockey tradition to rib players who receive too much individual attention. The NBC Sports crew is trying to be mindful of that.

Flood said he had lunch with analyst Mike Milbury after the last Stanley Cup Final and the highlighting of individual players is one of the ideas that emerged from that meeting.

“Here is an opportunity,” Flood said, “to celebrate the individual without with dishonoring the tradition of the sport.”